Ti CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIV. • p^.

The Nature of Bird Life at New Orleans 335

CHAPTER XV. Literature and Art 361

CHAPTER XVL Flora of Louisiana 389

CHAPTER XVII. The Bench and Bar of New Orleans 394

CHAPTER XVIII. Public Buildings and Charities 417

CHAPTER XIX.

The Amusements of New Orleans 463

CHAPTER XX. The Churches 480

CHAPTER XXI. Manufactures 511

CHAPTER XXII. Commercial and Mercantile Interests 538

CHAPTER XXIII.

Banking and Finance STS

CHAPTER XXIV. Clubs and Kindred Organizations 606

CHAPTER XXV. The Carnival 629

CHAPTER XXVI. The Sugar Industry 646

STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.

CHAPTER I.

COLONIAL TIMES.

The Feench and Spanish Dominations. By Alcke Fortier, ~D. Lit., Professor OK Romance Languages in Tulane University of Louisiana, President of the Louisiana Histokicae Society.

L— EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS.

I.A SAI.LE, IBERVILLE, AND BIENVILLE.

THE history of LoHisiana begin.? in reality with the expedition of Robert Cavelier de La Salle down the Mississippi River in 1682. That heroic

man was born at Roiien in Normandy, and formed the project of exploring to its mouth the great river discovered by Hernando de Soto in 1541, and rediscovered in 1673 by Father Marquette and Louis Joliet. La Salle went (o Canada, saw Governor Froiitenac, obtained his apjiroval of his plans, and returned to France, where he secured privileges from King Louis XIV. He arrived at Quebec in 1G78, and immediately made preparations for his undertaking. Henri de Tonty, the chivalric Italian, was La Salle's most trusted companion and the principal historian of the expedition.

Before 1682, La Salle had been unsuccessful in his efforts to reach the Mississippi, but had displayed wonderful constancy and courage. On February 6, 1682, he entered the mighty stream from the Illinois River, and on April 9, he reached the Gulf by three passes into which the river divided itself. La Salle erected on the shore a cross, and a column on which were inscribed the name and the coat of arms of the King. He named the coimtry Louisiana, in honor of the French monarch, and took possession of the vast territory watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries, in the name of Louis XIV.

La Salle returned to Canada, and from there went to France, where he was well received by the King, who gave him the means to undertake the colonization of Louisiana. He started from La Rochelle, on July 4, 1684, with a &.mall fleet of four vessels, commanded by Beaujeu and containing 250 persons, liesides the officers and the crew. After having stopped for a time at San Domingo the fleet, reduced to three vessels, arrived at a large river emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. It was thought to be the Mississippi, and Beaujeu returned to France leaving to La Salle the brig La Belle. The explorer built a fort, which he called St. Louis, on the bay of St. Bernard or Matagorda, and his brig having been wrecked in a storm, he resolved to return by land to Canada, in order to obtain help for his colony. He was accompanied by his brother, his nephew, and a few companions, among whom was Joutel, who has related the expedition. In 1687 the heroic La Salle was murdered by some of his own men, and the colony established in Texas was destroyed by the Indians.

After the failure of La Salle's expedition, France was not, for several years, in a condition to make another attempt to colonize Louisiana. By the Revolution of 1688 James II. was expelled from England, and Louis XIV. undertook to replace on his throne the Stuart monarch. There was a war which lasted for nearly ten years, and which ended in 1697, by the treaty of Ryswick. Then arose a favorable opportunity for plans of colonization, and the man who knew how to take advantage of the occasion was Iberville, a Canadian sailor who had greatly distinguished himself in the wars against the English. He offered to form a settlement in Louisiana, and the plan was favorably received by the King and his minister, Pontchartrain. Iberville started from Brest on October 24, 1698, with two frigates and two freight ships, and at San Domingo was joined by the Marquis de Chateaumorant in command of a war vessel. On January 25 the fleet anchored before the island of St. Rosa, but the Spanish governor of Pensacola did not allow the French to enter the harbor. They set sail again and cast anchor before the Chandeleur Islands. Iberville landed on Ship Island, built some huts there and went with his brother Bienville to explore the coast of what is now Biloxi and Ocean Springs. He found the country beautiful and was well received by the Indians, and built, a little later, a fort on the eastern shore of the Bay of Biloxi.

Before building his fort, however, Iberville had started, on February 27, with his brother Bienville, to look for the mouth of the Mississippi, and had succeeded in discovering the hidden river on March 2, 1699. The two brothers

STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS. g

went up the Mississippi, as far as the country of the Houmas, near the mouth of Red River, and had no doubt about their being on La Salle's river, when they found, among-the Bayougoulas, a letter from Tonty, who had gone down the Mississippi in search of La Salle, at the time of the last expedition of the great explorer. At the place where is now the town of Baton Rouge, Iberville saw a tall may-pole on which the Indians had hung offerings of fish and game, and he called the place Baton Rouge. Near by was a small river or bayou named Manchac, and Iberville entered it and reached again his fleet at Ship Island, after having passed through two lakes and a bay, which he called, respectively, Maurepas, Pontchartrain, and St. Louis. Bienville returned by way of the Mississippi.

Iberville sailed for France in May, 1699, after having sown the seed from which Louisiana was to grow. He gave the command of the colony to Sauvole, a brave and capable young French officer, who has left an interesting account of the difficulties attending the establishment of the colony. The coast on the Mississippi Sound is beautiful, with its white sand and magnificent trees: oaks, magnolias, and pines, but the land is not fertile. The colonists, besides, for several years, paid little attention to tilling the ground and counted for subsistence on the provisions sent from France.

Iberville did not abandon his infant colony, but returned to it in the beginning of 1700. He again went up the Mississippi with Bienville, and with Tonty, who had come from Canada to meet the French. Iberville went as far as the Natchez country and ordered a fort which he called Rosalie to be built there. He built also a fort fifty-four miles from the mouth of the river and called it Maurepas. He gave the command of it to Bienville, who stayed there until the death of Sauvole in August, 1701, when he became governor of Louis-ana at the early age of twenty-two.

Iberville returned once more to Louisiana at the end of 1701, and remained until March, 1702. He had the seat of the colony transferred to fort St. Louis de la Mobile. Iberville, the father of Louisiana, died in 1706 at Havana, whither he had gone to prepare an expedition against the English in the Caro-linas. His death was a great blow to the colony, which was left with very little support from France. Bienville was obliged several times to scatter some of his men among the Indians, who treated them kindly. Penicaut, the carpenter, has given a charming description of his stay among the Natchitoches. He tells us how he tried to teach French to two Indian maidens, and how one of his

lo STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.

Gonipanions, a violinist, taught the young 2)eople to dance the stately minuet of the court of yersailles.

In spite of Bienville's efforts to make the colony prosper, he was superseded in 1708, and a new governor, de Muys, was sent to Louisiana. The latter died on tTie way, and the new commissary general, Diron d'Artaguette, sent such a favorable report to the French government about Bienville that the young governor was kept at the head of the colony, which he had governed ad intenm, after the death of de Muys.

France had been brought to great distress by the war of the Spanish succession undertaken by Louis XIV. to place his grandson, the Duke of Anjou, on the throne of Spain, which had been bequeathed to the latter by Charles II. Marlborough and Prince Eugene had defeated the armies of the French in several great battles, and the country was saved from a shameful peace only by the battle of Denain, won by Villars in 1712. It was no easy matter to maintain colonies when the kingdom was in danger, therefore, in 1712, Louis XIV. was glad to transfer Louisiana to a wealthy banker named Crozat, for a period of fifteen years. The colony, at that time, contained a population of about 380 l>ersons, scattered, says Gayarrc, over an immense territory and protected by five forts: at Mobile, at Biloxi, on the Mississippi, at Ship Island, and Dauphine or Massacre Island, near Mobile.

In 1710 Lamothc Cadillac had been named govern >r. He was the founder of Detroit and had given proof of ability and courage, but in his new position he failed completely. He seemed to have lacked tact in his dealings with the Indians, and the first Xatchez war broke out in 1716. The Xatchez were an intelligent race and had strange customs. They adored the sun and kept a fire burning perpetually in their temple. Their chief was called the Great Sun, and the succession was in the female line. In 1716 the Xatchez rose against the French, and Bienville, who was second in command in the colony, was sent affainst them. As he bad onlv a few men with him, he resorted to a stratagem which we could hardly approve at present and made the Indian chiefs fall into a snare. He put two of them to death and made terms with the others. He also built Fort Rosalie, of which the site had been chosen by Iberville.

Ill 1716 Lamothe Cadillac was recalled, and de I'Epinay named governor. In 1717, however, Crozat gave up liis charter. He believed that he would have a prosperous trade V-ith tlie Spaniards in Mexico, but had failed in this and had been restricted to an unprofitable trade with the Indians. The council of

marine decided to maintain the colony and declared: "That it is too considerable an enterprise to be confided to a single individual; that it does not ?nit the King to take charge of it himself, inasmuch as His Majesty cannot enter into all the details of commerce, which are inseparable from it; therefore, the best to be done is to choose a company strong enough to support this enterprise."

Louisiana was transferred, with a population of about 700 souls, to the Company of the West or of the Indies. The latter was to have almost absolute control over the colony for twenty-five years, enjoying a monopoly of trade, naming the governor and other officers, except the members of the Superior Council. The company obligated itself to send to Louisiana six thousand whites and three thousand blacks. The famous John Law, director general of the bank of France, was the president of the company.

At the end of Crozat's regime, Saint-Denis had laid the foundation of the toAvn of K'atchitoches and had gone to Mexico, where he had had a number of romantic adventures, and had married a beautifiil Mexican girl.

II._THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ORLEANS.

THE WESTERN COMPANY AND THE NATCHEZ WAR.

As soon as the organization of tlie Western Company was completed three ships were sent to Louisiana. They carried soldiers and sixty-nine colonists, and as Gayarre says, "caused the hope of better days to revive in the colony." Bienville was appointed governor for the second time, and in 1718 rendered to Louisiana the greatest service possible by laying the foundation of the present city of NeAv Orleans.

The following extract from Father Charlevoix's Historical Journal is interesting, as it is probably the first letter written from New Orleans that has come down to us. It is addressed to the Duchess of Lesdig^iieres, and is taken from the "Historical Collections" of B. F. French.

" New Orleans, January 10, 1722.

" I am at length arrived in this famous city, which they have called la NouveUe-Orleans. Those who have given it this name, thought that Orleans was of the feminine gender; but what signifies that ? Custom has established it, and that is above the rules of grammar.

" This city is the first, which one of the greatest rivers in the world has seen raised on its banks. If the eight hundred fine houses and the five parishes, which the newspapers gave it some two years ago, are reduced at present to a

hundred barracks, placed in no very great order; to a great storehouse, built of wood ; to two or three houses, which would be no ornament to a village of France; and to the half of a sorry storehouse, which they agreed to lend to the lord of the place, and which he had no sooner taken possession of, but they turned him out to dwell under a tent; what pleasure, on the other side, to see insensibly increasing this future capital of a fine and vast country, and to be able to say, not with a sigh, like the hero of Virgil, speaking of his dear native place consiniied by the flames, and the fields where the city of Troy had been, but full of a well-grounded hope, this wild and desert place, which the reeds and trees do yet almost wholly cover, will be one day, and perhaps that day is not far off, an ojiulent city, and the metropolis of a great and rich colony.

" You will ask me, madam, on what I found this hope ? I found it on tlie situation of this city, at tliirty-three leagues from the sea, and on the side of a navigable river, that one nuiy come up to this place in twenty-four hours; on the fruitfulness of the soil; on the mildness and goodness of its climate, in ?)0° north latitude; on the industry of its inhabitants; on the neighborhood of Mexico, to which we may go in fifteen days by sea; on that of the Havana, which is still nearer: and of the Ena-lish colonies. Need there anvthina; more to render a city flourishing ? Rome and Paris had not such considerable beginnings, were not built under such happy auspices, and their foimders did not find on the Seine and the Tiber the advantages which we have found on the Mississippi, in comparison of which those two rivers are but little brooks."

Although New Oi-leans, in 1722, was composed only of "a hundred barracks," and about 200 inhabitants, Bienville wisely foresaw its great future and tried, as early as 1719, to have the seat of government transferred to the town on the Mississippi. The Superior Council, however, did not share the views of the governor, and decided to transfer the seat of government from Mobile, near Dauphine Island, to Biloxi, which, having been burned by accident, was abandoned for Xcw Biloxi, on the other .«ide of the Bay.

In 1722 tlie news reached Louisiana of the failure of Law's bank, due to an exaggerated emission of paper money based on no tangible security. The colonists feared that Law's failure would interfere with the affairs of the Western Company and induce it to neglect Lcaiisiana. Such was not the case, for there soon arrived in the colony three commissioners charged with the administration of the affairs of the company. The commissioners, in 1723, allowed Bienville to make Xew Orleans the capital of Louisiana. On January 25, 1723, Pauger, the engineer, made an important report concerning the mouth of the river, saying that "he found that ships drawing fourteen, fifteen feet of water, and even more, could pass there easily."

Owing to the failure of Law's bank the financial affairs of the colony were in a wretched condition. The paper money was almost worthless and was ordered to be exchanged for cards, which were soon as worthless. Another result of Law's faihire was the establishment on the Mississippi River, at a short distance from N'ew Orleans, of about foiar hundred Germans, who had been sent to the Arkansas country, but had been compelled to go to Sew Orleans. From these settlers came the name of German Coast.

On February Ifi, 1724, Bienville was ordered to return to France to render an account of his conduct. From the foundation of the colony there had existed serious dissensions between the superior officers in command, and Bienville's enemies were once more successful, as they had been in 1708, in their intrigues against him. During his second administration Bienville had taken Pensacola in 1719 (i-eturned to Spain in l72o), had undertaken a war against the !N"atchez and had defeated them, had issued the Black Code, and had entered into negotiations by which the LTrsuline nuns were to come to Louisiana to instruct the girls in the colony.

I take the liberty to quote here from my "Louisiana Stiidies" the following extracts referring to education in colonial times in Louisiana: " The hundred huts mentioned by Father Charlevoix soon became spacious mansions, which, althoiigh rough looking and unwieldy, contained in their poorly furnished rooms and wide halls elegant gentlemen and ladies and charming children. The parents had been educated in France. Where were the little ones to be instructed ? The wealthy inhabitants sent their sons to the colleges of the mother country, but could girls be separated from their mothers, and what was to be done with the sons of the poor ? A worthy Capuchin monk, Father Cecil, opened a school for boys near his church, and was the first teacher in Louisiana. As for the teachers for girls, Bienville thought of the soeurs grises of his native Canada; but having failed in that direction, he consulted Father Beaubois, superior of the few Jesuits at that time in Louisiana, and was advised by him to procTire the services of the Lh-suline nuns. A treaty was signed on September 13, 1726, between the nuns and the company of the Indies, and Bienville, although he was no longer governor when the Ursulines arrived in Louisiana, is entitled to the honor of being the founder of the first girls' school and of the first hospital in the colony." The hospital was also to be under the charge of the Ursulines.

