USA > Mississippi > A history of Mississippi : from the discovery of the great river > Part 3
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HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI.
the Mississippi in boats. He entered the river March 2, 1699, and ascended as far as the mouth of Red River. De- scending he reached the mouth of Manchac (to be known henceforth as Iberville). Here he dispatched his brother Sauvolle down the Mississippi, to convey to the squadron the intelligence of what they had discovered, with instruc- tions to carefully sound the passes at the mouth of the river, while he determined to explore the Manchac. With considerable difficulty Iberville made his way through that stream until he emerged into the river Amite, thence into Lake Maurepas, thence through Pass Manchac into Lake Ponchartrain, and thence to the anchorage of bis ships- Iberville had already given to the beautiful sheet of water, now known as Bay St. Louis, the name of his sovereign, and to the first, and the smaller of the two lakes through which he had passed, he gave the name of Maurepas, and to the larger one he gave the name of Pontchartrain, in honor of two ministers of his master, Louis the Great.
In his official report, Iberville thus describes the first settlement ever made upon the soil of Mississippi by white men :
" After having visited several places well adapted for settlements, I fixed on the Bay of Biloxi, four leagues north of the place where the ships are anchored. We made choice of this point on account of the sheltered bay, or roadstead, where small vessels can come and go safely at all times.
" A place for a permanent settlement can be selected at leisure. I erected a wooden fort, with four bastions ; two are made of hewn timber, placed together, one foot and a half thick, and nine feet high; the other two of double pallisades. It is mounted with fifty four pieces of cannon, and has a good outfit of amunition. I left M. de Sauvolle in command, De Bienville, King's Lieutenant ; Levasseur. Major; De Bordenac, Chaplain ; Care. Surgeon ; two cap- tains, two pilots, four sailors, eighteen filibusters, thirteen Canadians, ten mechanics, six masons and thirty sub- officer's and soldiers."
This fort, Iberville named in honor of Jean Phellyp- peaux, Count Maurepas, a Minister and Secretary of For-
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eign Affairs. Count Maurepas bore the same family name as the Count Pontchartrain, the famous Chancellor of the Empire under Louis the XIV. Here was the first fortifica- tion erected by the French on the soil of Mississippi. Here, too, was the seat of the Colonial Government, the seat of French power and sovereignty in the State, as rep- resented by Royal Governors and Vicegerents, through whom the King of France spoke to his subjects in this far away quarter of the world.
Having thus disposed of his own and the King's affairs, d'Iberville returned to France, leaving his brothers, Sau- volle and Bienville, with a handful of followers, in the vast solitudes of the newly discovered Eldorado. What were the reflections of the brothers and their followers as they watched the fast receding ships, may be readily imagined, though it would be difficult to describe them. Near the close of the year 1699, d'Iberville cheered the hearts of his brothers and countrymen by returning to Biloxi with two frigates, bringing supplies and reinforcements, including sixty Canadians, who, though born in the frigid region of Canada, amid ice and snow, seem to have been preferred for service in the malarial jungles of the Mississippi. The long absence of Iberville had cast a settled gloom upon the little band of soldiers and colonists he had left behind him at the solitary station of Biloxi, and the joy occas- ioned by his return with additional reinforcements and a large supply of much needed provisions and military stores, may be readily imagined. Iberville also brought the welcome intelligence that the King of France had been graciously pleased to appoint his brother, Sauvolle, Gov- ernor of the Province of Louisiana, Bienville, Lieutenant- Governor, and Boisbriant, Commander of the Fort at Biloxi. with the rank of Major. Thus Antoine Lemoyne Sauvolle became the first Governor that ever exercised his functions over any portion of the territory comprised within the limits of the present State of Mississippi. Iberville, hav- ing determined to establish a fort on the lower Missis- sippi river, as well for defensive as for offensive operations, requested the friendly Indians to show him a point above all inundation. They accordingly conducted him to a high
