Chapter VIII (10)

[61] Champigny, p. 127, _note_ 5. “They were obliged to change boats from smaller to smaller three times, in order to bring merchandise to Biloxi, where they ran carts a hundred feet into the ocean and loaded them, because the smallest boats could not land.”

[62] “Clérac” is thus translated by authority of Margry, v. 573, _note_. He says it means a workman engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, and is derived from the territory of Clérac (Charcute-Inférieure). With this interpretation we can understand why one of the grants was “Celle des Cléracs aux Natchez” (Dumont, ii. 45).

[63] [See Vol. IV. p. 161.—ED.]

[64] Natchez is never mentioned by the French writers except with expressions of admiration for its soil, climate, and situation. Dumont (vol. ii. p. 63) says “the land at Natchez is the best in the province. This establishment had begun to prosper.” The number of killed at the massacre is stated at “more than two hundred” by Father Le Petit (_Lettres édifiantes_, xx. 151). Writers like Dumont and Le Page du Pratz state the number at more than seven hundred. Even the smaller number is probably an exaggeration. The value of the tobacco produced at Natchez is alluded to in Champigny; but the place does not seem to have rallied from this blow. Bossu, in 1751, speaks of the fertility of its soil, “if it were cultivated.”

[65] The Capuchin in charge of the post at Natchez was away. The Jesuit Du Poisson, from the Akensas, happened to be there, and was killed.

[66] Clairborne in his _Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State_, places the fort of the Natchez in Arkansas, at a place known as “Sicily Island,” forty miles northwest from Natchez.

[67] “I am the only one of the French who has escaped sickness since we have been in this country.” Du Poussin from the Akensas, in Kip, p. 263.

[68] Poussin (_De la puissance Américaine_, Paris, 1843, i. 262) says: “Nevertheless, about this time (1751) the inhabitants began to understand the necessity of seriously occupying themselves with agricultural pursuits.”

[69] _The Present State of the Country and Inhabitants, European and Indians, of Louisiana_ (London, 1744).

[70] [Cf. Breese, _Early History of Illinois_, and Vol. IV., p. 198.—ED.]

[71] “The minute of the surrender of Fort Chartres to M. Sterling, appointed by M. de Gage, governor of New York, commander of His Britannic Majesty’s troops in North America, is preserved in the French Archives at Paris. The fort is carefully described in it as having an arched gateway fifteen feet high; a cut stone platform above the gate, and a stair of nineteen stone steps, with a stone balustrade, leading to it; its walls of stone eighteen feet in height, and its four bastions, each with forty-eight loop-holes, eight embrasures, and a sentry-box; the whole in cut stone. And within was the great storehouse, ninety feet long by thirty wide, two stories high, and gable-roofed; the guard-house, having two rooms above for the chapel and missionary quarters; the government house, eighty-four by thirty-two feet, with iron gates and a stone porch, a coach-house and pigeon-house adjoining, and a large stone well inside; the intendant’s house, of stone and iron, with a portico; the two rows of barracks, each one hundred and twenty-eight feet long; the magazine thirty-five feet wide and thirty-eight feet long, and thirteen feet high above the ground, with a door-way of cut stone, and two doors, one of wood and one of iron; the bake-house, with two ovens and a stone well in front; the prison, with four cells of cut stone, and iron doors; and one large relief gate to the north; the whole enclosing an area of more than four acres.”—_Illinois in the Eighteenth Century_, by Edward G. Mason, being No. 12 of the _Fergus Historical Series_, p. 39.

[72] [See map, Vol. IV. p. 200.—ED.]

[73] _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_ (Paris, 1758), xxviii. 59. Father Vivier says that five French villages situated in a long prairie, bounded at the east by a chain of mountains and by the River Tamaroa, and west by the Mississippi, comprised together one hundred and forty families. These villages were (Bossu, seconde édition, Paris, 1768, i. 145, _note_) Kaskaskia, Fort Chartres, St. Philippe, Kaokia, and Prairie du Rocher. There were other posts on the lines of travel, but the bulk of the agricultural population was here. The picture of their life given by Breese is interesting.