The nuns, twelve in number, left Lorient, on February 22, 1727, and

r

reached 'New Orleans on August 7, 1727. Their superior was Mother Tranche-pain, and among the sisters was the talented Madeleine Hachard, to whom we owe a charming description of the journey of the nuns, and of Xew Orleans in 1727.

Governor Perier, Bienville's successor, went to meet the nuns on their arrival, and they were given as a residence Bienville's house, where they stayed until 1734. They moved then to their convent on Conde street, later Chartres street, now the palace of the archbishop of New Orleans.

The plan of the new to^vn had been made by chief engineer de la Tour, about whom Dumont says in his Memoir (B. Y. French, "Historical Memoirs"):

" The Sieur de la Tour was no sooner arrived at the place, then consisting only of some unimportant houses, scattered here and there, formed by voyageurs who had come down from Illinois, than he cleared a pretty long and wide strip along the river, to put in execution the plan he had projected. Then, with the help of some piqueurs, he traced on the ground the streets and q\iarters which were to form the new town, and notified all who wished building sites to present their petitions to the council. To each settler who appeared they gave a plot ten fathoms front bv twenty deep, and as each square was fifty fa'thoms front, it gave twelve plots in each, the two middle ones being ten front by twenty-five deep. It Avas ordained that those who obtained these plots should be bound to enclose them with palisades, and leave all around a strip at least three feet wide, at the foot of which a ditch was to be dug, to serve as a drain for the river water in time of inundation. The Sieur de la Tour deemed these canals, commimicat-ing from square to sqiuire, not only absolutely necessary, but even, to preserve the city from inundation, raised in front, near a slight elevation, running to the river, a dike or levee of earth, at the foot of which he dug a similar drain."

Governor Perier arrived in New Orleans in 1725. During his administration a great war with the Indians took place. The Chickasaws had never been very friendly to the French, and the iffatchez seemed restless. Bienville had asked for more troops, and Perier repeated the request when he became governor, but without success. The Indians were led to attack the French by the greed and injustice of the commandant at Fort Rosalie, Ohepart. This vile man ordered the Natchez to abandon one of their finest villages, the White Apple, in order that he might establish a plantation there. The Indian chief succeeded in obtaining, or rather in buying, a delay from him, but the Natchez, henceforth,

ihonght that their safety lay in destroying the French at Fort Rosalie. On Xovemher 28, 1729, the savages snrprised the fort, massacred 200 men and took prisoners a iiumher of women, children, and negro slaves.

On hearing of this disaster Perier made active preparations to attack the ISTatchez. Lesneur induced the Choctaws to ally themselves with the French, and Perier sent Major Loiihois with the main hody of troops to co-operate with Lesiieur. The savage auxiliaries of the latter, however, refused to wait for Loubois's detachment, and attacking the ISTatchez by surprise, killed a number of them and recovered .51 French women and children, two men, and one hundred and six slaves. The Choctaws then dispersed.

The !Natchez intrenched themselves strongly and resisted for some time successfully the attacks of Louhois. Finally they offered to surrender their prisoners, more than two hundred in number, provided the siege were abandoned. These terms were accepted, but the Indians, not trusting the French, managed to escape, leaving their prisoners behind. Some of the Natchez sought refuge among the Chickasaws, while the greater part, led by the Great Sun, retired upon a mound on the Black River.

Governor Perier received some reinforcements from France, and on November 15, 1730, he departed with 650 soldiers, including the militia, and 350 Indian warriors, for the Black River. In this expedition he succeeded in bringing back to New Orleans, on February 5, 1731, 427 captives, including the Great Sim and several chiefs. These Avere sent to San Domingo by Perier and sold as slaves. He had previously allowed to be burned in New Orleans, as a warning, foiir men and two women.

The tribe of the Natchez, now reduced by one-half, was in the summer of 1731 nearly annihilated by the brave Saint-Denis, the commandant at Natchitoches. What remained of the tribe was adopted by the Chickasaws, and the Natchez lost their name. Such was the fate of these Indians, whom Le Page du Pratz praises highly, and who seem to have been far superior in intelligence to the other tribes in Louisiana.

The Natchez war had occasioned heavy expense to the Western Company and had delayed the growth of the colony, therefore the Company begged the King to allow them to surrender their charter. Their petition was granted, and Louisiana became again, in April, 1732, a royal province. It had prospered considerably during the fifteen years it had been under the control of the Western Company. The population in 1732 was 5,000 whites and 2,000

blacks, and trade and agriculture were flourishing. At this period of history ends the colonization of Louisiana. The seed sown by Iberville had friictified, and in sjiite of many vicissitudes, the colony- planted at Biloxi in 169D, was to become the great State of Louisiana, and Bienville's town of one hundred huts was to become the metropolis of the Southern States of the American Union.

III.—THE CHICKASAW WAE, AND THE TEEATY OF FON-

TAINEBLEAIT.

VAUnKEUIL AND KESLEREC.

Bienville was reappointed governor in 1732, and the colonists wore delighted to see him again, but the last administration of that distinguished man was marked with great disasters in the wars with the Indians. The tribes seemed to have been somewhat dissatisfied with Perier, and the latter's successor had a hard task in his dealings with the Indians. We shall follow here Dumont's account of the war with the Chickasaws.

We have seen that the remnant of the Natchez tribe, after their defeat by Saint-Denis, were adopted by the Chickasaws. In 1734 Bienville asked for the surrender of the fugitives, but met with a refusal. He, therefore, prepared to attack the Chickasaws. This tribe was the most warlike in the colony, and had always manifested some hostility against the French. Bienville sent to the Illinois country a convoy of five boats, one loaded with powder and the others with goods, but the commander, Leblanc, left the powder in the Arkansas country, M-ent to the Illinois, and sent for the powder. On the way back the powder was taken by the Indians, and all the Frenchmen in the boat were killed or taken prisoners. Leblanc transmitted the orders of the governor to the chevalier d'Artaguette, commandant of Fort Chartres, and younger brother of the commissary Diron d'Artagniette. The latter was again, at that time, in Louisiana, and was now on bad tenns with the governoi-. The orders to d'Artaguette were to meet Bienville in the Chickasaw country, by May 10, with whatever troops he could gather.

Bienville started from Mobile, by the river, on April 1, 1736, and, on April 20, the army arrived at a place called Tombigby. There they were joined by the Choctaw auxiliaries. Having been detained by rains at Tombigby until

Mav 4tli the exijedition started again, ami on May 25tli reached a place distant seven leagues from the Chickasaw village. They found the Indians in a strongly fortified post, and, although Bienville's troops, both regulars and militia attacked the fort with great bravery, they were repulsed with heavy loss, as they had no material for a siege. Bienville ordered the army to retreat, and returned to jSTew Orleans, where he heard of the sad fate of d'Artaguette.

The commandant at Fort Chartres had obeyed his chief's orders, and had marched into the country of the Chickasaws. Having arrived there before Bienville, and not being supported by the main army of the French, he was defeated by the Indians and forced to surrender. D'Artaguette, Vincennes, Father Senac, a Jesuit missionary, and a number of other Frenchmen were burned at the stake. The unhappy fate of young d'Artaguette struck the inuig-ination of the colonists, and his name has become connected with a proverb in Loi:isiana. In speaking of something very old one says: "Vii'ux cornme du iemps d'Artaguette," "as old as the time of d'Artaguette."

Bienville was very anxious to avenge d'Artaguette's death and to regain his military renown. He did not believe, however, that he had suiScicnt troops to conquer the Chickasaws and he applied to France for reinforcements. The chevalier de Beauharnais, governor of Canada, was ordered to send troops to assist Bienville, and a body of marines arrived from France, commanded by the chevalier Louis d'Ayme de Noailles. The exi>edition was conveyed by the Mississippi, then called St. Louis Kiver, to Fort St. Francis on the St. Francis Eiver, and from there to the Margot Kiver, now Wolf River. The army built a fort called Fort Assumption, near the present city of Memphis, and received at that place large reinforcements. The Sieur de la Buisoniere, successor to the unfortunate d'Artaguette at Fort Chartres, captain de Celoron, and lieutenant de St. Laurent, "followed," says Dumont, "by thirty cadets, sent by the governor of Canada, with a great number of Canada Indians."

" The army of Bienville," says Judge Martin, "numbered about 1200 white troops, and double that number of Indian and black troops." For some unaccountable reason the troops remained at Fort Assumption, at some distance from the Indians, from .\ugiist, 1739, to March, IT-tO, without attacking the enemy. The provisions failed, sickness broke out in the camp, especially among the soldiers recently arrived from France, and Bienville resolved, instead of conquering the Chickasaws, to grant them peace, if they asked for it. He accordingly sent Celoron, Avith his thirty Canadian cadets and his Indian allies, to

advance against the Chickasaws. The hatter, believing that the whole arniv of Bienville was marching to attack them, begged for peace and presented the calumet to Celoron. This commander promised peace, and Bienville ratified the treaty in April, 1740. He gave presents to his Indian allies and dismissed them. The army now returned to New Orleans, after destroying Forts Assumption and St.. Francis. The Chickasaws were never conquered, and they and the Natchez fugitives contiimcd to commit depredations. There was, however, no open war with them after Bienville's unsuccessful expedition.

We have given in detail the war with the Chickasaws, as it was the last expedition undertaken by Bienville. We feel great sorrow at the failure of his last two campaigns, and we cannot understand his apparent mismanagement of the war, as prior to 1736, he had been very successful in his dealings with the Indians. Mortified and grieved at his failure, Bienville asked to be relieved of his conmiand, and on j\Iay 10, 174.'), he returned to France. He was then sixty-two years old and had been about forty-four years in the colony. We V shall see later the Father of New Orleans in Paris, trying, in his old age, to prevent the transfer of his cherished Louisiana to the rule of Spain.

Bienville's successor, the IMarquis de Vaudreuil, was a real grand seigneur, and he has always been remembered in Louisiana for his elegant manners and his sumptuous entertainments. One of his first acts was to keep up the enmity between the Chickasaws and the Choctaws. Red Shoe, a Choctaw chief, gave Vaudreuil great trouble by his restlessness and duplicity. He sided one day with the English, another day with the French, and was ever ready to receive money or provisions from either party. He was the cause of a civil war among the Choctaws, and was finally killed by the party friendly to the French. The different Indian tribes harassed the colonists considerably during Vaudreuil's administration, and among the persons killed by the savages in 1748 was the unfortunate dancing master, Baby, whose loss was deejily mourned in New Orleans.

Vaudreuil belonged to aji influential family and obtained from the French government a large increase in the number of soldiers to serve in Louisiana. He imdertook an expedition against the Chickasaws in 1752, but accomplished little besides burning and devasratiiig their country. The marquis, however, remained in high favor at court and wa^; promoted in 17.t.') to the governorship of Canada. There he displayed great ability and courage in the French wars with the English.

Bossn, a captain of marines, wrote from New Orleans, on July 1, 1751, 'ihat Governor Vandreuil received most hospitably the troops which had come ■from France. He speaks of the inhabitants of Louisiana and says: "One calls Creoles those who are born of a Frenchman and a Fi*enchwoman or of a European woman. The Creoles, in general, are very brave, tall and well made; they liave many dispositions for the arts and the sciences; but as they cannot cultivate them perfectly on account of the scarcity of good teachers, the rich and considerate do not fail to send their children to France, as to the first school in the world, in all things. As to the sex which has no other duty to perform but that of i^leasing, it is born here with tliat advantage and has no need to go to Europe to seek the deceitful art."

As to New Orleans, Bossu says: "That town is situated on the banks of Llie Mississippi, one of the largest rivei's in the world, since it waters more than eight himdred leagues of known countries. Its pure and delicious waters flow for forty leagues, in the midst of a number of plantations, which form a charming sight on its two banks, where one enjoys abundantly the pleasures of hunting, of fishing, and all the oth'er delights of life."

Bossu regrets very much tiie departure of Vaudreuil, and mentions the Litter's successor, Kerlerec, in no flattering terms, saying: "lie has qualities of heart very different from those of his predecessor; but this new governor may give as an excuse that ho did not come so far only for a change of air." It was during Kerhsrec's administration that Villiers, an officer at Fort Chartres of the Illinois, avenged the death of hi: Itrother Jumonville, who was killed at liie Great Meadows in April, IT.j-f. \'illiers attacked Colonel Washington at Port Necessity and oonipellt'd him to surrender on July 4, 17.5-1.

During tlic administration of Kerlerec there were violent disputes between iiim and his commissary ordonnateur, Rochemore, and the colony not only made no progress, but seemed to be retrogradiiig. The unsuccessful wars of Louis XV. hardly allowed any help to be given Louisiana, and the unwise financial policy of tlie government caused great distress in the colony by the instability of tlie currency, ^vhether copper coin, or note or card money. In June, 1761, Rochemore was replaced by Foucault, who was soon to play an important part in (lie history of Louisiana.

The Seven Years' War ended disastrously for France in Europe, Canada, and India, and the wretched and corrupt administration of Louis XV. caused France to lose all her colonies in America and nearly all in India. The loss of

Canada, as Gayarre expresses it so well, "caused a painful emotion in Louisiana, which was bound to it by so many ties, and which, for such a long time, had formed a dependency of Canada. A vague presentment made the colonists fear a change of domination. Indeed, on K^ovember 13, 1762, the King of Spain accepted, by a secret treaty, the gift which the King of France made to him of Louisiana."

Louis XV. ceded "by the pure effect of the generosity of his heart" H- * * "^]j ^Yie country known by the name of Louisiana as well as New Orleans, and the island in which that town is situated." The King of France was desirous to give to his cousin of Spain a proof of the great intei'est he took in his welfare, and was touched by the sacrifices made by his Catholic Majesty to bring about peace. This shameful treaty was signed at Fontainebleau by Grimaldi for Spain and Choiseul for France. It is a pity that the latter affixed his signature to such a disgraceful State paper. Choiseul was one of the few able ministers of Louis XV., and he had, by his "Family Compact," imited all tTie different branches of the Bourbons, and made France powerful again in Europe, in spite of Rosbach and other defeats. When Madame Du Barry caused the fall of Choiseul in 1770, the doom of the monarchy was sealed, and Louis XV. could truly say: "After me the deluge."

