USA > Mississippi > Adams County > Natchez > Historical sketch of the Natchez, or District of Natchez, in the state of Mississippi; from 1763 to 1798 > Part 1
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02320 8892
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HISTORICAL
SKETCH
OF THE
NATCHEZ,OR DISTRICT OF NATCHEZ
IN
THE
STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
From 1763 to 1798
By
Mann Butler
[N.Y. 1839]
F 876.13
THE FAMILY MAGAZINE.
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE NATCHEZ, OR DISTRICT OF NATCHEZ, IN THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI; FROM 1763 to 1798-
BY MANN BUTLER. (From the Western Messenger.)
THE earliest information of THE NATCHEZ or DIS- TRICT OF NATCHEZ, (as it was differently termed,) is furnished by the French. 'That spirited people, although behind the Spaniards and English, in the career of maritime discovery which so brilliantly marked the fifteenth century, soon made up for their backwardness. Early in the following century Canada was discovered, Quebec founded, and the great chain of northern lakes explored. In 1673, the party of Joliet and Marquette set off from Michilimackinac, and revealed to Europeans the noble river which gives name to the state of Missis- sippi .* This discovery was soon followed by a suc- cession of enterprises under La Salle, Iberville, and Bienville, which extended the occupation, and some- times the settlements of France, along the gulf of Mexico, from the bay of St. Bernard's in the West, to the Mobile in the East. It was not, however, till 1700, according to some. French writers, that fort Rosalie was built at Natchez ; others represent it as still later, in 1719. This ancient memorial of the distinguished people who first explored these beautiful regions in the Southwest, is said to have been so named by Bienville, in compliment to Ro- salie, Countess De Pontchartrain. An obscure trace of a part of this ancient fortification still sur- vives, to leave a faint impression of the romantick changes of Mississippi fortune, from the dominion of France, Britain, and Spain, to the beneficent and enterprising rule of the great Republick of North America.
The governour who founded this advanced fort in the interiour of our continent, is said to have been very anxious to fix the seat of government of the province of Louisiana, on the mountain bluffs of Natchez. This brilliant destiny was, however, overruled in favour of the more commercial, though in all other respects, inferiour position of New Or- leans. If beauty of site, lofty hills, in this general- ly low and flat region, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate, could have overbalanced the temptations of wealth, Natchez would have become the seat of the French empire in the Southwest. As it is, Na- ture has lavished her choicest treasures to adorn and enrich this beautiful spot. A lofty bank, two hundred feet above the ordinary level of the river, commanding a view of the most majestick stream of Western America, which sweeps far to the right and left, presents one of the most remarkable points in this region. Here, the French, with the taste characteristick of that polished people, established the seat of their government for the district of Natchez.
During the government of France, the divisions of the province of Louisiana, were Biloxi, Alebamos, Natchitoches, Yazoos, Wabash, and Natchez, with New Orleans. For French Louisiana extended to New France, or Canada. It is the district of Nat- che, however, and principally while under the gov- ernment of British and Spaniards, that forms the subjectof the present sketch.
VOL. VI .- 23 + Marquette's Journal. Butler's Ky.
