Glass Book--- COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT THE STORY OF THE STATES EDI TED UY ELBKIDGR S BROOKS i J 1 THE STORY OF THE STATES THE STORY OF LOUISIANA BY, MAURICE THOMPSON 3/ o Illustrations by L J Bridgman BOSTON D LOTHROP COMPANY FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS \ Copyright, 1888, BY D. LoTHROP Company. BERWICK & SMITH, PRINTERS, BOSTON. PREFACE The task assumed in undertaking to write this " Story of Louisiana " was full of difficulties of a kind not discoverable at a first glance. It was not a history that was demanded of me, but something more and something less than a detailed record of all the events of interest connected with the birth and growth of the great Commonwealth under consideration. It must be a connected, succinct story, free from dreary statis- tics and relieved of everything like political or social philos- ophy, and yet bearing upon its current the very sheens and shadows of the life it is meant to reflect, and containing in its substance the essential truths of the history it represents. Such a story is not to be well told by him who runs as he tells it. Easy reading for an ease-loving public is prepared at the expense of untiring labor, even when genius drives the pen and fiction is the product most desired ; much more is it a work of toil when the mere uninspired compiler of events is expected to link and group dry facts in a way that will insure the most truthful and at the same time the most picturesque impression of the history involved. The novelist may, nay, he must, take liberties with truth. The historian has no alternative ; he must follow the current of his subject from fact to fact and take things just as they present themselves. This Procrustean de- mand of truth presents to the writer a limitation singularly inimical to unity of effect and peculiarly deadly to dramatic directness of presentation, especially when the history in hand is to be so brief as to enforce the utmost economy of phrasing. PREFACE. The history of Louisiana is so rich in minor incidents and so barren of any great features exclusively its own, that to write it with best effect would require several volumes as large as the one here presented. Much that belongs to the stories of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois and Texas would have to be included in such a work. For obvious rea- sons, therefore, I have confined my story strictly within the boundaries of the Territory and the State of Louisiana. I have not attempted to record every incident. I have been forced to leave out many, and often the task of deciding what to use and what to reject out of the mass of materials has been a vexing one. Throughout this labor my aim has been to give a vivid, truthful and impartial impression of Louisiana's civili- zation from the discovery of the Mississippi River down to the present time, and to so do it that the whole could be dis- cussed fully by any reader within the space of a few hours. /ff^Zi^uuT/^^^ CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. A COLONY OF FRANCE II 1699-1713. CFIAPTER II. A PAPER ELCORADO 35 1713-1722. CHAPTER III. IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE ...... 62 1722-1732. CHAPTER IV. FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN 88 1734-1769. CHAPTER V. UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN II3 1769-1793. CHAPTER VI. INTRIGUE AND UNREST 138 1793-1803. CHAPTER VII. UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES 162 1803-1810. CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. THE TERRITORY OF ORLEANS . 1S03-1815. CHAPTER IX. THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 1815. CHAPTER X. THE OLD REGIME IN THE CIVIL WAR THE PELICAN STATE 1815-1861. CHAPTER XI. 1861-1874. CHAPTER XII. 1874-1888. • 184 23s 261 284 THE CHRONOLOGICAL STORY THE people's COVENANT BOOKS RELATING TO LOUISIANA INDEX 325 2>ZZ ILLUSTRATIONS. Packenham's charge Frontispiece. De Soto. Initial 1 1 La Salle displays the arms of France 17 At the English turn . 27 John Law. Initial 35 Bienville building Fort Rosalie 41 Laying out New Orleans 55 Father Charlevoix Initial 62 The last reed 67 Death to the Natchez! 81 Bienville. Initial 88 A primitive sugar mill 93 Lafreniere's appeal to the council 105 Don Alexander O'Reilly. Initial 113 The death of Villiere 119 On the Bayou Teche 131 Etienne de Bore. Initial 138 The sale of Louisiana 151 General Wilkinson. Initial 162 Filles a la Cassette 167 Governor Claiborne. Initial 1S4 " On to Orleans," : The Negro Insurrection 193 General Jackson. Initial 210 Jackson's Sharp-Shooters 221 The old French Market. Initial 235 In Acadia 249 A Louisiana " Tiger." Initial 261 In the cane-brake -77 Sorghum and pelican. Initial -84 By the old quarters -89 On the levee -97 THE STORY OF LOUISIANA CHAPTER I. A COLONY OF FRANCE. 'HE vignette for the story of Louisiana was sketched by the hand of D e Soto, who, during four years of wandering, left his romantic autograph scrawled from Tampa Bay to the Mississippi. Scarcely three and a half centuries aoo the first rumor of the o^reat western river reached the ears of European nations already tingling with the fas- cinatinof- stories of Columbus and his followers. Mexico had fallen before Cortes ; Peru had poured her spoils into the bloody hands of Pizarro. Ships were slipping away from the ports of Spain with their prows to the southwest. The wind in their 12 A COLONY OF FRANCE. sails was the breath of fortune. It was a time of discovery, of conquest and of booty. When the ships returned they came loaded with gold and bearing the heroes of wild battles, the doers of strange deeds. Men stood upon the eastern coasts of the Atlantic and shading their eyes gazed out over the blue water with a longing which was compounded of all the passions and ambitions that can stir the human heart. Over beyond the dreamy horizon line in the far southwest lay El dorado, the land of eter- nal bloom and fragrance, of honors easily won, of wealth unclaimed and undefended, the land of health for the sick, of youth for the aged and of kingdoms for the ambitious. There too was outspread a wide field for the enthusiasm of the priest ; there stretched an engaging wilderness for the labors of the scientist, and the discoverer. It w^as a time of longing, of expectation and of surprise. Charles V. had come to the full control of his vast empire; Villalar had been fought, Valencia had been subdued and the Castilian grandees had been shown that the Emperor was indeed their master. De Soto returned from Peru, whither he had been with Pizarro. He was covered with glory on account of his bravery, his energy and his discov- eries. Moreover he bore a burden of gold which A coLoyy OF France. 13 made him one of the rich men of Spain. Charles borrowed a part of his fortune and in turn appointed him governor of Cuba and president of Florida. This double office, coupled with the wealth and prestige brought from Peru, gave De Soto an independence and power practically unlimited. At once he formed plans of conquest, and in 1539 he landed at Tampa Bay, Florida, with an enthusiastic and daring band of followers whose imaginations were on fire with dreams of rich cities to be plundered, and of fertile fields to be foraged from. Such a march as was then begun by those high-spirited adventurers, if we may believe the story, has no parallel in his- tory. " It was," says Theodore Irving, " poetry put into action ; it was the knight-errantry of the Old World carried into the depths of the American wilderness. The personal adventures, the feats of individual prowess, the picturesque descriptions of steel-clad cavaliers with lance and helm, and pranc- ing steed, glittering through the wildernesses of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and the prairies of the Far West, would seem to us mere fictions of romance, did they not come to us in the matter-of- fact narratives of those who were eye-witnesses, and who recorded minute memoranda of every day's incidents." The wanderinos of this band of adventurers in 14 A COLONY OF FRANCE. search of an empire went on from month to month. For nearly four years they groped in the jungles, waded or swam the rivers, climbed the hills, ran- sacked the valleys and fought the wild natives, ever led on by will-o'-the-wisp rumors of a fabulously rich country a little way off, mayhap just beyond the very next wall of dense forest. They found red nomads and shifting villages, they saw strange vegetation, they encountered wild beasts, they felt in their blood the poison of the fell malaria ; but here was no gold ; the cities, the cas- tles, and the palaces eluded them ; they began to fall and die by the way. De Soto had risked his private fortune in the enterprise, and doubtless felt that he could not turn back. His hopefulness, courage and energy were magnetic, as such high qualities always are, and his men kept up their expectancy without flag- o-ino- until at last the Mississippi River was reached. Here was a stream of immense volume, dark and tur- bulent, rolling majestically through the wilderness to the sea. While attempting to follow the river to its mouth De Soto fell ill ; he died, and on the twenty-first of May, 1542, his body was buried be- neath the muddy waters of "the Hidden River." Thus the hero of Darien and Peru found a grave in the stream the discovery of which was the only valuable fruit of that long disastrous journey. His A COLON y OF FRANCE. 1 5 substance was wasted; his dream of empire was dispelled. " The Adelaiitado of Cuba and Florida," says Dr. Shea; "he who had hoped to gather the wealth of nations, left as his property five Indian slaves, three horses and a herd of swine." But his discovery of the great river of the West and the untold difficulties through which he won its banks have given him a place in history as imperishable as that achieved by Cortes and Pizarro, the con- querors of empires. De Soto's little band thus deprived of their inde- fatigable leader, attempted to go back overland to F"lorida, but were unable to do it. They returned to the river and, fighting their way through hosts of Indian foemen, navigated the Mississippi to its mouth, a voyage of nineteen days. Once more upon the sea they coasted around to Panuco in Mexico whence some of them returned to Spain and made public the story of the expedition. Thus began in disaster and death the story of of Louisiana. It is probable that the Mississippi was swollen by the spring rains at about the time of De Soto's death, and the survivors of the band no doubt gave an exaggerated description of its mighty volume. The imagination of the Si)aniard clung to the idea of conquest, and the thought of leading a fleet up this 2:reat river of the West was full of fascination. 1 6 .4 COLOA'V OF FRANCE. Juan Ponce de Leon had discovered Florida in 1512, but had failed in his attempt to colonize it. Sixteen years later Pamphilo de Narvaez entered the bay of Pensacola, and with about four hun- dred men remained there nearly six months; then he sailed away to the westward and went down in a storm on the gulf, off the mouth of the Mississippi. In 1564 Rene Gonlaine de Laudonniere landed near the present site of St. Augustine ; from thence he went up the St. John River and built Fort Caro- line which he filled with a garrison of Huguenots. This was deemed an insult to the Spanish Catholics and was. resented in the most inhuman way by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, general of the fleet to New Spain and Adelantado of Florida. Hastily gather- ing a sufficient force Menendez pounced upon the fort and murdered every Frenchman it contained, hanging up their bodies with the label attached, " I do not this to Frenchmen, but to Heretics." A little later Dominic de Gourgues, the Frenchman, sailed into the mouth of the St. John and in like manner hung up the Spaniards, not because they were Spaniards, but because they were "traitors, robbers and murderers." It was by such bloody steps as these that the reign of the Buccaneers came on apace, until at length almost every sail on the Spanish main was that of a pirate. LA SALLE DISPLAYS THE ARMS OF FRANCE. ^ A COLOXY OF FRANCE. 1 9 Meantime on the Antilles and along the coasts of Mexico colonies had been thriving or lan- guishing, feasting or starving, as the fortunes of the time favored or frowned ; but the mouth of the o-reat river had called in vain for an explorer. Indeed, as the wealth of Mexico and Peru dis- appeared and as the wars of Europe encouraged privateering, the business of exploring was given over for the wild life of the corsair. A ship with heavy guns, a reckless, motley crew and a ren- dezvous in one of the Caribbean islands w^ere the prerequisites to a free life on the ocean as master buccaneer. The Gulf of Mexico was dotted with the dark hulls and gleaming sails of errant vessels prowling for prey. The sentiment flung from one deck to another was taking the form of " Death to the Spaniard ! " Little enough like prosy history are the accounts we have of those strange days. The picture is peculiar in all its details. Men of iron hearts, w^ithout conscience or the sentiment of mercy, gathered from all over the world and banded them- selves together for two purposes : the killing of Spaniards and the capture of gold. All the sea, from the Antilles to the western shore of the Gulf of Mexico, is prowled over by these dark-faced, restless corsair bands, who descend upon the Span- ish settlements to slay, to pillage and to burn. iO A COLONY OF FRANCE. Wherever a priest has set a cross and said a mass or suno- the Te Dcum in the name of Heaven and the Spanish king, comes to redden the spot with blood and to bear away its booty the reckless and remorseless buccaneer. It is a savagely picturesque life of which the chronicles of the old voyagers give us glimpses — when priests were pirates and gentlemen were robbers, when Great Britain and France permitted, nay, encouraged, the building and equipping of buccaneer vessels in their shipyards, and bade them godspeed as sails were set and prows were boldly headed toward the Spanish main. We can- not altogether realize that we are reading what is substantially true, the coloring is so romantic, the atmosphere so like that of poetry, the grouping so strangely fantastic and the whole impression so alien to the lines of life as we know them. There is an Homeric ring in the story of De Soto and his battles, his wanderings, his dream of new golden fortunes and his pathetic death — a ring which echoes clearly enough from beyond the booming of corsair guns and through the hoarse shouts of pirate crews boarding the hapless merchant ships of the Spanish king a century or so later. In 1673 Marquette and Joliet reached the Mississippi from the Canadian settlements and navio'ated its waters as far southward as the mouth A COLONY OF FRANCE. 21 of the Arkansas River. Nine years later the Sieur de la Salle set out from Canada, and embarking at the mouth of the Illinois River went down the Mississippi to the Gulf where he set up a cross bearino: the arms of France. This voyage gave rise to another still more re- markable. La Salle returned to France and made such representations and reports as secured to him the command of a fleet sent by his govern- ment, ostensibly to explore and fortify the mouths of the Mississippi, but really to make conquest of a rich mining province in Mexico. He pre- tended to lose his course, and so steered past the Mississippi and entered Matagorda Bay on the coast of Texas. Here he lost a part of his fleet and spent a long time making excursions into the interior, without any valuable results, after which, having looked in vain for reinforcements that had been promised to him, he undertook to make his way with fifty men to the Mississippi and thence on to Canada. But while wandering in the Louisiana marshes he was basely murdered by his companions who, after incredible hardships, again reached the Mississippi, and ascending it returned to the French settlements and thence to France. By this time the thought of taking and holding the great valley of the Mississippi had fastened itself in the minds of many ambitious men who 2 2 A COLONY OF FRANCE. beo-an to see that the river was the key to the continent. A hundred and fifty miles to the east- ward of the great river — at Pensacola on the western coast of Florida — there was a weak set- tlement, chiefly a rendezvous for Spanish pirates, thouo-h on o-ood terms with all manner of roving free-booters of the sea ; but from this point west- ward to the mouth of the Mississippi and far beyond, the coast was unoccupied. The prize, the most valuable that ever was captured by man, lay untouched ; but not long. In 1699 Pierre Le Moyne d' Iberville, a native of Canada, and styled by his admirers "the Cid of New France," came from France with emigrants to the Gulf coast and cast anchor about sixty miles east of the present site of New Orleans. Soon there were French colonies at Biloxi, at Bay St. Louis, and on Ship Island and Cat Island. Mobile was then made the capital of so-called Louisiana, and thus remained until some time after the found- ing of New Orleans. The shores of all the little bays on the Gulf coast between Mobile and the Mississippi's mouth are beautiful white bluffs rising from five to thirty feet above the water. The soil is sandy and light, but the forests that grow from it are dense and dark, composed of giant live-oaks, water-oaks, magnolias, pines, cedars and a great variety of A COLONY OF FINANCE. 23 smaller trees. Viewed from a distance off-shore, these bluffs looked like a range of low, dark hills with chalk cliffs breaking from the front. A line of islands, the chief of which are Cat and Ship, runs parallel with the general trend of the coast at a distance of from ten to thirty miles out, forming a sound which is a safe harbor for small craft, and in places is sufficiently deep to accommodate heavy ships. Naturally enough, therefore, these beautiful, dry and breezy bluffs were first chosen as sites for settlements. The aborigines, too, had been pleased with the reo-ion, and for manv years the chiefs and warriors of the Southern Indians with their wives and children had made it a summer resort, camping on the high points under the spreading live-oaks and bathing in the shallow surf of the sandy beaches. The place was one to invite repose and dream- ing. The placid water, the blooming, fragrant forests and the warm Southern breezes lulled am- bition, quieted avarice, and for a time threatened to overcome even the restless energy of the explorers. The estuaries and creeks were teeming with fish, and the woods and jungles were full of game, so that it required no great effort to procure plenty of food of the most wholesome sort. It was a lotus land in which the careless adventurers lay down for a time to laze and dream. D' Iberville, however, kept his mind on the great 24 A COLO An- OF FINANCE. river over beyond the Rigolets and Ponchartrain. His dream was of founding a city and of building up a rich colony in this charming country. Meantime the Spanish and the English were feelino- their way toward the mouth of the Mississippi. Pensacola was the base of Spanish operations whilst the British as yet had no im- mediate footing, but were sailing along the coasts and seeking a favorable spot for a colony. Two schemes suggested themselves in connec- tion with the plans of colonization : one maritime, the other agricultural. On one hand it appeared practicable to build a coast city and fortress with a good harbor from which the navigation of the Gulf could be controlled and the trade with Mexico be monopolized, whilst on the other hand the Mississippi Valley was known to be incomparably fertile, and of an extent which made it the most promising area of the New World for the founding of an empire. The river, however, for a hundred miles above its mouth had no banks that offered a site for a town. Dreary marshes and dusky swamps inundated by every freshet, alternated with lakes and bayous, the haunts of water-fowl and alligators and infested with tormenting insects and deadly malarias. Against the project of building a city on the Gulf bluffs was the fact that the soil was poor and A COLONY OF FRANCE. 25 incapable of supporting a dense population. To this day those beautiful sand bluffs remain what they were then, simply the charmingest spots in the world for refuge from the heat of our Southern summer and for resting-places during the cold of our Northern winter. To Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Biloxi, Mississippi City, and Ocean Springs the wealthy families of New Orleans go to reside during the sultry months in picturesque cottages overlooking that very sea whereon the little fleet of dTberville lay at anchor in the last year of the seventeenth century, and under the same wide-spreading, dusky oak-trees that sheltered the lio-ht-hearted and reckless adventurer who a little later followed the fortunes of his brother lieutenant Bienville. Soon after landing at Ship Island, dTberville found his way into the mouth of the Mississippi and proceeded up the stream, probably as far as to the mouth of Red. River. Returning he explored and named lakes Maurepas and Ponchartrain. It was on March 2, 1699, that the commandant first entered the Mississippi " With two row-boats, some bark canoes and fifty-three men." The spring was opening and the scenes that greeted his eyes w^ere of a kind to impress his imagination and to fill his mind with glowing anticipations. He saw that the country was one of incomparable importance to 26 A COLONY OF FRANCE. his Government, and becoming aware that British vessels were trying to find a suitable spot for a colony, on May 3 he left his company under con- trol of Sauvolle de la Villantry, " a discreet young man of merit and capable of fulfilling his duty," and sailed for France. At this time the chief nations of Europe were looking askance at each other, regarding the out- come of a great game of diplomacy. The represen- tative of France had secured a controlling influence over the court of Spain; Charles II. had been in- duced to make a will nominating Philip, Duke of Anjou, as his heir and for the moment Louis XIV. was happy, feeling that civil strategy had done for him what war could never have accomplished. Complications followed almost immediately, how- ever, and for some years little attention was paid to the brave Canadian and his handful of followers who along the course of the great river of the West were struggling to secure for France a territory which was soon to attract the eyes of the whole world. Sauvolle looked about him for the best means of carrying out d' Iberville's orders to explore the country. He had formed pleasant relations with the chief of the Bayagoulas Indians and he dis- patched a party of his men under Bienville, with this chief as guide, to the region north of Lake AT THE ENGLISH TURN, A COLOXY OF FKAXCE. 29 Ponchartrain. The expedition set out from Biloxi, where, on the east coast, d' Iberville had erected a rude fort between two ravines. Bienville, who had been named by d' Iberville as the "lieutenant of the king" or the second in com- mand, was a younger brother of the absent d' Iber- ville. He was a bright young fellow of eighteen, active, ambitious and brilliant. Such a mission was exactly suited to his taste. He pressed forward across the Jordan and Pearl rivers in the country of the Colipassas. From these Indians, who were acquainted with the English, he learned that British adventurers had recently led a band of Chickasaws in an attack upon a village of the Colipassas. With this startling intelligence he hastened back to the fort to consult with Sauvolle, and in accord- ance with certain suggestions in the orders left by d'Iberville, he made some explorations to the east- ward, and then sailed around into the Mississippi. After an examination of the two bayous, Plaque- mines and Chetimachas, Bienville on the sixteenth of September was returning home when at a point, eighteen miles below where New Orleans now stands, he suddenly came upon a British frigate carrying twelve guns. The vessel proved to be one of an English fleet sent by a claimant to a large grant in the province of South Carolina. The in- trepid young French lieutenant though startled at 30 A COLONY OF FRANCE. the sight was quite equal to the occasion. He told the English commander a fine story, representing that France had already taken possession of the river, that colonies had been planted at many points on its banks, and that he was just now returning from a visit to them. Thereupon the vessel turned about and with a threat from its captain to return at some time and assert England's right to this new discovery, it sailed out of the Mississippi, and left the young diplomat master of the situation. And ever since that day the bend of the river at the point where this strategy was performed has been called the English Turn. The colony at Biloxi was not prosperous. Sau- volle, an invalid at best, was slowly dying of fever and Bienville could do no more than make rather aimless excursions hither and thither while waiting to receive aid from France. The days and months dragged slowly by until August 22, 1701, when Sauvolle died suddenly leaving young Bienville at the head of affairs. In March, 1702 dTberville returned and brought supplies. His first orders to Bienville were to leave twenty men with Boisbriant, his cousin, in charge of the fort at Biloxi, and with the rest of the garrison to go ox'er to Mobile Bay and establish a post there. This was promptly done and dTberville returned to France. Now began a long and bitter period of waiting and watching, A COLO XV OF FRANCE. 31 sickness, starvation, death. For a time, indeed, all went well. The colony had plenty of provisions and even sent supplies to its Spanish neighbors at Pensacola, This could not last, however, and at length the men were reduced to the last extremity of sufferino:. The great Continental War of 1703 had begun and d'Iberville had been detained and ordered to duty in the French navy. The mother country had little time to think of her weak and distant little colony. The battle of Blenheim was in the near future, and the whole of Europe was under the strain of tremendous excitement. At the last moment Bienville received some supplies from Pensacola, and a little later a French vessel com- manded by d' Iberville's brother Chateauguay came to his relief. In 1705 another vessel arrived from France and the supply it bore to the bachelor colonists con- sisted in part of twenty poor but pretty girls sent to them by their king with the following note: — " His Majesty sends twenty girls to be married to the Canadians and to the other inhabitants of Mobile, in order to consolidate the colony." It may be added as the fitting close to this incipi- ent romance that this "cargo of girls " was speedily disposed of and that there were twenty marriages within thirtv davs of the arrival of the carcfo. 32 A COLONY OF FRANCE. Dissensions arose between Bienville and some of the other officials of the colony, and the former came near losing his place. He was saved by an accident and by almost incredible energy and tact kept the interest in Louisiana from dying out in France. Colonization proceeded but slowly. In 171 2 the total population reached barely four hundred per- sons, including twenty negroes, and it is asserted that Bienville was compelled to keep a strict watch over the few " rich men " of the colony lest they should run away. On the fourteenth of September of this very year of 1 712, the French government granted to the Sieur Antony Crozat the exclusive right, for fifteen years, of trading in the undefined territory then claimed by France under the name of Louisiana, and to which the Mississippi River was the royal highway. Crozat, who was a man of immense wealth became thus, in fact if not in name, the owner of that great country. He sent La Mothe Cadillac to be governor in place of Bienville. The "Father of the Colony," as Louisianians love to call Bienville, was nominated Lieutenant-Governor. Cadillac and his subalterns arrived on the seven- teenth of May, 1 71 3, and landed on Dauphine Island. The country was in the full blow of a semi-tropical spring, but Cadillac had no eye for A COLONY OF FRANCE. 33 the picturesque. He was greatly disappointed. This was not the Eldorado that he had come to find. Crozat believed that Kino- Louis had oiven him a lien on a treasure land and he had ordered his governor to search for mines of precious metal. Cadillac had thus been led to expect that a career surpassing that of Pizarro in Peru would at once open to him. Instead of this he found a poor- looking sandy coast and a scattered and wretched little colony, whose only revenue seemed to be derived from the sale of vegetables to their Spanish neighbors of Florida. It was a sad blow to his high schemes and he could see but a gloomy pros- pect in every way. Bienville received him with courtesy, but, naturally enough, felt humiliated by the situation. It looked to the brave Canadian as if the fourteen years that he had given to holding Louisiana for his king were but poorly rewarded when this domineering and irascible stranger was suddenly sent over to supersede him. Nothing was left to him, however, but to put on an air of submission and to trust to that fortune which hitherto had favored him. Cadillac and Bienville were not constituted to be friends in any sense of the word. The pre- dicament of their official relations, therefore, did not tend to lessen the uncongeniality of their natures. Bienville felt that, in a certain measure, the govern- 34 A COLONY OF FINANCE. ment of the territory of Louisiana belonged of right to him. In his eyes Cadihac was a usurper. The new governor of course was not slow in discovering this. He was of a haughty and arrogant temper, and seized the first opportunity to use his authority in a way that would make Bienville feel most keenly the change in his position. In truth the colony in many regards was in a bad condition. The settlers had grown reckless and dissolute to a degree and even under Bienville had been inclined to do about as they pleased. The coming of Cadillac did not help matters any. It was not possible for a man wholly unacquainted with the life and requirements of colonists in a new land to attract to himself such men as had for so long been the companions and friends of Bienville. A few weeks of observation convinced Cadillac that the situation demanded prompt and decisive action on his part. He must either subdue Bienville or get him out of the way. CHAPTER II. A PAPER ELDORADO ROM the point of view afforded by the present v^ ^ time, Crozat's purposes appear to have been flexible enough to cover every scheme for money-making, from legiti- mate trading, on one hand, to smuggling, on the other, and from the discovery of gold mines, if possible, to downright piracy, if practicable. Cadillac was not the man to make the most of the position he now held, nor were the resources at his com- mand sufficient to carry out the plans matured by his master. The whole trouble arose out of a misconception on Crozat's part of the nature of the country and the strength of the colonies. The rumor had gone abroad in France that Louisiana was a land of indescribable riches, and the fact that from time 35 .5 A PAPER ELDORADO. to time vessels returned from sailing on the West- ern seas loaded with gold, had added the weight of fascinating substance to the body of the report. It is easy to understand that a buccaneer coming into a European port with a cargo of rich booty would prefer a romantic lie to a frank confession of the truth. Many a so-called trader, who was in fact a pirate, after making a successful cruise in the Western waters, retired to a pleasant chateau in France, and during the rest of his life told over and over the story of his peaceful but amazing adventures in the wild, strange countries of the great American continent. Others of a different cast of imagination constructed so-called journals wherein was embodied a circumstantial account of explorations and martial encounters the details of which were almost as marvelous as those of the Arabian Nights. Such romances served the double purpose of hiding the truth and of inflaming the wonder- loving minds of the people. The rich silver mhies of Mexico and the enormous loads of precious metals brought to Spain, France and Great Britain had o-iven color to Crozat's orders; consequently Cadillac began a fruitless search for mineral deposits. In 1715 he went himself to the Illinois country, but brought back no gold. By his avarice and cruelty he alienated the savage tribes with whom Bienville A PAPER ELDORADO. 