IV.—THE REVOLUTION OF OCTOBER, 1768.

III.LOA, AUBEY, AND I.AFRENIEEE.

The treaty of Fontainebleau was kept secret, and, on February 10, 1763, the shameful treaty of Paris was signed. Louis XV. ceded to Gi-eat Britain, by article 7, the river and port of Mobile and all the possessions on the left bank of the Mississippi, with the exception of the town of New Orleans and the island in which it is situated. Spain, in its turn ceded to Great Britain Florida, called later West Florida, with the fort of St. Augustine and the bay of Pensacola, and all the country to the east and south-east of the Mississippi

The King of France continued to act as possessor of Louisiana, as the treaty of Fontainebleau was still kept secret. On June 29, 1763, d'Abbadie arrived in New Orleans with the title of director general, and Kerlerec returned to France where he was thro^m into the Bastille on his ai-rival in Paris. In

1764 d'Abbadie obtained for Braud an exclusive privilege to establish a printing press and to sell books in the colony. Braud's press was soon to be of great value to the colonists in their heroic struggle in 1768 against Spanish oppression.

In October, 1764, d'Abbadie received an official communication from the French court announcing the cession to Spain. Louisiana was to pass from the domination of Louis XV. to that of Charles III. If it had not been the fact of their being handed over like cattle by one master to another, the Louisianians should have felt relieved to be no longer the subjects of the infamous King who had been the cause of so many disasters to France. Charles III., of Spain, was a far better man and an abler ruler than the Bourbon at Versailles.

On February 4, 1765, d'Abbadie died, much regi'etted by every one in Louisiana, and Aubry succeeded him as commandant or governor. The name of the latter is imfortunately connected with the saddest event in our historj'. When the colonists heard in October, 1764, of the cession to Spain, they were thrown into consternation and despair. They were greatly attached to France, and a number of them had left the part of the province ceded to England, in order to remain Frenchmen. A meeting was held in New Orleans of delegates from every parish, and Lafreniere, the attorney general, made a speech in which he suggested that a petition be sent to the King begging him not to give them away to another nation. The colonists were not aware of the infamy of the King, and they hoped that he would be touched by their expressions of devotion and love. Jean Milhet, the wealthiest merchant in New Orleans, was sent to France as the representative of the Louisianians.

As soon as Milhet arrived in Paris he went to see Bienville, who was then eighty-four years old. This venerable and distinguished man called with Mil-bet on Choiseul, M-ho received them kindly, but did not allow them to see the King. Milhet failed in his endeavors, and Bienville had the sorrow to see his beloved Louisiana become a Spanish province. Milhet announced his failure to his compatriots, but the latter had begun to hope that Spain would not take possession of the colony. On July 10, 1765, however, Don Antonio de Ulloa wtote from Havana to Aubry that he had been appointed governor of Louisiana, and he arrived in New Orleans on March 5, 1766.

The Spanish King had certainly not appeared very anxious to take possession of his new dominion. More than three years had elapsed, from the date of the secret treaty of Fontainebleau, by which France had ceded Louisiana to

Spain, before a Spanish official appeared in the colony, and when that official did arrive he came nearly alone and did not assume authority in a piiblic manner. However, Aubry recognized him as the representative of the King of Spain, and issued orders in the latter's name. Ulloa had with him only two companies of infantry, composed of ninety men, and the French soldiers in Louisiana refused to enter the service of Spain, claiming that the time of their enlistment had expired. The Spanish governor, therefore, delayed taking possession officially until he should have more troops to sustain his authority.

The condition of affairs was very unfortunate; for Ulloa's orders, issued through Auhi-y, did not api>ear binding on the inhabitants, and merely irritated ihem. Such was the case, especially with an ordinance dated September 6, 1766, by which no merchants were allowed to sell their goods in the colony before they had submitted their prices to the inspection of "just and intelligent" persons, who would judge whether the prices asked were excessive or not. The jnerehants of Xew Orleans protested against this ordinance and begged the Su-]>erior Council not to allow it to be enforced before they could be heard on the bubject. It is evident that the inhabitants were opposed to every act of Ulloa's nnd to the cession to Spain. The governor was a man of merit, a distinguished scientist, but lacked tact as a ruler of people opjiosed to a change of domination, and who should have been treated with the greatest gentleness. Ulloa treated tlie inhabitants with haughtiness and acted certainly in a strange manner, when he remained at the Balize, at the mouth of the ilississippi, for seven months, to await his Peruvian bride, and never went once in the mean time to New Orleans. The colonists were justified in not submitting to his rule and in asking for his withdrawal from the country.

Jean Milhet returned froui I"ranee at almnt that time, and the narrative of his failure caused in the colony an excitement which brought about the great event known as the Iu'volntio)i 'if ITfiS. Lafveiiiere was at the head of the movement, and chief among his lieutenants were Villere, Marquis, Caresse, Noyan, Milhet, Doucet, ifazent. Petit and Boisblanc. At a meeting held in Xew Orleans Lafreniere made a magniiicent speech, of which our historian, Gayarre, says: "There is a passage in Lafrcniere's address of which Louisiana may well be proud, and of which she can boast, as spoken by one of her children, in 1768, before the voice of 1776 was heard. In proportion, said he, to the extent boHi of commerce and population, is the solidity of thrones: both are fed bv liberty and competition, which are the nairsing mothers of the State,

of which the spirit of monopoly is the tyrant and stepmother. Without liberty there ai-e but few virtues. Despotism breeds pusillanimity, and deepens the abyss of vices. Man is considered as sinning before God only because he retains his free will."

After hearing Lafreniere's bold and eloquent words, 560 of the most influential inhabitants signed a petition asking the Superior Council to expel Ulloa from the colony. Immediately all the inhabitants took up arms. The Germans were led by Villere and the Acadians by Marquis, and from all the parishes brave and resolute men assembled in New Orleans. The Superior Council, on October 29, 176S, ordered Ulloa to show his powers or to leave the colony of which he pretended to be governor. He withdrew on board a ship at anchor in the river, but at daybreak some young men who were returning from a wedding, cut the cables of the vessel on which was Ulloa. The Spaniard was thus exjjelled and a revolution had taken place.

Brand, the King's printer, printed a long memoir of the planters and merchants of Louisiana, about the event of October, 1768. It is one of the most important and interesting documents in our history. The colonists do not prove their case fully against Ulloa, but one sees in their memoir their bitter opposition to the rule of Spain, to the rule of the foreigner. Their spirit was patriotic, and the Louisianians of to-day should admire their feelings and be proud of their heroism. Foucault and Aubry played an unenviable part in these events and may be considered informers, although the commissary Foucault was one of the participants in the revolution.

On December 14, 1768, the inhabitants petitioned the Council to order the expulsion of the Spanish frigate, which had remained in the river, and the frigate finally left the country on April 20, 1769. The colonists had been most persistent in their opposition to everything Spanish. Aiibry, the representative of the French King, protested against these acts of violence, but the Louisianians still hoped to induce Louis XV. to remain their sovereign. They sent again to France as delegates St. Lette and J^e Sassier, who were not more successful than Milhet had been formerly. It was now known that Louis had disowned forever his subjects in Louisiana, and the latter thought of proclaiming a republic on the banks of the Mississippi. "Tliere is no doubt," says Gayarre, "but that the colonists would have eagerly adopted this form of government, had it been possible at tlie time, for it must be recollected that from the earliest existence of the colony, almost all its governors had uniformly complained of the

reirablican spirit whic-li tliej had observed in the inhabitants." Our ancestors were evidently mistaken in their noble efforts, and their plans were but a dream, for how M'ere they to resist the power of the King of Spain, with a population of 12,000 souls, of whom half were slaves ? "But," says Gayarre again, "they nevertheless bequeathed to their posterity the right of claiming for Louisiana the merit of having been the first Eiiropean colony that entertained the design of proclaiming her independence."

When the news of the event of October, 1708, was known in Spain, it was decided to leave the country, decided to remain. On August 18, 1769, the was to be maintained and that troops would be sent to subdue the rebels. Don Alejandro O'Keilly was appointed governor and captain-general of the province of Louisiana, and he arrived at the Balize, on July 23, 1769, on a frigate, accompanied by twenty-eight transports, having 4,500 soldiers on board. The news of O'Reilly's arrival was carried to K^ew Orleans by Don Francisco Bouligny and was received with great consternation. "Resistance," says Mar-ti*n, "was spoten of." The inhabitants decided to send three representatives to O'Eeilly in order to tell him that they had decided to abandon the colony and wished no other favor from him, but to be allowed two years in which to prepare for iheir departure. The Spanish governor received very politely the delegates, who were Lafreniere, Marquis, and Milhet, and assured them, says Martin, "that all past transactions would be buried in oblivion, and all who had offended should be forgiven." The delegates reported O'Reilly's word to their countrymen, and all were quieted. Those who had already taken up arms and gone to jSTew Orleans returned to their homes, and a number of persons who had decided by the council of the King that the authority of Eis Catholic Majesty Spanish troops landed on the levee at New Orleans, and the same afternoon the French flag was lowered from a mast in the Place d'Armes, and the Spanish flag took its place. O'Reilly attended a Te Deum in the cathedral, and Spain took thus formal possession of Louisiana.

v.—THE RULE OF SPAIIs'.

o'reu.ly, unzaga^ and galvez.

General O'Reilly asked of Aubry a narrative of what had taken place in October, 1768, and the French governor had the weakness or the cowardice to act as informer against his own countrymen. Nothing required that he should

give any information to O'Keilly. As soon as the latter had taken possession of the province, in the name of Spain, Aubry's duties as governor ceased, and he should have tried to protect men whose sole crime was that they had made earnest efforts to remain Frenchmen. Posterity must certainly judge Aubry severely for his conduct in 1768 and until his departure from Louisiana in 1770. O'Reilly seemed unwilling for several days to take any action with regard to the events leading to UUoa's expulsion, when suddenly, at the end of August, 1769, he caused to be arrested, Lafreniere, Foucault, Noyan, and Bois-blanc, members of the Superior Coimcil, and Brand, the printer, while these gentlemen were at his o\\ti house attending his levee. Shortly afterwards, Marquis, an officer in the troops, Doucet, a lawyer, Petit and Mazant, planters, Jean and Joseph Milhet, Caresse, and Poupet, merchants, were arrested.

Joseph Villere, whom O'Reilly wished also to arrest, was on his plantation on the German Coast, and was about to go to the English possessions when he received a letter from Aubry saying that he had nothing to fear fi'om O'Reilly and that he could come to New Orleans in perfect safety. Bossu, who was a contemporary of Villere, relates the latter's death in the following manner: "M. de Villere, confiding in his assurance (Aubry's), descended the river to go to New Orleans. What was his surprise, when on presenting himself at the barriers, he saw himself arrested I Sensitive to this outrage, he could not moderate his indignation. In a first transport, he struck the Spanish officer who commanded the post. The latter's soldiers threw themselves upon him and pierced him with bayonets. He was carried on board a frigate, which was at the port, and died a few days afterwards." Judge Martin gives a different account of Villere's death, but Bossii's narrative is more likely the true one. Champagny, also a contemporary of Villere, gives about the same account as Bossu and praises highly the patriotic Louisianian.

Let us now see what was the fate of Villere's companions. Foucault claimed that as he was acting as an officer of the King of France he was accountable only to that monarch for his actions. He was sent to France, where he was at first thrown into the Bastille, but afterwards released and given an office in the East Indies. Braud claimed that, being the official printer, he was bound to print whatever Foucault, the commissary, ordered him to print. He was discharged. The other prisoners denied the jiirisdiction of O'Reilly's court and argued that they had committed no act of insubordination against Spain, as Ulloa had never exhibited his powers. The tribunal, however, condemned

Petit to imprisonment for life, Mazant and Doucet to imprisonment for ten years, Boisblanc, Jean Milhet and Poupet to imprisonment for six years. They were all transported to Havana and imprisoned in Moro Castle. Lafreniere, N^oyan, his son-in-law, and a nephew of Bienville, Caresse, Marquis and Joseph Milhet were condemned to death and ordered to be hanged. As, however, no one could be found to act as hangman, the five heroic men were shot by Spanish soldiers on October 25, 1769.

The following lines from Judge Martin's ''History of Louisiana" are very Important when we consider the judicial and impartial mind of the author: "Posterity, the judge of men in power, will doom this act to public execration. iN'o necessity demanded, no policy justified it. Ulloa's conduct had provoked the measures to which the inhabitants had resorted. During nearly two years he had haunted the province as a phantom of dubious authority. The efforts of the colonists, to prevent the transfer of their natal soil to a foreign prince, originated in their attachment to their own, and the Catholic King ought to have beheld in their conduct a pledge of their future devotion to himself. They had but lately seen their country severed, and a part of it added to the dominion of Great Britain; they had bewailed their separation from their friends and kindred; and were afterwards to be alienated, without their consent, and subjected to a foreign yoke. If the indiscretion of a few needed an apology, the common misfortune afforded it."

Judge Martin is right. Nothing can excuse O'Reilly's cruelty. Spain was powerful enough to be generous, and Charles III. would have pardoned those men, whose sole crime was to have loved liberty and France, the country which had placed the Spanish crown upon the brow of Philip) V., the father of Charles III.

O'Reilly abolished the Superior Council and substituted to it a Cabildo, composed of six perpetual regidors, two ordinary alcades, an attorney-general-syndic, and a clerk. The Cabildo was presided over by the governor in person. The laws of Spain were also substituted to those of France, and O'Reilly issued a number of ordinances on subjects concerning the province of Louisiana and the city of Xew Orleans. He returned to Spain in the summer of 1770, leaving a name which has been handed dowTi to posterity for execration. Aubry, who may be called O'Reilly's accomplice, perished in 1770 by shipwreck in the Gironde

River.

Don Luis de Unzaara succeeded O'Reillv as governor, and his administra-

tion was mild and paternal, as well as that of every Spanish governor after him, to the end of the Spanish Domination. The winter of 1772 was extremely severe, and in the summer following there arose a hnrricane which did great liavoc on the sea coast. During Unaaga's administration the War of the American Kevolution began, and the governor of Louisiana gave help to the colonists in their struggle for independence by conniving at the purchase in New Orleans of arms and ammunition for the Americans. Unzaga acted also with great wisdom in not applying too strictly the regulations by which the trade of the inhabitants of Louisiana were contined to a few Spanish ports. He tacitly allowed some trade with the English colonists. He was a man of liberal ideas and acted with tact and moderation at the time of the celebrated quarrel between the French and Spanish Capuchins, which Gayarre has related in such an interesting manner in liis History of Louisiana, where we learn to love good Father Dagobert.