78874
1727257 177
What the country had been under the French do- minion, may well be inferred from its condition some years afterward, when the British received possession of it from France, by virtue of negociated treaties at Paris in 1762 and 1763. True it is, that the cession was nominally made to Great Britain by France. As it was she who surrendered to Great Britain " the port and river of Mobile, and every- thing on the left side of the Mississippi she possess- ed, or had a right to possess, except the island of New Orleans."* Still the virtual grantor was Spain, for whose benefit France alienated hier province of Louisiana partly to Great Britain ; and the residue to the Spanish government, as a compensation and exchange in its hands, for the British conquest of Havana. Among the first acts of ownership exer- cised by Great Britain over this portion of her brill- iant conquests obtained from the house of Bourbon, in the war of 1755, was the proclamation of seventh October, 1763. . By this instrument, the country embraced by Appalachicola, the gulf of Mexico, lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, the Mississippi as far north as thirty-one degrees, and a line due east to the Chatahooche, was erected into the gov- ernment of West Florida.f This is the first ap- pearance of the geographical terin, West Florida, which had previously formed a part of Louisiana, and extended to the Perdido river. These British limits were, however, upon a representation of the Board of Trade to the king, extended to the Ya- zoos, or Yazoo north, and the east line abovemen- tioned. This appears in the commission issued to Governour Chester, second March, 1.70# . By these official acts, the District of Natchez was, un- der the British government, established as a part of West Florida. But the country, sparsely settled, and surrounded by numerous tribes of Indians, pre- sents no brilliant picture at this period of its history. Long as the country had been in the occupation of the French, for more than seventy-eight years, their settlements, (as they did all over the West,) merely dotted the country. Along the coast of the gulf of Mexico, up the rivers, at points remote and insulated; from Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans, and Natchez, to Michilimackinac and Quebec, the French settlers composed only broken strings of population. Hunting, not agriculture, seems to have been the favourite employment of the people ; and too often were the sons of France seduced by the romantick and perilous charms of savage life, from pursuing the sober but slow arts which conduct na- tions to the proud achievements of civilization, over the wilderness of nature. No Europeans have, to such an extent, and so happily, amalgamated with the natives of America, as ine French. It is the key to the Indian attachment which is shown to them above all other foreigners. The earliest Indian alienation of the District of Natchez by treaty, that is known to the writer, is described in the following affidavit of a surveyor in the employment of the British government : || "The Naichez district is bounded to the westward by the river Mississippi, and extends from Loftus Cliff up the said river to the mouth of the Yazoo, the distance being one hun-
* Treaty of Paris, 1763. t Hall's Law Journal, 5-vo ;. . 405 ; al- .80 Land Law U. S. # Idem 412. Il See Land Law J. Si vol. 2. Appendix J, p 275.
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THE FAMILY MAGAZINE.
1
dred and ten miles. The said district was purchased from the Choctaw nation, by the British superintend- ent of Indian affairs, at a treaty held at Mobile, in May, 1777, and the lines as above described were marked and surveyed by me in 1779." This de- scription, it must be observed, contains no eastern boundary ; the cession, however, is recognised by the same Indians, in a treaty concluded with our government at Hopewell, in 1786.
By this treaty the United States were authorized to retrace and mark the " old line of demarkation heretofore established by and between the officers of his Britannick majesty and the Choctaw nation, which ran in a parallel direction with the Mississip- pi and eastward thereof." The Choctaws relin- quished all right and title to the same from latitude thirty-one degrees north, to the Yazoo. This line is laid down upon the maps in our land-offices, as about twenty miles east of the Mississippi. There are other Indian treaties of 1765, between the Creeks and the Choctaws with the British govern- ment; but they alienate lands on the seacoast, and do not effect the present subject. Such is the as- pect of the District of Natchez presented by politi- cal regulations ; its actual living condition, its man- ners, its domestick government and history-must be found in other testimony. Fortunately for a curious · posterity, such evidence is furnished by the memo- randa of a settler, who, when a boy of eight years old arrived at Natchez, in September, 1776.
Calvin Smith, now in his seventieth year, en- ioying the ample fruits of a life skilfully devoted to agriculture, has not been unmindful of the curiosity of his countrymen to learn the incidents of early Mississippi history. To the curious cares of this ancient settler, the reader is indebted for the follow- ing primitive picture of the Natchez district. The facts are unvarnished, the colouring as much so, the form alone has been changed. Where dates have been forgotten or unknown to Mr. Smith, the papers of William Dunbar, (better known by the marked courtesy of a republican people, as Sir Willian Dunbar,) have been resorted to. This gifted and scientifick gentleman, after leaving Scot- land in 1771 settled at Baton Rouge in 1776. The journal of his plantation from 1776, an extensive correspondence, (all most liberally placed in the author's hands by Doctor William Dunbar,) offer a rich mine of southwestern history, in its early British and Spanish days.