37 had established friendly relations. Some of the men sent out by him to prospect for mines were killed. This gave him a pretext for dispatching Bienville up the Mississippi with orders to punish the Natchez Indians. A fanciful story is told that Cadillac's daughter had fallen in love with Bien- ville, and that this expedition against the Natchez was planned by her precious father with the hope of having the young Lieutenant-Governor killed because he refused to return her affection. At all events, in the month of April, 1716, Bien- ville, who had been commissioned " Commandant of the Mississippi," set out with a handful of fol- lowers and made his way up the great river to one of the northern islands. Here he began prepara- tions for carrying out Cadillac's orders against the offending tribe. He built a rude fort containins: three log houses, and a little later, having brought the offending tribe into subjection, and having concluded to make the place a permanent post, he forced the Indians to aid him in buildins: a strongr palisade and some comfortable houses ; in these he remained until the twenty-ninth of August. This place he named Fort Rosalie. Leaving the post in charge of Pailloux he returned to Mobile and found that Cadillac had been superseded by Monsieur de I'Epinay. The latter was not present, however, and orders were .^ A PAPER ELDORADO. awaiting Bienville to act as governor until his superior should arrive. This turn of affairs was a matter of great rejoicing with the majority of the colonists, who were heartily tired of the unwise policy pursued by Cadillac. Bienville, too, was delighted. He felt, no doubt, that at last his reward was near. L'Epinay landed at Mobile March 9, I7i7. with three companies of infantry and f^fty colonists, and handed to Bienville the cross of St. Louis and a grant of the title to Horn Island. Bienville had expected more. He felt that L'Epinay was in his path quite as much as Cadillac had been. Of course quarreling began forthwith. The new gov- ernor found himself confronted by insubordination from the start, and the scattered and miserable condition of the colonists put a deadly damper on the brilliant anticipations he had been indulging. The policy of Cadillac had demoralized his sub- jects ; each man had in a measure taken the law into his own hands. There was no organiza- tion, no centralization, no government, in fact. L'Epinay reported the condition of things to Crozat, who in August, 171 7- threw up his con- tract with the French government and abandoned Louisiana with all its glamor and romance, glad enough to be freed from the trouble and expense the project had entailed upon him. He had failed A PAPER ELDORADO. 39 utterly to accomplish anything in the direction of opening a trade with Mexico, the furs obtained from the savages were not valuable and not a gold mine, a silver mine, nor a pearl fishery had been found by his agents. Moreover agriculture had been almost wholly neglected, whilst debauchery and indecent wrangling among officers and men had reduced the morals of the colony to the very lowest ebb. Meantime, however, a large amount of valuable information had been collected regarding the geography and the natural resources of the great territory. Bienville had made many excursions far into the interior and Cadillac himself, as has been stated, had in 1715 penetrated a long way northward in search of a mining region reported to him as very rich and lying somewhere in the country of the Illinois. He was absent eight months ; he wandered about all the northern wil- derness, and of course returned empty-handed. Without doubt Cadillac was the worst possible sort of a governor, and yet the impartial student of the old records cannot fail to discover a strong element of truth in the dispatches sent by him to the French government. In one of these, so Gayarre tells us, he exclaims : " What can I do with a force of forty soldiers, out of whom five or six are disabled t A pretty army this, and well 40 A PAPER ELDORADO. calculated to make me respected by the inhabitants or by the Indians ! As a climax to my vexation, they are badly fed, badly paid, badly clothed and without discipline. As to the officers, they are not much better. Verily, I do not believe that there is in the whole universe such another o^overnment." So little was he respected by the colonists that he could not rely upon any emissary he sent out. The Canadians whom he dispatched to look for gold and silver, went their ways as they pleased. His collegue Bienville did not hesitate to balk him in every available way, and was continually writing to France the most disparaging accounts of his government, his methods, and his character. 7"he truth appears to be that Bienville was a man of considerable ability, a strong, active, rather far-seeing and somewhat unscrupulous schemer, who from the first felt that to him of right belonged the task of moulding the destiny of Louisiana. His o-enius was cunnino- and to a o c? degree treacherous, though at need he was bold and openly courageous. L'Epinay could not do without Bienville's aid, and yet he could not bear his insubordination. Consequentl}^ instead of at once beginning ener- getic measures for the advancement of the colonies, the two rivals fell to quarreling disgracefully and so added to the prevailing demoralization. A PAPER EJ,l)ORADO. 43 Cadillac's return to I'rance doubtless added much to public interest in the subject of Louisiana colonization, for the deposed governor was a mighty talker, full of that peculiar enthusiasm for self- o-lorification characteristic of the men of Southern France. He made the most of the history of his adventures, his achievements and the ill-treatment he had received from his government. Indeed, it would appear from his writings that this old-time o-overnor was a sort of ancient Tartarin de Tar- ascon, boastful, prevaricating, inefficient, but not wholly bad. And now came a new era in the checkered story of Louisiana. A dramatic figure appeared in France — John Law the Edinburgh "financier." A gambler and a speculator by nature notwith- standing his deceptively-prosaic name, this son of a Scotch banker became one of the most daring of adventurers. Drifting to France he essayed the role of capitalist, gained the friendship of the regent Orleans, and, rising rapidly in his strange financial career, rested not until he had fixed his ro- mantic hold upon the distressed treasury of France. His operations were shrewd though audacious, and his suQ^ofestions of relief came to the Q-overnment as those of "a friend in need." For France was in a desperate financial strait. Her treasury was empty, her provinces exhausted, her army unpaid. 44 ^ PAPER ELDORADO. Corruption was wide-spread, and the official decla- ration that the nation was bankrupt had been seri- ously considered. Just then came Law's eieantic scheme of speculation, alluringly presented. It was, in effect, to monopolize to himself the foreign trade of France, and to make the nation the universal banker. In 1716 he succeeded in securing the right to establish a bank with a capital of six million livres, and so well did he manage the venture, that the Government a year later ordered that the notes of the bank should be taken as specie by the treas- ury. His next step was the forming of a Royal Bank, in lieu of the private one, and of this he had himself appointed Director-General. Meantime the Mississippi Company had been constituted on the sixth of September, 171 7. To it the regent had granted all the rights and privileges thereto- fore enjoyed by Crozat. Almost unlimited powers were secured by the Company in addition to those already granted, and France thus gave over into the hands of a private corporation for a space of twenty-five years the practical ownership of Lou- isiana. Law was appointed Director-General of this company also, and it was merged into the bank. Next he obtained control of various other com- panies, including one that enjoyed a monopoly of French trade in China, East Indies, and the South Seas; then the mint fell into his hands, and finally A PAPER ELDORADO. 45 his remorseless monopoly clutched practically all the revenues of France. In those days everything romantic drifted toward Louisiana. Law, with the remarkable knowledge of human nature which had enabled him to suc- ceed thus far, now began a shrewd system of advertising, sure that he could compass his desire by appealing to the imagination of the people. His methods were essentially the same as those by which in our own day we see large ventures on the field of speculation rushed into public favor. He flooded the country with pamphlets and other docu- ments containing fervid descriptions of Louisiana : its incomparable climate, its inexhaustible mines, its rich soil, the endless variety and flowery loveli- ness of its plant-life, the abundance of its fish, its game, and its fur-bearing animals. Indeed, the territory was painted as one of boundless extent, and possessed of all the beauties and charms of an earthly paradise with the added value of more than Golconda riches lying ready for the hand of the adventurer. This elysium, this wild, romantic, wealth-burdened country was the basis of Law's dazzling and stupen- dous scheme. In effect he bonded it, as our railway syndicates bond the franchises of their roads. He made the wilderness of Louisiana the subject of an issue of stock watered to the last degree of dilution. 4^ A PAPER ELDORADO. Socially and politically France was just then in a situation to render her people peculiarly subject to the insidious influence of this financial scheme. The government, as has been shown, was virtually bankrupt, and a system of ruinous extravao-ance begun by Louis XIV. was still in vogue under the regency of the Duke of Orleans. For a time repudiation and its consequences seemed to be the national destiny. Everybody was alarmed. Public and private credits were at the point of vanishing. Law's advertisements appeared just at the fort- unate moment, so far as his scheme was to be affected. It offered some reason for hope, and although at first there was difficulty in o-ainino- public confidence, the leaven of speculation was planted in the minds of the people and was sure to perform its work. It did this speedily. The shares of the Com- pany rose to forty times their nominal price. All France rushed to subscribe. "A sort of madness," says Mr. Watt, " possessed the nations. Men sold their all and hastened to Paris to speculate. The population of the capital was increased by an enor- mous influx of provincials and foreigners. Trade received a vast though unnatural impetus. Every one seemed to be getting richer, no one poorer." From the very first Law and his immediate A PAPER ELDORADO. 47 colleao-ues must have foreseen that there was at that time but little in Louisiana upon which to base a great issue of credit ; in order, therefore, to make a show, no matter how deceptive, of a flour- ishino- condition of the colonies, it was necessary to effect a change in the administrations of the colo- nial affairs. With this object in view three vessels with sixty-nine colonists and three companies of infantry were dispatched to Louisiana. They landed on February 9, 1718, bringing to Bienville the commission of governor. This lifted him once more to his coveted place at the head of the people for whom he had suffered so much, and with whom he had struggled through good and bad report for nineteen years. Understanding the effect of sudden and brilliant moves. Law directed Bienville to seek forthwith a proper site for a town on the Mississippi River. His company was the Mississipi Company and the name would acquire greater force and significance with the seat of colonial government fixed at a commanding point on the famous stream. He wished to proclaim in France that wonderful pro- gress was going on in Louisiana, that towns were springing up as if by magic and that the mighty valley of the West was giving birth to an empire. Bienville, never so happy as when engaged in adventurous undertakings, made haste to enter the 48 A PAPER ELDORADO. Mississippi, and was not long choosing the site for his town. Prior to this, under the administrations of Ca- dillac and L'Epinay, efforts which, viewed from this distance, look desperate, had been made to establish an overland route for trade with Mexico. St. Denis and others groped their way through Texas to the Mexican border, but their mission was as vain as it was romantic. At the end of their long, lonely and perilous journey they were robbed and imprisoned by the Spaniards. This policy of trading and smuggling, of gold- hunting and trafficking had the necessary effect of filling the colonies with the reckless and des- perate offscourings of France. Bienville in his despatches complained that the men sent to him were the worst criminals of the old country — men of the vilest propensities who cared for nothing but the most degrading licentiousness. True he had an influence over them which no other man had ever been able to secure, and, in a way, he was fond of them ; but their recklessness and lack of discipline vexed him and retarded his movements. When he received permission to establish a per- manent colony on the Mississippi a new hope sprang up in his heart. The site chosen for the proposed settlement was that now occupied by the city of New Orleans, and the excitement of the A FAFER ELDORADO. 49 undertaking, which involved the laying out of a town and its fortifications, was sufficient to raise his spirits to something Hke their old buoyancy and intrepidity. On the seventeenth of March, 1719, a French war-ship bringing a hundred " passengers," reached Mobile, and on April the twentieth came three more with an hundred and thirty colonists. With these, too, came Serigny, brother of the governor, also Monsieur de Montplaissir who brought with him thirty persons to establish a tobacco manufac- tory, and, besides these, two hundred and fifty negroes — the first large importation of Africans made into Louisiana. But more important even than all this Serigny brought information that war had begun between Spain and France, and pre- sented an order for Bienville to go at once and capture Fensacola. Here was the beginning of a career. Bienville sprang with alacrity to the military task assigned to him and by the thirteenth of May he was ready to strike. His fleet consisted of the three war-vessels of the Mississippi Company recently arrived — the Philippe, the Comte de Toulouse, the Marechal de Villars — and a sloop, carrying two hundred and thirty men all told. With this force he sailed into Fensacola Bay and the place was surrendered to him without resistance. The prisoners taken 50 A PAPER ELDORADO. were sent to Cuba in pursuance of the terms of surrender. Leavinof Pensacola in the care of his brother Chateauguay, Bienville returned to Mobile, while two of the vessels, the Comte de Toulouse and the Marechal de Villars, sailed for Havana bearing the Spanish prisoners. In perfect accord with the spirit of the time, the authorities of Cuba laughed at the idea of giving the slightest heed to the terms of an honorable agreement. Instead of permitting Bienville's vessels to return unmolested, the Viceroy of Mexico, the Marquis of Vallero, quickly manned them with Spanish soldiers and sent them back, along with a fleet of twelve vessels bearing eighteen hundred men, to retake and hold Pensacola. Of course the task was an easy one. Chateauguay surrendered on the best terms he could secure. The Spaniards were highly elated and thouoht to wioe out at a blow the whole French colony in Louisiana. With this purpose three brigantines of the fleet proceeded to Mobile Bay to take possession of Dauphine Island. The French were ill-prepared for an attack in force, but Serigny whom Bienville had placed in command of the island stoutly refused to surrender. The Spaniards under cover of night ran into the bay and landed a force of thirty-five men hoping to surprise and pillage a defenceless place midway A PAPER ELDORADO. 5^ between Mobile and Dauphine Island. But the surprise was their own, for a party of French and Indians suddenly fell upon them routing them completely, killing five, capturing eighteen and drivinc'- the others into the sea where six were drowned. As the best proof of the low state of morals in the French colonies at this time it is sufficient to note that among the prisoners taken in the skirmish just described were a number of French- men — deserters from the garrison left by Bienville at Pensacola. These were shot. This signal victory aroused the spirit of the little band on Dauphine Island and when the Spanish fleet a day or two later sailed into the bay and began an attack it was answered with a vigor that was wholly unexpected. Serigny showed great skill in arranging his defence. He anchored the ship Philippe close -to the shore so that the fire of her guns was supplemented by that of a battery on the island. The Spaniards tried in vain to land a force on the shore. They were repulsed at every point. They probably thought the French much stronger than they really were, for, after lingering around the island and idly firing at long range without effect, they withdrew on the twenty-sixth of Ausfust and sailed back to Pensacola. Almost immediately after this, on the first of g2 A PAPER ELDORADO. September, 17 19, three French ships of the line arrived at Mobile Bay bringing in some vessels with supplies from the Mississippi Company. The ships, which were well manned and equipped, were commanded by the Comte de Champmeslin, a naval officer of considerable ability, who at once pro- posed an attack on Pensacola. This was just what Bienville and his men most desired. A plan was therefore arranged by which a land force under the Governor was to act in concert with the fleet under the Comte de Champmeslin. Bienville, with an energy and activity scarcely equaled in the history of military operations, called together from widely scattered sources a little army of French and Indians which when marshaled numbered about seven hundred men. The main portion of these had been massed at a point on Perdido River whither Bienville went with a fleet of small boats bearin^y such a force as he could spare from the forts at Mobile and Dauphine Island. On the seventeenth of September all was ready. Champmeslin sailed boldly into Pensacola Bay and opened fire on the Rose Island fort, while Bienville marched against the post on the mainland. The whole movement was made with such celerity and secrecy that the Spaniards were taken by surprise and their forces separated. Their ships were at anchor close in to the mainland and their guns A PAPER ELDORADO. 53 could not be used to effect in any direction. Rose Island fort was silenced at the end of two hours. Meantime Bienville had completely invested the fort on the high ground at Pensacola and was pour- ing into it a rattling fire from every side. The heavy guns of Admiral Champmeslin's ships were shaking the bay with their thunders and the Indians on shore were howling like mad beasts. It was a short but brilliant little fio^ht at the end of which the French found themselves a^jain full masters of Pensacola with eighteen hundred prisoners and a considerable store of provisions, ammunition and arms, as the reward of their action. But the place seemed fated to be destroyed. A strong fleet of Spanish men-of-war from Vera Cruz attacked it, and the French blew up the forts to prevent their capture. Louisiana was now harrassed in every direction by the insidious operations of Spanish emissaries among the savage tribes in the North and West. In Texas there were numerous Spanish posts and agencies from which as bases parties were sent out to incite the Indians to commit depredations upon the French colonies on the Arkansas, the Missouri and the upper Mississippi. In the year 1720 a force was organized at Santa Fe for the purpose of operating in the Missouri region. It was well equipped with horses and domestic herds, and was 54 A PAPER ELDORADO. bountifully supplied with arms and ammunition. The plan was to plant colonies and at the same time drive out the French from all the upper part of the o-reat territory. Men, women and children, soldiers, colonists and priests, all marched together through that grand wilderness until they reached the coun- try of the Missouris where they were foolish enough to furnish fire-arms to the savages with the under- standing that they were to become their allies. The Missouris, not less treacheorus than the Span- iards, promptly turned their new weapons to good account by murdering all the caravan, save one priest who returned to Santa Fe to tell the woful story. From Boisbriant, among the Illinois (to whom the tidines had been told by certain Illinois " who had come to chant the calumet bedecked in chasubles and stoles") news of this expedition reached the ears of Bienville. He felt at once the necessity for prompt action. For a long while he had been urging upon the Company the policy of removing the seat of territorial government to some point on the banks of the Mississippi River. The move- ments of the Spaniards gave irresistible force to his argument, and when the royal engineer, M. Pauger, examined the place selected for the site of New Orleans and reported favorably, the Company con- sented to have its principal depot established there. A PAPER ELDORADO. 57 The Spaniards continued their depredations in Texas and forced the P^'ench to abandon most of the territory west of the Sabine River. La Harpe had been sent to take possession of St. Bernard Bay, but after landing and establishing a post he felt compelled to abandon it as unsafe. Bienville insisted upon a policy of concentration and con- tinued to urge upon the Company the importance of establishing agricultural colonies instead of wasting further time in fruitless wanderings after eold and silver mines. Meantime emio:rants continued to come from France. Of these the greater part were adven- turers, convicts and refugees from justice. Many of the women added to the colony were from the houses of correction in Paris, and were sent over by the Government's order. Thus, though the population increased, there was but small improve- ment in its moral condition. The Company had asked the government of France to make ofrants of land in Louisana to various influential persons upon condition that the areas granted should be colonized. This was done. John Law himself was one of these grantees, his portion being a plot twelve miles square on the Arkansas. By means of these liberal grants nu- merous settlements were effected in the territory now occupied by the States of Arkansas, Louisiana, 58 A PAPER ELDORADO. Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, as well as cer- tain portions of the region farther north. But the advice of Bienville had not been heeded. Agricult- ure had not kept pace with the increase of popula- tion, consequently famine threatened. France was beginning to orather the destructive fruit of Law's wild financial schemes, and the bubble of a specious credit blown to the utmost tenuity by his breath was preparing to burst. The Company, embarassed to the last degree, clutched at straws and struggled desperately in the effort to revive its sinking fort- une. As a matter of course trouble to the Com- pany meant trouble to the dependent colonies of France, compelled to look to the mother country for supplies. And now these supplies began to fail. The advertising pamphlets, circulars and romantic reports of the Company's agents no longer satisfied the people of France and it was growing daily more difficult to hold the scheme together. Bienville showed himself worthy of the trust reposed in him. Through all that dark time his thouQ^hts never turned from the details of his difH- cult task. He pushed forward the buildings at New Orleans and was soon able to report the founding of a town which was to be the metropolis of the great Mississippi Valley, In the meantime Fort Chartres in the Illinois country had been begun on the river twenty-five A PAPER ELDORADO. 59 miles below Kaskaskia; Lc Sueur had erected a fort far up on St. Peter's River, and Fort Orleans had been established on the Missouri. Thus at the beginning of the year 1720 the whole of Upper Louisiana was well fortified and safely held in the o-rasp of the French. Boisbriant, who was stationed as lieutenant for the governor in the Illinois country, had under his charge a contented agricultural colony, ao-o-reo-atino- some two thousand white residents, and comprising at least five prosperous villages. Not- withstanding the embarrassments of the Company, the whole territory west to the Colorado was re- duced to possession, after the fashion of the tmies, though no permanent settlements were made in the Texas region west of the Sabine River. Bienville continued to urge forward every possi- ble scheme for the encouragement of agriculture. Neo-roes were imported in considerable numbers, plantations were opened on the rich alluvial " coasts " of the Mississippi and its tributaries and the true wealth of Louisiana was beginning to appear in the very midst of utter depression and poverty. The soil was, and still is, the richest in the world, and it required but a mere garden plot to produce enouo-h for the wants of a family. The climate, moreover, was of a character to render subsist- ence a matter of small effort. Shelter from the rain was the only requirement in making a house, 6o A PAPER ELDORADO. and the Indians taught the settlers how to build with the least expense. The first really successful tillers of the soil in the vicinity of New Orleans were a company of Proven9al peasants who abandoned their homes on Law's grant and came down the river intent upon going back to their old country. It was thought advisable to detain them, for their reappearance in France would have given rise to unpleasant inquir- ies. So they were induced to remain by granting them a large body of the very richest Mississippi coast lands just above New Orleans. Thus the affairs of Louisiana progressed until suddenly the inevitable happened. The " South Sea Bubble " burst and the schemes by which John Law sought to bolster up a losing speculation all went " agley." Disaster and confusion swept the victimized land of France and thousands were plunged into distress and ruin. Law fell from the height of success to the depths of failure. " The public wrath and indignation," says Guizot, " fast- ened henceforth upon Law, the author and director of a system which had given rise to so many hopes and had been the cause of so many woes." He became an object of hatred where he had before been envied and courted. Even the " rash infatu- ation " of the Regent could no longer protect him. His carriage was knocked to pieces in the streets. A PAPER ELDORADO. 6 1 Ruined in fortune and in reputation he fled in dis- o-race from liis enraged dupes and died at Venice, in 1729, poor and forgotten. The failure of his " Company " meant disaster for the colony across the sea, but Louisiana, fortunately, had already made a progress that promised permanence and though this progress was discouragingly slow it had been steady and was in the right direction. CHAPTER III. IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. HEN Charle- voix visited New Orleans in J a n u a r y, 1722, he found that all the stories of its rapid growth, its '^? wealth, its beauty and its com- ' mandins: situation had been greatly exaggerated. In his journal, which con- tains a quaint and graphic account of a voyage he made down the Illinois and the Mississippi, he says : " I am at length arrived in this noted city to which they have given the name La Nouvelle Orleans. Those who have thus named it, supposed that Orleans was feminine ; but what of it ? Cus- tom has fixed it, and custom overtops grammar s rules. This is the first city that one of the world's miorhtiest rivers has seen arise on its banks." Then he goes on to say that, instead of finding eight hundred fine houses and five parishes, as was 63 IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. 63 represented l^y the newspapers two years before, he sees a hundred barracks, rather disorderly in arrangement, a large wooden storehouse and other thincTs in accordance. It was "a wild and desert place almost covered with reeds and trees," but he predicted its future greatness as the capital of a wealthy and powerful colony. Father Charlevoix was a Jesuit priest of high character whose life w^as spent in traveling, execu- ting important missions and writing history. He was a shrewd and accurate observer, as observation went in those days, and his journals are full of the most valuable facts. On his way down the Missis- sippi he stopped at Natchez and remained there some days, besides making visits to the forts at Yazoo and other points farther up the river. It is from him that we get the best impression of truth regarding the debased condition of the colo- nists. He found the marriage relation very loosely adjusted — a result that was scarcely surprising in view of the class of persons attracted to the new land and the peculiar methods of supplying the matrimonial deficiencies of the colony. Religious ceremonies he declared were scarcely observed at all. What he says about the notorious schemer Law, is significant. " Mr. Law was treated badly, as were most of the other grantees," he remarks ; "probably it will be a great while ere they can 64 IN THE DAYS 01 BIENVILLE. make such large levies of men (referring to the failure of a scheme of immigration from France). They have need of them in the kingdom ; and in fact it is usual for us to form our judgments by the success of such undertakings, in place of noting what was the source of their failure." In speaking of the canton of Natchez, he says, "It is five years since mass has been heard here by any Frenchman, or since one has even seen a priest." He met at Natchez the royal engineer, M. de Pauger, who was surveying the river with a view to establishing forts. It was about this time that the collapse of Law's gigantic plan began to make its effect on the very foundations of the colonies. The settlements on the Arkansas, at Washita and at Fort St. Peter, were reduced to a state bordering on starvation, and, as we have noted, those on Law's own grant came down the Mississippi and were cared for at New Orleans by a grant of what was afterwards known as the German Coast. Bienville suffered all the agony possible to an ambitious man who waits and hopes in vain for a substantial recoonition of his merits and achieve- ments. At one time he fell very ill, so that for a long time his death was expected every day. His malady, it was said, came of brooding and fretting over the ill-treatment he received at the hands of IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. 