On February 1, 1777, Don Bernardo de Galvez entered on his duties as governor, and his heroism and admirable character rendered the Spanish Domination popular. Galvez was about twenty-one years old and belonged to an in-fliiential famil}-. His father was Viceroy of Mexico and his uncle President of the Coimcil of the Indies. At the beginning of his administration more freedom was allowed the colonists in their commerce with Spain and other countries, and aid was openly given the American Revolutionists. Their agent, Oliver Pollock, received from Galvez about seventy thousand dollars to buy arms and ammunition. Spain declared war against Great Britain on May 8, 1779, and on July 8, 1779, the American subjects of Charles III. were authorized to take part in the war. Galvez resolved immediately to capture Baton Kouge. On Aiigust 27 he left 'Rew Orleans on his expedition. He had a small fleet, composed of one schooner and three gunboats, and an army of 1,430 men, including veterans, militiamen, eighty free men of color, recruits and 160 Indians. Galvez captured Fort Manchac on the way and arrived at Baton Kouge on September 7. His army was anxious to take the fort by storm, but the Spanish governor would not risk the lives of his men uselessly and resolved to open trenches and besiege the place. On September 21, 1779, the English commander surrendered the fort at Baton Bouge and also Fort Panmure at Natchez. During the whole campaign the Creoles behaved with distinguished gallantry. The expedition of Galvez against Baton Bouge inspired Julien Poydras, who wrote an epic poem on the exploits of the heroic young governor. Poydras's poem is the earliest

work in the French literature of Louisiana, and on that account it is very interesting. The author, however, is better known in our history as a statesman and a philanthropist than as a poet.

After the capture of Baton Rouge in 1779, Galvez left New Orleans in January, 1780, to undertake the conquest of Mobile. He sailed from the Balize on February 5, with an army of 2,000 men, and in spite of a terrific storm which greatly hampered and delayed him, he landed his army on the eastern point of Mobile River. General Campbell, the English commander at Pensa-cola, might have destroyed the Spanish army had he attacked them with a large force in their disorganized condition. He allowed Galvez, however, to erect six batteries and to capture Fort Charlotte before the English army appeared. The fall of Fort Charlotte, on March 14, 1780, gave Mobile to the Spanish, and Pen-sacola was now the only important town in the possession of the British in Florida.

Galvez determined to capture Pensaeola, and went to Havana to obtain reinforcements. He sailed from Havana on October 16, 1780, but lost some of his transports in a storm, and returned to Havana on jSIovember 16. He sailed again on February 28, 1781, says Judge Martin, "with a man-of-war, two frigates and several transports, on board of which were fourteen hundred and fifteen soldiers, a competent train of artillery and abundance of ammunition. The fleet was commanded by Don Joseph Cabro de Jrazabal."

The troops were landed on March 9 on the Island of St. Rosa, and Galvez asked Jrazabal to cross the bar with his fleet. This the commodore was unwilling to do, as his own ship had got aground on attempting to cross the bar. Galvez, therefore, resolved to cross the bar with the small fleet under his immediate command: the brig Galvezton, commanded by Rousseau, from New Orleans; a schooner commanded by Riano, and two gimboats. The governor went on board the brig, and his small fleet crossed the bar, in spite of a brisk firing from the English. Jrazabal allowed then his fieet to cross, and this was done with success, Galvez remaining in a boat in the midst of the firing until the last vessel had anchored in safety.

Fort George, which protected Pensaeola, was attacked by the fleet and by the land troops from Mobile and from New Orleans. Owing to an accident, the blowing up of a magazine in one of the redoubts, a passage was opened in the fort, and the English commander capitulated on May 9, 1781. By this capitulation the province of West Florida was acquired by Spain. The wars of Galvez

had been most brilliant, and did great honor to him and to the troops from Louisiana. The latter, by defeating the British at Baton Kouge, at Mobile and at Pensacola, aided the Americans and reallly took part in the glorious war waged for American independence.

While Galvez was distinguishing himself at Pensacola and was conquering a province for Spain, the inhabitants near Natchez raised the British standard, besieged Fort Panmure and captured it. They had counted on the defeat of Galvez at Pensacola, but when they heard of his success they feared the fate of O'Eeilly's victims, and determined to emigrate to Georgia. They started with their wives and children, and after great sufferings some of them succeeded in reaching Savannah. Ih August, 1780, Louisiana was visited by a dreadful hurricane, and disastrous immdations took place. The inhabitants suffered also from the loss of the trade carried on by the British traders on the Mississippi, and Galvez obtained from the Spanish government important privileges for the commerce of the province. The governor, says Gayarre, " had recommended that Loiiisiana be granted the privilege of free trade witli all the ports of Europe and America. But neither the Court of Madrid, nor the spirit of the age, was disposed to go so far."

The following extract from Judge Martin's "History of Louisiana," quoted also by Gayarre, is highly important:

"The preliminary articles of peace between Great Britain, France and Spain were signed at Paris on the twentieth of January, 1783.

"The definitive treaties between Great Britain, the LTnited States and Spain were signed at Paris on the third day of September.

" By the first, the King of Great Britain acknowledged the indeijendenee of the United States, and recognized as their southern boundary a line to be drawn due east from a point in the river Mississippi, in the latitude of thirty-one degrees, north of the equator, to the middle of the river Apalachicola or Cata-ouche; thence along the middle thereof to its junction with Flint river; thence straight to the head of St. Mary's river, and thence down along the middle of St. Mary's river to the Atlantic Ocean.

"The description of this line is important, as it became the dividing one between the possessions of Spain and the United States."

"By the eighth article it was expressly provided that the navigation of the Mississippi, from its source to the gulf, should forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States. By the sec-

end, Great Britain warranted the province of West Florida, and ceded that of East Florida to Spain."

The -winter of 1784 was extremely severe; so much so, that on February 13, 1784, "the Avhole bed of the river, in front of New Orleans, Avas filled np with fragments of ice, the size of most of which was from twelve to thirty feet, with a thickness of two to three. This mass of ice was so compact that it formed a field of four hundred yards in width, so that all communication was interrupted for five days between the two banks of the Mississippi."

The conduct of Galvez, in the war against the British, was so highly appreciated in Spain that he was made lieutenant-general, .and in 1785 captain-general of the Island of Cuba, of the province of Louisiana and of the two Floridas. The same year he succeeded his father as viceroy of Mexico, where he died in 1794, aged thirty-eight. Like his predecessor, IJuzaga, he had married a Creole lady, a native of Louisiana, of French origin. Galvez is certainly one of the most romantic and chivalric characters to be seen in the history of colonial Lou-

YL—THE RULE OF SPAIN.

MIRO, CAEONDELET^ AND GAYOSO DE LEMOS.

By a census taken in 1785, we see that the population of New Orleans was 4,980 souls, and that of the whole province, 32,114. In 1785 Don Estevan Miro succeeded Galvez as provisional governor, and in 1786 he received his commission of governor, civil and military, of Louisiana and West Florida. He issued then his hando de huen gohierno, which was a proclamation equivalent to the inaugural address of our American governors. He had, in 1785, received the commission of Juez de Residcncm, or Judge of Residence, to inquire into the acts of Governor Unzaga. In the jurisprudence of Spain residence designates an inquiry into the official conduct of a functionary who is no longer in office, whether by death or otherwise.

In 1785 a number of Acadian families came to Louisiana and settled chiefly among the other Acadians who had arrived in 1765 and had established themselves on the Mississippi, on Bayou Lafourche, and in the Attakapas country. Some of the Arcadians went to Terre-aux-Boeufs, where were the Islenos, or Canary Islanders, whom Galvez had brought over in 1779.

During Miro's administration the growing poAver of the United States began to alarm Sjiain, and Navarro, the intendant, suggested that the dismemberment of the West be attempted, and Judge ilartin says that there existed in the western country no less than five pai'ties, with the following views:

"The first was for independence of the United States, and the formation of a new republic, unconnected with them, which was to enter into a treaty with Spain.

"Another party was willing that the country should become a part of the province of Louisiana, and submit to the admission of the laws of Spain.

"A third desired a war with Spain, and the seizure of New Orleans.

"A fourth plan was to prevail on Congress, by a show of preparation for war, to extort from the cabinet of Madrid what it persisted in refusing.

"The last, as vninnatural as the second, was to solicit France to procure a retrocession of Louisiana, and extend her protection to Kentucky."

All these plans gave rise to a number of intrigues, to the end of the Spanish Domination in Louisiana, and Governor Miro and his successors were busily engaged in planning a policy which might check the encroachments of the already powerful Americans. The Spanish governors were wise and able statesmen, but in spite of all their efforts the Mississippi river was soon to become an American stream, from its source to its mouth.

The progress of New Orleans was checked, on March 21, 1788, by a terrible conflagration which destroyed nearly nine hundred buildings, among which were the cathedral, the convent of the Capuchins, the arsenal and the public prison. A census taken in 1788 showed a considerable increase in population in three years. New Orleans was found to have 5,388 inhabitants, and the whole province, 42,611. In 1789 the foundation of a new cathedral was laid. The church was built by the munificence of Don Andres Almonester, who was soon afterwards buried there, near the principal altar. The cathedral of 1789 was pulled doAvn in 1850, and a new edifice was erected.

Charles III. died on December 14, 1788, and was succeeded by Charles IV., a weak and incompetent king. Soon after his accession Father Antonio de Se-della was sent by his spiritual superiors to Louisiana as a representative of the Inquisition, with the purpose of introducing this tribunal. Governor Miro, however, had the commissary of the Inquisition arrested at night, put on board a vessel and taken to Spain. Father Antonio de Sedella returned later to Louisiana and became a great favorite with all. "Pere Antoine," as he was fondly called, will long be remembered in New Orleans.

In 1791 an insurrection of the negroes brok out at San Domingo, and many excellent people took refuge in Louisiana. Some opened schools, and a troupe of comedians from Cape Frangois opened a theatre in New Orleans. French was almost entirely the language of the inliabitants of the colony, and the Spanish language, Miro reported, was hardly used except in courts of justice in New Orleans. In the Spanish school there were only a few children, while in the French schools there were four hundred students. Miro's administration ended in 1791; he returned to Spain, where he became mariscal de campo, or lieutenant-general. He was not as brilliant as Galvez, but he was firm and gentle and highly honorable. He followed the example of Unzaga and Galvez, and married a native of Louisiana. Many of the Spanish officials were likewise conquered by the charming Creole girls.

The Earon de Carondelet succeeded Miro on December 30, 1791, and was also an able official. His administration was marked by a number of internal improvements, among which may be mentioned the lighting of New Orleans and the employment of watchmen. To meet these charges, "a tax of one dollar and twelve and a half cents," says Martin, "was laid on every chimney." The new governor continued Miro's policy with regard to allowing trade between Philadelphia and New Orleans, in spite of contrai-y instructions from Spain. The Spanish government finally approved this measure.

The great events of the French Kevolution exerted an influence in Louisiana, and the colony was tlirown into considerable agitation by the news of the execution of Louis XVI. on January 21, 1793. The republican spirit of the Louisianians was aroused, and sympathy with the French republic was openly manifested. Carondelet had six individuals arrested and sent to Havana, where they were imprisoned for twelve months.

In order to guard against any insurrection or any foreign attack, the governor had new fortifications erected around New Orleans. Forts, redoubts, batteries and palisades were erected, and deep ditches were dug. The friendship of the Indians was also secured by an offensive and defensive treaty made with the Chickasaws, the Creeks, the Talapouches, the Cherokees and the Alibamons, and twenty thousand Indians, it was thought, could be opposed, if needed, to the Americans.

On December 8, 179-1, another conflagration did immense harm in New Orleans, but fortunately the new cathedral, built by Don Andres Almonester, was not destroyed. In the year 1794 "Le MonUeur de la Louisiane" was pub-

lished; it was the first newspaper in Louisiana, and its appearance indicated that new ideas were penetrating the colony. Indeed, French Jacobins, in Philadelphia, circulated in Louisiana an address in which the colonists were urged to establish an independent government. At the same time the French minister to the United States, Grenet, endeavored to prepare an expedition in the West against the Spanish possessions. His principal agent in Kentucky was Auguste de la Chaise, a native of Louisiana, and a man of great intrepidity and energy. Genet's schemes, however, were frustrated by Washington, and Carondelet began again to intrigue for the separation of the West from the United States.

The year 1794 was marked by the cultivation of the sugar cane by Etienne de Bore, whose plantation was about six miles above New Orleans. The sugar cane was introduced by the Jesuits in 1751, and Mendez and Solis, of Terre-aux-Boeufs, were the first to cultivate it on a large scale. They made syrup from the juice and a liquor called taffia. The indigo plant was attacked by an insect, and the chief crop of the colonists failed. Etienne de Bore resolved to undertake to cultivate the cane and to manufacture sugar. His friends and relatives attempted to dissuade him from his enterprise, but he persevered, and in 1795 he made a crop of sugar which brought twelve thousand dollars. Bore's success was a great event, and the sugar cane was afterwards cultivated extensively in_ Louisiana.

The Baron de Carondelet conceived the plain of digging a navigable canal in the rear of the city, communicating with Bayou St. John, and with the help of the inhabitants the canal was completed in 1796. The Cabildo named it "Canal Carondelet," in honor of the energetic governor.

On October 20, 1795, a treaty was signed between the United States and Spain, and Monette mentions the most important articles in his "History of the Valley of the J\[ississippi" as follows:

"The second article stipulates that the future boundary between the United States and the Floridas shall be the thirty-first parallel of north latitude, from the Mississippi eastward to the Chattahoochy river; thence along a line running due east, from the mouth of Flint river to the head of St. Mary's river, and thence down the middle of that river to the Atlantic Ocean. The fourth article stipulates that the middle of the Mississippi river shall be the western boundary of the L^nited States from its source to the intersection of the said line of denuir-cation. The King of Spain also stipulates that the whole width of said river, from its source to the sea, shall be free to the people of the United States."

On October 13, 1795, there happened a curious incident in Louisiana: a French privateer, "La Parisienne," captured the Balize and held it until October 21, 1795. In the year 1796 Carondelet succeeded in having the city of New Orleans lighted and patrolled. He had eighty lamps placed in the streets and formed a police force of thirteen serenos or watchmen. It seems that his project mentioned above had not yet been realized.

In 1796 the French general, CoUot, visited the colony, but Carondelet had him arrested. He treated him with great politeness in jSTew Orleans, and sent him to the Balize, where the general was glad to embark for Philadelphia, after a stay of nearly two months at the mouth of the Mississipi>i.