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ridge, some eighteen leagues above the passes, where he at once determined to build a fort which would enable him to command the river, and thus keep off all English or Span- ish intruders. While engaged in this work, Iberville and his friends were most agreeably surprised by the arrival, in their midst, of the Chevalier Henri de Tonti, the devo- ted friend of La Salle, and his faithful companion during his exploration of the great river. That resolute soldier and indefatigable explorer had come from his distant post on the Illinois to welcome his friends under the command of Iberville. In February, 1700, Iberville, his brother Bienville, and the Chevalier de Tonti, ascended the river as far as the villages of the Natchez Indians, on the bluff where now stands the present populous and growing city of Natchez. They were delighted with the lovely country spread out before them, and Iberville at once determined to build a town and establish a garrison there. He drew a plat of the proposed town which he called "La Ville de Rosalie Aux Natchez." This name was bestowed upon the embryo town, as Gayarre tells us, in honor of the Countess Pontchartrain, the wife of the French Minister of that day. While Iberville and his companions were at the village of the Natchez Indians, they witnessed a scene of horror such as they never before beheld, which is graphı- ically described by Gayarre in the following passage :
" When the French were at Natchez they were struck with horror at an occurrence, too clearly demonstrating the fierceness of that tribe, which was destined in after years to become so celebrated in the history of Louisiana. One of their temples having been set on fire by lightning, a hideous spectacle presented itself to the Europeans. The tumultuous rush of the Indians -- the infernal howlings and lamentations of the men, women and children -- the un- earthly vociferations of the priests, their fantastic dances and ceremonies around the burning edifice -- the demoniac fury with which mothers rushed to the fatal spot, and with the piercing cries and gesticulations of maniacs, flung their new-born babes into the flames to pacify their irri- tated deity-the increasing anger of the heavens blacken- ing with the impending storm, the lurid flashes of the
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lightning, darting as it were in mutual enmity from the clashing clouds -- the low, distant growling of the coming tempest -- the long column of smoke and fire shooting up- ward from the funeral pyre and looking like one of the gigantic torches of pandemonium -- the war of the elements, combined with the worst effects of the frenzied superstition of man-the suddenness and strangeness of the awful scene-all these circumstances produced such an impres- sion upon the French as to deprive them, for the moment, of the power of volition and action. Rooted to the ground they stood aghast with astonishment and indignation at the appalling sight. Was it a dream, a wild delirium of the mind? But no, the monstrous reality of the vision was but too apparent, and they threw themselves among the Indians, supplicating them to cease their horrible sac- rifice to their gods and joining threats to their supplica- tions. Owing to this intervention, and perhaps because a sufficient number of victims had been offered, the priest gave the signal of retreat, and the Indians slowly with- drew from the accursed spot. Such was the aspect under which the Natchez showed themselves for the first time to their visitors ; it was an ominous presage for the future."
Claiborne tells us that the number of babies thus cast into the flames was not less than seventeen.
Here de Tonti separated from his friends and resumed his solitary journey to his far away post on the Illinois river. He returned a few years later to Louisiana, where he spent the remainder of his days.
After serving his sovereign with marked courage and un- faltering fidelity for many years, he died, and all that was mortal of the Chevalier Henri de Tonti was laid to rest in the soil of Mississippi.
Iberville soon returned to his ships and sailed for France for additional assistance for the colony. Bienville was assigned to the command of the fort on the lower Missis- sippi, and Sauvolle had previously entered upon the dis- charge of his duties as Governor at Biloxi. Sauvolle, his soldiers and colonists, had suffered greatly in the winter of 1700-1, and judging from his report to the home govern- ment, the cold must have been excessive. In one of his
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HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI.
dispatches he informed his government that "water when poured into tumblers to rinse them, freezes instantaneously, and before it could be used." The spring, summer and autumn of 1701 proved excessively unhealthy, and in ad- dition to this the gaunt hand of famine clasped the bony fingers of disease, for it is a most remarkable fact, that the early French colonists in Mississippi and Louisiana, were entirely dependent for food supplies brought from the mother country. Considering the long distance, the un- certainty of the winds and waves, the dangers that attended all sea voyages at that early period, it is no mar- vel that, relying on that distant and uncertain source of supply, while neglecting the generous and fertile soil at their feet, capable of producing all food plants in profuse luxuriance, they should have suffered at times for the neces- saries of life, and were frequently on the verge of starva- tion.