65 the Company and from the Government of France ; but this statement may be taken with liberal allow- ance. The city of New Orleans even at this day is badly drained and subject to occasional epidem- ics, although in a general way extremely healthy ; but w^hat must have been its sanitary condition in its season of beginning when its few log huts and scattered barracks stood in the midst of stag- nant ponds, cypress swamps and dense, dank cane- brakes ? Slow fevers of a bilious or malarial type were common all along the Mississippi then, as now, and in the hot season yellow fever was fre- quently imported from Mexico and the Antilles. In 1723 a change was made in the government of Louisiana. Up to this time the territory had been subject to the jurisdiction of Canada. Now it was made independent and its area was divided into nine parts, or parishes, each of which was to be governed by a commandant assisted by a judge. Bienville was governor and commandant-general ; but he was hampered by the presence of a king's lieutenant and by a director-general of the Company; his authority too was sadly embarrassed by the insubordination of the commandants of the districts. The gold fever was still burning in the blood of the colonists, and the search for mines supposed to exist in the Illinois region was of far more interest then were the laborious processes of agricultural 66 IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. progress. The policy of the Company added fuel to this insidious fire, and although the Indians all alono- the river were growing more and more dis- satisfied, scarcely any attention was paid to their threatening movements. Suddenly the Natchez tribe uprose and massacred some of the settlers on the St. Catherine, following this with an attack in force on the plantations killing a number and carry- ing away horses, cattle, hogs and grain. Bienville, fully aware of the danger now impending, made haste to use his unscrupulous diplomacy on the Indian leaders. Securing an interview the French ofificers made peace on terms which were ratified by the governor, and the chiefs well satisfied went away feeling secure. But no sooner were the Indians off their guard than Bienville gathered a force of seven hundred men and secretly occupied Fort Rosalie. Thence he marched upon the neighboring villages and began a furious onslaught, killing, burning, and ravaging without mercy. When the Indians sued for peace he demanded that their leading chief be surrendered to him. This was finally done and the savage was brutally executed. After this outrage peace was no longer possible. The Indians nursed their wrath and pondered over plans for heaping dire punishment upon their enemies. Nor were they wroncT in so doing. With all faith destroyed, with IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. 69 every sacred promise of the French broken as soon as made, with their plantations in ruins and their homes in ashes, with the blood of their wives and children, their braves and their chiefs crying to them for vengeance, it was indeed time for them to strike. Nevertheless they acted with great pru- dence and caution, their resentment for the time manifesting itself more in the reserve and gloom of their demeanor than in acts of violence. Father Charlevoix had seen what he called wild indigo growing on the banks of the Mississippi, and he shrewdly observed that a soil which would sustain the wild plant might be made to produce any variety of indigo if but the seeds were planted. The experiment was tried with the excellent result of founding a new and remunerative industry in the colonies. At the close of the year 1723, there had been imported into the territory within the Mississippi Valley a large number of negro slaves, between four and five thousand settlers and a hundred and forty galley slaves. Agriculture was growing rap- idly in importance as its value developed. At lasr, if only by a few, the great truth was discovered that the gold mines of Louisiana lay hidden in the fertile alluvions of the so-called coasts of her rivers, creeks and bayous, and that the plough and the hoe were the keys to the lightly-locked treasure. There 70 IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. remained but two great barriers for the colonies to overcome before they could reach the safe ground of prosperity in their career of development. These were the financial troubles caused by the Company's embarrassments, and the half-hidden but deep-set hostility of the Indians due to a long series of in- sults heaped upon injuries of the most heartless and revolting kind. The use of an enormously inflated paper currency had on one hand driven all the specie out of the colonies, whilst on the other hand it had filled everybody's pockets with a roll of money which purported to represent wealth when in fact it was utterly without value. Every species of property commanded an enormous price ; specu- lation was indulged in to a reckless degree ; gam- bling and debauchery of every sort were openly practiced by many, and indeed the color of colonial life was caught almost wholly from the feverish spirit which is always engendered by a dishonest management of a government's finances. Suddenly the bubble burst and the paper cur- rency fell in value to a point which was much nearer safety ; but everybody was in debt, and as money became scarce the difficulty of payment was increased. Specie was demanded, dollar for dollar, upon outstanding contracts, and for a time there appeared to be nothing but annihilation in store for the colonies. And so the darkest day of IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. 7 1 Louisiana's life, from the first settlement up to 1725, fell just at the time when hope had begun to rise in the breasts of the people. But happily the irloom was of short duration. The French government came to the rescue with the only plan which could have served the turn of the troubled debtors in the colonies. By edicts of the King of France Mexican silver dollars were made the cir- culating medium in Louisiana. The value of the dollar was arbitrarily fixed at seven and a half livres, whereas custom heretofore had made it four livres. This change was life to the debtor, but it was a species of robbery in the estimation of the speculating creditor. It did infinite good, how- ever, rapidly wiping out the debts of the colonists and, in a degree, restoring the equilibrium of trade. Then came another edict returning to the Mexican dollar its ancient value of four livres. By this manipulation of the currency the colonies were, in less than a year's space, zigzagged back to trade based on specie. Bienville now had the satisfaction of seeing pros- perity begin in Louisiana, though the gold fever still continued to burn, and the Indians, nursing their enmity, kept up a desultory fight with the settlers in the districts of the north. In the beginning of the year 1726 the entire territory was in a prosperous condition and the 72 IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. area devoted to agriculture had been doubled and trebled, whilst New Orleans had been springing rapidly into a very picturesque, if not very elegant town. The Company made arrangements for still further improvement in the condition of the colo- nies, by the introduction of religious and educational influences. Priests and nuns were imported, and a better class of emigrants were brought from Canada and France. Just at this point of time, when all was bright and encouraging, and when the worst evils appeared to be passing away from the people of Louisiana, Bienville was superseded by M. Perier, a man of excellent abilities, who at once entered with great energy upon the performance of his duties. It is worthy of note that, from the very first, the American air has had the quality of engendering a love of liberty in the hearts of those who have breathed it. Valdeterre, writing of the colonies of Louisiana as an eye witness in 1726, uses the fol- lowing remarkable language upon the subject of their independence of spirit: — "The inhabitants of this country, settled here so recently, governed by the Company, instead of in the name of the king, have come to be republicans in their thoughts and ways and look upon them- selves as exempt from binding allegiance to their soverei2:n." IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE, 73 Perier advanced the interests of the province with great rapidity. Indigo, rice, tobacco, wheat, corn and domestic animals were produced in abun- dance, and tropical fruits were beginning to be cultivated. Under all this gratifying prosperity, however, was a smoldering fire of destruction. The Natchez Indians had not forgiven nor forgotten the massacre of their people and the destruction of their planta- tions. They were sullenly biding their time to rise and strike their enemies to the heart. All went well on the surface of things until the twenty-ninth of November, 1729, when like a thunderbolt the blow fell. Bienville during the whole of his administration had urged upon the Company the pressing need of military precautions in view of the number and disposition of the savages ; but his advice had been thrust aside. No sooner was Perier installed than he renewed Bienville's recommendations with great emphasis. He too was refused the aid he asked. Over in Carolina the English traders were reach- ing far westward into the country of the Chickasaws, and their influence for a long time had kept that tribe unfriendly to the French ; but a great con- spiracy between them and several other tribes, with a view to overrunning Louisiana, came to naught. 74 IN THE DA YS OF BIENVILLE. The Natchez, however, matured their plans with the greatest caution and foresight. Chopart, who was in command at Fort Rosalie, appears to have been a man of overbearing disposi- tion, despotic, merciless and avaricious, who treated the Indians with the most brutal cruelty. A chief or " sun " of the Natchez, who lived on a beautiful and extensive plantation called White Apple, which was tilled by the people of a scattered village built thereon, was ordered by Chopart to abandon his home, take with him his people and his houses, destroy his fields and go elsewhere. The only jus- tification for the order lay in the fact that Chopart desired to own the rich and beautiful plantation himself. Of course the chief refused to obey so preposterous a command. " My fathers," he said with dignity, "have occupied that spot for many years, and it is well for their children to remain there." Chopart threatened force and the chief called a council to devise means for averting the impending calamity. A treaty ended in the Indians accepting terms by which Chopart was to receive a certain rental from the savages during a respite of a few months which he condescended to grant to them. This was the beginning of the end. Death w^as far preferable, the Indians felt, to permitting the white man, in his avarice and brutal arrogance, to IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. 75 take possession of their lands and their homes. They had not forgotten the perfidy of Bienville, nor were the old bloodstains of the wholesale mas- sacre committed a few years before by the French yet grown dim in their memory. In secret council they, formed a plan to destroy the whole French colony. Emissaries were dispatched to all the villao-es of the Natchez and to those of other tribes with whom they had formed an alliance. Their method of keeping accurate and uniform count of the time until the day agreed upon for the uprising was as picturesque as it was simple. A bundle of reeds containing a certain number of stems was sent to each village with instructions to remove a reed at sunrise every morning, and when but one reed remained that would signify that the day of vengeance had arrived. The order was : Draw the last reed and rush at once upon the nearest French settlement with fire and tomahawk. Not a soul among all the whites was to be spared. Meantime the Indians paid the rental or tribute demanded by Chopart and appeared to be perfectly submissive. One by one the reeds were withdrawn until the last slender stem awaited its turn. The day of wrath had dawned, but the French were ignorant of the fate prepared for them and went about their routine of duties and pleasures as usual. 76 IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. With a number of picked warriors, apparently unarmed, but bearing concealed weapons, the chief or " Great Sun " of the Indians near Fort Rosalie entered the post with poultry and other produce which he offered to barter for ammunition. The cjarrison of Fort Rosalie felt no fear of defenceless Indians, and so the warriors were allowed to enter the fortifications. Quietly they scattered them- selves about and watched for the signal of their chief. It was soon Q;iven. With the furv of wild beasts hungry for blood, the warriors fell upon their unsuspecting victims and killed all within their reach. At the same time in every direction slaughter was begun and before sunset the en- tire male population of the settlements near Fort Rosalie had been destroyed. Houses were burned, plantations pillaged and the whole region left a smoking, blood-covered desolation. The "Great Sun," while this was going on, smoked his pipe in stoical unconcern. The shrieks and groans of the dying, the cries of the women and children, all of whom were taken prisoner, and the roaring of flames made music that lulled the grim old warrior's soul. He sat in the principal warehouse of the post while his braves brought the heads of the slain and laid them in a ghastly pile at his feet; those of the officers and men formed the base of this horrible pyramid, at the apex of which JN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. "]-] and crowning the work was placed the hated head of the miscreant Chopart. Their direful vengeance accomphshed, the In- dians possessed themselves of the wine and brandy in the stores of Fort Rosalie and forthwith began a wild debauch which ended only when the sup- ply of spirits was exhausted. They danced, and chanted their war-songs, they screamed and bel- lowed and gesticulated, finally lying down in a drunken stupor among the headless bodies of their foes. They spared most of the negroes for use on their own plantations. On the Yazoo, on the Washita, and at the settle- ment near the present site of Monroe, the colonists were all killed. More than two hundred men died at the hands of the savages on that bloody and long-remembered day. More than two hundred and fifty women and children were taken captive. It was by such an example that the Company was shown the truth of Bienville's arguments. The necessity for prompt military action was very evi- dent, now that two hundred of the best men in Louisiana lay rotting on the field of massacre so often predicted by the deposed governor. Perier forthwith dispatched a vessel to France with an account of the horrible butchery and de- manding soldiers and supplies. Meantime orders were sent to the commanders of all the posts of the 78 IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. territory bidding them make ready for war. Forti- fications were built around New Orleans, the in- habitants were armed, and couriers and agents were sent to all the Indian tribes that were on friendly terms with the French, with a view to enlisting them against the Natchez and their allies. There was no lack of military precaution, now that the blow had fallen. Le Sueur went up into the Choctaw country on the Tombigbee to raise an army of that tribe, while a force of six hundred men marched from New Orleans. An insurrection broke out among the slaves on some of the plantations, just at this crit- ical moment, but it was speedily quelled. Le Sueur gathered a body of six hundred Choc- taw braves and by a hurried march was upon the Natchez before they were aware of his movement. Just at daybreak on a January morning in the year 1730 the allied French and Choctaws fell upon the Natchez villages, and a desperate fight ensued. But though severely punished the Natchez were by no means broken. They were peculiarly gifted in their own rude art of constructing defences. With much skill and speed they at once built a strong fortification and awaited the approach of the French from New Orleans. Le Sueur's band of Choctaws had returned to their tribe. The Chevalier Loubois with the six hundred I IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. -J^ New Orleans troops of Le Sueur, reinforced by eight hundred more, including Indians, reached the Natchez fortification in a few days and began a systematic investment of the place. Trenches were opened, batteries planted at commanding points and a regular siege begun. The Indians, seeing that they would probably be taken, asked for a par- ley and obtained a suspension of hostilities for ten days upon condition that they would surrender to the French the two hundred prisoners they were holding. During: this cessation of hostilities the Indians on the night of the twenty-fifth of Febru- ary stole out of their fort and escaped leaving the prisoners as they had promised. M. Loubois now proceeded to build the new Fort Rosalie (afterward so famous in southwestern story) on the bluff below the site of the present city of Natchez. The remains of this old-time stronghold may still be traced on the brink of the Mississippi bluff where it was built a century and a half ago. Its walls could tell of occupancy by the garrisons of four nations, for over its ramparts, during its seventy years of use as a defensive outpost, floated the flags of France and Spain, of England and the United States. It was finally abandoned in 1800. The Natchez now scattered themselves and were never again an independent tribe. A large num- ber of them, however, established themselves in a 8o IN THE DA YS OF BIENVILLE. fort on Black River just below the confluence of Little River and Washita. They built strong in- trenchments and prepared to defend the place with that wonderful courage which has made the Natchez name a deathless one in the annals of Indian hero- ism. Savages those men were, but patriotism never has risen to a higher level of self-sacrificing devo- tion than was registered by their unswerving forti- tude and their serene and desperate valor. M. Perier well knew that extermination was the only means of freeing the colonies in Louisiana from the incubus of that deadly terror of the red- man which had fixed itself upon them. Every man, woman and child throughout the settlements was haunted with visions of bloody massacre and of death by slow fire at the stake. Labor was paralyzed and trade on the Mississippi virtually destroyed. In the meantime the English in Carolina were busily engaged in encouraging hostility to the French among the Chickasaws, Creeks and Chero- kees. Rumors of this reached the French early in the year 1731. Their alarm increased. The dis- trust in everything Indian extended even to the eovernor himself and moved him to a deed of blood that had neither palliation nor excuse. Determined to " make an example " that should be heeded by his Indian foes Perrier ordered the extermination DEAIH I'D THI:: NATCHEZ ! I JX THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. '^'i^ of the Chouacas, a weak band of absolutely harm- less Indians living below New Orleans in the region of Lake Barataria. His excuse for this cowardly move was that he believed the Chouacas to be in alliance with the Chickasaws. But as if such a deed of perfidy could enlist in its behalf no chivalrous or lionorable Frenchman this act of des- perate folly was delegated to a force of armed negro slaves gathered from the plantations and carefully drilled for the work of butchery. The Indians were entirely defenceless; they were without thought of harming any one or of being harmed themselves, when suddenly the black cloud of slaves fell upon them, as if driven by a tempest of death itself, and wrought a merciless and indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children. It must be remem- bered tliat these neo^roes were themselves savao:es imported quite recently from their African haunts. One cannot imagine an act of more abject barbarity than this brutal massacre planned by a so-called Christian and executed by a mob of degraded heathen. It seems but a losfical return for such " Christian " perfidy that the very mob of slaves to whom had been committed this butchery of defenceless women and children should have com- bined, because of this success, against their white masters and abettors and soon after their murder of the poor Chouacas planned the massacre of the §4 IN THE DAYS OP BIENVILLE. white colonists and the plunder of the settlements. The plot was discovered almost on the eve of its inception. Elated with his fine " success " against one " rebellious " tribe M. Perier now went forward with great energy. He raised an army with which to strike the stronghold of the Natchez rem- nant on Black River, and by the close of the year 1731 he had collected a force of six hundred and fifty men. On the fifteenth of November he marched northward, receiving reinforcements of Indians friendly to the French. His combined force thus amounted to about a thousand men. Reachinor the mouth of Black River and ascend- ing the stream in a fleet of small boats, the army reached the Natchez fort and began to lay siege thereto on the twentieth of January, 1732. Next day a bombardment was opened. Notwithstand- ing their well-planned defences, the fortifications of the Natchez were not calculated to withstand the destructive artillery of France and the Indians were soon forced to sue for quarter. A flag of truce was, indeed, hung out before the artillery had really done serious damage to the works. Perier demanded the surrender of all the Indian leaders, but this was refused and he ordered the cannon- ade to begin. The Indians then gave up their " Great Sun " and a war chief ; but Perier would AV THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. 85 listen to notliing short of a delivery into his hands of all their leadinii men. This the Indians a2:ain refused and the bombardment was reopened at once. Ni"ht was now fallinor and soon there arose one of those tempests of wind and rain common to the mid-winters of the Lower Mississippi. It was very dark, water came down in a deluge, the gale was almost a hurricane. In the midst of this tumult and darkness, rain and wind, the Indians, renewing the tactics of a former occasion, crept out of their fort and stole away through the swampy forests. Pursuit was made and some of them captured, but the main body escaped. Among the Natchez captives taken by Perier were the " Great Sun " and a number of the princi- pal war chiefs of the tribe. A terrible fate was in store for these couraoreous and freedom-lovino- men. They were shipped to St. Domingo and sold into all the horrors of West Indian slavery. One last struggle was made by the Natchez remnant. The}^ gathered a band of about two hundred warriors and attacked Fort Natchitoches which was occupied by St. Denis with a small gar- rison of French. The Indians were repulsed with heavy loss, whereupon they attacked and destroyed a village of the Natchitoches and proceeded to for- tify themselves on the spot. St. Denis did not let them long enjoy their new quarters. He was a 86 JN THE DA YS OF BIENVILLE. fighting man and possessed of great courage, tact and energy. Promptly organizing his men and o:atherino; reinforcements he marched to attack the fort which he carried by storm, putting to death ninety-two of its defenders and giving the finishing blow to the almost complete destruction of the once great Natchez tribe. In all the long story of the ill-treatment of the American Indian there is scarcely an instance that exceeds in disgraceful details this record of the decline of the Natchez, " the most civilized of all the southern nations." With many marks of refinement and of gentle ways, brave, courteous, friendly and peculiarly adapted to the better processes of civili- zation they were from the first despised, juggled with and maligned. Pushed to extremities their patriot- ism and their valor alike made them relentless and bitter foemen and they fought valiantly for their homeland until French "diplomacy" and French gunpowder wrought their ruin and their death. On the tenth of April, 1732, the proclamation of the French king was issued declaring the territory of Louisiana open and free to all his subjects, the Company having surrendered its franchises to the crown. Under the new order of things M. Perier re- tained his position, with M. Salmon as commissaire ordonnateur. Loubois and D'Artaguette were IN THE DAYS OF BIENVILLE. ^J promoted to the office of king's lieutenants, Loubois remaining in Louisiana whilst D'Artaguette took charge of the Illinois territory. Thus, at the close of 1732, the French colonies in Louisiana became in fact, and for the first time, a people with a government free, at least in name, from the insidious influences of a commercial cor- poration whose highest aim had been to reap a eolden harvest from the labors of the settlers. Peace had come with the extermination of the Natchez and a feeling of security and hope had taken the place of that dark terror which so lately had hung over the whole territory. New Orleans was now placed in circumstances which gave great impetus to its growth and prosperity. By an order dated the thirteenth of September the king removed all duties from mer- chandise going from France to Louisiana and from Louisiana to France, thus establishing free trade between the territory and the mother country. Moreover the circulating medium of Louisiana was becoming more stable and the trade of New Orleans was attracting the atten- tion of the mercantile world. CHAPTER IV. FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. 'OT long after the Company had abandoned Louisiana, and while yet the people were re- joicing over the bright pros- pect of peace and happiness which had dawned upon the colonies, Bienville re- turned from his long stay in France. He came, in the fall of 1734, as gov- ernor and commandant-general of Louisiana. He was welcomed most cordially. The "Father of the Colony " had always been a favorite with the people, whilst Perier, though an excellent officer, had been harsh, willful and despotic in his treat- ment of his subordinates and in his intercourse with the settlers. But the new administration of Bienville though begun under the happiest auspices ended in dis- FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. 89 grace. The veteran governor was now quite past the prime of life, but he no sooner felt the reins of control once more in his hands, than he began to look about for a chance to achieve further renown as an Indian fighter. The Chickasaws offered him an excellent excuse for action. They had incorporated within their tribes the remnant of the destroyed Natchez nation and having allied themselves with certain Carolina traders were com- mitting many outrages along the Mississippi. By their restless energy navigation of the river was no longer safe, nor was trade on its borders profit- able. These hostile red-men had their strong- hold near what is now Pontotoc on the banks of a small stream of that name in the northern part of Mississippi near the source of the Tallahatchee River, To this lonely and distant point Bienville led an army composed of all the available men in the colonies of Louisiana and all the friendly Indians that he could enlist in his behalf. He had ordered D'Artaguette, son of the Chevalier D'Artaguette, a brave and intrepid youth, to march from Fort Chartres with all the force at his com- mand in the Illinois country and meet him at a point between the Yazoo and the Tombigbee, and near their sources in the upper part of Alabama. It was on the fourth day of May, 1736, that go FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. Bienville departed from Fort Tombigbee. This stronghold he had just built on the bank of the Tombigbee River as a base for his operations. He led to the attack the largest army that ever had been raised in Louisiana and with high anticipa- tions he now marched forth to assail the stronp-hold of his enemy. By some mischance D'Artaguette failed to arrive at the appointed time and place and Bien- ville's troops would not be restrained. The Indian fqrt was found to be a very strong one. Indeed it had been built under the direction of the English traders. Not only a heavy palisade but powerful earthworks as well presented themselves on every side, while inside of the palisades was a wall of boards or slabs. Through these defences port- holes had been cut at short intervals, and all around the defences overhead there was a grenade-proof extension of wood and earth. Instead of investing the place and laying siege to it by gradual approaches Bienville made a mad effort to carry it by storm. No doubt he was exas- perated at seeing the British flag floating over the palisades, for in those davs of feud the siq-ht of England's banner on what was deemed French soil was at once an insult and a challenq;e to French honor. Then too the doughty commandant could scarcely have been aware of the great advance that FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. 9 1 tlie Indians had made in the art of war since the days when, as a youthful adventurer, he had chari^ed over their puny defences, or struck terror into their hearts by the roar of his guns and the flash of his grenades. Schooled in their experience of the white man's ways and directed no doubt by the English traders within the forts, the besieged Chickasaws gave shot for shot. As Bienville's men rushed forward to the assault they were met by a level storm of bullets directed by cool-headed and skilled marksmen. The effect was terrible, but the brave Frenchmen pressed right on close to the face of the works, only to find that it was impossible to break over. The artful manner in which the defences had been constructed, was now demonstrated. The hand grenades of the Frenchmen could make no im- pression upon them. Meantime the deadly fire from the port-holes was redoubled and the savages within the fort jeered horribly as they noted the withering effect of their missiles. Bienville recog- nized, too late, the fatal mistake he had made. He had no artillery, and without it he could not succeed. Stubbornly, desperately, for four hours, he dashed his men against the palisades. It was madness. The walls were impregnable, and baffled and dispirited he was forced to withdraw. Sadly enough he made his way back to New 92 FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. Orleans, only to learn a little later that, on the twentieth of May, D'Artaguette and his forces had met with a crushing defeat in the Chickasaw country while on their way to join the commander as ordered. D'Artaguette himself was left wounded on the field along with a number of his officers who had charged by his side. All of them were burned with slow fire at the stake. Vincennes, the brave Canadian lieutenant, Senat, the priest, and D'Artaguette, the heroic young leader, were the chief victims — names that stand for heroism in a page of history as romantic as any in the story of our country. Bienville was in disgrace. He felt that by his blundering tactics an almost crushing blow had fallen upon the colonies. Over in Georgia and Carolina the English were delighted to hear of his discomfiture ; his enemies in Louisiana and in France set up a cry of contempt and derision. Hoping to redeem himself, he asked the war department for permission to raise another army to lead against the Chickasaws. Near the close of 1738 this request was granted and he at once began the levy. The whole winter was given up to the task of collecting and equipping a force which, when brought into a body at Fort Assumption, numbered three thousand and seven hundred men; of these twenty-five hundred were Indians. This FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. 