In 1797 Carondelet was appointed president of the Koyal Audience of Quito, and left Louisiana, which he had governed with great ability. During his administration in 1794, says Judge Martin, "the Pope divided the bishopric of Havana, and the provinces of Louisiana, East and West Florida were erected into a distinct one. Don Louis de Penalvert, provisor and vicar-general of the Bishop of Havana, was called to the new see, and established his cathedral in jSTew Orleans."

The Baron de Carondelet was succeeded by Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos on August 1,1797. In 1798 the Duke of Orleans visited New Orleans with his brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and the Count of Beaujolais. These princes were then in exile, and no one could have predicted that the Duke of Orleans, who was a fugitive from his country in 1798, would become King Louis Philippe in 1830.

Governor Gayoso de Lemos died on July 25, 1799. The military administration was assumed by Col. Francisco Bouligny, and the civil and political administration by Don Jose Maria Yidal. The Spanish governors of Louisiana, after Gayoso de Lemos, were Casa Calvo, from 1799 to 1801, and Salcedo, from 1801 to 1803. We shall now relate how France took back Louisiana from Spain, and how Napoleon sold the colony to the United States.

ViI._THE TREATY OF ST. ILDEPHONSO, AND THE CESSION TO

THE UNITED STATES.

We have just said that Casa Calvo was governor of Louisiana in 1800. In that year a great event was preparing for the colony, and Bonaparte was the man who was to bring it about. After his glorious campaigns of 1796 and 1797 he

had gone to Eg;v-pt, and, in spite of the dcstriic-tioii of his fleet at Aboukir, he had won great victories, and had returned to France in 1799. On the 18th Brumaire (ISTovember 9, 1799), lie overthrew the Directory and established the Consulate. The first consul accomplished even greater exploits than General Bonaparte, and his campaign of 1800 is really wonderful. He collected a large army and threw it suddenly over the Alps into Italy, and at Marengo, on June 18, 1800, he crushed the Austrian army. Peace with Austria soon followed the battle of Marengo, and there was a fair prospect of making peace with England. The First Consul wished then to revive the colonial empire of France, and he thought of Louisiana, which h'ad been ceded to Spain by Louis XV. On October 1, 1800, by the treaty of St. Ildephonso, the King of Spain, Charles IV., retroceded Louisiana to France on condition that the Duchy of Tuscany be given to the Duke of Parma, who would receive the title of King of Etruria. The dvike was the son-in-law of Charles IV., and the Spanish Bourbon, for a selfish purpose, returned to France the gift made to Charles III. by the French Bourbon, Louis XV., the most selfish and corrupt of Kings. The treaty was kept secret, as peace had not yet been signed with England.

In June, 1801, Don Juan Manuel de Salcedo arrived in Louisiana to succeed Casa Calvo as governor. Preliminaries of peace were signed between France and England on October 1, 1801, and the treaty of cession of Louisiana to France became known in the United States. The news caused great excitement in the West and in the colony itself. Kobert E. Livingston was sent as minister to prance in 1801, and, together with Rufus King in London and Pinck-ney in Madrid, attended to the Louisiana matter. The French government gave no definite information about the subject, but when the peace of Amiens was signed between France and England on March 25, 1802, the First Consid began to prepare for the occtipation and government of Louisiana. Livingston, however, continued his negotiations, and on September 1, 1802, he predicted, in a dispatch to Madison, then Secretary of State, that ultimately the United States would obtain possession of Louisiana. He had a conversation with Joseph Bonaparte, in which he suggested that Louisiana be returned to Spain, and the Flori-das and Xew Orleans be given to the United States for the debt due by France. The First Consul did not send his expedition to Louisiana during the year 1802, and the agitation about the question became so intense that President Jefferson, in a message to Congress on December 15, 1802, called attention to the cession of Louisiana to France, and in January, 1803, James ilonroe was sent to that

country as envoy-extraordinary. In Congress some of the members were in favor of violent measures; that is to say, they favored taking possession of jSTew Orleans by force, as that port had lately been closed to the Americans.

In the meantime, Livingston continued urging on the French government the policy of selling to the United States New Orleans and the Floridas, and finally Tallyrand asked, "What we would give for the whole ?" Negotiations with Tallyrand were not successful, and on April 13, 1803, Bonaparte sent Barbe Marbois, his Secretary of the Treasury, says Livingston, to refer again to the Louisiana matter. The First Consul, according to Marbois, was willing to give the whole country to the United States for one hundred millions of francs. The reason of this offer of Bonaparte's was that the treaty of Amiens was about to be broken, and the great general who ruled over France knew that he would not be able to retain Louisiana in case of war with England. He was, therefore, anxious to sell Louisiana, as he was in need of money for his coming war with Great Britain.

The treaty of cession to the United States was signed on April 30, 1803. The Americans were to pay eighty millions of francs, of which twenty millions ■were to be assigned to the payment of the debt due by France to the citizens of the United States. Article 3 of the treaty was prepared by Bonaparte himself, and the Louisianians should be gi-ateful to him for having provided with so much foresight for their future happiness. The article is as follows: "The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they profess."

The first Consul added, says Marbois: "Let the Louisianians know that we part from them with regret; that we stipulate in their favor everything that they can desire, and let them, hereafter, happy in their independence, recollect that they were Frenchmen, and tliat France, in ceding them, has secured for them advantages which they could not have obtained from an European power, however j)aternal it might have been. Let them retain for us sentiments of affection, and may their common origin, descent, language and customs perpetxiate the friendship." Bonaparte said also: "This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the Ignited States, and I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later Iniiiible her pride."

The sale of the province to the United States was communicated to the British government, and in reply, says Gayarre, Lord Ilawkesbury said: "I have received His Majesty's commands to express to you the pleasure with which His Majesty has received this intelligence." England was satisfied, but Spain was not, and the Spanish minister protested against the transfer to the United States. Livingston and Monroe had done more than they had been asked to do when they agreed to buy from France the whole of Louisiana.

The question now came up whether the Floridas were included in the cession, and the American negotiators contended that Louisiana extended, at the time of the cession to France in 1800, to the Perdido river. The treaty with the United States stipulated as follows: "The colony or province of Louisiana is ceded by France to the United States, with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully and in the same manner as they have been acquired by the French Republic, by virtue of the third article of the treaty concluded v/ith His Catholic Majesty on the 1st of October, 1800." There was an obscure point in the treaty, the Florida question, and the First Consul made the remark "that if an obscurity did not already exist, it would perhaps be good policy to put one there." President Jefferson informed Congi-ess of the treaty on April 30, 1803, and after long discussions the treaty was ratified and a bill was passed for the government of the' new territory.

While the events leading to the purchase of Louisiana were taking place in France, Laussat, the colonial prefect, arrived in New Orleans, on March 2G, 1803. He announced the cession from Spain to France, and received, in answer to his proclamation, an address from a number of planters and one from the merchants of New Orleans. In those addresses the Louisianians expressed their joy on "resuming the glorious name of Frenchmen," but they paid a handsome tribute to the Spanish administration, which, from the departure of O'Reilly in 1770, had been most kind to the inhabitants of the colony. There was some anxiety felt on account of the supposed doctrines of the French Revolution, which might be introduced into the province, but there is no doubt that the great major-it}' of the Louisianians, at that time, were delighted to become Frenchmen again.

On November 30, 1803, Laussat received in the Cabildo building from the Spanish commissioners, Salcedo and Casa Calvo, the keys of New Orleans, and was put in possession of the province. On the same day he abolished the Cabildo, and appointed a mayor, two adjuncts and a municipal coimcil composed of ten members. It may be interesting to give the names of the men who

formed the first city council of Isew Orleans: Etienne de Bore, mayor; Pierre Derbigny, secretary; Destrehan, first adjunct; Sanve, second adjunct; Livau-dais, Petit Cavelier, Villere, Johns, M. Fortier, Donaldson, Faurie, Allard, Tu-reaud and John Watkins, members of the council. Labatut was treasurer.

Laussat had already received notice of the cession of Louisiana to the United States, and was appointed a commissioner to deliver the province to the Americans. On Tuesday, December 20, 1S03, Louisiana was formally tranferred to the United States, and possession was taken in the name of the American Republic by General Wilkinson and W. C. C. Claiborne, the commissioners appointed by President Jeiferson. The event took place on the balcony of the Cabildo, where is now the Supreme Court of Louisiana, and this building should forever be held sacred by all Louisianians as having been the cradle of free and American Louisiana.

"No authentic census of the inhabitants of the province," says Judge j\Iar-tin, "since that of 1788 is extant, but one made for the Department of State, by the consul of the United States at ISTew Orleans, from the best documents he could procure in 1803, presents the following result: In the City of Xew Orleans, 8,056; in the whole province, 49,473."

In the beginning of 1804 the Spanish ambassador at Washington made known to the United States government that the King of Spain renounced his protest against the cession of Louisiana to the United States. The act of transfer was thus officially recognized by Spain. The French and Spanish Dominations had passed forever, and the Louisianians were henceforth to be independ-tnt citizens of an independent countrv'.

CHAPTER II.

THE INDIANS OF LOUISIANA.

Pon THE Standaed History of New Orleans. Bv Professor John R. FiCKLEN, Professor of History in Tulane University.

BEFORE beginning this short history of the Indians in Louisiana from early times down to tlie twentieth century, it may be well to remind the

reader that during the period of exploration and settlement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the province of Louisiana had much wider boundaries than the present state of that name. It was generally understood to embrace the whole Mississippi Valley, from the Rockies to the Appalachian range, and from the Gulf to the borders of Canada. For the earlier period, therefore, in order not to exceed the limits of space imposed upon the writer, it will be necessary to confine ourselves to those Indian tribes that lived within what is now the State of Louisiana, or who, by their proximity to the present state, came into contact, or more often into conflict, with the early settlers on the lower Mississippi.

Of these tribes it is impossible to give a satisfactory ethnological grouping. Some of them, like the Chickasaws and the Choctaws, spoke practically the same language; but others, like the Natchez, though living not far away, spcAe so strange a dialect that they are always classified apart from their friends and neighbors. Of late years much has been done in the investigation of the languages of the Southwestern Indians, and many old errors have been corrected; but at best language is not a sure test of race kinship, and the problem of settling the origin and the kinship of these Indians has reached no satisfactory solution.

From the time of the earliest voyages on the Mississippi, however, we have interesting accounts, more or less contradictory in detail, of the life and manners of these Indians, and are able to form a fairly clear idea of what advance towards civilization the various tribes had made. We know that they diilered considerably, one from another, in language and habits. There may have been a comparatively -wide gulf separating the man-eating Attakapas from the intelligent,

semi-civilized Natchez, with their cultivated fields, their temples sacred to the worship of the sun, and their altars ablaze with perpetual fires. Le Page du Pratz, the earliest historian of Louisiana, who lived among the Natchez in 1720, is never weary of praising their virtues, and says: "It is a great mistake to apply the name of savage to men who know how to make a very good use of their reasoning powers, who think justly, and whose conduct is marked by generosity, prudence, and good faith." Yet the Natchez themselves, though it has been claimed for them that they were as far superior to the tribes that dwelt around them as the Athenians were to the rest of the Greeks, followed many of the superstitious rites of savagery, and occupied a far lower grade in social evolution than the Aztecs that Cortez found in Mexico.

It is easy to exaggerate the virtues of these children of the forest; it has proved still easier to exalt the virtues of the early explorers by painting the Indian in the darkest colors. It is well to beware of such extremes. At first view the Southern Indians were disposed to regard the Europeans as demi-gods, and to bow down and worship them; but from the day that De Soto swept over a part of this continent, killing and enslaving with ruthless barbarity the natives he encountered, until finally he perished on the banks of the great river he had discovered, the Indians began to understand that their visitors with the pale faces could be guilty of gross injustice and oppression, and deserved more often their hatred than their worship. Indeed, the modem reader who follows the narrative of that wonderfxd march cannot escape the conviction that in many of the best qualities of human nature the red man was superior to the Spaniard of that day. It may be that the tradition of how the followers of De Soto fled down the Mississippi pursued by the vengeance of the Indians along its banks was handed down from father to son among the natives, and influenced the conduct of later generations when the French began to settle in Louisiana.

At first, however, the French found the Indians for the most part hospitable and disposed to welcome them to the land, especially when they were conciliated Y/ith a rich array of scarlet cloth, knives and trinkets. But before very long it was discovered that the Indian knew nothing of the total alienation of the land. The land belonged to the tribe, and their only conception of selling it was that it should be occupied in common by themselves and their white brethren. It was a very long time before the Indians of the United States grasped the idea of land possessed in fee simple; and when the full force of the idea dawned upon them, and when they realized that for a few blankets and glass beads, they had

bartered awav their birthright in perpetuity, the more warlike tribes were disposed to expel both Englishman and Frenchman from the country. To this misunderstanding as a source may be traced many—tliough not all—of the early Indian wars and massacres. It is noteworthy that the Hudson Bay Company in Canada, though it was trading with the Indians for two hundred years, never Lad a war on its hands. The reason is easy to guess. It established trading posts over the country, but never tried to monopolize the land.*

It has often been remarked that if the early settlers had found the Indians imited or capable of union in a great confederacy it Avovild have been impossible for the infant colonies to survive. But the natives were not living in that ideal condition, which the philosophers once believed the state of nature to be, and to which they were anxioiis to restore mankind. The various tribes, like the old cities of Greece, were often at bitter enmity with one another, and by seckiug the friendship of the Europeans to exterminate their enemies they opened the way for the advance of the white man. Tonti tells us that when he and La Salle first penetrated to the mouth of the Mississipjii in 1682 they came, not far above the Delta, to the village of the Tangibaos (Tangipahoas), but it had been utterly destroyed by a hostile tribe, and they beheld quantities of dead bodies piled one upon another. It was a spectacle, he says, which made them all shiver; but mi their way up the river they stopped at the village of the Quinipissas, and here, the Indians proving treacherous, "We contented ourselves," he says, "with killing a few of them, and carrying off their scalps as a trophy. These we presented to the chief of the ISTatchez, who was not displeased to recognize the scalps of his inveterate enemies."