Mr. Smith was the son of a New England cler- gymnan, who emigrated to Natchez in 1776. At that time, our annalist relates, that the town of Nat- chez consisted of ten log-cabins, and two framcd houses, all below the bluff. 'The bank of the river extended between three and four hundred yards to the edge of the water, at an ordinary stage. There were six or eight families, and four mercantile es- tablishments, in a small way. The latter consisted of one Barber, his two nephews in one firm, James Willing was a second, Hanchett & Newman a third, and Broomart a fourth. At this time no set- tlement existed between Natchez and St. Cather- ine's creek. On the latter there were only twenty families scttled. The site of the fort* was over-
grown with forest trees which would have measured two and a half feet through. There were likewise several iron guns lying about, which were supposed to have been left by the French. The whole site of the present city of Natchez was, in 1776, a thick canebrake. The country settlements were quite sparse and scattered. Next to the settlement on St. Cather- ine's creek, (which has been previously mentioned,) there were on Second creek, about fifteen families scattered from its junction with the Homochitto for ten miles up the stream. At Ellis's Cliff's there was a solitary settler-Richard Ellis ; and his brother William was the only settler south of the Homochit- to. He lived at the point of high land, between Buffalo creek and the Mississippi.
In the absence of county, township, and parish divisions, the different inhabited parts of the country were denominated settlements. Thus the Jersey settlement lay next south of the one upon Second creek, on the northern side of the Homochitto, and contained ten families ; Cole's Creek settlement embraced eight families ; Petit Gulf, (now Rodney,) and Bayon Pierre settlements contained about six families ; Black River settlement embraced about six families ; and but a solitary settler, by the name of John Watkins, lived at the Walnut Hills, now the flourishing city of Vicksburgh. Thus seventy-eight families composed the white population of Missis- sippi, in so recent a period as 1776, none of whom were know to have removed to the country before 1772. Let us now extend our notice to the sur- rounding country.
The nearest white settlements out of the present state of Mississippi, to the Natchez, were at Point Coupee and Oppelousas, some eighty or a hundred miles distant, and on the opposite side of the Missis- sippi river. Natchitoches and Washitaw settlements were two hundred miles, and the Post of Arkansas an old French settlement, was 300 miles distant. Noroads existed through the interiour; there were paths to the Choctaw towns, and thence to the Tennessee ; there was likewise a trace to Pensacola. The latter, during the British dominion, formed the seat of government for West Florida ; of which Mississippi, it will be recollected, constituted a part. The govern- ment was as simple as the people were plain in their manners ; their wants were great, but the means of gratifying them few. The only court in the Nat- chez was held by the commandant, who acted as judge ; two assistants, a clerk and sheriff, comple- ted the simple government, whose decrees a small garrison enforced. The jurisdiction of this court extended, in all civil cases, to suits involving sums less than one hundred dollars, and in criminal cases only embraced slaves. An appeal lay from the commandant to the governour at Pensacola. The condition of the settlers was poor and embarrassing. The stock of the farmers consisted of horses, cattle, and a few sheep, but scarcely any hogs ; slaves were few, and sometimes obtained from the West Indies as the country advanced in prosperity .- Trade had scarcely penetrated the country with the inspiring energies which a good market for the produce of labour never fails to cffect. Petries were the principal article of traffick, and they were obtained from the northern territories. [1 1778, the British merchants did encourage the pro- duction of tobacco ; but with the goveritment of
* Variously named, by the French Rosalie, by the British Paninure, which is retained in the Spanish records now in the probato court of Natchez ; and Carlos by the Spaniards.