Vincennes is said by some authorities to have been founded as early as 1702. See Bancroft (New York, 1883), ii. 186; also _A Geographical Description of the United States_ by John Melish. C. F. Volney, the author of _Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis d’Amérique_ (Paris, 1803), was himself at Poste Vincennes in 1796. He says (p. 401): “I wished to know the date of the foundation and early history of Poste Vincennes; but spite of the authority and credit that some attribute to tradition, I could scarcely get any exact notes about the war of 1757, notwithstanding there were old men who dated back prior to that time. It is only by estimate that I place its origin about 1735.” In _Annals of the West_, compiled by James R. Albach, the authorities for the various dates are given. The post figures in some of the maps about the middle of the century.

[74] “We receive from the Illinois,” he says, “flour, corn, bacon, hams both of bear and hog, corned pork and wild beef, myrtle and bees-wax, cotton, tallow, leather, tobacco, lead, copper, buffalo-wool, venison, poultry, bear’s grease, oil, skins, fowls, and hides” (Martin’s _History of Louisiana_, i. 316).

[75] Pownall in his _Administration of the Colonies_ (2d ed., London, 1765, appendix, section 1, p. 24) gives a sketch of the condition of the colonies, derived mainly from Vaudreuil’s correspondence. He says that Vaudreuil (May 15, 1751) thought that Kaskaskia was the principal post, but that Macarty, who was on the spot (Jan. 20, 1752), thought the environs of Chartres a far better situation to place this post in, provided there were more inhabitants. “He visited Fort Chartres, found it very good,—only wanting a few repairs,—and thinks it ought to be kept up.”

[76] Fort Chartres is stated by Mr. Edward G. Mason, in _Illinois in the Eighteenth Century_ (Fergus Historical Series, no. 12, p. 25), to be sixteen miles _above_ Kaskaskia. In the _Journal historique_, etc. (Paris and New Orleans, 1831), p. 221, the original establishment of Boisbriant is stated to have been “eight leagues below Kaskaskia,” and (p. 243) it is stated that it was transferred “nine leagues _below_” the village. French, in his _Louisiana Historical Collections_, published a translation of a manuscript copy of the _Journal historique_ which is deposited in Philadelphia. His translation reads that the transfer was made to a point “nine leagues _above_ Kaskaskia.” Martin, who worked from still another copy of the _Journal historique_, states that the establishment was transferred to a point twenty-five miles _above_ Kaskaskia. The “au dessous” (p. 243 of _Journal historique_, or, as ordinarily cited, “La Harpe”) was probably a typographical error.

[77] This ground was partly prospected by Dutisné, who, Nov. 22, 1719, wrote to Bienville an account of an expedition to the Missouris by river and to the Osages and Paniouassas by land. Bournion, whose appointment was made, according to Dumont, in 1720, went up the river to the Canzes, and thence to the Padoucahs in 1724. Le Page du Pratz gives an account of the expedition. The name of this officer is variously given as Bournion in the _Journal historique_, Bourgmont by Le Page du Pratz, Bourmont by Bossu, and Boismont by Martin.

[78] Neyon de Villiers.

[79] [See _post_, chap. viii.—ED.]

[80] [“The English colonies ... at the middle of the century numbered in all, from Georgia to Maine, about 1,160,000 white inhabitants. By the census of 1754 Canada had but 55,000. Add those of Louisiana and Acadia, and the whole white population under the French flag might be something more than 80,000.” Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, i. 20.—ED.]

[81] [See _post_, chap. vii.—ED.]