In the summer of 1701 Governor Sauvolle died at Biloxi, presumably of yellow fever. Shortly after the death of the Governor, Iberville returned with two ships of the line and a brig laden with a supply of food for the soldiers and colonists. Bienville, as Lieutenant Governor, suc- ceeded his brother Sauvolle in the exercise of all the power and authority vested in him as Governor of the Province of Louisiana. In December, 1701, intelligence reached Bienville that two ships had arrived and anchored off Dauphine Island, bringing orders to him to retire from Fort Maurepas, at Biloxi, and remove to the Mobile river. Leaving Boisbriant in command of Fort Maurepas, Bien- ville proceeded to Mobile, where he at once built a fort on Dauphine Island, at the mouth of Dog river. This work was given the name of Fort St. Louis de la Mobile, and here were the official headquarters of the Province for nine years, until, by reason of frequent inundations of the Island, a removal was made necessary to the site of the present city of Mobile.
Iberville hurried back to France. There were notes of war borne on every breeze, and to one of his heroic nature, these notes were always welcome. Born of a family of soldiers, men of heroic mould, he had seen his father and
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four brothers perish on the battle field. It is not strange, then, that he welcomed the rapture of battle with that stern joy which warriors feel. Before leaving his beloved colony, however, he gave some much needed advice to his government. In one of his latest dispatches, he wrote as follows :
"It is necessary to send here honest tillers of the earth, and not rogues and paupers, who come to Louisiana solely with the intention of making a fortune by all sorts of means, in order to speed back to Europe. Such men cannot be elements of prosperity to a colony."
It was late in the year 1701, when Iberville sailed for France with the promise of returning as soon as it was practicable, to the Colony of Louisiana. His brother and friends looked long and anxiously for his arrival, but he was destined never again to gaze upon Louisiana, the child of his nurture and affection. He sailed from France in 1706, in command of a formidable squadron for Mobile, intending to attack Charleston en route. He touched at San Domingo for the purpose of adding a thousand soldiers to his command, and while there was attacked with yellow fever and died July 9th. Gayarre, referring to it, says : " Ill was the wind that carried to Louisiana the melancholy information of Iberville's death. It blasted the hearts of the poor colonists, and destroyed the hope they had of being speedily relieved. Their situation had become truly deplorable ; their numbers were rapidly diminishing ; the Indians were daily becoming more hostile, more bold in their demands for goods and merchandise, as a tribute they exacted for not breaking out in actual warfare."
The death of Iberville was undeniably a great blow to the prosperity of the Colony, but it was a yet greater mis- fortune to his brother Bienville, the Governor. Difficulties had been gathering around his head in the past five years. The long distance from France, the broad Atlantic which flowed between him and his base of supplies, the feebleness of his garrison, the small number of his colonists, the vast array of hostile Indians, made the position of Bienville one of great danger and difficulty, which might well have blanched the cheek of the bravest and wisest. But the per-
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plexing difficulties of Bienville, trying as they were, did not end here. He was surrounded by a vile cabal of ignorant. corrupt and rapacious individuals, some of whom enjoyed official position, and were thus enabled to attract around them men equally as corrupt and venal as themselves. To these wretched creatures the intelligence of the death or Iberville was most welcome. Without the great influ- ence of his heroic brother they deemed the fall of Bien- ville in the near future well-nigh assured, and they labored unremittingly to hasten the hour of his downfall. Meantime, he was struggling with manly constancy against his open enemies, the hostile Indian tribes, and the more insidious one of famine. A pitiable instance of the humiliation to which a brave man may be subjected, is thus related by Gayarre :
" Bienville convened the chiefs of the Chickasaws and of the Choctaws in order to conciliate them by some tri- fling presents of which he could yet dispose, and to gain time by some fair promises as to what he would do for them under more favorable circumstances. With a view of making an imposing show, Bienville collected all the colonists that were within reach; but notwithstanding that display, a question propounded by one of the Indian chiefs gave him a humiliating proof of the slight estima- tion in which the savages held the French nation. Much to his annoyance he was asked if that part of his people which remained at home was as numerous as that which had come to settle in Louisiana ? Bienville, who spoke their language perfectly well, attempted by words and comparisons suited to their understanding, to impart to them a correct notion of the extent of the population of France. But the Indians looked incredulous, and one of them even said to Bienville, " if your countrymen are, as you affirm, as thick on their native soil as the leaves of our forests, how is it that they do not send more of their warriors here to avenge the death of such of them as have fallen by our hands ? Not to do so, when having the power. would argue them to be of a very base spirit. And how is it that most of the tall and powerful men that came with you, being dead, are replaced only with boys, cripples.