95 was the largest army tliat Louisiana had ever raised and its equipment was excellent. With stranfje feebleness, Bienville dallied at the site chosen for Fort Assumption and did not finish the work there before the middle of August. It was not a salubrious spot in the heat of midsum- mer, surrounded as it was by malarious swamps and dense forests that shut out the breezes. Ague and other bilious and malarial diseases attacked the men and rendered their lives miserable. Many of the whites died. By the time that autumn had arrived the supplies were exhausted. Another long delay followed, waiting for stores to be brought from New Orleans and other points. And so not a move was made until in March, 1739, and then the only result was a tame and bloodless peace after a wordy powwow with the chiefs of the enemy. This in effect closed the public career of Bien- ville in Louisiana, though he lived to be quite old and never ceased to take great interest in the wel- fare of the colonies. He was superseded by the Marquis de Vaudreuil who arrived at New Orleans on the tenth of May, 1743. It is difficult to separate the elements of Bien- ville's character so as to make a fair criticism of the man. One thing is plain, however: he was true to Louisiana. Moreover it must be admitted gS FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. that, in view of his surroundings, his achievements were remarkable. In reading his romantic story no one will fail to sympathize with him in the dis- aster which clouded the beginning of his old age and haunted him with its shadow all the rest of his life. De Vaudreuil found the colonies of Louisiana in a deplorable state, especially as regarded their finances ; but he could not resist the temptation to favor certain of his friends with monopolies. Since the peace with the Chickasaws had been con- cluded, the navigation of the Mississippi and its chief tributaries had been open. One of the first acts of importance marking De Vaudreuil's admin- istration was a grant to one Deruisseau of the right to control the trade of the Missouri and its tribu- taries. He gave great credit also, as had most of his predecessors, to the stories told of rich gold mines in the North, and he influenced many of the colonists to make vain efforts to discover the supposed hidden sources of wealth. Notwithstand- ing these shortcomings, however, he was a good governor. Under his direction the affairs of the territory swiftly righted themselves and a vigor- ous growth of agriculture and trade continued for several years. New Orleans had now become a thriving town. Up and down the river for many miles beautiful FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. 97 and well-tilled plantations lay at either hand. Oranse proves loaded with their golden fruitage o-rew around spacious and comfortable homes. As the facilities for religious worship and social inter- course had increased, the morals of the people had greatly improved, and the administration of justice was assuming a more enlightened and comprehen- sive form. In 1745 a tornado passed over Lower Louisiana doing immense injury to plantations and crops. The rice fields were almost entirely destroyed. A famine threatened in consequence; but the colonies on the Upper Mississippi came to the rescue with supplies which served to avert the worst results. This disaster having been averted everything went along well until the winter of 1748-49, when a series of cold waves, or "northers," reduced the atmospheric temperature so low that nearly all the orange groves were killed outright. This retarded for many years the maturing of tropical fruit orchards in the territory. The colonies continued to increase in every direction. The population in 1 745 had grown to over six thousand. The rich alluvial coasts of the Mississippi became garden-spots of a varied and exceedingly remunerative planting industry. Flat- boats and barges came down the river from the far upper settlements, bringing cargoes of hides, skins, 98 FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN, cured meats, corn, wheat, and other northern prod- uce, and returned loaded with various articles of foreign merchandise, together with rice, sugar and tobacco, most of these imported. In 1750 cotton was planted successfully for the first time and in the year following sugar-cane was cultivated just above New Orleans. Fourteen years later the first cargo of Louisiana sugar was exported. Meantime the English colonies on the Atlantic coast were very actively engaged in attemping to secure a monopoly of the trade with the Indians as far westward as to the Mississippi River. With this object in view their emissaries were tireless in the effort to incite the Chickasaws aQ;-ainst the French. Traders from Georgia and Carolina came boldly to the Indian towns with their merchandise. They made themselves useful to the red-men, and taught the chiefs how to make their fortifications impregnable to the attack of any force not supplied with artillery. Not the Chickasaws only, but the Choctav/s as well were led to commit depredations which caused a war in 1 750. The French were without any efficient service of artillery and Vaudreuil, as had been the case with Bienville, suffered in consequence. The Chicka- saws, urged on by the English, finally became so troublesome, that an expedition against them became necessary. An army was gathered for FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. 99 this purpose consisting of seven hundred whites and a large body of friendly Indians. The fort erected by Bienville on the Tombigbee River was enlarged and strengthened to be used as a base of operations. Vaudreuil marched boldly into the Chickasaw country and assaulted their fortifications without effect. Not being able to take the towns, he scoured the whole region, de- stroying the corn fields, burning the houses and laying waste the plantations of his foes. After accomplishing this he left a garrison in the fort on the Tombigbee and returned to New Orleans. In 1753 Vaudreuil was appointed Governor of Canada, and on the ninth of February relinquished to his commissaire-ordonnateure M. le Capitain Ker- lerec the chief office in Louisiana. In some regards this was a wholesome change. Vaudreuil's admin- istration had been extravagant and oppressive to a degree, on account of a miniature court kept up by the pleasure-loving Marquis. It was more than hinted besides that he had farmed out cer- tain offices and grants in order to swell his income sufficiently to meet his rather reckless expenses. Kerlerec found it necessary to remove some of Vaudreuil's appointees because, as he remarked in his dispatches to the French government, the peo- ple claimed that stipends had been paid to the gov- ernor annuallv. Indeed there seems little doubt lOO FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. that a great deal of corruption had been practiced in Louisiana from the first. It could scarcely have been otherwise. The officers, on account of the preat distance from France and the weak state of the colonies, exercised almost absolute powers and there was before them every temptation to licen- tiousness and malfeasance. That this temptation was not resisted very successfully is proven by the case of M. Roux, the officer in command of the post on Cat Island. It was well known that he made his soldiers fell forests and burn the wood into charcoal which he sold for his own benefit, but he was not restrained by his superiors. So miserable and exasperated did his garrison become that they arose in mutiny and killed him. The punishment meted out to the mutineers was cruel in the extreme. Two of the ringleaders were broken on the wheel and another was nailed in a wooden box and sawed in twain with a whip-saw by two subaltern officers. During the first year of Kerlerec's administra- tion the French and British at length came to open and active hostility and a war was begun for the mastery in America which ended only in giving Canada and a large part of the great territory of Louisiana to the English by a treaty dated at Paris on the tenth of February, 1763. During this war Louisiana suffered greatly on FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. lOI account of the almost bankrupt state of the French treasury. The paper currency of the colonies fluct- uated disastrously and drove all the coin out of the territory. British cruisers patrolled the seas pre- venting any efficient aid being sent from France, whilst dissensions and wrangling among the offi- cers, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, kept the inhabitants restless and refractory. Kerlerec man- aged to make a show of reduction in the public expenditures, but he was hampered on all sides and could see no immediate relief for the distressed and apparently forsaken people of his province. All too soon the English began to threaten New Orleans from the sea. There were no adequate defences on the river in the direction of the gulf, nor was there a fleet at Kerlerec's command fit to guard the coast. He sent message after message to France, but received no answer. The war bc2:an on the head waters of the Ohio and spread thence to Canada. Louisiana for a Ions: time was free from its immediate effects, but her currency grew in volume and shrunk in value apace with the progress of the struggle and the steady advance of the English into the northern territory. One by one the strongholds in Canada fell before the invaders until the end came with the taking of Montreal in I 760. I02 FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. Meantime there had been a great increase in the population of Louisiana by immigration from the French settlements north of the great lakes. Most of these sought homes on the prairies and bayou- coasts of Avoyelles, Attakapas and Opelousas.. One colony came under circumstances which not alone the dull details of history, but the genius of our greatest American poet have forever impressed upon the memory of the world. The British gov- ernment, without the slightest foundation in justice, ordered all the inhabitants in the province of Acadia to be seized, put on board English vessels and trans- ported far away from their homes and country. At that time Acadia included the area of the present province of Nova Scotia. In obedience to the order of the English conquerors the inhabi- tants, men, women and children, old and young, sick and well (about four thousand in all), were seized and dragged on board the ships sent for the purpose, huddled into the holds like cattle and in the fall months of 1755, conveyed to the breezy, desolate sand-coasts of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia where they were left in utter destitution to shift for themselves. As fast as they could these poor outcasts made their way to New Orleans. Six hundred and fifty of them arrived early in 1756 and were sent to Attakapas and Opelousas. So began the Acadian settlement FROM FRANCE TO SPAFV. 1 03 in the western part of Louisiana. To this clay that section of the State is inhal^ited by the descendants of those refugees from English outrage. These people have preserved with remarkable fidelity the old-time customs and habits of their simple, honest and unambitious ancestors.* In 1763 the final treaty between England and France was perfected and France agreed secretly with Spain to transfer Louisiana to her. By the former treaty the English took possession of all North America east of the Mississippi River, with the exception of that small area extending from lakes Maurepas, Ponchartrain and Borgne southward and westward to the gulf and the river, including the island of Orleans. The people of Louisiana were not at once in- formed of the fact that their country had been ceded to Spain. Gradually the news crept among them. It was received with consternation and resentment which soon arose to the highest pitch. •"The removal of the French Acadians from their homes," says Mr. Charles C. Smith, "was one of the saddest episodes in modern history, and no one will attempt to justify it; but it should be added that the genius of our great poet has thrown a somewhat false and distorted light over the character of the victims. They were not the peaceful and simple-hearted people they are commonly supposed to have been ; and their homes, as we learn from contemporary evidence, were by no means the picturesque, vine-clad, and strongly built cottages described by the poet. The people were notably quarrelsome among themselves, and to the last degree superstitious. . . . Even in periods when France and England were at peace the French Acadians were a source of perpetual danger to the English colonists. . . . But all this does not justify their expulsion in the manner in which it was executed, and it will always remain a foul blot in the history of Nova Scotia." This is the other side of the story and should be quoted in justification. But it is safe to assume that the real facts can never qualify the sym- pathetic love for the Acadians created by the delightful cadences of " Evangeline." — [Ed. 104 FROM FRANCE TO SPA IN. The Spanish Government, aware of this feeling, hesitated to take formal possession of the terri- tory. The French colonists petitioned their mother country in vain for some action by which they might continue under the control of their kine. Nothino- could be more bitter to them than the thought of submitting to Spanish rule. No doubt this sentiment was fanned into an active flame of passion by the men who were controlling the Mississippi trade ; for the coming of the new administration would end their monopoly. D'Abadie, who was acting as director-general, held his office for two years after he had received orders to surrender the government of Louisiana to the Spanish sovereign. Don Antonio de Ulloa with a guard of infantry reached New Orleans on the fifth of March, 1766. He came with in- structions from Charles III. and was directed to take possession of the province without any dis- play, using every means in his power to pacify the French inhabitants. This task, however, proved a very delicate and difficult one. From the first he was met with the most stubborn and resentful bearing by the people over whom he was to rule. He hesitated to take formal and public possession of the country, seeing that great trouble was almost sure to follow. The longer he hesitated the higher rose the feelings of the people. Suddenly, in Sep- FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. io; tember, he left New Orleans and went to the Balize where he remained a long time, apparently unmind- ful of what was going on. Delegations of citizens and officials were sent to him from New Orleans, but they returned no wiser than when they started. This was exasperating. Days and weeks and months went by, and still no explanation of Ulloa's strange action was forthcoming. Gradually a feel- ino- of dread besfan to take the place of resent- ment. It might be that UUoa was awaiting the arrival of a Spanish fleet and army with which he would proceed to grind the colonies into subjection so that he could govern them as the Mexican colonies were governed. The thought was terrible and many of the inhabitants began to make ready for migration. Aubrey had succeeded D'Abadie as director- general and while he was waiting to surrender the province to UUoa a conspiracy was formed among the leaders of the French colonists for the purpose of resisting the transfer. The members of this organization met in secret to perfect their plans. Finally on the twenty-seventh of October, 1 768, a revolutionary movement was begun by an upris- ino- of armed citizens. From all directions the set- tlements poured their men into New Orleans. The guns about the city were spiked and the mob took control of the streets. io8 FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN.' Ulloa, who had returned from his hermitaee at the Balize, bringing with him as his bride a Peruvian lady of great wealth, was unaware of any conspir- acy against him until he saw the armed men in New Orleans and heard their wild shouts of Vive le roi! Aubrey was as much surprised as Ulloa could have been, for the insurgents had kept their plans so hidden that he had never suspected their existence. He took prompt measures, however, to shield the Spaniards from harm. Ulloa and his wife were hurriedly put on board a vessel which at once swung out into the middle of the river. On the twenty-ninth, in spite of Aubrey's en- treaties and threats, the Supreme Council passed a resolution requiring Ulloa to produce at once his commission or give proof of his authority from the Spanish Government. Failing to do this he was ordered to leave the country within a month. Don Ulloa chose the latter alternative and sailed for Cuba. The reason for this delay of nearly three years on the part of the Spanish Government before it took actual possession of Louisiana is not quite plain. True the province, in a financial way, was, at best, not a desirable acquisition. The question regarding the management of the worthless paper currency left afloat in the colonies by the French Government was something to temporize with, but FROM FRAXCE TO SFAW. 1 09 still it is not easily seen why these considerations should have caused such dangerous delays in the matter of assuming local control. A prompt and firm course in the beginning, if accompanied with kindness and justice, would have prevented a great deal of trouble. Ulloa had been exceedingly kind to the French and the treatment he received at their hands was far from justifiable. While he was in the vessel which was to bear him from New Orleans to Cuba, a party of noisy rioters marched down to the river bank and cut the cable by which his ship was moored. Then, with hilarious delight, they watched the result as the strong current of the stream bore the vessel rapidly away. On October 31, the Council had formally over- ruled Aubrey's protest, and had reafifirmed its order to Ulloa. Three days before this the planters and merchants of Louisiana had drawn up an address or manifesto in which they justi- fied the revolution and heaped many accusations upon the head of Don Antonio Ulloa. As Aubrey had virtually recognized Ulloa as gov- ernor of Louisiana, the revolutionists treated him also with contempt. He in turn told them that they would probably come to the end usually reached by insurgents, meaning death by public execution at the hands of the authorities. no FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. The chief instigators and leaders of the re- volt were Lafreniere, the attorney-general, Focault, the commissary, Marquis, a captain of the infantry, Mazent, a wealthy planter, and two of ex-Governor Bienville's nephews, Doucet, a lawyer, Villiere, the commander of the German coast, and many other leading men of New Orleans and vicinity. Lafre- niere was a sort of Patrick Henry, eloquent, fiery, impetuous, just the man to influence his fellows at such a time, and to lead them as he pleased. He delivered an address to the Council which was full of cunning appeals to French prejudice and pas- sion, and at the same time it was couched in terms of bitterest contempt for the Spanish intruders and for their methods of procedure since their arrival in Louisiana. It was this speech that shaped the policy of the Council and drove Ulloa out of the province. The revolution was complete and the French found themselves masters of the situation ; but what was to be done next } So soon as the heat of the crisis had spent itself, the more thoughtful ones among the insurgents began to look at each other askance. It was the lull between storms. At this time New Orleans was a place of three thousand two hundred inhabitants, and was sur- rounded by a strong palisade and trenches. Many comfortable, even luxurious homes had been built FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. 1 1 1 and a circle of refined and elegant society had formed itself upon the model of Vaudreuirs little court; but the province had not yet reached the point of absolute self dependence, and in order to sustain themselves in their comparative luxury of living, the leaders of politics and society must have the aid afforded by a rich foreign government. What if France should refuse to stand by them in this defiance of Spain ? What if Spain should send an overwhelming army to crush them into submission ? A delegation was dispatched to France to inter- cede with the Crown, but, of course, under the cir- cumstances, the mission was fruitless. Louisiana just then was a load of which the French Govern- ment was glad to be rid. The burden was on the shoulders of Spain, and she must bear it. The revolutionists began to count the chances of the future. They found their treasury practi- cally empty, their supply of arms and muni- tions of war very scant, their available force of men not exceeding fifteen hundred or eighteen hundred at most and, worst of all, no unanimity of feeling among the people. Deep down in their hearts lay an awful dread of Spanish vengeance, and well it might lie there, for the whole world knew how terrible that vengeance could be. Some Spanish ofi^ccrs had been left in New 1 1 2 FROM FRANCE TO SPAIN. Orleans b)^ Ulloa. These were treated with great consideration. Aubrey showed them every courtesy, and a number of the more prudent French citizens became their staunch friends and supporters. Thus as time wore on the suspense became almost unbearable to those who had clamored so loudly for the expulsion of Ulloa. There was something ominous in the delay. At length, suddenly, on the twenty-third of July, 1769, a dispatch was received announcing the arrival of a Spanish fleet at the Balize. Nor was it a mere nominal force that it brought upon its decks. The twenty-four vessels were heavily armed and bore an army which could with ease overrun and devastate the entire province. Now, indeed, was the hour come for the insur- gents to tremble. Villiere who was the leading spirit of the German and the Acadian coasts, had kept his people in open rebellion to the last miO- ment ; but now, seeing how overpowering were the Spanish forces, he began preparations to leave the territor}'. It would appear, however, that he received assurances of kind treatment, for he seems to have changed his determination and to have thrown himself upon the mercy of the Spanish commander. CHAPTER V. UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN. Y rejecting with scorn the paci- fic overtures of Ulloa and by maintaining a rebelHous and threatening at- t i t u d e, the French of Louisiana had made but a poor exchange of masters, as they soon discovered. Don Alexander O'Reilly who was now at their gates with a strong fleet, many cannon, infantry, cavalry and mounted riflemen — an army the like of which Louisiana had never seen — was not a man to be met with even the slightest show of resistance or discourtesy. He was a man of courage^ firm- ness, executive ability and great cunning, and he had come in a mood anything but gentle and tem- porizing. The Spanish Government had breathed "3 114 UNDER THE EL AG OF SPAIN. into him the breath of despotic force. Nor is this to be wondered at, when all the facts are consid- ered. The treatment which Spain had received cannot be called fair. Louisiana was not only a colony of. France, it was also dependent on her for existence at the time of the cession to Spain. It was France and not Spain with whom the colonies had the right to find fault. But liberty is dear and the preference for the country of one's ancestors is founded in human nature. This was a case, how- ever, where the love of liberty and the preference for the mother country were permitted to over- ride the best dictates of a necessary prudence and a wiser caution. When O'Reilly's fleet appeared before New Orleans the people were ready to submit to Span- ish control as a matter of self-preservation; but it was a terrible ordeal when with banners flying and guns thundering salutes, two thousand six hundred soldiers landed and marched in splendid array into the town, shouting Viva cl rey! and taking position in the form of a hollow square. An artillery force of fifty guns, some mounted militia and a force of light infantry and mounted riflemen formed an im- posing part of the parade. Crowds of people from the various settlements had come to New Orleans to witness the scene. They returned to their homes overawed and UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN. 115 despondent. Now, indeed, they knew that they were Spanish subjects. O'Reilly acted with a promptness, an energy and a brutal cruelty worthy of the dark record already made by his Government in all its American provinces. On the twenty-first of August he called before him twelve of the men who had been most con- spicuous in urging the insurrection, and after hav- ino- read to them the orders of his sovereign, he told them that they were prisoners and must answer to a charge of treason and insurrection. There was a trial and five of the twelve, namely : Lafreniere, Noyan Bienville, Caresse, Marquis and Milhet, were condemned to be hanged, one was sentenced to imprisonment for life, two to ten years' confinement, three to six years' confinement, and the property of all was declared confiscated to the king's treasury. This blow fell with crushing effect. The condemned men were, most of them, connected with a large number of the best and most prosperous families in Louisiana. Villiere had already come to a tragic death. He had been confined under close guard on a Spanish frigate in the river, and had been allowed to see no one but his captors. His wife, frenzied with grief and apprehension visited him, but was refused admission to his presence. Villiere hearing her Il6 UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN. voice tried to go to her, and in a struggle with his guards was killed outright. Madame Villiere per- sisted in her attempts to reach her husband until at last the brutal soldiers flung to her the bloody shirt of their mangled victim to assure her that he was dead. A few days after their trial the five men who had been sentenced to be hanged were led forth and shot, a military death having been permitted by O'Reilly, in lieu of the more disgraceful one at the rope's end. The sorrow and distress that fell upon the hearts of the colonists as the result of these terrible trao-- edies can be but faintly described. Horror hovered over the entire territory. The distinguished victims had kindred and dear friends not only in and about New Orleans, but in every settlement in Lower Louisiana. Weeping and mourning and the gloom of funeral sadness took possession of almost every household. The suave manners and smiling face of O'Reilly, his kindly words and his acts of generosity to those who had not incurred his displeasure, made the brutality of his punishments appear all the more hideous. He was looked upon as an affable and gracious-appearing fiend who might be expected to wreak his terrible vengeance upon any one at any hour. Nobody felt safe for a moment, day or UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN. II7 night. Business was wholly neglected and people were almost afraid to speak to each other for fear that they might be accused of plotting insurrection. O'Reilly proceeded to organize a new govern- ment based upon Spanish methods. He ordered that all the judicial records shall be kept in the Spanish language, and that there should be no other tongue recognized in the pleadings and pro- cedure of the courts. Althouoh he was a severe man and remained unpopular during his administration, he studied the interests of Louisiana and advanced her mate- rial prosperity in many ways. His laws appear to have been wise and wholesome in the main, and his influence, barring his monstrous acts at the out- set of his career, was more for good than for bad. Emigration from Spain set in and the popula- tion of Louisiana was greatly increased. The new colonists opened settlements on the Mississippi and in the western part of the territory, on the prairies of the region lying beyond the Teche. O'Reilly closed the Mississippi to traders from outside of Louisiana and prohibited all foreigners from passing through the province without a pass- port from him; nor was any person permitted to leave Louisiana until an order had been granted. At the end of a year he fell into disgrace with the Spanish Government and was superseded by Il8 UNDER THE EL AG OF SPAIN. Don Antonio Maria Bucarelly who held command until the arrival of Don Luis de Unzaga, named by O'Reilly as his successor. Unzaga was confirmed as governor of the province on the seventeenth of August, 1772. The winter following was extremely cold and for the third time since the foundine of New Orleans, the orange orchards of Louisiana were all killed. Unzaga saw that O'Reilly had laid the founda- tion of good government by his vigorous action in the case of the insurgent leaders, and he wisely sought to build upon it by a kind and liberal administration. Those executions have been char- acterized as brutal and cruel ; but it must be admitted that from the Spanish point of view they were justifiable. O'Reilly was a military despot, but the impartial critic must accord to him a much better character than historians have been willine that he should disclose in their pictures of him. He came to Louisiana immediately after the ex- pulsion of Ulloa and found the colonies flooded with incendiary documents, the populace in arms against his king, and a self-constituted council usurping the power of government. He struck swiftly and without mercy at the heart of insubor- dination, and by one fell blow taught the French that they were not to consider themselves as any- thing more or less than Spanish subjects. UNDER THE FLA-G OF SPAIN. 12 1 The lesson was terrible; but it was not necessary to repeat it. One such is an education. Unzaga made haste to draw the people to him, and so kind was he and so watchful of their interests that he soon fixed himself firmly in their confidence. Under the benign influence of his administration the affairs of Louisiana brightened and the colo- nies prospered. Population increased with great rapidity during the whole period of his stay in Louisiana, and the agriculture of the Mississippi Valley was vastly improved. In 1776 he was appointed captain-general of Caraccas, and Don Bernard de Galvez took the office of governor of Louisiana on the first of January, 1777. In the meantime the English colonies of North America had declared their independence and a struggle was going on between them and Great Britain. All the territory of Louisiana lay remote from the chief centres of Anglo-American popula- tion, and would therefore have been little affected by the war which followed the Declaration of Independence, had Spain but kept out of the controversy. France ranged herself on the side of the colonies early in the struggle ; Spain (having offered to interfere amicably) was snubbed in the most offen- sive and arrogant way by England. 