[82] [“In the dual government of Canada the governor represented the king, and commanded the troops; while the intendant was charged with trade, finance, justice, and all other departments of civil administration. In former times the two functionaries usually quarrelled; but between Vaudreuil and Bigot there was perfect harmony” (Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, ii. 18). Foremost among the creatures of Bigot, serving his purposes of plunder, were Joseph Cadet, a butcher’s son whom Bigot had made commissary-general, and Marin, the Intendant’s deputy at Montreal, who repaid his principal by aspiring for his place. It was not till February, 1759, when Montcalm was given a hand in civil affairs, that the beginning of the end of this abandoned coterie appeared (see Ibid., ii. 37, for sources). Upon the interior history of Canada, from 1749 to 1760, there is a remarkable source in the _Mémoires sur le Canada_, which was printed and reprinted (1873) by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. It reached the committee from a kinsman of General Burton, of the army of General Amherst, who presumably received it from its anonymous author, and took it to England for printing. Smith, in his _History of Canada_ (1815), had used a manuscript closely resembling it. Parkman refers to a manuscript in the hands of the Abbé Verreau of Montreal, the original of which he thinks may have been the first draught of these _Mémoires_. This manuscript was in the Bastille at the time of its destruction, and being thrown into the street, fell into the hands of a Russian and was carried to St. Petersburg. Lord Dufferin, while ambassador to Russia, procured the Verreau copy, which differs, says Parkman, little in substance from the printed _Mémoires_, though changed in language and arrangement in some parts (Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, ii. 37). The second volume of the first series of the _Mémoires_ of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec also contains a paper, evidently written in 1736, and seemingly a report of the Intendant Hocquart to Cardinal Fleury, the minister of Louis XV. In the same collection is a report, _Considérations sur l’état présent du Canada_, dated October, 1758, which could hardly have been written by the Intendant Bigot, but is thought to have been the writing of a Querdisien-Trémais, who had been sent as commissioner to investigate the finances, and who deals out equal rebuke upon all the functionaries then in office.—ED.]

[83] [_Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d’un voyage fait par ordre du roi dans l’Amérique septentrionale_ (Paris, 1744). It is in three volumes, the third containing the _Journal_ (cf. Vol. IV. p. 358), of which there are two distinct English translations,—one, _Journal of a Voyage to North America_, in two volumes (London, 1761; reprinted in Dublin, 1766); the other, _Letters to the Duchess of Lesdiguierres_ (London, 1763), in one volume. A portion of the _Journal_ is also given in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana_ part iii. (Cf. Sabin, no. 12,140, etc.; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 1,285, 1,347, 1,497.) The Dublin edition of the _Journal_ has plates not in the other editions (_Brinley Catalogue_, vol. i. no. 80). There is a paper on “Charlevoix at New Orleans in 1721” in the _Magazine of American History_, August, 1883.—ED.]

[84] [_History and General Description of New France_, translated, with Notes, by John Gilmary Shea (New York, 1866), etc., 6 vols. (See Vol. IV. of the present work, p. 358.) Charlevoix’s _Relation de la Louisiane_ is also contained in Bernard’s _Recueil de voyages au nord_ (Amsterdam, 1731-1738).—ED.]

[85] Upon these expeditions the United States partly based their claims, in the discussions with Spain in 1805 and 1818, on the Louisiana boundary question.

[86] Jean de Beaurain, a geographical engineer, was born in 1696, and died in 1772. He was appointed geographer to the King in 1721. His son was a conspicuous cartographer (_Nouvelle biographie générale_).

[87] The libraries of the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia) and of the Department of State (Washington) each have a copy of this manuscript. A copy belonging to the Louisiana Historical Society is deposited in the State Library at New Orleans. [From the Philadelphia copy the English translation in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, part iii., was made. A. R. Smith, in his London _Catalogue_, 1874, no. 1,391, held a manuscript copy, dated 1766, at £7 17_s._ 6_d._, and another is priced by Leclerc (_Bibl. Amer._, no. 2,811) at 500 francs. This manuscript has five plans and a map, while the printed edition of 1831 has but a single map. The manuscripts are usually marked as “Dédié et présenté au roi par le Chevalier Beaurain,” who is considered by Leclerc as the author of the drawings only.—ED.]

[88] Ferland, ii. 343; Garneau, ii. 94. For characterizations of these and other authorities on Canada, see Vol. IV. of this History, pp. 157, 360.