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their nation, the patronage was withdrawn for a [ long and dreary interval. At this period of Missis- sippi history, it may be gratifying to contrast it with the condition of the hardy and vigorous common- wealths which now flourish upon the waters of the Ohio and the Upper Mississippi. Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Ten- nessee, were then portions of the great Indian wil- derness that constituted the wide domain and pro-
ductive park, which was roamed over by the sparse tribes of the red man. A few scattered and insig- nificant French villages existed at the Arkansas Post, Sı. Genevieve, St. Louis, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes, Michilimackinac, and Detroit. The white man did not possess a foothold beyond these feeble points, within the first five of the above states. In Ohio he had no possession; in Ken- tucky he was limited to a few stations containing one hundred and two fighting men in 1777. In Tennessee, now possessing a population about equal to that of Kentucky, the white settlements were
confined to a few stations on Cumberland and Hol- ston. Yet the population of those regions amounted, by the census of 1830, to 3,010,702. If the aver- age ratio of annual increase at 1833* for eight years be added to the above, say twenty-five per cent. for that time, the above total of population will
become 3,763,377. What a contrast to the solitude of the wilderness ! the barbarity, the savage state of the Indian ! Such are some of the conquests over - barbarousness effected by the indomitable enterprise o. American freemen. There were some circum- ctances favourable to the prosperity of the American colonists in Mississippi, which, however superiour their unshackled energies were in other respects, were not enjoyed by our countrymen in the North- west. The Indian nations in the Southwest, either
originally less warlike than the northern tribes, or exposed more directly, and for a longer time, to the arts and the arms of the whites, were comparatively harmless and pacifick; offering little if any obstruc- tion to the settlers, and frequently affording them an asylum from the vengeance or the justice of the Spanish government. "The Spaniards would as soon go to h ** 1," said Man to Fulsome, when medi- tating the Natchez insurrection of 1779, as demand us from the Choctaws. The latter tribe have been immemorially distinguished for their aversion to shed the blood of the whites. The contrast of northern settlement is deeply marked in a war of twenty years, characterized by every feature of fe- rocious and bloodthirsty warfare. It raged from 1774 to 1794, the date of Wayne's battle of the Maumee. The country was contested by inches, and won by blood. In fact, the white man, without his disposition for agricultural labour, and consequent superiour rate of population, could not have con- quered the Indian. The success of the latter is to be attributed to his industry and fecundity, much more than to his superiour art or valour. It is, however, to be observed, that had not the Indians bee furnished with arms and ammunition by their Britin allies, the contest in the northwestern re- gion 6 North America would have been as hope- less, as . has proved over the rest of the world, between the civilized and barbarous races of man.
At the period when our materials begin, the Ameri-" can Revolution had just broken out. The first effects" of this brilliant era of American history upon these remote settlements, were the visits of Colonels Gib- son and Linn, in 1776 from Fort Pitt to New Or- leans to procure military stores for the defence of the American forts on the Ohio. This mission was eminently successful, owing to the friendship of the Spanish government .* It was followed by that expe- dition of Major, David Rogers in 1778 for the same purpose, which after reaching the neighbourhood of Cincinnati terminated most fatally.t Towards the latter end of February, 1778, James Willing, for- merly of Philadelphia, and who was one of the merchant> found by Smith at Natchez, was despatch- ed by the old Congress to New Orleans, on a similar commission to that of Gibson; Linn and Rogers. This person had lived some time in the country, a fellow-subject with the planters on the coast, as the banks of the Mississippi are familiarly termed by the French. He had shared liberally in the hospitali- ties which have ever distinguished a country sparse- ly settled, and particularly in southern' regions. He had feasted at the tables, and had drank the wine of the river planters, as a boon companion and friend. Who, could have been less an object of ap- prehension as a military visiter through a region of profound peace, and which required, nay justified, no hostilities against its peaceable settlers ? Yct, to the disgrace of the American commission which Captain Willing bore, on his arrival, he plundered the inoffensive inhabitants holding no hostile atti- tude-seizing their slaves, shooting their such, and firing their buildings, from Natchez to Maushac. To these enormities, justified by no laws of war, and uncalled for by his commission, Captain Willing ad- ded the violation of his own protections given to the friends of the United States. On landing at Nat- chez, Willing, to the surprise of the inhabitants, un- furled the American flag, and claimed to take pos- session of West Florida. In a short time he liad apprehended all persons who had anything worth plundering, and who were reported to be unfriendly to the cause of the United States, in other words were royalists, or in revolutionary phrase, tories. He seized their slaves, plate, and all kinds of goods .- Isaac Johnson, Colonel Hutchins, the Alstons, Hi- ram Stewart, and Alexander M'Intosh, were almost stripped of every moveable that was of any value. There were upward of a hundred negroes, with other valuable articles, plundered by this band of robbers. The plundered people were then compel- led to take an oath not to bear arms against the Uni- ted States, and were dismissed to their naked homes. After Willing had got his fill of plunder at Natchez, he set off for New Orleans, taking Reuben Harrison along with some more recruits. On this voyage, the planters on the coast, as far as Maushac, which ter- minated the British territory, fared still worse than those of Natchez. William Dunbar, (and a few of his friends who availed themselves of his sa- gacious advice,) saved their slaves by conveying them over to the Spanish side of the Mississippi .- When the party had arrived at New Orleans, the plunderers who had come from Pennsylvania, were unwilling to share with the recruits, the booty they
* merican Almanack, for 1832, p 162.