122 UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN. At this time there were British forts and earri- sons at Mobile, at Baton Rouge, at Fort Bute and at Natchez. Indeed, as the war progressed many emigrants from the EngHsh colonies settled along the east bank of the Mississippi where they hoped to find exemption from the evils of the bloody and desperate struggle for liberty. Against these set- tlers the people of Louisiana nursed a deep-seated hostility which was thoroughly understood and carefully encouraged by their Spanish masters. When England went to war with France the old love of their mother country still smoldering in the hearts of the French Creoles was revived. They burned to strike their ancient enemy the British traders. They had not long to wait for the coveted opportunity. Galvez, although prudent and cautious, was full of military ardor. He longed for the turn of events which would permit him to attack Mobile, Pensacola, Baton Rouge and all the other English posts. On the twenty-second of April, 1777, Colonel George Morgan of the American colonial army, who was in command at Fort Pitt, wrote to Galvez asking leave to pass an army through Louisiana for the purpose of attacking Mobile and Pensacola, hoping by this move to strike the English a telling blow where they were least expecting it. But the Spanish governor was too wise to permit such a UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN. 123 thing. In the first place he was not entirely sure of the loyalty of his own subjects, and then, too, it would be imprudent to take the step without the permission of his king. Laro-e numbers of emicrrants continued to arrive in Louisiana and there was a steady, healthy in- crease in the agricultural and commercial interest. Under the new order of things, which permitted free trade with all the Spanish ports, New Orleans grew in importance as well as in size. Many boats descended the Mississippi from the settlements on its upper waters, bringing down heavy cargoes of produce, and for a time the colonies were exceed- ingly prosperous. In 1779 a body of four hundred and ninety-nine emigrants reached New Orleans from the Canary Islands. These were sent to the banks of Bayou Teche and there formed the settle- ment of New Iberia. The formal declaration of war by Spain against Great Britain was made known to Galvez at the earliest moment and he was authorized to treat the English as enemies. This was welcome intelli- gence. He chafed to begin military operations. In the summer of 1779 he organized an army of fourteen hundred men and marched against Fort Bute on the Manchac, which he assaulted and carried by storm. With great promptness and rapidity he followed up this victory. Reinforce- 124 UNDER THE EL AG OF SPAIN, merits to the number of six hundred came to his aid, and by the twenty-seventh he had reached Baton Rouge. This was the most important Brit- ish post on the river, but it surrendered to him after a sharp fight of two hours. The fall of Baton Rouge put into the hands of Galvez the area of country now occupied by the parishes of Baton Rouge and Feliciana, with the forts it contained. It was a short, brilliant and wholly successful cam- paign. The people of Louisiana were greatly elated by it and Galvez took the importance of a hero in their estimation. The Spanish king promptly sent to him the commission of brigadier- general of the royal forces of Louisiana and ordered him to prepare at once to attack the other British posts within his reach. Without delay he began the work. So rapidly did he organize his forces that on the fifth of Feb- ruary, 1780, he set sail for Mobile with an army of two thousand men. On the gulf his fleet encoun- tered a severe gale which did considerable damage to some of the vessels, but in due time he sailed into the Mobile River and landed his forces on the eastern point of the river's bank. Thence, after a hurried reconnoissance, he marched boldly up to Fort Charlotte and invested it, planting six bat- teries in position for effective bombardment. All the guns were put into action and served with fine UNDER THE EL AG OE SPAEW 125 results. A breach w::.; made in the wall of the fort, and on the fourteenth of March it was sur- rendered to the brave and intrepid Galvez. The young conqueror was then but twenty-four years old. Feelino- that it was of the utmost importance to continue his triumphant campaign against the English, Galvez returned to New Orleans and sent a dispatch to the captain-general of Cuba, asking for reinforcements. These being delayed he pro- ceeded to Havana and in person superintended the fittino- out of a fleet and army, with which he set sail for Pensacola on the sixteenth of October. A storm broke up and dispersed his fleet before he reached his destination, and after a month of almost superhuman effort in re-gathering his scat- tered vessels he returned to Havana. This disaster did not daunt him in the least. He demanded another fleet and at length on the twenty-eighth of February, 17S1, he w^as again on the gulf wdth a ship of the line, two frigates and several transports, bearino- fourteen hundred soldiers, formidable artil- lery and everything that in those days went to make up an eflicient force. Don Jose Cabro de Izrabel commanded the fleet, though Galvez had controlled the expedition. Pensacola was reached without delay and on the ninth of March Galvez landed on the island of 126 UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN. St. Rose, where he erected some earth-works and planted a battery to protect the vessels while pass- ing the bar; but a misunderstanding arose be- tween him and Izrabel, and the fleet was not moved. The Spanish admiral insisted that the channel was too narrow, too swift and too shallow for his vessels, and that any attempt to attack the fort by water would be utterly fruitless. Galvez strenu- ously contended that the attack should be made by the fleet and the land forces simultaneously ; but finding the admiral stubborn he set about the task of reducing the fort with the troops and ves- sels that were exclusively under his command. On the sixteenth Espeleta arrived from Mobile with all the men he could muster, and he was followed by Mirb who brought the forces from New Orleans. Galvez had a brig, two gun-boats and a schooner. He went on board of the brig and ordered his little fleet to pass the fort. Sail was set immedi- ately and the four vessels swept slowly on, the fort directing upon them a heavy fire to which they answered with spirit and effect. Galvez, whose feelings had been aroused to the highest pitch of indignation by the stubborn willfulness of the admiral, purposely exposed himself to the aim of the English cannoneers. The fort was safely passed UNDER THE FLAG OF SPAIN. 127 and a landing made at the end of the bay, the troops cheering, the flags flying and salutes thun- derincT across the water. The Spanish admiral caumpt to attack whenever the chance offered itself, seizing with ready grasp the slightest vantage ground, and never giving up a foot of earth that he could keep, he yet had the patience to plav a defensive game where it so suited him and with consummate skill he always followed out the scheme of warfare that was best adapted to his wild soldiery. In after years he did to his country some good and nwre evil , but no true American can thir.k of his deeds at New Orleans without profound and unmixed thankfulness." -Theodore Roosevelt's 214 THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. truth is, it was worse than none. This the British cannon-balls soon demonstrated, and Jackson rid himself of it in short order. The cunnino- foe, not to be outdone by American ingenuity, opposed his walls of mud and of sugar-hogsheads to the cotton fort ; but they too were useless, the balls bounding through them with scarcely a diminution of force. The Caroline, that plucky and persistent little schooner (" manned by regular seamen, largely New Englanders," says Mr. Roosevelt), crept down the river, on the morning of the twenty-fourth. She anchored near to the shore on the side opposite the camp of the British where General Keane was commanding, and, as soon as her gunner could see, opened fire with such effect that the whole field was swept. The British could not move and they had no batteries with which to respond. Durino- the entire day they lay behind the levee, in swales and ditches, under cover of cabins, and waited for night to come. Meantime the Louisiana dropped down the river to within a mile of the Caroline. General Jackson was never at rest. He saw every part of his works, encouraged his men, gave orders incessantly, took personal control and direction of everything. Was New Orleans disloyal .? Were the Creoles traitors to the stars and stripes .? Let the names THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 215 of Villere and Plauche, of Latour, Dacquin, and Lacaste, and of the Battalion D'Orleans, — those brave volunteers who worked with bare and bleed- ing hands, without food, without rest, night and clay, — let all these answer such questions. And let too the memory of those courageous French women who made hospital nurses of themselves bear wit- ness to their loyalty. New England was patriotic to its inmost heart-core and yet the newspapers of New England iterated and reiterated the declara- tion : " No more taxes from New England till the administration makes peace." Partisan politics had burned hotly and the thousand things said to the discredit of the Creoles of Louisiana were but embers blown from the political fireplace and kept aglow for electioneering purposes. If New Orleans and the Creoles had been unpatriotic Gen- eral Jackson would have been at their mercy. Claiborne sent a proposition to the Barratarian pirates offering them full pardon for all past offences if they would come to the aid of Louis- iana. This was accepted and no braver men fought in the subsequent battle. On Christmas day Sir Edward Packenham arrived at the British camp and took command. Major-General Samuel Gibbs was his second in command, and at once the somewhat disheartened army was flushed with new hope and courage. 2l6 THE BATTLE OE NEW ORLEANS. General Packenham was a brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington and an officer of great renown. He had fought his way to the highest place in the confidence of his government and of the army. Barely thirty-eight, brilliant, the bravest of the brave, fresh from the desperate battles of the peninsula, "trained for seven years in the stern school of the Iron Duke " he certainly seemed the man to lead this army to assured victory. As soon as he arrived he began an examination of the ground between his own and Jackson's posi- tion. His first thought, almost, was directed upon the brave little schooner Caroline. During the night of the twenty-sixth he put a battery in posi- tion on the levee and erected near it a furnace for heating shot. At daylight this battery opened on the Caroline with terrible effect, sending its white- hot missiles with admirable marksmanship, right into her hull. Captain Henly was soon forced to aban- don her, and scarcely had he got his men ashore when she blew up with a terrific roar. The British cheered madly at the destruction of this main obstacle to their advance. Then they turned their hissing hot-shot upon the Louisiana. There was no wind and Lieutenant Thompson set his sails in •vain. A shell burst on deck wounding six men. The white-hot round-shot were falling in the water close alongside the beleagured vessel. The boats THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 217 were manned in sheer desperation; ready hands pulled at the oars and the Louisiana was actually towed away out of danger by the plucky and faith- ful crew. And now the Americans yelled as only Americans can. On the twenty-eighth General Packenham made a reconnoissance in force after having formed his line with greatest care. It was a fine sub-tropical winter morning, clear and cool, and the Americans on the works behind the sluice-way could plainly see the splendid col- umns of the British as they swept out from the cover of some plantation quarters five hundred yards distant. They came, as if on dress parade, in close order with colors flying and to the sound of martial music. A rush of congreve rockets filled the air in front of them and their advancing batteries soon enveloped them in smoke. The Louisiana was in position, her eight-gun broadsides raking the levee and dashing up the black mud and watery sand beyond. Her guns were served with remarkable accuracy and rapidity, the earth-jarring explosions following one another like the reverberations of a terrible thunder-storm. General Jackson, pale and haggard from disease and loss of sleep, his stern features moveless as marble, stood on a slight rise of the land behind his works. Throuo-h an old field-glass he watched 2l8 THE BATTLE OE NEW ORLEANS. the steadily advancing columns. He received reports and gave orders, in a voice as steady and calm as if he had been at dinner; he saw the effect of his battery and his ship's broadsides; but he saw also that the magnificently equipped British troops came right on. Was it to be a battle ? Would they attempt to storm his works 1 Let them. He was ready. They came half-way to the breastworks behind which lay his fighting-men ; still nearer they came. There they halted. The guns of the Louisiana had smashed and silenced their battery on the levee and with a loss of fifty killed and wounded they retired past the burning houses fired by hot shot from the American guns. General Packenham may have been content with the information obtained by means of this move- ment. He had found out just where his adversary lay and in what a lair. He would now proceed to run him out and dispatch him. General Jackson, the ever alert and ever ready, had learned something also by the day's opera- tions. His left was weak and could have been turned easily by the British right. Indeed it had been turned by General Gibbs and the result might have been disastrous had that officer pressed his advantage. General Packenham and his staff were impressed with the belief that the American force was a very THE BATTLE OE NEW ORLEANS. 219 laro-e and effective one. A council was held and it was determined that the works of General Jack- son should be advanced upon by a system of gradual approaches and finally carried by storm. It was the Englishman's great mistake. Such a plan in such a country appears at this distance to possess neither merit nor force. General Jackson at once set his men at work streno-theninu: the defences on the left by building heavy mud embankments out into the swamp and planting some guns there to prevent another flank- ino- movement. Indeed every moment of delay on the part of the British commander was used by the American general in making ready for the next attack. Reinforcements reached him — swelling his army to about six thousand regulars and militia all told, while the enemy now numbered nearly fif- teen thousand, most of them the " fierce and hardy veterans of the Peninsular War." New Orleans was roused to the highest pitch of excitement. Everybody was fired with the fighting enthusiasm. Old men, young men, strong and weak, all clutched such arms as could be had and hurried to the front. It was a motley line that lay behind those rude earthworks on the eighth of January, 18 15, and such weapons of war as the men had would make a soldier of to-day laugh to see. Old fire-lock fowling-pieces, bell-muzzled 2 20 THE BATTLE OE NEW ORLEANS. blunderbusses, long backwoods rifles, rusty mus- kets, old horse-pistols — anything that could be made to fire either ball or shot was clutched by a resolute hand and held ready to be aimed by a steady eye. Jackson's grand spirit was in every breast; his enthusiastic patriotism had become infectious. There was little rest for any hand, little sleep for any eye. As the eighth day approached it became cjuite evident that Packenham was making ready for a grand assault with a force apparently overwhelm- ing. General Jackson had caused the levee to be cut both above and below the British lines, but the river was not high enough to do the work intended and the water really helped General Packenham in forwarding his reinforcements and supplies. The Louisiana took good care to manoeuvre in such a way that she kept herself well out of her enemy's reach, and at the same time she kept up an almost incessant firino-. The Americans with their land batteries kept feeling for the British line and finally, by elevating the guns were abl-e to drop both shot and shell in the midst of their camp. Heavy guns were planted on the right bank of the river so as to command the area to be crossed by Packenham's forces in assaulting Jackson's line. On the left the American works were projected far into the swamp, and a reconnoitering party of the British were Jackson's sharp-shooters. THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 223 repulsed while trying to feel their way around the extreme wing. Daring sharp-shooters, most of tliem Tennesseeans who were armed with long deer-rifles, crept forward and annoyed the enemy's pickets by killing a man here and there from the cover of the thick bushes or tall grass. On the night of the thirty-first of December, General Packenham sent forward a strong detach- ment which erected six batteries of thirty cannon, twenty long eighteen-pounders and ten twenty-four pounders, only three hundred yards distant from the American line. This movement was skillfully performed and on the following morning an almost disastrous surprise resulted. New Year's Day dawned gloomily with a dense o-ray fog lying close to the ground. All was still and silent. The Louisiana lay some distance up the river and a part of her men were planting another heavy gun in the battery on the west bank of the river. General Jackson ordered a grand parade of his men between the lines and his headquarters, and while this was going on the fog lifted slowly and the sun began to shine. It was a soldierly way of welcoming in the new year, but it was not a very wise move in the presence of a wary and over- w^helmingly strong enemy. Jackson was in his room getting himself ready to review the troops, 2 24 THE BATTLE OE NEW ORLEANS. when suddenly those thirty heavy cannon boomed out their awful thunder and their iron storm rushed crashing by. \\\ the same moment a shriekino- shower of congreve rockets filled the air. Cannon- balls began to strike the house in which were the General and some other officers. Colonel Butler was knocked down and covered with a mass of falling rubbish. A hundred shot struck the house in the space of a few minutes. All was wild confusion for a time ; but the men rushed to the breastworks. The guns were speed- ily manned, and when Jackson reached the line he found everything in order. The Louisiana quickly dropped down to her place and began to pound away, while the heavy guns on the west side of the river opened with tremendous vigor. It was a noise worth hearing. Over fifty cannon were bel- lowing at once. Humphrey's artillery was doing glorious work, knocking the enemy's sugar-hogshead works all into heaps, tumbling their guns over and scattering their gunners and support. The pirates Dominique and Beluche, handled a battery with all the desperate courage of their class, well earning their governor's promised pardon by quickly silenc- ing the guns in front of them. The enemy made an effort to turn Jackson's left, but were promptly repulsed in disorder by Coffee. Before noon the British batteries were silent and THE BATTLE OE AEW ORLEANS. 225 the lifting fog and smoke disclosed a scene whicli drew from the brave Americans wild and prolonged cheers. Heaps of demolished embankments and frao-ments of broken artillery, flying gunners and columns of red-coats making for cover, showed how completely the attacking force had been beaten back into ignominious hiding down in the watery and muddy ditches. From this moment forward the moj-a/e of the American troops was excellent. Every man felt tliat he was a match for two or three of the British. General Jackson was de- lio-hted. He went up and down the line waving his cap in the air and joining in the lusty shouts of his soldiers. The artillery did not cease firing, but kept a level flood of balls pouring across the field. The Louisiana bellowed away and from the other side of the river came the jarring thunder of the heavy battery. Shells were bursting everywhere. The round-shot ploughed through the mud and sand or bumped heavily among the trees on the left and forced the British to keep themselves well hidden while they crept back to their lines. Thus ended the first strong effort of Packenham to reduce the American works. He was now con- vinced that an assault by storm was the only means of success, and, although his best officers almost rose in mutiny against it, he ordered preparations 2 26 THE BATTLE OE NEW ORLEANS. for the attack. By Sunday morning, the eighth of January, 1815, the British columns were formed in front of that low, dark, terrible wall beyond the ditch, and the British leader was with them, ready to show that he was their leader in fact as well as in name. He had been at Badajos ; he had dealt the decisive blow on " the stricken field of Salamanca " ; the scars of many wounds were on his body; he was not a man to shrink from any danger.* His officers and men were most of them grim veterans of many a bloody field. He could trust them. General Jackson was well aware of the prepara- tions going on in the British camp. Indeed his army felt what was coming, and each man nerved himself to do or die. The word was passed from lip to lip that coolness and a steady aim were of the highest importance. Every bullet, every round- shot, every shell, every flight of grape and canister must find its target. Take a glance at the field. Here is the Ameri- can line a little way behind the muddy sluice-ditch which serves as a moat. The breastworks are of earth chiefly and made very thick. In front, be- yond the ditch, the ground stretches away as flat, almost, as water. On the right is the mighty river * " He was not the man to flinch from a motley array of volunteers, militia and raw regu- lars, led by a grizzled old bush-fighter, whose name had never been heard of outside of his own swamps, and there only as the savnge destroyer of some scarcely more savai^e Indian tribes." — Roosevelt. THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 227 level with its bank, save that a levee barely over- looks it. On the left is a dense swamp jungle, dark and grim, hung with long moss and covered with creeping air-plants. To take the American works, think of what the British must do. In the first place they must march across that level field which is raked by the Louisiana guns and by the heavy enfilading batteries on the other side of the river. At the same time the batteries of the works have a point-blank line of fire right upon their front. This is the beginning. Next comes the murderous storm of grape and cannister at short range ; then they must feel the withering breath of rifle and mus- ket, they must flounder through that muddy ditch, they must rush upon the belching muzzles of steady cruns, they must climb over the embankment. Does it appear possible for men to do all this ? We who remember the charge of Pickett at Gettysburg smile at such a question. Those who saw Claiborne at Franklin will scarcely lift their eyes as they answer, Yes. The gallant columns of Sherman at Kennesaw or those of Grant at Peters- buro- know that brave men can accomplish any- thing that they are ordered to do. Jackson was fearless and his courage knew no bounds, but his wisdom made him feel how doubt- ful was the issue. One point of his works carried and all would be over. 2 28 THE BATTLE OE NEW ORLEANS. " Can wc withstand an assault ? " he inquired of General Adair. ^ " Yes, possibly, if we hold a strong reserve with which to reinforce any failing or breaking part of our line," was the prompt answer. This was the whole danger expressed in the fewest words. No part of the line was strong enough to resist a con- centrated and determined rush, unless a reserve could be held back ready to step in promptly at the critical moment. At a little past one o'clock on the mornino- of that dreadful but glorious Sunday, Jackson arose, called to his dozing aids and gave orders for everything to be put in readiness to receive - the British. "The enemy will be upon us in a few minutes," he said; " I must go and see Coffee." General Adair was placed in command of the re- serve — a thousand Kentuckians — and ordered to hold himself ready to support Carroll and Coffee. All along the line everything was ready. As morninc^ came on its liorht struo-olec] through a film of silver fog that veiled the field, the swamp and the river. Just at the break of dawn two rock- ets streamed up into the murky air as the signal for the British advance. By six o'clock two heavy columns were in motion. The Americans lay behind their works in breath- THE BATTLE OF NEJV ORLEANS. 229 less expectancy listening to those indescribable but well-known sounds that always come from an ad- vancing army. Slowly the fog lifted and dimly enough a dull red line was seen steadily moving out of the distance. A gun from battery six sent the first shot hurtling off to meet it. Two minutes later the magnificent British column led by General Gibbs was full in sight only three hundred yards away, sweeping on with a swift and even motion. Three batteries opened on it. Soon obtaining the rano-e, they plunged their heavy hail of iron through from front to rear, crushing it horribly. This did not even check it. Right on it came, a little faster — if possible, a little steadier. The cannoneers saw and wondered. It was a thrilling exhibition of cold, determined, dogged courage. No batteries could drive them back. Patterson's heavy guns beo-an to bellow from the other side the river. On came that solid column. The Americans had formed a quadruple line of riflemen and muske- teers one behind another ; they withheld their fire until the head of the column had come within fair rano-e; then each man took deliberate aim and out leaped a rattling volley. At the same moment all along the works the batteries blazed together. The British staggered a moment, then came a forward rush ; but the front of the column was swept down ; there was a recoil, a break, a precipitate retreat. 2 30 THE BATTLE OE NEW ORLEANS. At this signal check the Americans cheered like mad and redoubled their deadly fire. Packenham rushed headlong among the men. After a desperate effort he reformed the shattered and panic-stricken column just beyond the danger line and turned it again toward the earthworks and the fringe of sulphurous flames that flashed above them. This time there was to be no falterino- or hesitancy, no thought of retreat. Over the works or die. Hat in hand General Packenham rose in his saddle and urged his horse to the very front. He shouted to his brave men, he beckoned them on, and then they set their teeth and followed him. It was as heroic a charge as any in history and it was repulsed by as fearful a fire as ever belched from a repelling line. Packenham led the rio-hf Gibbs the left ; the British columns marched steadily up to the point-blank range of the batteries. The Americans were ready, cool, steady ; their aim, ap- parently, was absolutely accurate, for the front ranks fell like grass before a scythe. A musket ball struck General Packenham through the right arm ; on he rode, the shattered arm dangling by his side. He did not notice the wound. A deluge of grape shot poured along ; one of them crashed through his thigh. He fell. Still another struck him, and there he died. General Gibbs was borne from the field writhing under the terrible pain of a death-wound. THE BATTLE CE AE II' ORLEANS. 231 Down fell Colonel Dale of the Highlanders; down, too, fell the Highlanders themseK-es, to the number of five hundred and forty-four, never to charge again. One thirty-two-pounder gun was charged to the muzzle with musket bullets and fired point-blank into the head of the rushing column before it. The awful blast swept away two hundred men. The riflemen picked their red-coat targets and took aim as if shooting for a prize. Indeed they were shooting for a prize. Behind them was New Orleans ; there were the brave women, there the little children, there the old men. Behind them was their countrv, before them its invaders. Out sans: the bullets of Tennessee and Kentucky; forth whizzed the missiles of the patriotic Creoles ; on crashed the grape and canister aimed by the Barra- tarians ; far bounded the heavy round-shot from the Louisiana and from the guns beyond the river. What column could stand all this } The ranks of the British melted down and lay doubly red, strewn like flushed autumn leaves over the shot- furrowed field. The survivors could not come on. They turned and fled, the gusts of death sweeping throuirh them, the hail of death fallinc: on them. All this time General Jackson had been stalking back and forth along his line encouraging his men with grim sentences of exhortation. " Give it to them, boys! Blow 'em up, boys!" he would 232 THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. call out with all the embellishments of frontier em- phasis. And " the boys " heard and obeyed. . By eight o'clock the harvest was over; the red field of the eighth of January had been mowed. In front of Humphrey's batteries stretched the tan- gled wind-rows of mangled dead ; prone beneath the deadly riflemen of Beale's little command the red- coats lay in heaps; the swaths cut down by Carroll and Adair were horrible to see. What slaughter : what a victory ! Over two thousand British lay dead or helpless on the field. And what of Jackson's little army ? How many killed } Just eight men ! How many wounded 1 Thirteen men, and no more ! Carry the , news to New Orleans. The grand army of Packenham is crushed into fragments. The city is saved ! In the meantime a detachment under Colonel Thornton had been ordered by Packenham to cross the river and attack the American works held by General Morgan. This was done and the works were carried by a flanking movement. Colonel Thornton w^as wounded in the assault, and, soon after assuming command, Colonel Gub- bins was ordered to retreat, on account of Packen- ham's reverse. He hurriedly recrossed the river to find Lambert in command of the crushed and disheartened army. Morgan immediately retook possession of his evacuated earthworks. THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 233 And so ended the battle. Fought after peace had been made between Great Britain and the United States it was, alas ! a useless slaughter of brave men, if only the truth could have been known in time. There never was a more joyful army than that which cheered and tossed hats and shook hands and exchanged congratulations behind those low, sodden earthworks of Jackson's line. The volatile Creoles danced and hugged one another and sang their gayest songs. General Lambert soon sent a flag of truce and asked for an armistice of twenty-four hours with the privilege of caring for his wounded and bury- ing his dead. This was granted by General Jack- son, who could now well afford to rest. Happily the American army had but few dead to bury, but each grave received a hero worthy a place beside those who stood for liberty at Lexington and fell within the breastworks of Bunker Hill. The British felt that everything had been clone that they could have done, and all in vain. The very heart and flower of their army, including the commanding officers, lay weltering and writhing or dead and cold in tlie blood pools of that disastrous battlefield. Mournfully enough they performed the depressing duty of disheartened soldiers, gathering up their mangled comrades on the field of their 2 34 THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. crushing defeat. Never had English valor wasted itself upon a task so utterly unworthy of it and never had Englishmen received a more humiliat- ing repulse, or a darker dye of disgrace. Little comfort to Packenham's men lay in the thought that they had shown a courage which the brav- est of their enemies had admired ; for even the most brutal musketeer of them all felt keenly the re- proaches awaiting them when they should return to that veteran army, of which they so lately had been the choicest flower, only to be compelled to acknowledge utter rout at the hands of a mere skirmish-line of backwoodsmen. CHAPTER X. THE OLD REGIME HEN the news of the victory reached New Orleans, there was such rejoic- ing as comes only to those who feel sudden and complete relief from over- whelmino- ter- ror. Women "■"--•—-—- -^-^_'""' "" ~ and children, old men, invalids, the waiters and watchers, had heard the rolling thunder of the fight booming up through the fog and their hearts had stood still with dread. It had been currently reported that the British had determined to pillage and burn the city -^ yes, and, infinitely worse, that they had fore- doomed the women to a fate too terrible to men- tion. The noise of the battle was so tremendous 236 ' THE OLD REGIME. \\\ its significance that when it ceased the blood of the listeners almost stopped flowing in their veins. What meant the sudden calm after the storm ? Was it victory or defeat? They waited and lis- tened and watched, but no news came ; all was ominous silence and expectancy. The minutes were like hours, the hours like days. Suddenly down on the battery at the river front there arose a wild shout, and a hundred voices took up the cry; " Victory ! Victory ! Packenham is crushed ; the British are whipped ! Hurrah for Jackson ! " In- stantly New Orleans was like a hive when the bees are disturbed. The people, men, women and chil- dren, black and white, poured into the streets, yell- ing, screaming, tossing hats, weeping, laughing, wringing hands, praying, dancing, singing, waving flags, all as wild as the hysterical excitement could render them. Jackson gave the British every facility for taking care of their wounded and for burying their dead ; but so soon as this sad duty had been performed he turned again to strengthening his works and to watching with closest scrutiny the movements of his enemy. There was little need for this caution and vigilance. The general in command of the British felt that to renew the fight just then would be madness. He would wait for the fleet which was expected to come up the Mississippi. Sup- THE OLD REGIME. 