USA > Louisiana > The settlement of the German coast of Louisiana and the Creoles of German descent > Part 5
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The fields, whose furrows run invariably at right angles with the river, extend as far as the eye can see, to the cypress forests in the swamps. Every fifty or sixty feet a narrow but deep and well kept ditch runs in the same direction; little railroads lead from the fields, whence they carry the sugar cane to the sugar houses, and in the month of November, when the grinding
19 The banks of the Mississippi River are called "coast." Hence the "Ger- man Coast."
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
season begins, these fields, with the waving sugar cane, afford a beautiful sight. Four important railroads, running parallel to the Mississippi, intersect the rear of the plantations, the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley and the Louisiana Railway and Navigation Co.'s line on one side of the Mississippi, and the Southern and the Texas Pacific on the other. Between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the people plant mostly sugar cane, but also some rice and corn. Beyond Baton Rouge, cotton takes the place of the sugar cane.
In some places wide strips of torn up land, with hollows and trenches scooped out, and with little hills of deposit extend from the river to the swamp. These are places where the Mis- sissippi has broken through the levee, its mighty waters rushing with a roar heard for miles down upon the land twenty or thirty feet below, wrecking houses, uprooting trees, carrying off fences, and inundating and devastating hundreds of miles of the richest lands.
Little crawfishes from the river sometimes crawl up to the base of the levee and work their way through the earth masses. The water follows them, and all of a sudden a little spring bub- bles up on the inland slope of the levee. If this is not discov- ered at once by the guards watching at high water time day and night, it widens rapidly until the earth from the top tumbles down, and a "crevasse" results. However small this opening may be in the beginning, it will, through the crumbling away of both ends, soon extend hundreds of feet, and so great is the force of the current that even large Mississippi steamers have been carried through such breaks.
Woe to the planter who does not, at the first warning, flee with his people and his stock to some safe place on the crown of the levee where rescue steamers can reach them.
Sometimes also defective rice flumes, laid through the levee to obtain water for the rice fields, have caused crevasses.
On the left bank of the German Coast, between Montz and La Place, two stations of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Rail- way, such a strip of torn up land may be seen. Here was "Bonnet Carré Crevasse (April IIth, 1874) which was 1370 feet wide, from twenty-five to fifty-two feet deep and which
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
remained open for eight years. Further up the river, and on the same side, near Oneida (Welham station of the same rail- road) was "Nita Crevasse," which occurred on the 13th of March, 1890, and was 3000 feet wide. Both these crevasses did immense damage even to the German farmers near Frenier, more than ten miles distant from the break, where the crevasse water entered Lake Pontchartrain and washed so much land into the lake that houses which stood 150 feet from the shore had to be moved back.
This is the German Coast of to-day. At the time of the settling of the German pioneers, in 1721, it was quite different. There were no levees then, and the whole country was a howling wilderness.
This district was called "La Côte des Allemands," but usually only "Aux Allemands." During the Spanish period (after 1768) it was called "El Puerto des Alemanes," and when the district was divided there were a "Primera Costa de los Ale- manes" and a "Segunda Costa." Since 1802 the lower part has been called "St. Charles Parish," and the upper "St. John the Baptist Parish."
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ou Carlstain.
les Cannes
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les Rouges.
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
THE FIRST VILLAGES ON THE GERMAN COAST.
The weight of authority and tradition among our Creole population of German descent up to the present time has favored the legend that Karl Friedrich D'Arensbourg, who came to Louis- ana on the ship "Portefaix" on the fourth of June, 1721, was the leader of the Germans already on the Arkansas River, and that he came down from there with Law's Germans to the German Coast.
Careful researches and the finding of new material until recently unavailable have convinced the writer that this legend can no longer be entertained. D'Arensbourg never was on the Arkansas River, and the Germans from there were not the first Germans on the German Coast. There had been established two German villages on the German Coast prior to the arrival there of the people from the Arkansas River.