[89] [It consists of two series of lectures, the first entitled _The Poetry, or the Romance of the History of Louisiana_, and the second, _Louisiana, its History as a French Colony_. He says in a preface to a third series, printed separately in 1852 at New York,—_Louisiana, its History as a French Colony, Third Series of Lectures_ (Sabin, vol. vii. nos. 26,793, 26,796),—that the first series was given to “freaks of the imagination,” the second was “more serious and useful” in getting upon a basis more historic; while there was a still further “change of tone and manner” in the third, which brings the story down to 1769. This was published at New York in 1851. Mr. Gayarré had already published, in 1830, an _Essai historique sur Louisiane_ in two volumes (Sabin vol. vii. nos. 26,791, 26,795), and _Romance of the History of Louisiana, a Series of Lectures_, New York, 1848 (Sabin, vol. vii. nos. 26,795, 26,797, 26,799).—ED.]

[90] This was published at New Orleans in 1846-1847 in two volumes (Sabin, vol. vii. no. 26,792).

[91] Published as _History of Louisiana: the Spanish Domination, the French Domination, and the American Domination_,—the three parts respectively in 1854, 1855, and 1866.

[92] [There are many papers on Louisiana history in _De Bow’s Review_, and for these, including several reviews of Gayarré, see Poole’s _Index to Periodical Literature_, p. 772, where other references will be found to the _Southern Literary Messenger_, etc.—ED.]

[93] [The original edition was published at Paris in 1758. An English version, _The History of Louisiana, or the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina; containing a Description of the Countries that lie on both sides of the River Mississippi_, appeared in London in 1763 (two vols.) and 1774 (one vol.), in an abridged and distorted form (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 1,352; Sabin, x. 223; Field, _Indian Bibliography_, nos. 910-912). H. H. Bancroft (_Northwest Coast_, i. 598) mentions a different translation published in 1764; but I have not seen it. Field says of the original: “It is difficult to procure the work complete in all the plates and maps, which should number forty-two.”—ED.]

[94] The authorities upon which are based the statements of most writers upon the history of Louisiana have been exhumed from the archives in Paris, but there are French sources for narratives of the adventures of Saint-Denys which are still missing. Le Page du Pratz (i. 178) says: “What I shall leave out will be found some day, when memoirs like these of M. de Saint-Denis and some others concerning the discovery of Louisiana, which I have used, shall be published.”

[95] [It was issued in two volumes at Paris in 1753 (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 996; Leclerc, no. 2,750, thirty francs; Field, _Indian Bibliography_, no. 463).—ED.]

[96] _Journal historique_, etc., p. 310.

[97] _Nouvelle biographie générale, sub_ “Butel Dumont.”

[98] _Considérations géographiques, etc., par Philippe Buache_ (Paris, 1753), p. 36. See Vol. II. p. 461.

[99] He tells of a rattlesnake twenty-two feet long, in vol. i. p. 109; and of frogs weighing thirty-two pounds, in vol. ii. p. 268.

[100] [It was published at Paris in 1768, and an English translation, _Travels through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana_ (by J. R. Forster), was printed in London, in 2 vols., in 1771, and a Dutch version at Amsterdam in 1769. The original French was reprinted at Amsterdam in 1769 and 1777.—ED.]

[101] Vergennes, p. 157. “In considering the savages who were drawn into an alliance with us by our presents, and who received us into their houses, would it have been difficult to attach them to us if we had acted toward them with the candor and rectitude to which they were entitled? We gave them the example of perfidy, and we are doubly culpable for the crimes they committed and the virtues they did not acquire.”

[102] [See Vol. IV. pp. 199, 316. The book forms no. 8 of Munsell’s _Historical Series_. See accounts of Le Sueur and other explorers of the Upper Mississippi in Neill’s _Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota_. There are extracts from Le Sueur’s Journal in La Harpe’s _Journal historique_ and in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, part iii.; and in the new series (p. 35 of vol. vi.) of the same _Collections_ is a translation of Penicaut’s _Annals of Louisiana from 1698 to 1722_. The translation was made from a manuscript in the National Library at Paris. Kaskaskia in Illinois is looked upon as the earliest European settlement in the Mississippi Valley; it was founded by Jacques Gravier in 1700. Cf. _Magazine of American History_, March, 1881. There had been an Indian town on the spot previously, and Father Marquette made it his farthest point in 1675.—ED.]