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HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI.
or women, that do you no credit? Surely the French would not so behave, if they could do otherwise, and my white brother tells a story that disparages his own tribe."
The difficulties that had surrounded Bienville, for the past five years, difficulties without and within, were rap- idly culminating, and on the 13th of July, 1707, he was dismissed from office, and DeMuys appointed in his stead. This new Governor was empowered to investigate the ad- ministration of his predecessor, and if upon examination into his official acts and the accusations brought against him, he thought proper to do so, he was authorized to send Bienville to France as a prisoner. This last humilia- tion, however, was destined to be spared him, his suc- cessor, De Muys, having died at Havana, on the way to his post of duty, and thus Bienville was permitted to retain his position for a time longer. When De Muys was ap- pointed Governor in place of Bienville, La Salle, the Royal Commissary who had been the most active and indus- trious intriguer against Bienville, was highly delighted, of course, but his happiness was of brief duration, for the ship which brought intelligence of the new Governor's death, at Havana, brought in person the successor of La Salle, Diron d'Artaguette, as Royal Commissary. The disappointment of La Salle must have been intense at the sudden disarrangement of all his malevolent schemes, but his rage knew no bounds when he ascertained that his own successor had reported to the home government that the administration of Bienville was entirely wise and honorable, and hence, that his own charges against Bien- ville were proven to be false and malicious.
Though still clothed with all his original authority, Bienville was still not reposing on a bed of roses. The condition of the Colony of Louisiana, which descriptive term included all of the territory of the present State of Mis- sissippi, from the seashore to the mouth of the Yazoo river, was most wretched. In nine years, that is to say, from 1699, the date of Iberville's arrival, to and including the year 1708, " the population did not exceed," according to Gayarre, " two hundred and seventy-nine persons! To this number must be added sixty Canadian vagabonds, who
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led a wandering and licentious life among the Indians. Its principal wealth consisted of fifty cows, forty calves, four bulls, eight oxen, fourteen hundred hogs, and two thou- sand hens."
There had recently been an addition to the population of the Colony, by the arrival of twenty young girls, sent out under the auspices of the Bishop of Quebec, for wives for the colonists. These girls soon created a vigorous sen- sation by a revolt against a portion of the food with which they were served. This revolt was humorously called " the petticoat insurrection," and was deemed of suf- ficient importance to be communicated to the home gov- ernment in an official dispatch. Governor Bienville thus refers to this "petticoat insurrection :" "The males in the Colony begin, through habit, to be reconciled to corn, as an article of nourishment, but the females, who are mostly Parisians, have for this kind of food a dogged aversion, which has not yet been subdued. Hence, they inveigh bitterly against his grace, the Bishop of Quebec, who, they say, has enticed them away from home under. the pretext of sending them to enjoy the milk and honey of the land of promise."
Indignant at being thus deceived, and determined they would never eat corn, these girls declared they " would force their way out of the colony on the first opportu- nity."
The colonists were too indolent to cultivate the soil, and preferred the precarious and uncertair supply of food from the mother country. Like the " wards of the nation " in this country, a century and a half later, they expected the government to supply all their wants, and this without an effort on their own part. Finding that the colonists would not work to raise sufficient food for themselves, and that the Indians were equally averse to labor, Bienville coolly proposed to his government that he should be au- thorized "to exchange Indians for negroes with the French West India Islands !" His. proposition was couched in the following unique language : " We shall give three In- dians (that never belonged to him or his government) for two negroes. The Indians when in the Island will not be
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able to run away, the country being unknown to them, and the negroes will not dare to become fugitives in Louis- iana, because the Indians would kill them !" Was ever an act of spoliation and outrage couched in more courtly phrase? It met with no favor, however, the government of France failing to authorize the exchanging of Indians for negroes, at the rate of three Indians for two Africans, and so the scheme fell through, possibly for the reason that it was esteemed cheaper to steal negroes from the coast of Africa, than to catch the wild and untamed red men of the forest to offer in exchange.