Here are the facts :
The census of 1724, a most important document, a copy of which was received by the "Louisiana Historical Society" from Paris, in December, 1904, mentions two old German villages, ten lieues (about thirty miles) above New Orleans on the right bank. "Le premier ancien village allemand" was one and a half miles inland from the Mississippi, the second three quarters of a mile, and between the two lay a tract of four arpents of land, which had been cleared by the community to serve as a ceme- tery. When the census of 1724 was taken the people of the second village (the one nearer to the Mississippi) had all been three years on their lands. This throws the founding of the second village into the year 1721.
The first German village ("le premier ancien village alle- mand") i. e., the one remoter from the Mississippi, was founded, so the census says, by twenty-one German families, but the time of the founding is not given. These twenty-one families must have come before the others, otherwise their village would not have been called "le premier ancien village allemand."
As Pénicaut informed us that in 1719 the ship "Les Deux Frères" brought a number of German people, "with all sorts of merchandise and effects which belonged to them," and as.
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
these evidently were people of some means, who wanted to become independent settlers, we may assume that they were the founders of "le premier ancien village allemand," one and a half miles inland from the Mississippi River. The census of 1724 informs us that the people of the first village, when they left their homes in consequence of the inundation of 1721, abandoned 100 arpents of "beautifully cleared lands." As it took time to clear these lands it is easy to see, that the first village must have been settled much earlier than the second.
In September, 1721, so the census of 1724 continues, the people of the two old villages were drowned out by the storm water of the "great hurricane," and the waters of the lake. This storm20 lasted five days. The wind blew first from the southeast, then from the south, and, finally, from the southwest. There being large bodies of water in the rear of the German Coast, "Lac des Allemands" on the north, "Lake Salvador" on the south, and the "Bayou des Allemands" connecting the two, it must have been the waters of these which were hurled against the two German villages.
Over 8000 quarts of rice, ready for the harvest, were lost in this storm. In New Orleans most of the houses were blown down; in Biloxi the magazines were wrecked "to the great sat- isfaction of the keepers, this accident relieving them from the obligation of rendering their accounts." In Ocean Springs "one had the great sorrow to lose a great quantity of artillery, of lead, and provisions, which had been a long time on board a freight ship stranded near Old Biloxi, and which for more than a year they had neglected to put ashore." It will be remembered that during the summer of 1721, while these provisions were lying in the stranded vessel at Ocean Springs, the Germans on
20 The year of the great storm is stated differently by Louisiana writers. The reason for this is the fact that several of the older authorities relied upon began to write their works many years after these occurrences, and, so it seems, partly from memory; and therefore confused dates in the retro- spect. But the official census of 1724, having been taken but three years after the great storm, on the spot, and while everything was yet fresh in the minds of the people may be relied upon as absolutely correct. That part of the census reporting the great storm is dated September 12th, 1724, and says, on page 86: "Ils furent noyes il y a trois ans lors de l'ouragon par la pluye et par les eaux du lac que le vent jetta sur leur terrain quoy qu'ils en cloignez de deux a trois lieues."
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
the other side of the bay were allowed to starve by the hun- dreds.
According to the census of 1724, some of the inundated families of the two old German villages on the German Coast died, others moved to the river front, where the land was higher, and only three : Diehl, Schenck and Kobler, were found in "le premier ancien village allemand" by the census enumerator of 1724.
The second village, the one nearer to the Mississippi, was also partly abandoned, and the people from there also moved to the river bank; but fourteen households, including those of four widows, remained behind. On the river bank a new estab- lishment was founded.
All this happened in the year 1721, when the Germans of Law were yet on the Arkansas River. It has, therefore, been proved that there were two German villages on the German Coast before the Arkansas people came down the Mississippi.
KARL FRIEDRICH D'ARENSBOURG AND THE FOUNDERS OF THE SECOND GERMAN VILLAGE ON THE GERMAN COAST.
Having ascertained now beyond a doubt that there were two German villages on the German Coast of Louisiana before the arrival of the people from the Arkansas River, and having ven- tured a suggestion as to the people who were the founders of the first village, we shall now attempt to answer the question: "Whence came the Germans who founded the second village?"