[103] [On these books see Vol. IV. pp. 294, 316, where Dr. Shea gives reasons for supposing the earliest publication of the _Lettres_ to have been in 1702. Cf. Sabin’s _American Bibliopolist_ (1871), p. 3; H. H. Bancroft’s _Mexico_, ii. 191; and the _Nouvelles des missions, extraites des lettres édifiantes et curieuses: Missions de l’Amérique, 1702-1743_ (Paris, 1827).—ED.]

[104] [It was first printed in London in 1775, and afterward appeared in 1782 at Breslau, in a German translation. Cf. Field, _Indian Bibliography_, no. 11. The _Mémoire de M. de Richebourg sur la première guerre des Natchez_ is given in French’s _Collections_, vol. iii. A paper on the massacre of St. André is in the _Magazine of American History_ (April, 1884), p. 355. Dr. Shea printed in 1859, from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. J. Carson Brevoort (as no. 9 of his series, one hundred copies), a _Journal de la guerre du Micissippi contre les Chicachas, en 1739 et finie en 1740, le 1er d’avril_. _Par un officier de l’armée de M. de Nouaille._ Cf. Field, _Indian Bibliography_, no. 807.—ED.]

[105] [The original was published at Paris in 1829; in 1830 it was printed in English at Philadelphia as _The History of Louisiana, particularly of the Cession of that Colony to the United States of America_. It is said to be translated by the publicist, William Beach Lawrence.—ED.]

[106] [It was reprinted in 1726, again in 1727, and with a lengthened title in 1741 (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 315, 372, 376, 679; Sabin, vol. v. nos. 17, 276, etc.). The edition of 1741 made part of _A Collection of Voyages and Travels_, edited by Coxe, which contained: “1. The dangerous voyage of Capt. Thomas James in his intended discovery of a northwest passage into the South sea (in 1631-1632). 2. An authentick and particular account of the taking of Carthagena by the French in 1697 by Sieur Pointis. 3. A description of the English province of Carolana; by the Spaniards call’d Florida, and by the French La Louisiane. By Daniel Coxe.” Coxe’s narrative of explorations is also included in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, vol. ii. Coxe’s map, which is repeated in the various editions, is called: “Map of Carolana and the River Meschacebe.” A section of it is given on the next page.—ED.]

[107] Coxe’s _Carolana_, p. 118. The writer of an article in the _North American Review_, January, 1839, entitled “Early French Travellers,” says: “An examination of contemporary writers and the town records has failed to lend a single fact in support of the Doctor’s tale.” Cf. H. H. Bancroft, _Northwest Coast_, i. 122, 123. [The French as traders and missionaries easily gained a familiarity with the Valley of the Mississippi, before agricultural settlers like the English had passed the Alleghanies. There had, however, been some individual enterprises on the part of the English. Coxe claims that under the grant to Sir Robert Heath, in 1630, of the region across the continent between 31° and 36°, Colonel Wood and a Mr. Needham explored the Mississippi Valley between 1654 and 1664, and that during the later years of that century other explorers had thridded the country.—ED.].

[108] [See Vol. II. p. 462.—ED.]

[109] His account of Fort Chartres is quoted in the appendix of Mills’s _Boundaries of Ontario_, p. 198. His plan of Mobile Bay (p. 55), may be compared with one in Roberts’s _Account of the First Discovery and Natural History of Florida_ (London, 1763), p. 95.

[110] [_The Early History of Illinois, from its Discovery by the French, in 1673, until its Cession to Great Britain in 1763, including the Narrative of Marquette’s Discovery of the Mississippi. With a Biographical Memoir by Melville W. Fuller._ Edited by Thomas Hoyne (Chicago, 1884). It has three folded maps.—ED.]