Bienville seems to have entertained some queer notions of his power. In one of his dispatches to the home gov- ernment this passage occurs : "I have ordered several citizens of LaRochelle to be closely watched, because they wish to quit the country! They have scraped up some- thing by keeping taverns, therefore it appears to me to be nothing but justice to force them to remain in the country on the substance of which they have fattened."
In spite of all efforts to supply the colonists with food, famine was again threatened, and in January, 1709, the people were compelled to feed on acorns to avoid starva- tion, and the very next year, 1710, in consequence of the great scarcity of provisions, Bienville informed his gov- ernment "that he had scattered his men among the In- dians upon whom he had quartered them for food !" If anything more grotesque was ever performed by a civilized being it has not yet been heard of. The people of the col- ony, too indolent to cultivate the soil, and too idle to fish or hunt, were thus quartered on the red men of the forest, who had tilled the earth and gathered the crops of corn, beans and other vegetables, and who had killed game and cured the flesh for future use, drawing their daily food from the streams that abounded with fish! Why should these colonists be less industrious and less provident than the untutored Indian ? and why should they be bil- leted on a people who were represented to be their mortal foes ? This last question, it is presumed, will be a difficult one to answer satisfactorily.
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This condition of affairs could not long exist, and the crisis soon came. The king of France, at last grown weary with the never-ending demands of the Louisiana colony, the ceasless drafts upon the treasury of the nation, deter- mined to put an end to these never-failing requisitions upon his royal exchequer at once, and as he fondly hoped for- ever. The mode adopted was a most novel one. Thus the great king, at a single blow, cut the gordian knot which for years had embarrassed him. By a simple dash of the pen he surrendered to the absolute control of Anthony Cro- zat, a rich and ambitious merchant, an empire greater in extent, and grander in its future than all of France, which Louis XIV ruled with despotic sway ; an empire destined to a wealth and power more dazzling than the great king ever dreamed of. Anthony Crozat was the son of a peas- ant, "born on the estate of one of the great patricians of France," says Gayarre ; "he was, when a boy, remarked for the acuteness of his intellect, and having the good for- tune of being the foster brother of the only son of his feudal lord, he was sent to school by his noble patron, received the rudiments of education, and at the age of fifteen was placed as a clerk in a commercial house. Then, by the protection of that nobleman, who never ceased to evince the liveliest interest in his fate, and particularly by the natural ascendency of his strong genius, he rose, in the course of twenty years, to be a partner of his old employer, married his daughter, and shortly after this auspicious event, found himself, on the death of his father- in-law, one of the richest merchants in Europe. He still continued to be favored by circumstances, and having had the good fortune of loaning large sums of money to the government in cases of emergency, he was rewarded for his services by his being ennobled, and created Marquis du Chatel."
Gayarre tells the shameful story of the transfer of Louis- iana, with all its boundless possibilities, to Crozat, tbe rich merchant : "The colony continued in its lingering condition, gasping for breath in its cradle, until 1712, when on the 14th day of September, the king of France granted to Anthony Crozat the exclusive privilege for fifteen years,
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of trading in all that immense territory, which, with its un- defined limits, France claimed as her own under the name of Louisiana. Among other privileges, were those of send- ing, once a year, a ship to Africa for negroes, and of pos- sessing and working all the mines of precious metal to be discovered in Louisiana, provided that one-fourth of their proceeds should be reserved for the king. He also had the privilege of owning forever all the lands that he should improve by cultivation, all the buildings he should erect, and all the manufactures he might establish. His princi- pal obligation, in exchange for such advantages, was to send every year to Louisiana two ship's load of colonists, and after nine years to assume all the expenses of the administration of the colony, including those of the gar- rison and its officers ; it being understood that, in consid- eration of such a charge, he would have the privilege of nominating the officers to be appointed by the king. In the meantime, the annual sum of fifty thousand livres, ($10,000,) was allowed to Crozat for the king's share of the expenses required by Louisiana. It was further pro- vided that the laws, ordinances, customs, and usages of the Provostship and Viscounty of Paris, should form the legislation of the colony. There was also to be a govern- ment council, similar to the one established in San Do- mingo and Martinique."
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