As has already been stated, the "Portefaix" arrived in Lou- isiana on the 4th of June, 1721, with 330 passengers, mostly Germans under the leadership of Karl Friedrich D'Arensbourg. Why this time a special leader for engagés if these were intended for John Law's concessions? Every concessioner managed his engagés through his own officers, and D'Arensbourg was not in the employ of Law, for his commission, issued January 9th, 1721, was not a commission by John Law, but by the Compagnie des Indes. Unusual conditions must have obtained to cause the com- pany to send a special officer with these German emigrants.
La Harpe informs us that the same ship brought the news
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
of John Law's bankruptcy and flight from Paris. That Law was bankrupt and a fugitive at that time is a fact. He had fled from Paris to Brussels on the 10th of December, 1720. It is certain, therefore, that the Compagnie des Indes in Paris knew, in December, 1720, if not before, that there was no further need of sending people for Law's enterprises in Louisiana, as Law could not hold his concessions any longer, and could not support the people working for him in Louisiana until they could make their first crop to support themselves. The company, fur- thermore, knew that the sending of any more engagés for the Law enterprises would only increase its embarrassment and still more complicate matters on the Arkansas River.
What disposition, then, was the company to make of the many hundred Germans whom the agents of Law had engaged in Germany before the bankruptcy of their master, and who were now in the French ports clamoring for passage for Louisiana? There were only two ways out of the dilemma. Having these people on its hands and ready to sail when the catastrophe oc- curred, the company might decide to have them distributed among the other concessioners in Louisiana; but this would not have necessitated the sending along with them of a special officer, for the company's officials in Louisiana could have attended to the distribution. The company, secondly, might decide to keep the people together after their arrival in Louisiana, to organize them into a body, and to establish a new community with them. If this was the intention, then it was but natural to select as their leader and head an officer of their own nationality, a man speaking the German language. D'Arensbourg filled this condition, and, moreover, he was supposed to be a German nobleman, to whose authority the Germans would willingly submit.
At this point the date of D'Arensbourg's appointment as- sumes special importance. His commission was issued in Paris on the 9th of January, 1721, i. e., shortly after the flight of John Law, and at the very time when the need of such a man was urgent. The writer is, therefore, of the opinion that the company, after the flight of Law, decided to send no more
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
Germans to the Law concessions in Louisiana, but to organize under the leadership of D'Arensbourg the Germans still in the ports of France, and to begin a new settlement with them some- where in Louisiana.
Of the German engagés in the ports of France at this crit- ical juncture, 875 Germans and 66 Swiss left France on the 24th of January, 1721, on the four pest ships spoken of on a pre- vious page. Two hundred of them arrived in Biloxi during March, where their number was again greatly reduced by the terrible epidemic then prevailing.
Why D'Arensbourg was not sent with the first ships sailing after his appointment may be due to the fact that a stay of several months of these people in Biloxi was expected, and that D'Arensbourg's presence was not needed, as the company had its headquarters in Biloxi, and its officials there could take care of the Germans on their arrival in Louisiana. So D'Arens- bourg brought up the rear, and came with the last troop on board "Portefaix," reaching Biloxi on the 4th of June and meet- ing there the sad relics of the pest ships and the few survivors of the epidemic, a number of them widows and orphans.
There is no doubt that a number of the passengers of the "Portefaix," too, succumbed to the epidemic which was still raging in Biloxi when that ship arrived, and that D'Arens- bourg then, merging the survivors of the different troops into one body, departed with them for the banks of the Mississippi. Where he went to form a settlement the writer has been able to ascertain partly from the passenger lists and partly from the census of 1724.