2^,7 ported by this he might yet be able to reach and destroy New Orleans. Fort St. PhiHp was down near the mouth of l-lie i-ivcr a slight work on a sand-bar, but armed with some heavy ordnance. In this fort General Jackson had placed three hundred and sixty-six men under Major Overton, a brave and able officer. The British squadron sailed up and anchored within range of the fort on the ninth of January. A schooner, a sloop, a brig and two bomb-vessels, all well-manned and heavily armed, opened fire. Major Overton returned the compliment from his water batteries with such effect that the fleet soon dropped down out of reach and with their heavy guns and some large mortars pounded away, quite free from danger, until the seventeenth. By this time the Americans had put a heavy mortar in position and its great shells began to burst all round the ships, each shot showing an improvement in aim. It was a mere matter of time. The fleet was doomed if it remained. It did not remain. On the eighteenth, when Major Overton had at length found the range, there was a sudden flurry on board, and the squadron was seen setting sail and dropping hastily down the river. It had found the little fort an impassable barrier. On this same day, disheartened, broken, utterly defeated, the whole army in front of Jackson took up its sad 238 THE OLD REGIME. march to its fleet on Lake Borgne, and soon after it sailed away never to return. Could disaster be more humiliating? Could victory be more glori- ous? New Orleans rang her bells, filled her churches and sent up to Almighty God the fervent thanks of a people snatched from the very Jaws and fangs of destruction. The war was over. The news soon arrived that, even before the terrible battle was fought, peace had been established between Great Britain and the United States. Louisiana from this date drew closer to the Federal Union, feeling that the blood of the brave had cemented her to the other States and that henceforth she must grow with the growth of the nation and strengthen with its strength. Swift, indeed, was her progress. Population increased over all her area and her agriculture and commerce swelled to amazing proportions. Along the Gulf coast and on the marsh-hummocks the culture of rice was the chief industry, whilst in the rich areas protected by the levees, and on the fertile borders or "coasts," the sugar plantations increased with wonderful rapidity. In the northern and north- western parishes cotton was the staple, though Indian corn, potatoes and tobacco were largely cul- tivated. No sooner had the war ended than there came a rush of immigration and a mighty activity THE OLD REGIME. ^^g in the shipping interests of New Orleans. The immense accumulations of cotton, sugar and mo- lasses found quick exportation and the money real- ized flooded Louis-iana with wealth. Slave labor became profitable almost beyond belief, so produc- tive was the soil, so valuable were the products and so cheap the means of subsistence. New Orleans was the toll-gate of the Mississippi Valley and right liberally was the toll poured into her till. Her merchants, factors, bankers and warehousemen grew rich, she swelled to the proportions of a great city, her population was as various as the peoples of the earth, and she was as gay and dissipated on the one hand as she was decorous, stately, cultured and hospitable on the other. Despite the influence of a strong and growing element of Anglo-Ameri- cans in her population she remained a Creole city with the architecture, the language and the cus- toms of a foreign, or rather of an alien race. The French language was the vehicle of polite expres- sion and French modes and customs largely pre- vailed. The advent of steam navigation upon the river was the crowning touch to Louisiana's prosperity and to that of her great city. The whole surplus produce of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys was poured down the current of the mighty stream and with it went " packet " loads of planters, traders, 240 THE OLD REGIME. merchants, pleasure-seekers, gamblers, speculators in negroes, and who not, all with their faces set toward the alluring fascinations of the Crescent Queen whose gilded gates shone far down on the horizon of the famous " Low country." The French language had its battle to fight against the English as the two tongues began to be mingled all over Louisiana. Of course the Creoles clung with uncompromising persistence to the sweet sounds of their ancestral language, whilst the aggressive and energetic Anglo-x4mericans did not hesitate to consider the French toncrue as alien O to our country and deleterious to its unity of aim and of development. It has been said that in this struggle the Creoles fought a losing fight, but the loss has been negative rather than positive. The French language has stood still while the English has gained by steady progression. The increment has been always persistent, but never large. One result of this battle of tongues has been that most of the wealthy Creoles have sent their children, especially their sons, to Paris for their education. Early in the history of New Orleans a Creole literature with a marked Parisian flavor was founded by some brilliant writers most of whom had been educated abroad. Vaudevilles, comedies, tragedies and other theatrical composi- tions formed the bulk of what was written. The THE OLD REGIME. 24 1 people were enthusiastic play-goers and, besides, every winter the city was filled to overflowing with visitors who had come for pleasure and who would have amusement at any cost. In time the influx of a permanent population of En^^lish-speaking people divided the city into two areas : the French, or Creole quarter, and the Ano-lo-American quarter. The line of division is a very sharp one even now. So, too, in the State at laro-e there is a well-defined boundary to the two areas : English and French. The southern part is French, the northern part is English, so far as language goes. The Creoles proper and the Acadians have kept themselves together with a reserve and an exclusiveness almost impenetrable. This rural French population is a steady, plodding, honest, virtuous and simply conservative class of people, livino- to-day in the remote ancestral fashion with little change of dress, architecture, agricultural processes or domestic customs since their great- great-grandsires began to struggle with poverty in the jungles of the hummocks or on the wet prairies of the Teche and the Calcassieu, the Attakapas and the Opelousas. They are sugar-planters, cattle- herders, cotton and rice-planters, fishermen, boat- men; but in everything they are alien to the rushing, bustling, feverish life that prevails in 24^ THE OLD REGIME. America. This, of course, is descriptive of only the uneducated classes and does not apply to the cultured and refined Creole families in city or country. The latter are the equals of the best and most representative people of any part of the United States. The constitution of Louisiana, as first framed, was far from accordant with the spirit of the American Union. It had been made to satisfy the alien prejudice in favor of hereditary govern- ment existing in the State during its early years. As the immigration from the Northern and Western States continued and swelled the English-speakino- population of Louisiana her constitution became a legislative bone of contention and at last it was remodeled so as to embody most of the distinctive features common to the constitutions of the rest of our States. This new constitution was framed by a convention which met in Baton Rouge in 1844, and it went into effect January, 1S46. The popu- lation of the State was, by this time, over four hundred thousand souls. One year's crop of sugar, that of 1S42, had amounted to two hundred thou- sand hogsheads, each of not less than one thousand pounds in weight. The cotton crops of the State were enormous. From first to last the history of New Orleans has been the history of Louisiana. The commerce THE OLD REGIME. 243 of the city has ever been the exponent and the index of the State's condition. Between 18 15 and i860, while New Orleans was growing from a strag- gling place of twenty thousand people into a mag- nificent city of over two hundred thousand souls, the whole State was rushing on apace. All the existing conditions were against the establishment of efficient educational institutions. Plantation labor was all done by black slaves, and the city and all the towns were given over wholly to commerce, whilst the controlling class of white people were inclined to seek foreign schools rather than to build home ones. The conflict of tongues kept up an insurmountable barrier between neigh- bor and neighbor and so enfeebled the texture of society that common schools were not to be thought of in the thinly-populated parishes. The English-speaking families sent their children to Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina or New England to be educated; the French turned their eyes across the Atlantic to the schools of Paris. This educational exclusiveness worked surely to build up a class of aristocrats, rich, cultured, refined and magnificently hospitable ; but cut in twain by a language-line, which, to a great extent, was one of race and of religion as well. An educated Creole was neither an American nor a Frenchman in the eyes of his English-speaking ^44 THE OLD EEGIME. neighbor of corresponding position and culture, and the Creole, though superbly polite, never quite' felt that his friend, the Anglo-American over the way, was altogether his equal. General Claiborne's administration closed in 1816 and he was succeeded by General Villere who was governor of Louisiana until 1820, when Thomas B. Robinson was elected. In February, 1823, a terrible wave of cold weather froze the Mississippi River, killed the orange orchards and caused the death of many slaves and domestic animals. This calamity, fol- lowing closely upon a dreadful epidemic of yellow fever and being shortly succeeded by another, caused much depression and checked the pros- perity of the planters in the sugar districts. Henry Johnson was elected governor in 1824; in that year the Bank of Louisiana was incor- porated. Pierre Derbigny was the next governor; he was elected in 1829 and in the following year the seat of the State government was fixed at Don- aldsonville. Here was convened the Legislature that passed the well-known and much discussed statute fixing the penalty of death to the crime of inciting servile insurrection, whether the act were by parol expression on the rostrum or in the pulpit or by uttering printed matter charged with the virus of abolitionism. An act was passed at the THE OLD REGIME. 245 same time forbidding, under pain of long imprison- ment, the teaching of any slave to read, a measure deemed necessary in view of the fact that secret emissaries were supposed to be at work sowing the seeds of discontent among the plantation negroes. Governor L^erbigny died and Jacques Uupre, the presiding officer of the Senate, filled his place until the following year, when Bienvenu Roman was elected. In 1S32 a penitL-ntiary was built at Baton Rouge. That, too, was the year that cholera and yellow fever combined to make such havoc in New Orleans, more than five thousand victims falling before the terrible scourge. The sugar industry of Louisiana was now at the high tide of prosperity. There were more than seven hundred sugar establishments in the State and the traffic of New Orleans was enormous. The river was almost blocked up with ships from every country, and every wharf was packed with lines of steamboats, one behind another. The sugar-planters had become a w^ealthy and a gen- erously open-handed class ; they had built spacious mansions and were living in almost royal style; but they had adopted a wasteful system of finan- cierino-, encumberinor their estates with debts and paying a ruinous rate of interest. Slaves increased rapidly in number, and apace with all this accumu- lation of wealth and mortgages grew the deadly 246 THE OLD REGIME. fascination of speculative operations. Land rose to an inflated value and men went .wild over schemes for the founding of towns some of which were actually surveyed in the midst of cypress swamps covered with water. Edward White was elected governor in 1S35, and it was in the midst of his official term that a financial crisis was reached in Louisiana (in the whole country as well) precipitating distress, and in a degree ruin, upon the sugar-planters. The modification by Congress of the tariff on sugar had already depressed the planting industry and now, when the banks suddenly stopped specie pay- ment and withdrew much of that liberal support upon which the planters had so long relied, there came a panic which for a time threatened destruc- tion to the agricultural staple of the State. In 1839 Bienvenu Roman was again elected governor. By this time the banks had resumed specie payments and the planters were beginning to take heart. Alexandre Mouton was elected Roman's successor and took his seat in 1843. Isaac Johnson, the first governor under the new constitution, was inaugurated on the twelfth of February, 1846. The war between the United States and Mexico came on soon after and Louisi- ana bore her part in the struggle, sending troops to General Taylor and sharing in the victories he THE OLD REGIME. 247 gained. joscpli Walker succeeded Johnson as eovcrnor in 18 so and Baton Rou2;e became the capital of the State. It was about this time that General Lopez the " fillibuster " began his prepa- rations in New Orleans for an attack upon Cuba. He succeeded in attracting to his enterprise a com- pany of imaginative and adventurous young men and set sail. The Cubans captured him and he was executed along with a number of his com- panions. Great indignation was excited in New Orleans by the news of the fate of the expedition and the Spanish consul was mobbed and badly treated. The Know Nothing party in the State now added its influence to the existing prejudice against aliens and there was tremendous pressure brought to bear on the public temper resulting in most disgraceful scenes at elections. P. O. Hebert was elected governor in 1S53. It was during his administration that railroads were successfully introduced and many advances made in the prosperity of Louisiana. Robert Wyckliffe came next in the succession of governors, being inaugurated in 1S56. He was succeeded in i860 by Thomas O. Moore. Such is an outline sketch of the gubernatorial succession in Louisiana up to the eve of the great fratricidal war. We may now turn back to note some of the more important incidents of Louisiana's 248 THE OLD REGIME. story from the close of Claiborne's administration up to 1S61. One of the first efforts of the law-makers was in the direction of suppressing the crime of dueling, but, although to kill another in a duel was, as early as 181 7, declared a capital offence, there appears to have been no enforcement of the law. Public sentiment was in favor of the "code of honor" and enforced it with relentless severity. There were schools of fencing in New Orleans as late as 1858, where by expert maitrcs cT armes young men were taught the art of slashing each other with broad- swords, or of delivering with precision and grace the fatal thrust of the rapier. He who refused to fight when properly challenged by his social equal was ostracised; he who failed to resent an insult in due accord with the code was also disgraced. At one period the Oaks, or, as the Creoles called the spot, C limes d A Hard, was a dueling ground which witnessed almost daily the fierce and bloody encounters of the jeunesse doree of New Orleans. Even to this day one may not listen long among the loungers at certain haunts of the Creole youth, without hearing the phrase coup de pointc a droite. One most beneficent effect, however, this barbar- ous dueling habit wrought upon society : it forced men to be polite and circumspect in their inter- course with one another, and it made New Orleans ^*.V>1^ ^J THE OLD REGIME. 251 a city where courtly manners exerted an influence wholly charming and irresistible. Under the sur- face, however, there was a brutalizing tendency. It was impossible for a civilized and highly-cultured people not to feel that a human slaughter-pen under the name of a dueling-ground was incom- patible with the development of a Christian pros- perity and that a constant defiance of law and humanity must at length recoil with bitter force upon the people encouraging or even tolerating it. But the duello had attached itself so firmly to societv in New Orleans that it was not shaken off until after the close of the great war. Another excrescence, seemingly inseparable from the public life of Louisiana, is the lottery. Frater- nal and charitable institutions, schools and col- leges, land-improvement companies and, indeed, nearly every enterprise in the State at one time or another has appealed to the aid of a lottery scheme to fill its treasury and strengthen its credit. The system of chartering public gambling con- cerns under the title of Banking Companies was for a long time a source of popular corruption, and although penal statutes were enacted forbidding a lower order of gambling, they were never enforced ; the gilded hells, where went on day and night every eame of chance or skill known to the devotees of sporting, were on almost every street in New 252 THE OLD REGIME. Orleans. They were on a scale of splendor and luxury almost equal to that of the legion of inflated railroad, improvement and banking establishments whose privileges granted by legislative enactment were practically unlimited. In 1836 the general assembly chartered corpora- tions whose aggregate capital was nearly forty mil- lions of dollars. Some of the banks issued paper to more than five times the amount of their avail- able assets and embarked in the wildest specula- tions drawing with them a large number of the wealthy planters whose paper they were holding. The mania for land-speculation was at its height when on the thirteenth of May, 1837, the financial collapse came which caused fourteen banks in New Orleans to suspend specie payments. For five or six years great depression prevailed in the sugar industry, but cotton-culture increased rapidly, the area theretofore devoted to cane being gradually encroached upon, until many of the larg- est and finest sugar plantations had been turned into cotton-fields. Then came another speculative rush which advanced the price of cotton far beyond the line of safety and the inevitable consequence followed : ruin to the investors. Land fell in value to such a degree that sales were almost impossible. Banks rushed at once to an extreme in a direction opposite to their former lavish liberality to the THE OLD REGIME. 253 planters and refused to aid even deserving public or private enterprises. It was nut before 1845 that lio-ht began to break through the financial cloud ; but the planters had managed their own affairs better after their disastrous experiences and were (rrowins independent of the banks. Gradually they had struggled forth from their incumbrances into a condition of prosperity founded on a solid basis. In 1S46 the general assembly appropriated one hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of equip- ping and forwarding troops to General Taylor on the Mexican border. Several regiments were sent ; they arrived just in time to be available at Mata- moras. On June first of this year the State granted to the United States the right to erect and main- tain forts and public buildings at Proctor's Landing, on Lake Borgne, at Forts Jackson, Wood, Pike and St. Philip, battery Bienvenu and Tour Dupre. In 1847 an appropriation of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was made for the erection of a new state house at Baton Rouge. During this year also was founded the University of Louisiana in New Orleans and the sum of twenty-five thou- sand dollars was appropriated to build the structures now known as the University Place on Common Street. The time had arrived for making an end of the ^54 THE OLD REGIME. bankrupt corporations which had been preying so long on the commerce and agriculture of the State, and the government appointed liquidators for them whose duty was to close out their business on equitable terms. Meantime almost every year had seen more or less advance in the improvement of levees and water channels in the State. Appropriations for this purpose were often quite liberal, but the en- gineering was badly done and too frequently the contracts for public works were loosely let and still more loosely performed. The public school system of the State was formed and reformed, organized and reorganized and a permanent school fund was several times established and re-established. In 1855 New Orleans was authorized to institute pub- lic schools of her own. In 1856 a singular calam- ity overtook three hundred persons on Last Island westward of the Mississippi's mouth and just off the Gulf coast of Southern Louisiana. The island was a slender crescent twenty-five miles long and less than a mile in average width and had been for many years the summer residence of planters and their families from the Attakapas and La Fourche region. During the night of the ninth of August a storm arose which rapidly develo]Ded to frightful violence with a deluge of rain and a mighty lifting of the sea. All the boats were dashed to pieces THE OLD REGIME. 255 and every building blown away. When daylight came the wind was still increasing and in the afternoon the island was overwhelmed and literally washed away. Nearly two thirds of the unfortu- nate persons sojourning thereon were engulfed and were never seen again. The survivors were those who clung to rafts and floating pieces of wreck, or who climbed into the tops of the trees on the highest part of the island. The excitement, for several years systematically worked up at each election in Louisiana against foreigners, culminated finally in 1858 and for a few days a battle was every moment expected at New Orleans. Five hundred men armed to the teeth and acting under direction of a vigilance committee seized the Court House in the city and also took possession of the State Arsenal at Jackson Square. This was on the fourth of June, three days before the time set for the city election. On the follow- ino- day reinforcements amounting to one thousand armed men joined them. They fortified their posi- tions and erected strong barricades across the streets. On the other hand the Know Nothings occupied Lafayette Square with a strong force and a battery of cannon. Actual collision was avoided, however, and by dint of much parleying peace was restored in time to insure a quiet election, the Know Nothings electing the mayor. 256 THE OLD REGIME. During the next two years prosperity and happi- ness reigned throughout Louisiana. The cotton industry was at its meridian and the sugar planta- tions were abundantly remunerative. The banks had reached a safe basis, money was plenty, there was no epidemic of yellow fever, the slaves were quiet; indeed every element of commercial, agri- cultural, social and political prosperity was present. And yet all was not well with the people. There was a cloud on the horizon ; the muttering of a dis- tant but approaching storm was in the air. Over-statement is scarcely possible in attempt- ing to portray the domestic charm, the ample leisure, the rich luxury and the almost unlimited hospitality which belonged to this closing period of the old regime in Louisiana. The plantation homes were not, as a rule, very imposing or beauti- ful structures ; but they were large, airy, comfort- able, built for use from veranda to garret. This is true as well of the New Orleans mansions, where room appears to have been the main object of the builders. Household servants were numerous and thoroughly trained, so that a large house crowded with guests gave no trouble to host or hostess. Horses, carriages, dogs and guns were always ready, every comfort and luxury that wealth and liberal effort could procure and every personal attention that politeness could suggest made the social rela- THE OLD REGIME. 257 tions of the people peculiarly charming. Indeed many of the grand estates were comparable in every respect to those of England and France, while the hospitality dispensed by their owners was on a scale equaled nowhere else in the world. The intercourse between the families of the planters and those of the elite of New Orleans was very intimate. Visits of indefinite duration w^ere ex- chano-ed and in the hot season the various sum- mer resorts on the coast were always crowded with coteries of brilliant men and beautiful women. At the base of all this ease, luxury, leisure and domestic and social happiness was negro slavery with its attendant evils and its germ of destruction. For years there had been intermittent spasms of uneasiness among the people on account of certain evidences tending to show that emissaries from the North were attempting to sow the seed of discontent and revolt in the hearts of the plantation slaves. In response to the forebodings and fears aroused by these secret agents of the abolitionists, the legisla- ture of Louisiana passed many severe and much- criticised black laws. Read at this distance from their date, these appear far more barbarous than they really were. They grew out of the real need for heroic measures of precaution in communities where the slaves outnumbered the whites ten to one. Far-seeing men began to distinguish signs in the 258 THE OLD REGIATE. political sky foretelling the approach of the final struggle between the North and the South, long before that struggle took any definite shape. But when the Charleston convention had broken into factions; when the elements of the Democratic party were scattered and when the Republican party had solidified its forces for the campaign of i860, a waft of maddening anticipation passed over the people of the South. Singularly enough, however, Louisiana was closely balanced in her vote at the ensuing election. Breckenridge received 22,681 votes. Bell 20,204 and Douglass 7,625. Thomas O. Moore was elected governor and immediately called a special session of the legislature. This body met on the tenth of December and soon after passed an act for an election to choose deleo-ates to a State convention. The election was held on the seventh of January, 1 86 1. The legislature, in view of the action of other Southern States, passed an appropriation bill setting apart five hundred thousand dollars for military purposes. A military commission was ap- pointed and every step was taken preliminary to a formal withdrawal from the Union. The o-en- eral assembly was visited by Hon. Wirt Adams, the commissioner for the State of Mississippi, who delivered an address before that body on the twelfth of January, detailing the plan of action THE OLD REGIME. 