This incident shows how ready the early explorers were to adopt the ways of the natives. Doubtless a review of the relations of the French with the Indians would prove that they found the savages ready to requite good with good and evil with evil, and that neither by precept nor by example did they endeavor to raise the standard of conduct to the Christian ideal of returning good for evil. An. exception must be made, however, in favor of the Catholic missionaries. From the time that Pere Marquette made his voyage dowm the Mississippi, declaring that he was gTeatly pleased at the prospect of risking his life in order to carry the gospel of peace and good-will among the heathen savages, until the death of Abbe Kouquette in our own day, the Catholic missionaries labored nobly

• See Winsor's America, Vol. I.

to soften the manners and reform the lives of these wayward children of the forest; and it may he that their work was not without fruit. At first, however, the natives were so unprepared to receive the message that the teaching of the good fathers resulted in nothing more than a veneering of religion, which, taken on as a cloak of hypocrisy, made the latter condition of their disciples worse than the first. Father Davion, who taught among the Tunicas, was asked by Du Pratz what progress his zeal had made among the natives. With tears in his eyes, he replied that, notwithstanding the profound respect these people showed liim, it was with the greatest difficulty that he had managed to baptize some infants who were at the point of death. The adults, he added, excused themselves from embracing his religion, saying that they were too old to accustom themselves to regulations so difficult to observe. The chief, however, since he had killed the Indian doctor who had attended his sou in the sickness that caused the young man's death, had resolved to fast every Friday for the rest of his life, and even attended morning and evening prayer. The women and children, also, came regularly, but the braves did not come often, and took more delight in ringing the bell of the chapel.

WTiat the missionaries must have had especially to struggle against was the lex talionis that the French adopted in their dealings with the natives. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, was the only rule that it was thoiight possible to observe. They often burned their Indian captives as the Indians burned theirs, thus giving full recognition to the custom among the savages. One is not astonished at the failure of Father Davion, when one reads in Du Pratz the following incident: During Perier's administration (about 1727) a party of these same Tunicas, who were at that time assisting the French against the Natchez, having captured a Xatchez woman, brought her to ISTew Orleans as a i>resent to the governor. Perier, however, abandoned her to her captors, and, binding her to a frame, they put her to death by slow torture, "in order to show the French how they treated the enemies of their friends." The execution took place in front of the city, near the levee. ISTo one interfered, but in spite of the suffering the woman luiderwent, in spite of the ingenious torture to which the Tunicas subjected her, she shed not a tear. With Indian stoicism she met her fate, and was content to prophesy the speedy destruction of her tormentors—a prophesy that was fidfilled a few days later, when the ISTatchez, under the guise of smoking the peace calumet vnih the Tunicas, approached their village and nearly annihilated them.

In reading of such liorroi-s one cannot help reflecting that if the French had adopted the conciliatory methods that were so successful under Roger Williams in Rhode Island and William Penn in Pennsylvania the province ■would have had a very different history, l^ot only would the lahors of the missionaries have been facilitated, but it would not perhaps have been necessary for the historian to record the T^atchez massacre of 1729 and the disastrous wars waged against the Chiekasaws. Peace, rather than the dread of Indian scalping pai-ties, might have hovered over the early settlements in the colony.

Loiiisiana is dotted over with a great number of earth and shell moimds, which have proved of gi'eat interest to archfeologists. The Museum of Tulane University, thanks to the energy and scientific zeal of Professor George E. Beyer, has an important collection of skulls, pottery, etc., gathered from the excavations of these mounds.

The shell mounds seem older than the earth mounds, but both belong to a prehistoric age, and it is much disputed whether they were constructed by the ancestors of our Indians or by a distinct race. The natives who were questioned by the early explorers on this subject were unable to say when, for what purpose, or through whose agency these mounds came into existence. Professor Beyer, Avho has explored both the shell and the earth moimds, believes that the latter were used as dwellings, and were originally constructed as a place of refuge in case of high water. Incidentally, however, they were used for sacrificial and burial pvirposes. An examination of the slaills and pottery that have been brought to light forces on him the conclusion that the builders were a race distinct from our Indians and related to the Caribs of the Antilles. The shell mounds seem to be merely the heaps of debris or middens left by an ancient race that used to migrate for a season of each year to the shores of the sea and lakes to enjoy the shell fish with which they aboimded.

Keeping ourselves, therefore, within historic limits, let us consider the principal tribes which, at the time that New Orleans was founded (1718), dwelt within the present State of Louisiana, or sufficiently near to have constant intercourse with the Preneh. Portunately for this period we have brief descriptions of the various tribes in the pages of Le Page du Pratz, who, as was said above, lived in Louisiana for a number of years, and was much interested in the Indians. Wliile his descriptions must be corrected in parts, they are the most complete that have come down to iis. Most of his statements may be verified by reference to the explorations made among the Indians by Bienville, the founder of 'New Orleans.

Du I'ratz first calls attention to the fact that many of the Indian ti'ihes represented on tlie old maps had cither been destroyed by smallpox or had taken refuge among other trilies, and, by amalgamation, had lost their identity. Of those dwelling in the sonthern part of the Mississippi Valley in his day he cites the following:

1. At the lieadwaters of the Pascagoula river in Mississippi was the tribe of Chatkas or Choctaws (Flat Heads). They derived their name from the custom of compressing the foreheads of their infants, but, as this ciistom was found among other Indians, l)u Pratz is at a loss to say why this should be the distinctive name of the tribe.* The Choctaws were so numerous that they were said to be able to put 25,000 ( !) warriors in the field. Until some of the divisions of the tribe fell under English influence, they were the friends and allies of the French, often joining them in their expeditions against the Natchez and other tribes.

2. One Imndred and twenty miles to the north of the Choctaws were the famous Chickasaws, a fiei'ce, warlike tribe, which allied itself with the English, and constantly defied the arms of the French. Bienville found it impossible to subdue them or to force them to surrender the Natchez, when the latter took refuge among them. "The Natchez have come to us for refuge," was their noble response, "and they cannot be surrendered." Both the Choctaws and the Chickasaws, MS we shall see, emigrated in the present century to the Indian Territory, where, forgetting their former enmity, they now dwell side by side.

3. To the west of Mobile, which was as yet the capital of Louisiana, dwelt a small tribe of Pascagoulas (meaning "bread nation"). They had only thirty lodges, and among them had settled some Canadians, who lived with them like brothers.

4. Three miles from the present site of New Orleansf had lived a small band of Colapissas (properly Aquelou-pissas, or "nation that hears and sees") ; lint they had moved farther north to the banks of the lake. Their deserted village was seen by Iberville on his first voyage Tip the Mississippi.

*The writer is informeti hy Dr. McGee of the Bureau of American Kthnology that Choctaw or Chahta is not originallv an Indian word. It is derived from the Spanisli Chata (flat), and it was applied by the Spaniards to these Indians possibly on account of their flattened skulls. As the tribe had no general designation for itself, it seems to have gradually adopted this alien name.

"f There is an old tradition tliat the site of New Orleans was originally occupied by a band of Indians named Tchoutchounias; but this tribe seems to have had its home on the Yazoo river.

5. On the left bank, about sixty miles above the city, was the tribe of Houmas (or Red Indians). Though the neighborhood of the French and the immoderate use of brandy are said to have had an injurious effect upon the Houmas, they dwelt here for many years. As Iberville ascended the river he saw on the bank a tall May-pole, painted red and hung with offerings of fish and game. Tliis pole (baton rouge) marked the boundary between the hunting grounds of the Houmas and a neighboring tribe. From it the capital of Louisiana derives its name.

6. Opposite to the mouth of Red river were Father Davion's Tunicas, a small tribe that had proved so friendly to the French that the King of France had conferred upon their chief the title of General of the Red Armies, and had sent him a silver medal attached to a blue ribbon, and a gold-headed cane—^Jaoiiorable marks of favor, which gave inexpressible delight to the savage heart.

7. Above the Tunicas was the famous tribe of Natchez, Avho have been mentioned as the most enlightened of all the tribes with which the French came in contact. Not only did the Natchez win the regard of Du Pratz, but they aroused at a later period the enthusiasm of the distinguished Frenchman, Cha-teaubrand, who resided witJi tlicm for a while.* Claiborne, with a natural reaction from the eulogies of tliese authors, declares that there was nothing to distinguish them from other savages; but neither this writer-nor Father Charlevoix seems to do the Natchez justice. Though friendly to the French at first, the anger of these Indians was aroused by the ill treatment of a commandant at Fort Rosalie near their villages, and they arose to the massacre of the French. When an attempt was made to punish them, they took refuge in Northern Louisiana, and stood at bay on Sicily Island, in Catahoula parish. Here the French attacked them in 1731, but many of the warriors slipped away in the night time, and after doing all the damage they could in Loiiisiana they slipped across the river, where the hospitality of the Chickasaws bade them welcome.

On the west bank of the Mississippi the Louisiana tribes were generally smaller and less important than those Ave have mentioned. Some of them lived so quietly that the French knew them only by name, while a few of them are to be found to-day not far from the liaunts where they were first visited by the white man two hundred years ago.

8. On the west bank, between the river and Barataria Bay, Avere bands of Tchaouchas and Ouachas. Tlie Onachas Avere quiet and inoffensive; but after

* Chateaubriand's sojourn among the Natchez, however, is doubted b_v some modern critics.

the Natchez massacre, when it was feared that New Orleans itself would be overwhelmed by a general uprising of the Indians, Governor Perier sent down a small army of negroes, who fell upon the Ouachas and destroyed them—men, women, and children. Perhaps the Tchaouchas wei-e involved in their ruin, for no further mention is made of either tribe.

9. On Bayou Lafourche, near Donaldsonville, was a tribe of Chetimachas (a Choctaw word meaning "possessing vessels for boiling"). A number of these Indians are still to he found on Grand river and Bayou Teche. In 1703 they killed a priest named St. Cosme, who had fallen into their hands; and, to avenge his death, Bienville persuaded a band of Indians composed of Biloxis, Natchez, and Bayougoulas to attack them. The Chetimachas were so nearly destroyed that the remnant of the tribe was glad to make peace with the French and live apart. Many of them, however, were taken prisoners by the Indians and sold as slaves to the French. In general, the Indians proved so sullen and unruly as slaves that the French preferred the more docile negro; but du Pratz, who bovight a Chetimacha girl to serve as cook, praises in the highest terms her faithful services. He even declares that when her tribe offei'ed to purchase her freedom she refused to leave him—a rare instance, if it is true. Du Pratz also maintains that the Chetimachas were kindred of the Natchez, but modern investigators hold that at least in language these two tribes were not related.

10. Along the coast of the west were the Attakapas. The name means "man-eating," from Choctaw, hlttolc, a person, and uppa, to eat. It was believed that they were in the habit of eating the bodies of their enemies. Thinking that they must have another name for themselves, du Pratz, without venturing into their neighborhood, made many inquiries about them; but he was never able to discover any other appellation than Attakapas. They seem to have been the only tribe in Louisiana addicted to cannibalism; but in Texas, as late as 1S3S, the same custom prevailed. General Albert Sidney Johnston relates that while pursuing, with friendly Tonkaways, some Lipan horse thieves in Texas, they came upon a gigantic brave, who, on foot, long outstripped his pursuers. At length, finding his enemies closing around him, he turned, and defiantly shouting "Lipan!" rushed among them to certain death. Next day his Indian allies told General Johnston that they had cooked the Lipan, and asked him to dinner, nor could they be made to understand his abhon-ence at feasting on the flesh of an enemy.

Du Pratz tells us that the French remonstrated with the Attakapas on the

wickedness of eating their fellow-creatures, and that they pi-omised to give up the custom—a promise which they faithfully kept as far as he could learn.

11. Above La Fourche was a small tribe of Bayougoulas, perhaps near the present town of that name. Their name is derived from two Indian words, signifying "those living near the bayouc," or rivulet. Iberville and Bienville visited this tribe, and found them living in comfortable cabins, and actually raising some chickens, which they had evidently obtained from the Spaniards. Some twenty years later they had been absorbed by other tribes and had seemingly lost their identity.

12. Above Pointe Coupee were the Opelousas, whom du Pratz calls the Oque-loussas, or Black Water Indians. They were so named because they dwelt on two little lakes whose water appeared black from the quantity of leaves at

the bottom.*

13. Above the rapids of Eed river were a little tribe of Avoyels. These made their living by bringing cattle and horses from the Spanish settlements and selling them to the French. In consequence horses became so cheap in Louisiana that they could be purchased for twenty francs a piece.

14. On Eed Eiver, one hundred and fiftv miles above the Avoyels, were the Ilfatchitoches. They were a numerous band, and occupied about two hundred lodges. ISTear them was the French post of the same name, at which they and many other tribes traded freely.

15. Still higher up on the Eed was the powerful tribe of Cadodaquioux or Caddos, from whom Caddo Parish derives its name. The remains of this tribe are found at the present day in Indian Territory.

16. Before I)u Pratz's time there had been a band of Ouachitas on the Washita, but the Chickasaws had nearly destroyed them in one of their raids, and the remnant of the tribe had taken refuge among the Caddos.

17. In the present parish of Tensas there had been a tribe of Tensas. They were visited by La Salle in IGS'i, and again by Iberville in 1700, but in Du Pratz's time they had emigrated to the neighborhood of Mobile. At a later day they were destined to return to Louisiana. These Indians had a religion similar to that of the Natchez, and worshiped the Sun in a great temple, where three priests kept alive the sacred fire as a symbol.

Such is a brief account of the principal tribes that lived in Southern Louisiana at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Besides these there wer;-

'Dr. Sibley thinks that the word means '•black head " or " black skull."

bands of Indians of a nomadic character, who. visited Louisiana for brief spaces of time, either on war expeditions or in the peaceful pursuit of the fur trade.

Let us now turn to a brief consideration of the salient characteristics of these Southern Indians. The tribes that have been mentioned seem to have had fixed habitations, and to have been engaged in agriculture, or rather horticulture, as well as in hunting and fishing. The braves, taking for themeslves the exciting sports of hunting and fighting, spent their time when at home in smoking or in apathetic idleness, varied from time to time by the excitement of a tribal dance. The squaw thought it no disgrace to till the fields, and to raise the corn, the potatoes, and the pumpkins for the family larder. ISTay, she would have regarded with contempt a husband that took her place at these occupations. Moreover, the early colonists who accepted the hospitality of the natives, found that the women were no mean cooks, and could prepare appetizing dishes of sagamite— corn meal boiled in water and mixed with the fat of the deer or bear—or of meat barbecued at their open fires. One of the favorite entrees, however, v/as a roasted dog, specially fattened for the feast. Father Marquette relates that, when he was making his voyage do-\^Ti the Mississippi, the Indians on one occasion served up to him as a special treat a roasted dog, but when they saw his aversion to such a dish, they promptly brought some buffalo meat, and tlie chief put into the mouth of his guest the choicest morsels.