Six out of the fourteen German families still found in 1724 in the partly abandoned second old German village, three quarters of a mile from the Mississippi, were survivors of the pest ships D'Arensbourg had met in Biloxi; and Schenck, Diehl, and Kobler, the three families which had moved from the second, partly abandoned, to the first, totally abandoned, village, had also been passengers on the pest ships. If the passenger list of the "Portefaix" were available, it would perhaps show that the re .-
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
mainder of the fourteen households of the second village con- sisted of passengers of the "Portefaix." Finally, D'Arensbourg's own land, twelve arpents, was between the two old German vil- lages and adjoining the cemetery, which was midway between the villages.
All the people of the second village having been three years on their lands in 1724, (see census of that year) there can be no doubt that D'Arensbourg and his people settled on this place in 1721, and instead of going up to the Arkansas River founded the "second old German village."
When the first village and part of the second village were abandoned after the hurricane of September, 1721, and a new establishment was founded on the river bank, D'Arensbourg re- mained on his land between the two old villages ; and when, after the completion of the new cemetery and the chapel on the river bank, Oberle and Hecker, two Germans from the second village, took possession of the old cemetery, D'Arensbourg, as judge and commander, claimed this land adjoining his own for himself on the ground that it had been cleared by the old community for a cemetery and was, therefore, public land.
According to a map of the year 1731 (Crown Maps) this chapel stood on the river bank, on the place now known by the name of "Le Sassier," or "Trinity Plantation;" and about one mile below the chapel, but on the opposite bank of the Missis- sippi, was a small military post with one gun mounted "en barbette."
The old villages, including D'Arensbourg's own land, had been called "Karlstein," no doubt in honor of the first judge and commander of the German Coast, Karl Friedrich D'Arens- bourg, but the new establishment on the river front was given another name. There, in the new village on the river bank, the Germans from the Arkansas River, coming down the Mississippi on their way to New Orleans, must have met their countrymen; and this meeting must have been a great incentive for the Ar- kansas people to accept Bienville's offer of lands above and be- low the river front village of their countrymen on the German Coast.
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
This also explains why we hear from now on of three Ger- man villages on the river front, the village of the D'Arensbourg people in the center, and two villages of the Arkansas people, one above and the other below the first : "Hoffen," "Mariental," and "Augsburg." The name Karlstein was retained for the lit- tle settlement in the rear, and Karlstein being the name of the residence of the commander and judge of the German Coast, it gradually superseded all the other names. The little map on page 49 bears the inscription : "Les Allemands ou Carlstain."
HARDSHIPS AND DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE GERMAN PIONEERS.
No pen can describe, nor human fancy imagine the hard- ships which the German pioneers of Louisiana suffered even after they had survived the perils of the sea, and epidemics and starvation on the sands of Biloxi. No wonder that so many perished. Had they been of a less hardy race, not one of these families would have survived.
It should be remembered that the land assigned to them was virgin forest in the heavy alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi, with their tremendous germinating powers awakened by a semi- tropical sun. Giant oaks with wide-spreading arms and gray mossy beards stood there as if from eternity, and defied the axe of man. Between them arose towering pines with thick under- growth, bushes and shrubs and an impenetrable twist of run- ning, spinning, and climbing vines, under whose protection lurked a hell of hostile animals and savage men. Leopards, bears, panthers, wild cats, snakes, and alligators, and their terri- ble allies, a scorching sun, the miasma rising from the disturbed virgin soil, and the floods of a mighty river,-all these com- bined to destroy the work of man and man himself. There were no levees then, no protecting dams, and only too often when the spring floods came, caused by the simultaneous melting of the snow in the vast region of the upper course of the Mississippi and its tributaries, the colonists were driven to climb upon the roofs of their houses, and up into the trees, and hundreds of miles of fertile lands were inundated.
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
MISSISSIPPI LEVEE IN FRONT OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST CHURCH "AUX ALLEMANDS."
The following petition, perhaps one of many similar ones in that year, the author found among official acts :
"A MESSIEURS DU CONSEIL SUPERIEUR DE LA NOUVELLE REGIE.