* See Butler's Ky., 2d edition, p 155. t Idem ante, p. 104.
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„had picked up at Natchez. These new partners in depredation, to the number of thirty or forty, were sent back under Reuben Harrison, now become a lieutenant, to collect what Willing had spared .- This new scheme of plunder was somehow convey- ed to Natchez, where the wronged inhabitants proved less tame than the predatory gang may have expect- ed. The people of Natchez, under Hutchins, Bloo- mart, M'Intosh and Percy, assembled at Ellis's Land- ing. Here an engagement took place between the Natchez settlers and Harrison's party ; in which the leader and five or six of his men were killed by the planters in arms. This was the first battle fought in the country between white men, after the estab- lishment of British government.
Orders now came from Governour Chester, at Pensacola, to fit up fort Panmure ; and Col. Magel- lan was sent to raise a battalion of four companics. These were given to the command of Colonels Ly- man, Bloomart, Bingaman, and M.Intosh. These troops were soon ordered to Baton Rouge, with the increasing prospect of a Spanish war. The place of this military force was filled by a Captain Fos- ter, with a hundred men, who took full possession of the country.
.On the sixteenth of June, 1779, war was declared by Spain against Great Britain. This was the sig- nal to the colonial officers of Spain, in Louisiana, to retrieve, if possible, the bad fortune which had so eminently attended the military efforts of the French, as well as the Spanish branch of the house of Bour- bon, in the war of 1755. Fortunately for Spain, Jo-
De Galvez, a most enterprising officer, was at this time governour of Louisiana. This active com- mander, early in the fall of 1779, successfully di- reeted an expedition against the British fort Bute on the Mauschac ; and on the twenty-first of September, he likewise captured a more considerable fort at Baton Rouge, commanded by a Colonel Dixon. It is said, however, that the bad state of the defences aided the efforts of the Spaniards in no inconsidera- ble degree. By the capitulation of Baton Rouge all the British possessions, embracing fort Panmure at Natchez, a fort on Amite river, and another on Thompson's creek, on the Mississippi, were ceded to Spain : and she once more reoccupied the labours of De Soto, in his brilliant and unrivalled enter- prise through the barbarous forests and swamps of Mississippi. Such an extension of the capitulation, and indeed the whole defence of Baton Rouge, greatly surprised the shrewd and bold planters of Natchez. At this point, the British had great re- sources both in the settlers and the Indians, upon which Col. Dixon might have confidently fell back. These interiour means seem to have been unknown or disregarded by the British officer. It was no doubt favourable to the humanity of the warfare, that the Indians were not introduced into the trage- dy of war, always full enough of horrours, but never so much so, as when such murderous savages as the North American Indians are made its actors.
(To be continued.)
THE richest endowments of the mind are temper- ance, prudence, and fortitude; prudence is a univer- sal virtue, which enters into the composition of all the rest, and where that is not present, fortitude loses its name and nature.
REVOLUTIONARY REMINISCENCE.
AFTER the battle of Lexington, General Gage, hav- ing succeeded the notorious Governour Hutchinson in the command of the king's troops in Boston, and being reinforced by Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, issued his celebrated proclamation, offer- ing pardon to all who would return to their allegi- ance. John Hancock and Samuel Adams, both members of Congress from Massachusetts, were ex- cepted from this "lying act of Grace," having by their zeal and abilities made themselves especially obnoxious to the ministry. Of Mr. Adams, it was said by Galloway, in his examination before the House of Commons, that " he eats little, drinks lit- tle, sleeps little, thinks much, and is most indefati- gable in the pursuit of his object .. That by his su- periour abilities he managed the factions of Con- gress and the factions in New England." The fol- lowing parody on the proclamation (which the Whigs treated with great contempt and ridicule) ap- peared in the prints of the day.
"Tom. Gage's Proclamation, And denunciation, Against the New England nation Who should his pious way shun."
Whereas, the rebels, hereabout, Are stubborn still, and still hold out, Refusing still to drink their tea, In spite of Parliament and me ; And to maintain their bubble right,
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