[111] [Cf., for these and other titles, Vol. IV. pp. 198, 199. The routes of Marquette by Green Bay, and of La Salle by the St. Joseph River, had been the established method of communication of the French in Canada with Louisiana in the seventeenth century; but as they felt securer in the Ohio Valley, in 1716, they opened a route by the Miami and Wabash, and later from Presqu’ Isle on Lake Erie to French Creek, thence by the Alleghany and Ohio.—ED.]

[112] Bossu, ii. 151.

[113] French (part iii. p. 12, _note_) says: “The two brothers met in deep mourning, and after mutual embraces the brave D’Iberville sought the tomb of his brother Sauvolle, where he knelt for hours in silent grief.” All this is purely imaginary; and in French’s second series (vol. ii. p. 111, _note_) he concludes that Sauvolle would appear from the text not to have been Iberville’s brother. This doubt whether Sauvolle was a brother of Iberville penetrates even such a work as _Nos gloires nationales_. The author not finding such a seigniory, says of François Le Moyne, “We do not know if he followed his brother to Louisiana, and is the same to whom the name Sieur de Sauvole was given,”—all this in face of the record in the previous paragraph of his burial in 1687 (_Nos gloires_, i. 53). To the account of the massacre at Natchez, in his translation of Dumont, French appends a note (vol. v. p. 76), in which he identifies a ship-carpenter, whose life was spared by the Indians, as “Perricault, who, after his escape, wrote a journal of all that passed in Louisiana from 1700 to 1729.” Penicaut, the spelling of whose name puzzled writers and printers, left the colony in 1721. There was no foundation whatever for the note.

[114] The reader might easily be misled by the title given to the translation of a portion of the second volume of Dumont into the belief that the whole work was before him. There is no mention in French of the preface, or of the appendix to Coxe’s Carolana. Both preface and appendix are full of interesting material.

[115] In this translation French (iii. 83) says: “But notwithstanding these reports, they now create him [Bienville] brigadier-general of the troops, and knight of the military order of St. Louis,” etc. Compare this with the faithful rendering of Martin (i. 229),—“The Regent ... so far from keeping the promise he had made of promoting him to the rank of brigadier-general, and sending him the broad ribbon of the order of St. Louis, would have proceeded against him with severity if he had not been informed that the Company’s agents in the colony had thwarted his views.”

[116] It has all the substantial portions of the copy given in Margry, but there are occasional abridgments and occasional additions. The story of the Margry relation is continuous and uninterrupted; but in the copy given by French items of colonial news are interspersed, and sometimes repeated with variations. It would seem as if the copyist had been unable properly to separate the manuscript from that of some other Relation of colonial affairs, and in the exercise of his discretion had made these mistakes. A comparison of the two accounts will readily disclose their differences. A single example will explain what is meant by repetitions which may have been occasioned by confusion of manuscripts. On p. 145 of vol. vi., or second series vol. i. of French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana_ occurs the following: On the 17th of March, 1719, “the ship of war ‘Le Comte de Toulouse’ arrived at Dauphin Island.” On p. 146 we find, “On the 19th of April the ships ‘Maréchal de Villars,’ ‘Count de Toulouse,’ and the ‘Phillip,’ under the command of M. de Sérigny, the brother of M. de Bienville, arrived at Dauphin Island.” These two paragraphs, with their contradictory statements about the “Comte de Toulouse,” do not occur in Margry. They are evidently interpolated from some outside source. Thomassy (1860) quotes _Annales véritables des 22 premières années de la colonisation de la Louisiane par Pénicaut_, as from the “MSS. Boismare, dans la Bibliothèque de l’État à Bâton-Rouge.”

The camp-fire yarn of Jalot, with its marvellous details about Saint-Denys’ romantic love-affair, the gorgeous establishment of the Mexican viceroy, and the foolhardy trip of Saint-Denys to see his wife, are omitted in French’s translation. They are worthless as history, but they reveal the simplicity of Penicaut, who yielded faith to his fellow-voyagers, in the belief that it was his good fortune to be chosen to tell the story to the world.

[117] [_Historical Collections of Louisiana, ... compiled with Historical and Biographical Notes and an Introduction by B. F. French.