Le nomme Jean Jacob Foltz habitant allemand, prend la liberté de vous representer tres humblement, que l'année passée il auroit esté innondée sur son habitation par le Mississippi, de sorte qu'apres avoir travaillée pandant tout l'année il na peu recoultire que sept bary de Ris, et se trouvent aujourdhuy dans la dernier necessitét aveque une femme et un enfant, c'est pour ce donc il requet
Ce consideré messieurs il vous plaise de luy accorder quelque quart de Ris pour pouvoir subsister aveque sa famille jusque' a sa recolte, les quelles il s'oblige de rendre a la dite recolte. C'est la Grace qu'ill espere de vos bontets ordinaires, il priras Dieu pour votre Santé et prosperitet, a la Nouvelle Orleans, 12 May, 1725.
(Signed) Jacob Foltz.
The petitioner informs the Superior Council that his place had been inundated by the Mississippi in the preceding year, and
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
to such an extent that, after a whole year's work, he had been able to harvest only seven barrels of rice, and that he finds him- self now with his family, consisting of his wife and a child, in the direst need. For this reason he petitions the Council to advance him some rice so that he may be able to sustain his family until next harvest, when he promises to pay back the rice advanced to him. According to a note on the margin of the document, the prayer was granted on the same day. The census of 1724 confirms the statement that Foltz had made only seven barrels of rice that year, and adds that he was sick the whole summer.
When the arduous work of clearing the land was done, the tilling of the soil began. With plow? Oh no! The company des Indes did not furnish plows. But why do we speak of plows? There were no horses nor oxen to draw them. The census of 1731 shows that, ten years after the arrival of the Germans, there was not yet a single horse on the whole German Coast; and the census of 1724 proves that, out of fifty-six German families enumerated, only seven had been given a cow each.
It is true there were 262 horses in 1731 outside of New Orleans, and the Tunica Indians also had thirty; but the 262 horses had been given by the company only to large planters, and the Indians had obtained theirs from the Spaniards. There were no horses for the German small farmers. All that was done for them up to the year 173I was to sell to them occasion- ally a negro, for whom they had to grant the company a mort- gage on all their movable and immovable property.
No draught animals, no plows, no cows, no wagons to haul the products-everything had to be carried home as best one could. Perhaps the Compagnie des Indes gave the colonists some wheel barrows, but there is not to be found any mention even of them. The only agricultural implements furnished were pickaxe, hoe, and spade. Imagine people working with these in the hot sun, on the hard ground and with bodies racked with malarial fever!
And when the day's work in the field was done, there was no evening rest inviting them home; for now began the heavy
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
work on the "pilon," the hand mill, or pounding trough, to crush the corn and rice for their scanty meals. No meat! Where should it be obtained? The killing of cows was a crime at that time (and there were so few to kill!) and the people working during the day in the fields to utter exhaustion could not go hunting for game, and had not the means to keep an Indian hunter as most of the large concessioners did.
Rice, corn, and beans, Corn, beans, and rice, Beans, rice, and corn
constituted their daily fare, and Mississippi water their drink. No chickens, not an egg! The company did not furnish chick- ens. A pig or two, that was all! Chickens were furnished only by Governor Bienville, and only to those on Bienville's own land immediately above the city of New Orleans, to raise poultry for the city and to pay part of their ground rent to Monsieur Bienville in capons.
One can not blame the French engagés for running away from such a miserable existence. There is in Louisiana a popu- lar saying, which is occasionally heard from Creoles when they speak of work uncommonly hard :
"It takes German people to do that."
Such is the reputation these German pioneers made for themselves in Louisiana! Yes, it took German people! They stood their work manfully, and most of them lay down and died long before their time!
TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS.
The Indians, too, were a source of constant worry, especi- ally so about the year 1729, when the great massacre of the French, and also of some Germans, occurred in Natchez. Posts of observation were then established along the German Coast on high trees on the river bank, and when the men went out in the fields, women with flint-lock firearms went up into the tops of the trees to keep a sharp lookout, and to warn the men by shots when Indians sneaked out of the swamps and approached the habitations.
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
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