When Bienville foimd provisions running short in his early settlement i:.n Mississippi Sound, he allowed some of his men to take up their residence among the neighboring Indians. Here they easily accommodated themselves to the wild life of the woods, and were often reluctant to return to the civilization of the forts. Tlie liunting, tlie dancing aroimd the fire at night, the freedom from irksome duties proved only too fascinating. In truth the colonists showed much greater capacity for imcivilizing themselves, and falling into savage ways, than the natives possessed for adopting the civilization of the white man. It has often been remarked that the Indian's adaptability did not seem to extend much beyond the appropriation of the white man's vices. From the very first tlie fire water exercised its potent influence over the savage, and Colonel Stoddard, who was stationed at Natchitoches during the early years of the nineteenth century, deplores the wild orgies of the Indians when they visited that post; just as, many years later, Abbe Eouquette Avas shocked and grieved to see the drunken Choctaws rioting through the streets of New Orleans.

We have already spoken of tlie noble efforts of the Catholic missionaries to

inculcate in the savage breast the principles of their religion, and of the slow progress they made in awakening the simple minded natives to an appreciation of the truths they came to preach. Some of the tribes, the Choctaws especially, already believed in a "Great Spirit, the Giver of Breath," but their conception of the attributes of such a deity was so dim and vague that it had no influence on their lives. Of the religious beliefs of the other tribes with which the French came in contact we know little, except of the Natchez and the Tensas. Both these tribes, as has been said before, had temples to the Sun, and had established a kind of priestly caste who attended to the sacred fire. The Natchez told Du Pratz—so he says—that they believed in a spirit "infinitely great, that has made all that we see or can see; He is so good that He could do no evil to any one, even if he wished it." This Deity had made all things, including man, by His will; but there were, also, little spirits that could have made the beautiful things in nature. They did not worship the Great Spirit, becaiise it was unnecessary to propriate a deity that could do them no harm. The air, however, they said, was full of evil spirits with a chief at their head more wicked than they; and all evil spirits they were careful to win over for fear of the harm they might do.

This is what Du Pratz relates. One cannot help feeling that he has adapted the words of the Natchez to his own preconceptions. It is more likely that, as Le Petit, one of the Jesuit fathers, tells us, the Natchez were simply worshipers of the Sim. Their great chief was called the Sim, and he in turn called the sun his brother. As soon as that luminary appeared in the heavens, the chief would salute it with a long howl, and wave his hand from east to west, directing what course it should travel.*

Closely connected with their religion were superstitious rites often of the most terrible character. For instance, when Iberville visited the Tensas in 1700, near what is now St. Joseph, it so happened that the Sun Temple had just been set on fire by lightning. The priest called upon the women to bring their infants to appease the angry god. The French were horrified to see three of these innocents cast into the flames, and had they not protested vigorously, and aided in putting out the fire, the horrible sacrifice would have continued. Among the Natchez, also, it was the custom, when one of the Suns or chiefs, died, to strangle a number of children and adults to serve as attendants upon the deceased in the spirit world. As it was considered an honor to perish with the chief, the French found it very difficult to persuade the Natchez to abolish this custom.

• Cl.iiborne's History of Mississippi.

so Sr AX I) All I) HISTORY OF XEW ORLEANS.

AmoBg all tliG tribes great respect was shown to the jugglers or medicine men. These prepared themselves for their profession by a fast of nine daj's, during -".vhich, with lond cries and beating of drums, they called upon the Spirit to receive them as medicine men. With much quackery, there was doubtless mingled much knowledge of hygienic herbs. We know that the Indians of the west still prepare a liquor that, when drunk at the snake dance, renders the venom of the rattler innocuous. Du Pratz. who was several times ti-eated by the medicine men, believed that he had received great benefit from their ministrations, and came to prefer them to the French surgeons that had settled in the colony.

In their grand powwows with the French, the Indians often exhibited grear sagaeity,and sometimes extraordiiuii'vpowers of eloquence. Their languages contained no abstract terms, but they employed similes and metaphors drawn fvoM nature, with an approju'iatcness that was often the admiration and envy of their listeners. If Lanier is right in saying that the metaphor is born of love rather than of thought, Ave may conclude that the Indian was in loving sympathy with nature, and learned much from her teachiiigs. Those among the natives whose office it was to interpret the treaties, had often trained their memories to such a point that they would repeat word for word long speeches made by ]irevious speakers, before pronoiincing their ovm discourses. IVIany of the Indian ovations that have come down to iis, even with due allowance for the additions and improvements of the interpreters, illustrate the great gifts of the most practised speakers among them. An Indian chief, Avho was anxious to visit President Jefferson, said to Major Stoddart: "If I coiild only see my great Father, and obtain from him some word declaratory of justice to my nation, it would be like tlie beams of the sun breaking through a cloud after a storm."

Du Pratz was present when a baud of Chetimachas came to smoke the pipe of peace with Bienville. After the calumet had been presented and smoked in turn by the chief men of the assembly, the chief arose, and spoke with "wonderful grace of gesture and majesty of mien." The following extract from his speech is translated from the French of Du Pratz: '"'Formerly the sun was red, tb.e ways were filled with briars and thorns, the clouds were black, the waters Avcre troubled, and stained with our blood. Our women wejjt without ceasing, our children cried affrighted, the deer fled from lis afar, our houses were abandoned, our fields were waste, we had nought to fill our stomachs, and our very l>ones began to appear. But to-day the sun is warm and bright, the sky is clear, the clouds have gone, the ways are pleasant to walk, the waters are so clear that

we behold our images therein. The deer has returned to its haunts, our women dance iiutil they forget to eat, our children leap about like young fawns, the heart of the whole nation laughs with joy to see that to-day, 0 Frenchmen, Ave shall walk along the same path, the same sun will shine upon us; our tongues will speak the same word, our hearts will beat as one; we shall break bread together like brothers. Will that not be pleasant to behold ( What sayest thou, O chief of the pale faces V

In their family life the Indians of Louisiana seem to have generally been happy and contented. The marriage bond was a loose one, and divorce was permissible at the option of either party, without the aid of court or lawyer. Yet during the eight years that Du Pratz stayed among the Xatchez, he heard of only one case of separation. The women were, of course, in a state of subjection to their husbands, which would not be tolerated in this age of sexual equality. It was possible to find squaws that had been deprived of their ears or noses for some real or fancied olfence given to their lords and masters, but family brawls were rare.

Generally speaking, the Avhites formd the natives to be dangerous enemies. When their resentment had once been aroused, tliey were capable of any treachery to accomplish their vengeance. For the captive taken in war, wheu he was not reduced to slavery, or adopted into the tribe, they could invent the most exquisite tortures, and in these, brave and squaw alike participated. From the stoical indifference of their victims, however, they were seldom able to evoke anything but the death song, which was shouted as long as life lasted. Even the women, as we have seen in the case, of the Natchez squaw burned at Xew Orleans, were capable of heroic deaths.

But if they were often bitter enemies, the natives showed themselves no less callable of abiding friendships. Even if it be untrue that they were never the iirst to break a treaty of peace, the tribe would alwaj-s maintain that any infraction of their agreements was due to the impulsive young braves whom the sager heads could not restrain.

All the early writers agree that if an Indian committed homicide within the tribe, and the council condemned him to death, he never tried to evade the penalty. There was no imprisonment, no bail; the condemned went free, but punctual to the day appointed, he apjjeared to meet his fate without a munuur. If the homicide were committed outside of the tribe, the relatives of the deceased would endeavor to avenge the murder. Martin relates that in a quarrel between

a Choctaw and a Colapissa, the latter slew tlie former, and fled to Xew Orleans. The relatives of the Choctaw pursued the murderer, and requested the governor, the Marquis of Vaudreuil, to surrender him. An attempt was made to buy off their vengeance with presents, but they steadily refused to be satisfied with anything but a life for a life. In the meantime the murderer escaped, and his old father came forwai'd to offer his own life for that of his son. To this the Choc-taws consented, and when the old man had stretched himself out on the trunk of a tree, a Choctaw severed his head from his body at one blow. This instance of paternal affection, adds Martin, was afterwards made the subject of a tragedy by Leblanc de Villeneuve, an officer of the French troops in Louisiana.

It has been stated above that the Choctaws generally remained the friends of the French. Some bands of them, however, falling under English influence, attacked the settlements above New Orleans, and finally came in conflict with some French soldiers near the city. This was in 1748, and it is said to have been the last Indian battle fought in this neighborhood.* The French were victorious, and the Choctaws took refuge on the shores of the lake. Doubtless the Indians of St. Tammany Parish are descended from this wandering band.

IJUKKsG THE SP.Us^ISH nOJIINATION.

In the year 1764 news reached New Orleans that the whole province of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, together with the island on which the city stood, had been transferred by Louis XV. to the King of Spain. When the Spanish government finally took possession, the French were at peace with the Indians. In 1753, Governor Vaudreuil had made war on the Chickasaws, the Qld enemies of the French; but, as in the campaignis of Bienville, these Indians, long iu league with the English, bad defended themselves with their usual success. With the rest of the tribes, the French carried on an active trade at JSTatchitoches and other posts, and the chiefs were conciliated by handsome presents to prevent them from trading with the English colonies or in any way combining against the French.

The Spaniards ptirsued the same sagaciotis policy. When the brilliant young Spanish governor, Galvez, made war on the British in 1780, and captured the forts at Baton Rouge and ISTatchez, he was accompanied by some 160 Indians, drawn from the "German Coast" and other districts in Louisiana. Quoting

» Claiborne's History of Mississippi.

STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS. S3

from the Madrid Gazette of that day Gayarre states that "these Indians showed themselves, for tlie first time, alive to the voice of humanity, and abstained from doing the slightest injury to the fugitives that they captured; nay, they had improved so much as to carry in their arms to Galvez, with the most tender care, the children who had taken refuge in the woods with their mothers. This change in their habits was due to the influence exercised over them by Santiago Tarascon and Joseph Sorelle, under whose command they had been placed."

In 1783 all Florida was ceded to Spain, and a year later we find Governor Miro holding a great congress of the Indians, first at Pensacola and later at Mobile. The Talapouches, the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, the Alabamas, and other smaller tribes were entertained with a magnificence that was characteristic of the Spanish government. Treaties of commerce and alliance were ratified; costly gifts were distributed, and the savage warriors grunted their approval of everything Spanish and their hatred of everything American. Even after this love feast, however, we find McGillivray, the half-breed chief of the Talapouches, seeking a pension from tlie American government to supplement the one he was enjoying from the Spaniards.

The sixth article of the treaty concluded at Mobile, as given by Gayarre, seems to show tliat the Indians had experienced a great change of character, or had adopted a different policy from tliat which distinguished them sixty years before. ^\'e find them declaring that, in conformity with the humanity and generous sentiments cherished by the Spanish nation (words that seem to indicate a parallel change in Spanish heart or policy since the days of De Soto), they renounced forever the custom of raising scalps or of making slaves of white captives. Such prisoners, in imitation of the usages of civilized nations, were to be either exchanged or yielded uj) to ransom.

The trade in peltry had now become very profitable, yielding at least twenty-five per cent, gain to the Spanish government, and strict regulations were made to prevent the traders from defrauding or alienating the natives.

It is interesting to note that when, some years before this period, CReilly became governor he found that the colonists, under the French regime, had been permitted to purchase from the natives some of their Indian prisoners of war, thus saving them from death by torture. O'Reilly, however, whatever he may have thought of negro slavery, declared that the practice of reducing Indians to slavery was "contrary to the wise and pious laws of Spain, but that the present

owners might hold their slaves until the Avill of the sovereign was known."* We Ijear nothing more of the matter until the year 1793, when the mild Baron Ca-rondelet was governor of Louisiana. Suddenly the Indian slaves rose up and demanded their freedom. But Carondelet did not adopt the views of O'Reilly. Tie wrote to the king that it would be dangerous to free the Indian slaves, as well as ruinoiis to their masters. Emancipation should be either positively refused or delayed and discouraged. The baron added that the efforts of the Indians to obtain their freedom were doubtless aided and abetted by secret agents who wanted to stir up trouble in the privincet A little later there w^as a slave insurrection in Louisiana, which had to be put down with a stern hand; but there is no record of the Indian slaves having had a share therein. As the negro slaves were preferred for their docility, doiibtless the number of Indians suliject to in-volimtary servitude was never very large.

UTJEING THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY.

The cession of Louisiana, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, by Spain to France and by France to the United States did not, as far as the present writer can learn, aifect the fortunes of the Indians living in the southern part of the vast territory. They doubtless found little difficulty in adapting themselves to the new order of things, and they may have viewed the introduction of American control with as little enthusiasm as did the Creoles themselves.

The various tribes or bands of Indians, and the districts in which they were to be foiTud at that period, are given by two writers who were residents of the Territory of Orleans during the first decade of the nineteenth century. These were Judge Martin, one of our early historians, and Dr. Sibley, of Natchitoches. Their accounts, though differing a little in detail, serve to supplement each other.

In his report, published by the United States government in 1806, Dr. Sibley divided the Indians of the territory into two classes:

1. Those who had migrated into the territory within the memory of men tlien living. These included the Alabamas, the Appalaches, the Conshattas, the Tensas, the Tunicas, Biloxis, Pascagoulas, and Pacanas.

2. The natives, e. g., the Caddos, the Natch itoehes, the Adaize, the Ope-

•See Gayarre's Spanish Domination.

t No further mention of emancipation is to be found in Gayarre; but Dr. Siblej, writing in iSo6, says the Indian slaves had been emancipated by the Spaniards.

loiisas, the Attakapas, the Choctaws, the Panis, the Hoiimas, and, he might havo added, the Chetimachas.

The Iloumas were in their old home ou the left bank of the river, about seventy-five miles above the city. They numbered about sixty persons. The Ala-bamas, numbering about one hundred persons, were in the Opelousas district. The Appalaches, in small numbers, had settled on Bayou Eapide. The Conshat-tas, three hundred and fifty in number, were on the banks of the Sabine river, or in that neighborhood. The Pacanas were on Calcasieu river. The Tensab had returned from Mobile and settled on the Red. The Tunicas, numbering about sixty, were above Pointe Coupee. There were Choetaws, Biloxis, and Pasca-govilas in Rapides, on Bayou Crocodile and Bayou Boeuf. The Caddos were in their old home, and were able to put a hundred warriors in the field. Below them were the j^atchitoches, who numbered one hundred souls. Xear them was a small band of Adaize. The Opelousas, in the district of the same name, numbered only forty men. Martin states that the Attakapas on Bayou Vermilion were nearly extinct, but Dr. Sibley says they still numbered a hundred souls. On Bayou Teche and on Bayou Plaquemine were a number of Chetimachas. Four or five hundred families of Choetaws, says Martin, were scattered through the Ouachita country, and. if the Spaniards had permitted, many more would have come over to the west bank of the river.

It will be seen that of the tribes mentioned by Du Pratz some were in their old haunts, others had disappeared, while a few new tribes had migrated into the territory.