259 matured in his own State and eloquently insisting upon the prompt co-operation of Louisiana. South Carolina had already seceded. The news of this decisive step had been celebrated in New Orleans by a great gathering of the people, who showed their approval by the firing of cannon and the display of the pelican flag amid the wildest bursts of enthu- siastic cheering, speech-making, toast-drinking and general conorratulations. When the convention met on the twenty-third of January at the State capital it was a foregone conclusion that an ordinance of secession would be adopted. The vote was taken on the twenty-sixth, and resulted in a record of one hundred and thirteen veas and seventeen nays. The ordinance was then presented to the members for their signatures. Seven delegates refused to affix their names ; the others present, one hundred and twenty-one in number, promptly signed the document ; the speaker pronounced the solemn declaration of Louisiana's withdrawal from the Federal Union ; the die had been cast. Soon after this Governor Moore took possession of the military stores, arsenals and forts in the State and the legislature in regular session approved his acts. On the twenty-ninth of January the con- vention w^as again brought together in New Orleans and deleo-ates were chosen and sent to a general 26o THE OLD REGIME. convention of the Southern States to be held in Montgomery, Alabama. When a constitution had been framed for the Confederate States it was promptly ratified by Louisiana on March 22, 1861. At this time the population of the State was nearly seven hundred thousand and her commercial, agricultural and financial condition surpassed that of any previous period of her history. Flushed with prosperity and tingling with the excitement induced by the stirrino- events of the hour her people felt themselves ready to face any possible emergency. It was not for human vision to foresee the ter- rible consequences of the struggle which was be- ginning. It was not for human ears to hear, a few months in advance, the thunder of Farragut's guns as his fleet steamed up the river past the forts. Who could dream of the fate in store for the beau- tiful Crescent City.? Little more than a year's space lies between the gala hour when the first brave young men enlisted and marched away from New Orleans to join the Confederate forces and that later day, too dreadful for description, when amid fire and smoke and a storm of shot and shell, the Federal fleet ploughed its way to an anchorage in front of the doomed city and shook out the folds of the triumphant flag of our country. CHAPTER XI. IN THE CIVIL WAR. lot showed that Louis- iana was not a pro- nounced secession State. In other words it disclosed a powerful conservative element favoring a peaceful settlement of the slavery question, without separation from the Federal Union. There were very few abolition- ists within the limits of the commonwealth — prob- ably none save emissaries from the North, and these dared not express themselves publicly. No doubt a considerable number of thoughtful men, whose wealth consisted of land and negroes, hesitated to take the daring step of separation mindful the des- perate risk it involved. Moreover the life of the Louisiana planter was a charming one and furnished with every element which is antagonistic to war. Why hazard all this 261 262 IN THE CIVIL WAR. wealth, this idyllic isolation, this almost absolute autocracy, this affluent freedom, on the dreadful and tricksy fortune of battle? This question no doubt arose in many a brave heart that was as true as steel to Louisiana and to the South. There was to be no faltering, however, when the final moment came. The drum-beat on the Mississippi was the signal for the perfect crystallization of public sen- timent throughout the State. The French popula- tion at once stood forth and heartily joined hands with the Anglo-Americans. Differences of speech, religion and ancestry gave way before the impulse of a courageous and chivalric spirit. Louisiana rushed to arms. The Mississippi River cut the Confederate States in two. It was a mighty highway, a stream capable of floating fleets of any size from St. Louis to the Gulf. As a consequence it very early became the object of military attention. If the Federal forces could open the river the States of Missouri, Texas, Arkansas and a large part of Louisiana would be severed from the newly-formed government and rendered practically powerless to perform their part in carrying on even a defensive war. New Orleans sat at the Gulf-gate. Vicksburg was really the upper barrier, although strong efforts were made to for- tify and hold Island No. lo and other points farther north. Forts Jackson and St. Philip were made IN THE CIVIL WAR. 263 very strong and were mounted witli the heaviest and most effective guns that could be procured. Fort Pike, over on the Rigolets between Lake Borgne and Lake Ponchartrain, was also put in order and armed for the defence of that pass. Virginia was the first real battle-ground, but Louisiana had not long to wait for her turn. While her brave sons were tramping with Lee and John- son and Jackson in the far-off northern Valley, the plans were being matured for an invasion of her territory and for the capture of her beautiful and rich old city. On the north, in Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, powerful Federal armies were press- ing southward accompanied at each step by flotillas of gun-boats on the Mississippi, the Tennessee and the Cumberland Rivers. War meant more to Louisiana than to any other State in the South, for two reasons: she was a cotton and sugar State and she was at the mercy of the Mississippi River. \\\ a large sense New Orleans was Louisiana, and to paralyze New Orleans was to utterly ruin the State. Early in 1862 a formidable expedition against New Orleans was fitted out consistino: of a land force numbering fifteen thousand soldiers and a fleet of forty-seven vessels, eighteen steam gun-boats and twenty-four schooners. General Benjamin F. Butler commanded the armv, Admiral Farrao-ut 264 IN THE CIVIL WAR. the fleet. The plan was to sail round to the mouth of the Mississippi, enter the river, reduce the forts and capture the city. It was an experiment of a doubtful nature, but well worth trying, in view of possible success. The forts were powerful ; they were near to each other, on opposite sides of the river; the Confed- erates were quite confident that no fleet could pass them. New Orleans, already drained of her bravest and best fighting men, felt no sense of insecurity when she heard the thunder of the first guns down the river. She was gay and defiant, remxcmbering the fate of Packenham and the victories in Mexico. She knew that between her and her enemies were as good soldiers as ever went to battle, forts as strong, so she thought, as could be built; a flotilla of iron-clad gun-boats believed to be impregnable. Why should the Cresent City be afraid t Already on many bloody fields the Confederate armies had achieved signal victories and the hearts of the Southern people were beating a hopeful measure from Richmond to Galveston. The songs of Randall and Flash, of Requier and Hayne and Ticknor were on every breeze ; the chivalry of the old South was at the front ; the women were em- broidering its flags and cheering it on ; the world was watching it; even the slaves were more docile and industrious than in the days of peace. I JN THE CIVIL WAR. 265 There was, however, a marked change in the condition of New Orleans. The river was no longer full of foreign vessels, the docks were not lined with double and triple rows of steamboats, the levee had lost its air of bustle and energy, the sheds, though well filled with cotton, rice and sugar, looked lonely and idle. On Canal Street the shops were not crowded with transient customers, as any fine April day would formerly have found them. In Royal Street the polite French Creoles met one another, shrugged their shoulders, and, wao-. ging their heads in the direction of the distant booming broad-side thunder, exchanged light re- marks and passed on. Jackson and St. Philip would soon give those Yankees enough of iron compliments. Still, as the pounding increased and no news reached the listeners as to how the fight was going, a chill of uneasiness now and again crept through the strongest hearts. What if the forts should fall.? The bombardment began on the eighteenth of April, 1862. General Butler's army had been en- camped on Ship Island. Commodore Farragut's fieet took position within range of the forts and for six days subjected them to a tremendous fire which was returned with unflagging spirit. This experi- ment disclosed the fact that the forts could not be reduced, but it also suggested to Farragut the 266 IN THE CIVIL WAR. possibility of steaming past them and attacking the Confederate flotilla. This consisted of the two rams Manassas and Louisiana, and fourteen gunboats. The Confederates had stretched a cable of iron across the river from bank to bank and near the forts; behind this barrier lay the gunboats and rams. The river surface gave fair space for manoeuvring and those who witnessed the contest ao^ree in describinf^r it as one of the most awful spectacles imaginable. The Federal commander, with a view to distract- ing attention from his real purpose, opened a fire on Fort Jackson from every gun-boat that could command it, and then in the midst of the din and excitement, assailed the cable and the Confederate fleet. An observer who had the best opportunity to view coolly and calmly a large part of the scene says that at one time the splashing of the water by the heavy shot and shell from the gun-boats and from the forts gave the river the appearance of frightful ebullition, as if volcanoes were beneath it. This was a fight very different from the one between Packenham and Jackson. One discharge of a gun on an iron-clad vessel burned as much powder as Jackson's riflemen fired during the entire day. There were one hundred and twenty- eight guns in the forts, most of them very heavy; JN THE CIVIL WAR. 267 but many of them were old and inefficient, while the attacking {)art of the Federal fleet carried two hundred and fifty-eight guns of the latest and best pattern. To aid the forts the Confed- erates had a fleet of thirteen vessels close at hand and a battery on shore at Chalmette near the old battle-o'round of the famous eiehth of January, 18 15. At about four o'clock on the morping of the twenty-fourth of April, the final assault was begun by a concentrated fire upon Fort Jackson from the entire Federal fleet. Both forts immediately responded with every available gun and the Con- federate steamer, the Governor Moore, joined in promptly. The struggle which ensued was a ter- rific one. The Federal fleet made a rush, broke through the obstructions and steamed in between the forts under a cross-fire which it would seem impossible for any vessel to withstand. Thirteen of them passed, however, firing tremendous broad- sides into the Confederate vessels as they came up with them. The forts had done everything that it was possible for them to do. For six days and six nights the brave commander Gen. J. K. Duncan, and his heroic men, had borne up under hard- ships and dangers terrible enough to have appalled any but iron hearts. Now nothing but the Con- federate flotilla and the battery at Chalmette lay 268 I^T THE CIVIL WAR. between New Orleans and the Federal fleet. The Governor Moore of the Southern fleet eneao-ed the Varuna and with the aid of the ram Stone- wall Jackson sunk her, but the Moore was in turn disabled and had to be fired by her commander. The Manassas was destroyed by the Mississippi; the Stonewall Jackson was burned ; the Louis- iana, the McRae and the Defiance were captured by the Federals; in a word the Confederate fleet was swept from the river as if by a whirlwind. As for the battery at Chalmette it was powerless to do anything without the aid of the gun-boats and rams. Genera] Lovell, who was in command at New Orleans, had come down the river in a steamboat to observe the operations and was very nearly cap- tured ; he hastened back to the city to withdraw his forces. When the news spread through the streets that the Federal fleet had passed the forts and had destroyed the Confederate flotilla, a strange scene followed ; a scene impossible, perhaps, in any other American city under parallel circumstances. The brave, active, fighting men of New Orleans were far away in the armies of the South ; but they had left behind a slinking swarm of human vermin, the descendants of off-scourinors from Europe, the progeny of the cordon bleu, the squalid mongrels that haunted the dirty alleys. These, IN THE CIVIL WAR. 269 when they saw a hopeless panic seize the good people of the city, poured forth from, their dens and began an indiscriminate pillaging of houses, shops and storage-sheds. Thus while the better class of citizens were frantically setting fire to the cotton (some twelve thousand bales) the cut-throats and ruffians, the hardened women and even the lawless children were raging from place to place, back and forth, here and there, wildly plundering and aimlessly destroying — a mob of thieves mad- dened by the overwhelming license of the occasion. All the public materials, consisting of army supplies, were heaped up in the middle of the streets and burned. General Lovell withdrew his soldiers on the evening of the twenty-fourth, leaving the city at the mercy of the Federal fleet, which at one o'clock on the following day steamed up the river and anchored in the middle of the stream not far from the foot of Canal Street. By this time a degree of order had been restored, but the people were still wild with excitement. They could not realize that New^ Orleans was indeed a captured city ; that the " Yankee " fleet was lying before its open gate. The mob which lately had been com- mitting such foul deeds, now swayed back and forth in the streets, hooting, yelling and cursing, urging the people to resist the landing of the Federals. 270 IN THE CIVIL WAR. Commodore Farragiit demanded the formal sur- render of the city, but the mayor was powerless. He could not surrender the city while the people were controlled by an unreasoning mob. Conse- quently, on the twenty-ninth, a detachment under command of Fleet Captain H. H. Bell was sent ashore to take possession of the public buildings. Before this, however, on the twenty-sixth, a flao- placed by Farragut's order on the United States Mint had been hauled down by W. B. Mumford and delivered over to the mob who tore it into shreds. General Butler afterwards caused Mum- ford to be tried for treason and hanoed. General Butler, once in possession of New Orleans, placed the city under the most rigid form of martial law and did some acts for which he has been justly criticised. It is true that the more violent element of the population of New Orleans gave him great provocation, but provocation cannot be considered against defenceless women and chil- dren to the extent of justifying their over-harsh treatment at the hands of a man. Of course those were war-days and it is difficult to consider fairly all the circumstances. A woman's tongue is sharper than a sword, but a man's temper should be fine enough to turn its point. In the main, however. General Butler's course was the best possible for the welfare of the people. IN THE CIVIL WAR. 271 He took prom})! measures for cleaning the streets of the city and for guarding it against pestilence and used only such authority as he deemed to be necessary to the safety of his command and for the proper government of the place. He enforced at least a show of respect for the Federal flao- and grimly enough, mingled acts of touching kindness with his harshest measures. If he had been more successful than Packenham, he did not visit upon the captured city any of the consequences threat- ened by the boastful English invaders. Still, in many a breast in New Orleans, his iron adminis- tration will long be remembered with a shiver of horror and resentment. He could not enforce his authority over much of the State outside the city and for a long time a large part of the people of Louisiana were, to all intents and purposes, with- out government of any kind. It appears strange that the Confederate authori- ties should have been permitted this easy capture of New Orleans. Realizing the immense import- ance of the river and considering the depression which they well knew must follow the loss of so prominent a city they should have defended it at all hazards. There must have been a very weak management of their Navy Department, for the iron-clads were all found to be either unservice- able or badly mismanaged during the fight. Had 2 72 IN THE CIVIL WAR. they been fairly manageable, Farragut's fleet could have been held under the fire of the forts until destroyed or driven back. No sooner had the Federal forces settled them- selves in New Orleans than the Union fleet was made ready for operations farther up the river.- Baton Rouge was taken and held until August when General Breckenridge, whose army was en- camped on the Amite River, marched to attack that city. He expected the Confederate iron-clad, the Arkansas, to co-operate with him ; but, like all the rest, that much-vaunted vessel was unmanage- able and had to be burned to keep the enemy from taking her. A battle was fought in which the Confederate forces were for the time victorious, but a little later Baton Rouge was re-taken and the Federals forthwith began preparations for over- runnino- the State. General Weitzel with a strong force set out from New Orleans in October and after a number of light engagements drove the Confederates out of the southern parishes. General Alfred Mouton, a brave and intrepid Creole, had early in 1863 collected an army of near two thousand men and was encamped in the Parish of St. Mary not far from Franklin. In the mean- time General Banks had succeeded General Butler in command at New Orleans, and on the fourteenth of April he attacked Mouton with a largely superior IN THE CIVIL WAR. IJT, force. The engagement was an extremely bloody one, the Confederates fighting with the heroism of despair. The victory was with the Federals, who after a heavy loss drove their enemy back upon Alexandria. Port Hudson was now the only strong Confed- erate foothold in the State of Louisiana, and this was soon relinquished. General Grant was pound- ing away at Vicksburg, which surrendered on the fourth of July, 1863 ; on the eighth General Banks took Port Hudson. This was the last blow on the gates of the Mississippi ; they swung wide open ; the Confederacy was split in two. Louisiana, however, was far from being aban- doned by her plucky defenders. Under the Federal authority an election was held on the twenty-second of February, 1864, at New Orleans and a few other places near by, by which Michael Hahn was chosen as governor of Louisiana. About two weeks later Colonel Henry Watkins Allen was elected to the same office by the people outside the Federal lines. He was inaugurated at Shreveport, which was now the Confederate seat of government in the State. General Kirby Smith was in command of all the Confederate forces west of the Mississippi River, but it was difficult for him to keep his men together. Indeed the great game of war was nearing its end. General Banks had been so reinforced that his army 2 74 IN THE CIVIL WAR. consisted of three corps aggregating nearly forty- five thousand men, perfectly armed and equipped. He issued orders for a movement upon the Con- federate army in the Red River Valley, and in Western Louisiana. The first of these corps he led himself, by way of Bayou Teche ; General A. J. Smith ascended Red River with the second corps and General Steele marched southward from Camden, Arkansas, with the third. On the eighth of April a battle was fought near the small village of Mansfield, situated between Shreveport and Natchitoches. The Confederates were commanded by General Richard Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor. General Banks was defeated and driven back upon Pleasant Hill. Taylor was to prevent Banks from joining Gen. A. J. Smith. To this end he followed rapidly and brought on another sharp engagement at Pleas- ant Hill, the result of which was of no importance, as the signal reverses suffered by Lee and John- ston in Virginia and North Carolina a few days later, put an end to the war. Indeed the opening of the Mississippi should have terminated the struggle ; there was no longer any hope for the South with that mighty highway lying unguarded from St. Louis to the Belize. General Richard Taylor surrendered to General Canby, on the fourth of May, and on the twenty- IN THE CIVIL WAR. 275 sixtli General Kirby Smith laid down his arms. A long breath of relief escaped from the lips of a depressed, impoverished and decimated people. A shout of triumph arose from the conquerors. The awful period of carnage was completed. In Louisiana the immediate effect of peace was nearly as dreadful as that of war. The flower of her male population lay on the fields of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Tennessee; her homes were desolate ; on every street, in every door-yard limped the shattered wreck of a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a betrothed. The calm after the storm was the calm of despair. The Proclamation of Emancipation had been sent forth by President Lincoln on the first of January, 1863, but it had no general effect until after the surrender of the Southern armies. With peace came freedom, but it was freedom with darkness on its wings, with gloom in its face, with evil spirits attending it. Hundreds of thousands of nesrroes, i2:norant and wholly unused to an independent existence, were turned loose upon the plantations as free as their late masters, but penniless and helpless. The planters, on the other hand, who were the owners of the soil and of all the personal property thereon, found themselves almost as helpless as were the negroes. A\'hat was to be done } 2 7.6 IN THE CIVIL WAR. There was no money, the plantations had been per- mitted to run down, the sugar-mills, cotton-gins and rice-mills were out of repair, many of them had been burned. Who could rebuild them ? Who would work them when repaired ? The negroes had been filled with a crude and dan- gerous notion of the extent of their freedom and they began to look about them for the great reward which American Liberty is supposed to bestow. In their poor benighted imaginations swam dreams of wealth and luxury, the social position of the white man, the power of politics, the fascinations of the cities. Like the lotos-eaters, they would not worry or work any longer; they would simply grasp free- dom and float away into the heaven of rest and plenty. Why had all this fighting and bloodshed, all this wide conflagration and all this terrible sac- rifice of life and limb and property been ordered and executed, if not for their sake ? And where was the supreme gain to them ? It must be some- where. They would go presently and find it. Never was there a more pathetic phase of life, never a more dangerous one. The planters, most of them scarred veterans of the Southern armies, returned to their spacious homes and their broad acres to find themselves poor and unable to make use of any means for re- newing their fortunes. The former slaves now IN THE CIVIL WAR. 279 hovered around tliem in a dark swarm — idle, luingry freedmen invested with all the rights, privileges and franchises of American citizens, but without the knowledge of the demands of life, without fitness for the heavy responsibilities suddenly cast upon them. The negroes were largely in the majority ; at the same time many of the* most intelligent and trustworthy of the white men had been disfranchised. It will be seen at a glance what a field Louisiana presented for the operations of the unscrupulous politician. How promptly this field was occupied and to what an unbearable degree of shameless political debauchery its chief possessors progressed before they were throttled by a maddened people is better left out of this story, or sketched by hints rather than painted in full colors. The political sequels that followed the disease of war may be analyzed by a specialist. I have no taste for the task. Happily the impressionist in historical work can represent a great deal by what he does not describe. It would seem impossible for the public life of any State to reach a lower condition of moral and po- litical rottenness and depravity than that of the Louisiana Government from the close of the war up to the fourteenth of September, 1874. On that day there was a revolution. 28o IN THE CIVIL WAR. The white people of New Orleans and of the State had borne all that it was possible for them to bear. Defeat in battle and reduction from affluence to poverty could be endured, but a corrupt, ava- ricious and fraud-engendered system of government which set ignorant negroes and conscienceless aliens as absolute rulers over the destiny of Louisiana and over the very liberties and lives of her people, could not be submitted to by the sons of the men who fought with Andrew Jackson at Chalmette and with Zachary Taylor in Mexico. It was not a question of politics, it was a question of existence in every sense of the word. The white people at length resolved to overturn the power of what was called the " carpet- bag " government. The result could not be doubtful. The negroes as a mass knew nothing about govern- ment, the needs of the people or the organization necessary to political power. Moreover they cared nothing at all for such matters, except as they were urged to artificial excitement by designing emis- saries of the "carpet-bag" clique in New Orleans then under the direction of William Pitt KelloQ:2f. On the fourteenth of September, 1874, a com- mittee of citizens was sent to the State House to demand of Kellogg his resignation ; but he, having heard of what was about to happen, had taken refuo-e with the Federal grarrison and refused to accede to the committee's demand. At once the jy THE CIVIL WAR. 28 1 people flew to arms. Taking possession of tlic public buildings, arsenals and weapons of war, they formed themselves into a colunin and marched to the levee at the foot of Canal Street. Here they fortified themselves by barricading the way. It was at this point that General Longstreet's Metropolitan Guards, expecting an easy victory, assaulted them with a great flourish. But the Guards were re- pulsed, their cannon captured and turned upon them and by this decided action the Kellogg govern- ment was ended there and then. This revolt, al- though partisan excitement was running high at the time all over the United States, was hailed with approx'al by every person who felt that by such a means intelligence and honesty had cast out fraud and debauchery. Eleven men were killed on the side of the citizens. Six of them bore Creole names ; five of them were either German or Anglo-Americans. In sound at least, they are representative names. They stand for victims who offered themselves up for a sacrifice in order' that New Orleans and Louisiana might once more be free from alien domination. They settled forever the problem of mastership and de- clared that the owners of the soil, the possessors of intellifjence and the descendants of those who hewed Louisiana out of the swamps and forests and built her magnificent city are the rightful controllers 282 IN THE CIVIL WAR. of her destiny, and that, come what may, they will control it. And so once more Louisiana drew herself out of the mire and set herself to the task of building her fortune anew. The situation was one calling for the utmost prudence, caution, reserve and patience. A deadly bitterness of feeling had been engendered and the least .sudden inflammation of the popular temper was likely to bring on the most deplorable excesses of race-oppression. Unscrupulous adventurers from the North, bent upon acquiring money in the name of philanthropy and careless as to its cost to the people of Louisiana, studiously wrought upon the ignorance and the half- savage natures of the freedmen, hoping through their votes to get possession of the State treasury and of the Federal patronage. The white people of Louisiana were resolved that this should never be done. > They had, at last, ob- tained a firm hold on the reins of public affairs with full power to check and finally to terminate the ruin- ous waste, fraud and crime that had been the chief element of the State government for the past ten years. They could not afford to let go this hold under any circumstances whatever. On the other hand, however, there was a ring of unscrupulous politicians to the manner born who stood ready to rush to the utmost extreme of cruelty and oppres- IN THE CIVIL WAR. 283 sion in order to insure a lasting control of tlie State's finances. It was too much to expect that a just equilibrium should be reached at once in public affairs, but the best element of the people gradually assumed the mastery in New Orleans. And this meant the full mastery of the State of Louisiana. During these years of political excitement, of domestic depression and gloom there was, of course, very slight progress in the agricultural and commer- cial interests of the people ; but the time was at hand when the process of adjustment must begin, for the world could not longer do without the prod- ucts of the great Creole State. Mere partisan political considerations must give way before the larger and more valuable demands of a civilization to which the new force of freedom had given an irresistible impulse. CHAPTER XII. THE PELICAN STATE. }opf;^un\. \]HE prosperity of Lou- isiana, after the four- teenth of September, 1874, depended upon the temper of the na- tive white people. The negroes were harmless if left to themselves. Although, as a rule, idle and shiftless they were, when properly treated, inclined to make some show of industry. Their stumbling block was politics. In this regard they were a social problem. Owing to their numbers and to the fact that they were all partisans to one side (and that side in its local management) they were inimical to the interests of the native whites, a standing menace to good government and a bar to the safety of person and property. If the whites had been divided politically, or if the negroes had been able to judge intelligently of 284 THE PELICAN STATE. 285 the public needs and to steer clear of unscrup- ulous aliens, the difficulty would have been greatly softened. In reality it was not so much a question of which party should control as it was a question of preventing the supremacy of " carpet-bag " ad- venturers whose only object was plunder. In 1876 the presidential election was a most bitter and unscrupulous struggle between the two great parties, and it turned out that Louisiana and Florida became the centres of partisan attention. The parishes of Louisiana, in which the negroes greatly outnumbered the whites, were the scenes of unprecedented proceedings at the polls, and it was claimed by both the parties that fraud had been committed. Emmissaries from the North rushed to New Orleans. And now a most disgraceful spec- tacle was exhibited to the world — the spectacle of a soverei2:n State turned over into the hands of a mob of wrangling alien partisans, without responsibility or scruple, bent upon twisting facts to suit the needs of the moment. Florida was in the same condition. The outcome of it all was a congres- sional commission which by a strictly partisan vote declared Mr. Hayes elected as President of the United States over Mr. Tilden, by counting the two contested States in Mr. Hayes' favor. It was too late, however, for the alien adventurers and irresponsible tricksters to ever again get possession 286 THE PELICAN STATE. of the government of Louisiana. No illegal tribunal was permitted to interfere with the State elections, and as soon as this condition was assured agricul- ture, commerce, education and social improvement began to move in happy lines. With a consciousness of self-command came a pleasure in self-control and at once the whites and the negroes took a step nearer each other. The latter were made to feel that their existence de- pended upon work, not upon elections ; that their happiness rested upon their good behavior and not upon the sticcess of some penniless and vicious " carpet-bagger " whose inflammatory speeches had so long led them astray; that before they could truly enjoy freedom they must first learn in the school of experience that freedom is not moral exemption or political license ; in short, that there is no royal road to intelligent citizenship and that before con- trol comes the right to control, which cannot be conferred by mere proclamation ; that emancipation is one thing, but that the right of political domi- nation is quite another. Since 1874 Louisiana has shown a wonderful march of prosperity. Immigration has been rapid and steady, lands have advanced in value, crops have been enormous and the people, black and white, have enjoyed every blessing of industry and sood (government. New Orleans, though unable I THE PELICAN STATE. 287 to rco-ain the control she once held over the Mis- sissippi Valley, has taken great strides toward a permanent prosperity. Among the planters the great question has been that of well-controlled and justly remunerated labor. The swarms of former slaves lingering for- lornly about their old quarters appealed from the first to the sympathy of quondam masters, but the question of a fair division of the results of agricul- ture under the new order of things was a puzzling and vexatious one. It was natural that the negroes should be indolent and improvident to a degree, and that their suddenly-conferred freedom should affect their bearing toward the whites ; but the fact that they were subject to the influence of political agitators, threatened for a time to become an im- passable barrier between themselves and the only persons upon earth who were able or willing to assist them by furnishing them the means by which they could subsist. Slowly but surely, however, the two races ar- rano-ed themselves in the order of intelligence and experience, the whites as the employers, the blacks as' the employed. Year by year their relationship has become more and more cordial and mutually remunerative. The negroes have availed them- selves of the new opportunities afforded them and in numerous instances have caught from the 288 THE PELICAN STATE. whites the secret of money-making and economy. Many of them have grown rich and influential, setting a valuable example for their race every- where to follow. In the winter of 1884-85 an industrial exposition was held in New Orleans as a centennial celebra- tion of the first exportation of cotton from the United States. Congress had passed an act creat- ing the corporation and naming it the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition ; a loan was voted of one million dollars and an addi- tional sum of three hundred thousand dollars for a National Exhibit. The State of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans each appropriated one hundred thousand dollars to which was added a popular subscription of about five hundred thou- sand dollars. In addition to this there were liberal donations from counties, towns and cities. The Board of Management chosen under the provisions of the congressional enactment, pro- ceeded to select the grounds and erect the neces- sary buildings. These were upon a grand scale and of imposing appearance, covering a far larger area than any exposition buildings ever before constructed. The display was remarkable and the result of the exposition was the drawing together of the Northern and the Southern people and the engendering of a more cordial understanding and BY THE OLD C^)UARTERS. THE r ELI CAN STATE. 