The history of the Louisiana Indians during the nineteenth century may be briefly told. Under the American rule the trading post at ^Natchitoches continued for a long period to be an important point of rendezvous for the Indians in upper Louisiana; and they brought thither, as in the old days, the fruit of the chase to exchange for the goods of civilization. Some of the tribes, of a more peaceful character, resorted to agriculture, and so far forgot the art of war that some of the chiefs used to express to Major Stoddard their regrets that the young men were growing up with no skill in battle, and even suggested that it might be necessary to provoke hostilities in order that they might obtain the needed instruction.

In the course of time the Chickasaws and the Choetaws in Mississippi were persuaded to leave their lands and to migrate to the Indian Territory. Here, forgetting their old enmity, they settled side by side and became prosperous

farmers. As large slave o\vners, they sympathized during the Civil War with the Southern Confederacy, and gave help to the Southern cause. In 1890 the Choctaws still numbered 10,017, and the Chickasaws, 3,129.

In Louisiana the number of Indians seems to be gradually declining. By the census of 1880 there were 848 scattered through more than ten parishes of the state, while in 1890 there were only 628 in about the same number of parishes. Besides bands of Caddos, Alabamas and Biloxis, there is a small tribe of Tunicas in Avoyelles Parish, near Marksville, who are said to keep up tribal organization in an irregular fashion.

At Charenton, in St. Mary's Parish, there is still a band of the ancient Chetimachas, who maintained their tribal organization until 1879, when their last chief died. As in olden times, they are very quiet and inoffensive, devoting themselves to agriculture and the making of ingeniously woven baskets. In some cases the children of the tribe have attended the public schools, and the adults have exercised the right of suffrage. In January, 1900, the tribe brought suit in New Orelans for the recovery of some lands that had been sold to residents of St. Mary's Parish by certain members of the tribe without permission of the majority; but the efforts of their lawyer to prove the sale unlawful were tm successful. Among these Chetimachas there is a large admixture of white, but not of negro, blood.

In St. Tammany Parish there still lingers a band of Choctaws. Many years ago they aroused the interest and sympathy of Abbe Adrien Rouquette, the poet-priest of Xew Orleans. When he died in 1887 he had devoted some thirty years of his life to missionary work among these Indians, and it is said that he met with great success; at least, he won the love and respect of the savages. They gave him the name of Chatah-Ima, or Choctaw-like—a name of which he was so proud that afterwards he used it as a no)n de plume in his writr ings. When he was dying in 'Rew Orleans the friendly savages brought him many little offerings, and around his bier they sat in silent grief for the loss of their white father.

From time to time some members of this tribe are to be seen in the markets of New Orleans selling their pounded sassafras for gomho filet. They always sit in a group apart from the bustling Creoles and Americans around them, as if there were no amalgamation possible with this white race that for more than two himdred years has been forcing the red man to retire before the onward march of its civilization.

In Louisiana the Indian is doubtless destined to gradual extinction. Hemmed in by the more enterprising i>ale faces, his longing for free range of hill and dale is stifled. He has ceased to try to adapt himself to his new envii-on-ment; not for him are the arts of civilization. In Louisiana he stands a shadowy figure handed down from the past, and his gradual disappearance in pathetic isolation cannot but touch a sympathetic chord in the hearts of those who know his history.*

CHAPTER III.

ADVANTAGES OF NEW OELEANS.

By Norman Walkee.

IT was predicted by Jefferson, when he purchased Louisiana, that New Orleans, its port and capital, would become not only the greatest commercial city in America, but in the world; and he gave very good reasons for the prediction. He pointed out, for instance, that it was the natural port of the Mississippi Valley, which he foresaw was to become "the seat of a great and populous empire, and that all the varied product of that valley would find their way to New Orleans by a thousand streams; while to the south lay Mexico, Cuba, and the tropics." New Orleans, therefore, lay at the gateway of the continent,, and could not be better placed to handle the immense trade that must spring up between the Mississippi Valley and the tropics on the one hand, and Europe on the other. Such produce as Latin America shipped to the interior could but be sent through New Orleans, and vice versa; and the people of the interior would, he predicted, find in the "Crescent City" the port they needed

• Among the works consulted in the preparation of this sketch may be mentioned Le Page Du Pratz's Histoire de la Louisiane; Gayarre's Louisiana; Martin's Louisiana; Claiborne's Mississippi; Stoddard's Louisiana; King and Ficklen's History o£ Louisiana; Winsor's History of America; publications of the Louisiana Historical Society; Tonti's Narrative (in French); American State Papers (Indian Affairs), etc. Special thanks are due Mr. Wm, Beer, of the Howard Library, for his valuable assistance in gathering information, and to Mr. W. J. McGee, Acting Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, for several letters in regard to the Choctaw language.

for the exchange of their products with Europe. Through that city, they would find the teeming millions of the "old world" receiving, in return, such manufactured goods as Europe could turn out more profitably than America. La Salle had a slight conception of the future of New Orleans when he hoisted the French flag over the site of the city in 1684, and Bienville when he located his capital there, and pointed out to the French government the advantages which a location near the mouth of the Mississippi offered. He was more of a prophet than Jefferson, because, at that time, the Upper Valley was entirely unsettled and it required a very vivid imagination to foresee that within two centuries a population of thirty-odd millions would spring up in a country where only a few wild Indians roamed. In Jefferson's time immigration was pouring into the Upper Ohio Valley, and the produce of that section was already beginning to reach ISTow Orleans by flat boat and barge. With wonderful prescience, the author of the "declaration of independence" looked a century ahead and saw what New Orleans ought to become. If this prediction has not been fully realized as yet, it is due to the possible accident which Mr. Jefferson allowed for. He could not foresee the fact that the invention of the locomotive would cause a temporary interruption in the commerce and progress of New Orleans, nor could he he imagine the civil war, which undid the work of a century. But what he said is equally true to-day as it was nearly a hundred years ago, when he said it. The commercial advantages of New Orleans are just as gi-eat now as then. The city has lost nothing in its opportunities; it has simply not fully utilized them, because accidents have temporarily prevented it from doing so. From 1803 to 1840 Jefferson's prediction was in a fair way of being realized. Then, for forty years, there was a tendency towards an eclipse; but the eclipse is passing off now; and the world is beginning to appreciate the fact that New Orleans is as well situated for commerce to-day as it was in 1803; indeed, an advantage which Jeffer.son did not foresee is coming to light—New Orleans is quite as well situated for manufactures as for commerce. If it utilizes all its advantages, it Avill become not only a great commercial city, "the mart of the continent"—as the political economists of a half a century predicted for it— but one of the world's great manufacturing centers.

New Orleans is to-day, and has been for half a century, the second port in the Union, its commerce, its imports and exports, being exceeded only by those of New York. As already remarked, it promised, at one time, to be the great port of America, and in the decade just preceding the civil war more than

lialf the time it exceeded Manhattan iu the vahie of its exports of American products.

The special efforts of New Orleans for the last quarter of a century have been to recover the ground lost during the civil war and the demoralized condition of affairs that immediately followed it; and much has been accomplished in that time towards developing the commercial advantages the city enjoys and in fully utilizing them. Perhaps no port in the country has done more, in the last half dozen years, in the way of improving its transportation and terminal facilities than New Orleans.

New Orleans is situated 110 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River. Thus, while its ships are offered the most perfect protection from storm and ocean disaster, it is a seaport in every sense of the word, with every facility for handling ocean commerce and with water sufficient to float in its harbor the navies of the world. This harbor is reached by a permanent channel thirty feet deep; and, as the tide is never more than eighteen inches, there is ample water for the passage of the largest vessel; and it is not necessary, as at so many other ports, to wait for a high tide to float a vessel in. Actual soundings show a depth of 200 feet in the river in front of New Orleans, and it is nowhere less than 100 feet there. There is water sufficient alongshore and close by the whar\-cs to allow the largest vessel to land directly at them. Lighterage, which prevails at Buenos Ayres and many of the other great ports of the world, is altogether unnecessary at the "Crescent City."

The river frontage embraced in the port of New Orleans is about twehe miles on each side of the Mississippi, making about twenty-four miles which can be utilized for the purposes of commerce; but, in addition to this frontage, there is considerable wharfage at Southport above, and Port Chalmette below, on the east bank of the river, and at Westwego on the west bank, none of which are -\vithin the corporate limits of New Orleans. Indeed, were there any need for it, the entire river bank from New Orleans to the Gulf, 100 miles, could be used for loading and unloading vessels. The average width of the river in all this distance is 2,200 feet, with plenty of water on either bank to float the largest sliips in the world; so that there is no difficulty and delay in vessels constantly passing up and down, as in the case of the narrow channel of the Thames at London.

In the front of the populous portion of the city on the left or east bank, extending from Louisiana avenue to Piety street, a distance of six mile^.ajp

wharves that have been recently constructed and are available for the handling of tiiree times the commerce that Xew Orleans now possesses. The wharves extend from 100 to 200 feet into the river, and are built of heavy timbers capable of sustaining any weight. From these wharves or landings the bulk of the business of the port is handled.

The several railroad companies with termini at New Orleans have switch tracks extending along the river front, thus enabling men to handle their cars at the ship-side for both inward and outward cargoes.

At Southport, half a mile above the city limits, are extensive wharves belonging to the Illinois Central and Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroads, at which large quantities of cotton, com, wheat, lumber, cotton seed oil and cake, and other products are loaded into the steamers which moor directly at the landings.

At the foot of General Taylor street, the Illinois Central has established the Stuyvesant works, the most perfectly equipped in the country. There are two grain elevators, the largest in the South, and ample wharves and warehouses.

At Port Chalmette, just below New Orleans, the New Orleans & Western Railroad, wliioli is practically a belt line for tlie city, has invested some $2,500,-000 in providing the most complete terminal facilities, wharves, warehouses, cotton presses, elevators, etc.

Most of the warehouses, elevators and factories of the city are situated along the river front. At Algiers are several dry docks; and the United States proposes to construct an immense dry dock there for the repairs of its men-of-war, and has taken the initial steps in that direction by the purchase of the necessary land. It may be stated in this connection that a commission appointed by the United States government for the purpose of choosing a site for the location of a dry dock, made a thorough investigation of all the Southern ports and decided that New Orleans offered far greater advantages than any other port on the Gulf or South Atlantic, having deeper, safer and better water, better protection from the enemy and being superior in many other ways to other candidates for the government dock.

While New Orleans does not control the commerce of the Mississippi Valley as completely as it did a century or even a half century ago, it has made great commercial progress, has developed new lines of commerce and seems disposed at last to fully iitilize its advantages. It has built up, for instance, an immense grain trade and is competing for the position of the first grain port of the Union,

having proved that it can handle the grain of all the country west of the Mississippi on cheaper and better terms than any other port south or east. This grain comes both by rail and by river, and six large elevators in the city are required to handle it.

ISTew Orleans has secured, as was to be expected, a monopoly of the tropical-fruit trade of Central and South America, and, indeed, all the commerce of that country. On the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua and Honduras, not only is the trade monopolized by New Orleans, but nearly all the capital emploj-ed there is supplied by this city, and, in fact, most of the real estate is owned by it. This means that New Orleans will be the chief beneficiary by the completion of the Nicaraguan Canal, as it is the nearest American port to the mouth of that canal.

Several tributes have lately been paid to the advantages New Orleans offers as a purchasing and shipping point. Thus, the Spanish government, during the war with Cuba, after establishing purchasing agencies in several ports, finally concentrated them all in New Orleans, and purchased and exported all of their supplies from that city, declaring that they could do so to greater advantage than from any other port in America. What was true of Spain in the Cuban war was equally true of Great Britain in the Boer war, the British war ofiice having established a commission in New Orleans for the purchase of mules, horses and such supplies as were needed, while the Boers made New Orleans the port of shipment of such grain and western produce as they bought in America, the goods being shipped, because of the blockade against Transvaal, via Holland. Finally the Japanese cotton-mill owners sent a number of purchasers over to examine the advantages of American ports for the purchase and shipment of cotton to Japan, which commission, after a thorough examination of the subject, reported in favor of New Orleans, and vessels now sail from the "Crescent City" direct to Kobe and other Japanese ports, a distance of 14,000 miles! by the Suez Canal, one of the longest voyages taken by vessels anywhere.

New Orleans has now direct steamship navigation with moi'e than eighty of the leading ports in the world,—indeed, there is no port of any commercial standing with which it has not direct steamship connection. Most of these steamers engaged in trade, belong to regular lines and run on schedule time, whereas, of old, the trade of the city was largely in the hands of "tramp" vessels.

Steps are on foot to improve the facilities of New Orleans for handling commerce and to reduce the cost. It is proposed, for instance, to make it a

free port, at which vessels shall pay no charge of any kind. This will be possible in 1902, when the wharves of the city, which are now in the hands of a company, will become the property of the city again.

New Orleans ofPers tho following advantages for commerce:

1. The largest system of great railroad lines terminating there, giving it access to every part of the countrj'. These railroads, formerly inimical to New Orleans or lukewarm as to its trade, have come to see that their prosperity is dependent on the prosperity of the city, are laboring earnestly to hold up its trade, and have invested their capital in whai-ves, docks and other improvements advantageoiis to the commerce of the city, thereby showing their confidence in its future.

2. The Mississippi River affording, with its tributaries, 17,650 miles of navigable water-way, all of them open three-fourths of the year, and most of them open the entire twelve months. These water-ways extend into twenty-nine states and territories, and the population living along their banks now exceeding thirty-two millions. The immense valley drained by these streams and which through them has constant and direct connection by water with New Orleans, enjoys every clime and produces every article, agricultural, mineral or manufactured, that mankind needs. In the North are the grain fields of Dakota and Minnesota, in the West the mineral region of Colorado, in the East the coal and iron of Pennsylvania and Ohio and the manufacturing cities of that section, while the South offers the lumber of Arkansas, the cotton of Mississippi and Texas and the sugar and rice of Louisiana.

The Mississippi and its net-work of tributary streams offers, free of all charge or cost, one-eighth as much mileage as the railroads of the United States, upon whose construction billions of dollars have been expended. It acts as a regulator of freight and prevents the railroads from advancing their rates as they can do to New York and the Atlantic seaboard; and it offers the cheapest mode of transportation for bulky articles, such as coal and timber, with the consequence that New Orleans receives its supply of fuel at less cost than any American seaport, while its sawmills and furniture and other factories receive their supplies of timber at a minimiun cost. The river allows the barges to deliver their coal direct to steamships in the harbor, and offers extraordinary facilities for delivering materials to the mills and in loading products upon ships for export.

?>. A splendid harbor, extending some twelve miles on both sides of the