291 a sinccrer confidence between them. For the first time since the beginning of the war, leaders of the social life of Boston and of New York found them- selves under the roofs of the exclusive and ultra Southern homes. Hospitality and cordial welcome were offered without reserve, and the swarms of Northern visitors were given the freedom of New Orleans. Contact in the streets, the hotels, the exposition buildings and at the theatres and restau- rants did much to rid both Northern and Southern minds of baseless prejudices, and to confirm an already growing belief that the country was healing its ghastly wound, without salve or ligature, by spontaneous reunion of the parts so painfully severed in the years gone by. Meantime the internal improvement of the State, both public and private, had progressed rapidly. New railroads were built, highways were remodeled, the levees perfected in many deficient places and new ones constructed. Improved machinery for working up the sugar cane and for disposing of the cotton and rice products added a great force to the planting and manufacturing interests. These consequently attracted wide attention and greatly stimulated immigration. The mouth of the Mississippi River, by the building of an extensive system of jetties, was greatly improved and the channel made sufficiently 292 THE PELICAN STATE. deep to float over all the bars the largest ocean vessels that could ever desire to sail into the har- bor of New Orleans. Louisiana has excellent schools and colleges and at New Orleans a university, which, since the lib- eral gift of a noble citizen, is developing rapidly to the proportions of a first-class American institution. The struggle so persistently kept up between the two lansuao^es has ceased to be violent. The French tongue is no longer progressive, or, at least, its area is not increasing. In New Orleans the old French quarter is beginning to show signs of change, as if a reaction had at last set in even among the Creoles themselves. The Acadian country has received a large number of Anglo- American immigrants and the whole western and northern area of Louisiana bids fair to become one of the most prosperous and beautiful regions in the South. Vast bodies of undrained land, incomparably fertile, lie untouched in the southern half of the State. Ditching and dyke-building are going for- ward year by year ; the great forests of pine, oak and cypress are being utilized and are yielding rich returns in lumber and spars, in ship-timber and shingles. The story of Louisiana, no matter how lightly sketched, cannot be concluded without giving a THE PELICAN STATE. 293 glimpse of its intellectual development. This must be the merest impression, however, drawn from the o-roupino- too'ether of a few prominent figures and instances. Slavery as an institution in America was inimical in its very nature, to the growth of art and letters; for in order to sustain slavery it became absolutely necessary to forbid free thought and free speech. To have permitted a free, open, unlimited discussion of slavery in the South would have been to incite servile insurrection with all its terrible consequences. Art, in all its forms, is nothing if not free. The spirit of poetry, painting, sculpture, fiction, the drama and music, feeds upon life and depends upon the deepest suggestions of life for its materials. Take from it one large, prominent and picturesque element of the human problem before it and it is helpless. Criticism and caricature, the merciless truth, the high idealization and the temper to bear the profoundest probing of the needle of reform are absolutely prerequisite to the development of genuine art. This temper the South could not afford to encourage, for to do so was to introduce the acid that would bite at the very base of her civilization. Louisiana was pre-eminently a slave State ; her whole social, domestic, commercial and political fabric was founded upon slavery. The servile pop- 2 94 THE PELICAN STATE. ulation greatly outnumbered the whites and the danger of revolt was, as we have already seen, more than once realized. It was never known how small a spark might inflame the tinder of the half- slumbering insurgent spirit. Free discussion, free criticism, the painting of the dark side of slavery and the display of the full glory of freedom were of necessity forbidden. The predicament was a singular one and little understood by the world. It was not that the Southern people were heart- less, they were, in the main, crentle and indulo-ent masters almost worshiped by their slaves ; but the conditions forbade even the slicrhtest ao-itation of the subject of freedom or of the abuses of slavery. This being so, how could a Southern genius write a poem of Southern experience and passion or a novel of Southern life ? Only one side of the sub- ject was open to him. He dared not approach the other. Social ostracism, or something even worse, awaited him if he chose to depict a view of the obverse side of the medal, because such a view was in fact absolutely incendiary and would tend to produce the most horrible consequences. At the North this phase of the matter did not make itself felt. The zealous abolitionist, bent upon securing the freedom of the slaves, was blind to the effect that his efforts were certain to produce upon the whites. When the white Southerner said THE PELICAN STATE. 295 firmly: "You must not and shall not scatter the fire of revolt amongst our slaves," the emissary of freedom could not see that it was the instinct of self-preservation that made the Southerner's de- claration far stronger than any desire to be arbi- trary and wrong-headed could have done. Much of what came to be known as Southern arrogance was merely a hard name by which to designate the impatience generated by a sense of constantly-impending danger to the whole social, political, commercial and domestic tissue of the slave area. Under such circumstances art could not and did not exist as an appreciable element of life. The artist cannot be a cutter and trimmer, a dodger of issues, a suppresser of truth, an ignorer of facts, a prejudiced and handicaped observer. To him every subject must be open for exhaustive discussion; every phase of life must be free to his investio-ations, subject to his merciless analyses and to his lofty idealizations. This could not be in the South. Slavery forbade it. The Southern genius must either paint slavery to suit the taste of masters or he must not paint it at all. This was not arrogance, it was the most pressing demand of necessity; it was the only course compatible with safety so long as slavery existed ; any other course would have led to revolt and to all the unspeakable horrors of servile insurrection. 296 THE PELICAN STATE. Necessarily, then, the creative energy of the South- ern mind was in a large degree shut out from the Eden of poetry, fiction, painting and sculpture. Not wholly shut out, however, for there were brilliant poets, notable novelists and some painters and sculptors in the Old South. The talent of the slave area turned chiefly to oratory in one form or another; a race of politicians sprang up with power to control the councils of the nation. Slender, however, as the currents may have been, Louisiana was not without her art and her literature, running apace with the progress of her agricultural, commercial and political prosperity. The Creoles of New Orleans, many of them as we have seen, educated in France, were the first to address themselves to literature. Lepouse, St. Ceran, Allard and Audubon are names closely con- nected with the French civilization in Louisiana. Canonge, Delery, Dufour, Dugue, Delpit, Mercier and the brothers Rouquette are notable examples of Creole genius in letters. Charles Gayarre has written a monumental history of the Foreign Domination in Louisiana. His fugitive romantic sketches and his descriptive papers touch the legends, traditions and folk-lore of the Louisiana colonies. Judge Martin, also, has written a volu- minous History of Louisiana from its discovery up to 1816, with some additions of a later date. THE PELICAN STATE. 299 Not till after the close of the great war, however, was there any remarkable advance in the matter of literature in the Southern States. Louisiana had been the tvpical slave State ; but she was one of the first States of the South to feel the reaction from the intellectual stupor or reserve induced by her peculiar auic bcllufu circumstances. Within the first twenty years of freedom she has given to the world literary work the purpose and the art of which are of the best. George W. Cable, Miss Kine, Mrs. Davis, Lafcadio Hearn and many others have emphasized the value of perfect liberty. The pendulum once released may have swung rather far to the other extreme in one or two bril- liant instances, but the gain, even if this is so, has been priceless. It would be delightful if it were possible to pro- ject the story of Louisiana into the future. Stand- ing here, now, with the impression of the past sharply set in our memory, what if we could look forward over the next century of life in the low- country of the Mississippi Valley ! We have seen De Soto wander blindly to the banks of the great river and die ; we have watched the struQfeles of De Bienville, the heroism of the men who followed him, the dashing valor of Gal- vez, the cruel perfidy of O'Reilly and the fatherly kindness of Carondelet. We have seen Louisiana 300 THE PELICAN STATE. grow from a little colony of adventurers into a mio-hty and prosperous State. We have noted the crrowth of o-reat industries. We have watched the development of New Orleans from a cluster of huts in a swamp to one of the great cities of the world. We have fought with Jackson, we have seen the victory of Farragut, we have wit- nessed the rise and fall of slavery ; now we stand on the brink of the future. What do we see } If we may judge by the past the way lies onward and upward. Not even the destructive influences of the recent war could permanently check the progress of Louisiana. To-day, with her popula- tion of twelve hundred thousand freemen, confi- dently facing the future, the Pelican State is o-reater and happier than ever before. Who shall say that her race is to be ended soon — that she is not to round any goal of the future ? It is well to read the history of one's country if for nothino: more than to catch from it a new con- sciousness of the value of steadfast patriotism. To-day Louisiana is as true to the American flag and as loyal to the American meaning of freedom as any State in the Federal Union. The fierce and terrible fight that she made for the " Lost Cause" and the defeat and humiliation which fol- lowed could not drive from the hearts of her sons that love of liberty, that fealty to the spirit of our thp: pelican state. 301 constitution which after all must be the bed-rock of American patriotism. Loyalty to one's State and a belief in its best possibilities are proof at once of the value and the strength of citizenship. But higher than sectional loyalty is love of country ; broader than belief in the neighborhood's future is faith in the nation's development. As individual factors in the upbuild- ing of the American Union the dweller in Maine and the citizen of Oregon should find both interest and pride in the growth of Texas and the Caro- linas. It is for the American wherever his home and whatever his occupation that the Story of Louisiana has here been told. It is the privilege of the politician to drag up the dark scenes of the past for partisan purposes, but it is the duty of all good and true citizens to encourage that patriotism which sees only the w-elfare of the whole country. THE STORY OF LOUISIANA TOLD IN CHRONOLOGICAL EPITOME. The historical happenings of Louisiana are many ; they date back to the days of the early discoverers. Even to one who traces the dry chronological record the adventure, the romance and the daring that mark the beginnings of the Pelican State are at once apparent. And yet, could we but fathom its mysteries, the antiquity of Louisiana is fully as eloquent in the unwritten history of its prehistoric days as is its checkered and eventful history so forcibly outlined by the dates that have been secured to us. THE ERA OF BEGINNINGS. How great is this antiquity no one may truthfully say. The much-discussed skull unearthed some years since beneath the decaying remains of four suc- cessive layers of gigantic cypress forests tells of the existence of man in Louisiana thousands of years ago. The age of this skull has been variously estimated at from fourteen thousand four hundred to fifty-seven thousand years. In the loamy deposits of the Mississippi near Natchez human remains have been discovered lying side by side with those of mylodon and megalony.v — creatures of a far-off prehistoric existence. All along the Mississippi are other indications of the human inhabitants of Louisiana — of men and women who hunted over its plains in the age of the mastodon and even amid the great convulsions. Within the limits of Louisiana have been found those peculiar shell heaps or "kitchen middens" that tell of a progressive stage of man from brutality to barbarism, while the elevated "garden beds" discovered in the State prove it to have been one of the agricultural centers of the semi-civilized Mound-Builders. The story of the Indian occupation of the State could it be satisfactorily told would also be found of absorbing interest. The most advanced of all the Southern tribes, the fire-worshiping Natchez, occupied the greater part of the State though portions of it were also under the domination of certain of the confederated tribes of the Creek nation. These courteous though war- like peoples (the Natchez) held control of the lands about the mouth of the Mississippi until the strong arm of the white man swept them all away. 303 304 ERA OF DISCOVERY. THE ERA OF DISCOVERY. At precisely what date the first white discoverer coasted the low Gulf lands of Louisiana or saw the many mouths of its giant river has not been deter- mined. As earlyas isioattempts had been made bythe .Spanish conquerors of the West Indies to explore and subdue the countries north of the Mexi- can gulf. Nothing definite, however, is recorded until the alleged discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi (or as then called Rio del Espiritu Santo) by Alonzo de Pineda in 15 19. Cabeza de Vaca, lost and wandering after the wreck of Narvaez' ill-starred expedition to Florida, came, probably first of all Europeans, to the banks of the mighty river, on the thirtieth of October, 1528, when he crossed one of its broad mouths. With the visit, in 1540, of De Soto the unlucky, the real record of discovery begins : 1540. De Soto crosses the Mississippi at Chickasaw Bluff — May 26. 1673. Joliet and Marquette reach the Mississippi from Canada— June 17. 1682. La Salle descends the Mississippi to its mouth — April 6. La Salle names the surrounding country Louisiana and takes possession in behalf of the King of France — April 9. La Salle returns to Canada and announces his discovery. La Salle sails for France — October. 1684. La Salle sets out for the mouth of the Mississippi — July 4. 1687. La Salle murdered by his men in Texas — March 19. 1698. A squadron sent out to Gulf of Mexico under D'Iberville — October 24. 1699. D'Iberville enters the Mississippi — March i. Establishes a set- tlement at Bay of Biloxi — May i. D'Iberville sails for France leaving Sauvolle in command — May 3. Bienville encounters an English ship in the mouth of the Mississippi — September 15. D'Iberville returns from France — December 7. Sauvolle appointed Governor— December 7. 1700. D'Iberville establishes a fort on the Mississippi —January. D'Iberville ascends the Mississippi to conciliate the Indians — February. D'Iberville returns to France — May. 1701. Death of Sauvolle. Bienville succeeds to the command. Settle- ment established at Dauphine Island. Assistance sent to the Spaniards at St. Augustine. 1704. Detachment of French soldiers cut off by Indians. Arrival of supplies from France. Expedition by Bienville against the Alibamos. Arrival of soldiers, girls and supplies — July. 1707. Bienville relieves Pensacola, besieged by Indians and English. 1708. De Muys appointed Governor-General of Louisiana. Diron d'Artaguette sent out from France to investigate the management of colony. Death of De Muys on passage to Louisiana. Depredations committed by a privateer from Jamaica — September. 1709. Settlement at Mobile transferred to a point higher up the river. Arrival of a frigate with provisions from France — September. 171 1. Return of D'Artaguette to France to report progress. 1712. Grant of the King to Sieur Antony Crozat of exclusive trading ERA OF FRENCH COLOXIZA TION. S^S rights for ten years throughout Louisiana subject to government of New France — September 14. Four hundred persons in the colony. Legal govern- ment established — December 18. 1713. Arrival of Cadillac as Governor — May 17. Arrival of ship La Louisiane with provisions and passengers. Trading house established at Natchez. 1714. Alliance with the Choctaws renewed by Bienville. 1715. Bienville makes peace among the Choctaws. Garrison re-enforced by two companies of infantry. Bienville appointed Commander-General. Death of Louis XIV. — September i. Cadillac goes silver-hunting in the Illinois country. 1716. Attack of the Natchez on French. Bienville seizes and imprisons Natchez chiefs. Fort Rosalie constructed on the territory of the Natchez. Arrival of St. Denys at Mobile, from Mexico. 1717. Arrival of L'Epinay, as Governor, from France — March 9. Sur- render of privileges by Crozat— August 23. Illinois country incorporated with Louisiana- September. Company of the West chartered— Septem- ber 6. Law's Banque Royal established in France — December. 1718. Company's ships arrive. Bienville appointed Governor — Febru- ary 9. Foundations of New Orleans laid — February. Chateauguay sent with fifty men to take possession of Bay of St. Joseph. Bienville lays out New Orleans. Large grants of land made to distinguished Frenchmen. 1719. L'Archambault arrives at Mobile with one hundred passengers. France declares War against Spain. Arrival of Serigny and thirty passen- gers—April 29. Expedition against Pensacola. Great popularity in France of Law's Mississippi scheme. 1720. Settlement of New Bilo.xi. Arrival of a fleet commanded by Lau- geon bringing 582 passengers. Transportation of vagabonds and convicts forbidden by King. Arrival of two line of battle ships from Toulon — June. Five hundred negroes arrive in Company's ships. Arrival of large numbers of settlers. ERA OF FRENCH COLONIZATION. 1721. Arrival of three hundred settlers and eighty girls — January 3. Two hundred German settlers and five hundred negroes arrive. Arrival of two hundred and fifty passengers — June 4- Arrival of Duvergier as Direc- tor and La Harpe — July 15. Arrival of three hundred negroes — August 15. Departure of La Harpe for the Bay of St. Bernard — August 26. Pauger prepares a plan for the proposed city of New Orleans. 1722. Appointment of Loubois as Commander of Fort St. Louis. Set- tlement of Germans established around New Orleans. Erection of Battery with garrison on the Island of the Balize. New Orleans made the prin- cipal establishment of the colony— May. Return of La Harpe from River Arkansas — May 20. Peace established between France and Spain. Re- moval of Bienville to New Orleans — August. Arrival of Boismont and Capuchin monks. Failure of Law's Bank. 3o6 ERA OF FRENCH COLONIZATION. 1723. Value of silver dollar in Colony increased by law — January 12. 1725. Black code promulgated for the punishment of slaves. Edict pub- lished prohibiting interception of letters. Edict published putting to death any person killing or wounding another's cattle — May 26. Arrival of Lachaise and Perrault, commissioners ordere'd to report condition of affairs in Province. 1726. Establishment of the Jesuits confirmed — February 20. Establish- ment of the Capuchins confirmed. Ursuline Nuns invited to Louisiana. Arrival of Perier as Commander-General of Louisiana. Recall of Bienville to France. 1727. Arrival of Jesuits and Ursuline Nuns. Erection of a nunnery. Erection of a Government House. Ditch dug in Bourbon street. Arrival of girls intended as wives for the Colonists — " Filles a la Cassette." Cul- ture of indigo begun ; also of figs and oranges. 1728. Publication of edict regarding distribution of lands — August 10. 1729. Conspiracy of the Chickasaws against the French. The com- mandant of Fort Rosalie quarrels with the Natchez. Massacre at Fort Rosalie of all its occupants by the Natchez — November. Murder of Father Soulet. Massacre at Fort St. Peter of its garrison. 1730. Defeat of the Natchez — February 26. Arrival at the Balize of troops under Perrier de Salvert — August 10. Execution of leading negroes for insurrection. E.xpedition of Perrier against the Natchez — November. 1731. Perrier defeats the Natchez — January. Seizure of the Great Sun of the Natchez. Four hundred and twenty-seven prisoners captured. 1732. Company of the West surrenders its charter and privileges to king — April 10. Salmon appointed King's Commissioner. Natchez attack St. Denis and the Nachitoches and are repulsed. Severe defeat of the Natchez by St. Denis. Conspiracy of the negroes. Ringleaders seized and hung. 1733. Reappointment of Bienville. Settlements at Manchac, Baton Rouge and Point Coupee. 1736. Predatory attacks by the Chickasaws. Defeat and murder of D'Artaguette by Chickasaws. Expedition made against the Chickasaws by Bienville. Defeat and repulse of Bienville — May 26. 1740. Return of Bienville. His second expedition against the Chicka- saws. Chickasaws sue for peace. Count de la Galissoniere, Governor- General of New France. 1743. Marquis de Vaudreuil appointed Governor of Louisiana — May 10. Bienville returns to France. 1751. King exempts all the imports and exports of Louisiana from duty for ten years. 1752. Arrival of two hundred recruits from France. Arrival of sixty poor girls from France — April 17. Macarty takes command of Fort Chartres in the Illinois — August 20. 1753- Corruptions among the Chickasaws. Marquis de Vaudreuil marches against the Chickasaws. Fort of Tombeckbee enlarged and garri- soned. KRA OF SPAXISII OCCUPATIO.V. 307 1754. Kerlerec succeeds the Marquis de Vaudieuil as Governor. Vau- dreuil appointed Governor of New France. Defeat of French by Washing- ton — April. French under Viliiers capture Fort Necessity — July 4. Mur- der of Roux by the soldiers of the garrison of Cat Island. Favrot marches to the Illinois with two hundred men. 1755. Transportation of Acadian settlers by British. Arrival of Aca- dians at New Orleans. Braddock's defeat — July 9. England declares war against France. 1757. Death of Auberville; succeeded as Commissary Ordonnateur by Bobe Descloseaux. 1758. Evacuation of Fort Du Quesne by the French. Arrival of its gar- rison at New Orleans. Erection of Sugar Mill in New Orleans. 1759. Arrival of Rochemore as Commissary (Jrdonnateur. Quarrel be- tween Kerlerec and Rochemore. 1762. A secret treaty signed at Paris giving Louisiana to Spain — Nov- ember 3. 1763. Peace between England, Spain and France — February 16. Ker- lerec recalled. Succeeded by D'Abadie as Director-General. 1764. English troops take possession of Baton Rouge and other posts in "West Florida" — February. Skirmish between Major Loftus and the Indians — March 20. D'Abadie receives official announcement of the ces- sion of Louisiana to Spain — October. 1765. General Council called to consider the matter. Jean Milhet sent to France with a petition begging that Louisiana might not be severed from the mother country. District of Feliciana settled by British residents. British take possession of the Post of the Illinois and drive out St. Ange, the com- mandant. St. Ange and his followers cross the Mississippi and found St. Louis and St. Genevieve. Destrehan and other planters erect sugar mills. A ship laden with sugar sent to France. Milhet fails to accomplish his mission. British establish a post at Bayou Manchac. D'Abadie dies. Aubry succeeds him. 1766. Letter received from Don Antonio de Ulloa announcing his inten- tion of taking possession of Louisiana. Ulloa lands at New Orleans. He declines to show his powers or take formal possession. Census of the province shows population of 10,000. Province visited by yellow fever. 1767. Ulloa receives additional troops from Havana. He orders three forts built on the Mississippi. Return of Jean Milhet from France. 1768. Council order Ulloa to produce some certificate of his powers or else leave the province. Ulloa leaves Louisiana. General meeting of deputies convened at St. Orleans. A second petition sent by St. Lette and I>essassier. THE ERA OF SPANISH OCCUPATION. 1769. Failure of the petition. Deputies obtain from King of France a reduction of the paper currency — March 23. Intelligence received at New Orleans of the arrival of a Spanish frigate — July 23. Express sent to 3o8 ERA OF SPANISH OCCUPATION: Aul)ry from Don Alexander O'Reilly, commander of the Spanish forces. Inhabitants send deputation to O'Reilly asking two years to remove their effects from the town. Arrival of O'Reilly with his armament. Aubry re- ceives him and surrenders possession — August i8. O'Reilly orders a cen- sus of New Orleans (3,190). O'Reilly arrests Focault, Noyan Bienville, Boisblanc, Lafreniere and Brand — August 31. O'Reilly arrests Marquis, Doucet, Petit, Mazent, the two Milhets, Caresse and Poupet. O'Reilly arrests Villere. Villere slain by the soldiers. O'Reilly condemns Noyan Bienville, Lafreniere, Marquis, Joseph Milhet and Caresse. The condemned shot — September, 28. Boisblanc, Doucet, Mazent, John Milhet, Petit and Poupet transported to Havana and thrown into prison. O'Reilly abolishes by proc- lamation the Superior Council and substitutes a cabildo composed of six perpetual regidors, two ordinary alcades, an Attorney-General-Syndic, over which the governor presides. Regiment raised in the province. Dearth of provisions. Arrival of Oliver Pollock's brig from Baltimore bringing pro- visions. Don Luis de Unzaga assumes the position of governor. Unzaga publishes a code of civil and criminal legislation. 1770. O'Reilly publishes a set of regulations in regard to grants of land — February 8. Tax imposed on taverns, boarding-houses, brandy, etc., to give a revenue to the city of New Orleans — February 22. Certain piece of land granted to the city as public square. Black code re-enacted. Law passed prohibiting purchasing articles from persons navigating the Missi.s- sippL O'Reilly with all his troops except twelve hundred departs. Don Antonio Maria Buccarelly appointed Captain-General of Louisiana. 1771. Permission granted for admission of two vessels every year from France. Merchants of New Orleans complain of the arbitrary restrictions on trade. 1772. Arrival of Colonel Estacheria to take command of the Louisi- ana regiment. Country desolated by a terrific hurricane — August 31. 1775. Unzaga promises amnesty to runaway slaves if they return to their masters. Battle of Lexington — April 19. 1777. Don Bernado de Galvez begins as Governor — January i. Don Diego Joseph Navarro appointed Captain-General of Cuba and Louisiana. Oliver Pollock of Baltimore appointed United States commercial agent at New Orleans. 1778. Galvez affords aid of ammunition to the Americans — January. France concludes a treaty with the United States — February 6. 1779. Eighty-seven United States citizens take temporary oath of fidelity to the king of Spain. Arrival of a number of families from Malaga. Set- tlement formed by them on Bayou Teche called New Iberia. Arrival of six Capuchin friars. Visitation of the small-pox in New Orleans. England declares v/ar against France. Spain declares war against England — May 8. Galvez commissioned Governor and Intendant. Galvez organizes a small army. Galvez captures Fort Bute on Bayou Manchac — September 7. Galvez captures Baton Rouge and five hundred British soldiers — Septem- ber 21. Surrender of Fort Panmure at Natchez. Galvez returns to New ERA OF srAiV/SII OCCUPATION. 309 Orleans, leaving Don Carlos de Grandprc at F.aton Rouge. Congress sends a minister to Madrid to negotiate a treaty. 1780. Galvez commissioned Brigadier-General. Galvez undertakes an expedition against Fort Charlotte on the Mobile River. Fort Charlotte capitulates— March 14. British attack St. Louis. Clark relieves St. Louis. Spain refuses to acknowledge the Independence of the United States. 1781. Galvez sets out against Pensacola — February 28. Galvez arrives at Pensacola and invests it. Pensacola capitulates — May 9. Span- iards evacuate Fort Panmure — April 29. Louisiana desolated by a hurri- cane August 24. Galvez commissioned Lieutenant-General and Captain- General of Louisiana and Florida. Father Cyrillo made Bishop of Louisiana. Galvez sails for San Domingo to superintend attack on the Bahama Islands. Don Estevan Miro provisionally takes possession of government. 1782. Considerable commercial privileges granted to the Province. 1783. Treaty of peace between Great Britian, United States and Spain, signed at Paris — September 3. Treaty conferred to Spain all the Floridas south of Latitude 31. 1785. Hospital for lepers erected. Census taken by order of Galvez (Lower Louisiana 28,047; West Florida 3,477; Upper Louisiana 1,491). Arrival of Acadian families. 1786. Don Estevan Miro receives the commission of Governor. Miro issues his proclamation — June 2. 1787. New Orleans sends a company of infantry to build and garrison a fort near New Madrid. Arrival of General Wilkinson at New Orleans with goods. Wilkinson has an interview with Miro and returns to Phila- delphia — September. 1788. Tremendous conflagration ; nine hundred houses burned — March 21. A contract made with the United States for flour to relieve the distress and permission given contractors to import merchandise. Permission granted Wilkinson's agent to send to New Orleans from Ken- tucky launches loaded with tobacco. Census taken (42,611). 1789. Arrival of Wilkinson in New Orleans. Arrival of settlers from western part of the United States to settle near Natchez and Feliciana. 1790. Treaty of peace with the Creeks — August 7. Southwestern territory formed ; Wm. Blount governor. 1791.' Massacre of French in San Domingo — August 23. Arrival of French refugees from San Domingo. Schools and theatre opened by refugees. Departure of Miro. 1792. Arrival of Don Francisco Louis Hector, Baron de Carondelet as governor and intendant of Louisiana — January. Don Nicholas Maria Vidal. appointed Lieutenant-Governor. Proclamation of Carondelet — Janu- ary 22. Carondelet issues a proclamation in regard to the treatment of slaves— July 11. Carondelet prohibits the introduction of negroes from French and British islands. Population of New Orleans 6000. Philadel- phia merchants establish branch houses in New Orleans. 1793. The King issues a proclamation, encouraging the slave trade. 3IO ERA OF SPANISH OCCUPATION: Death of Louis XVI. on the scaffold. Spain declares war against France — January 21. Carondelet prohibits the playing of Revolutionary airs at the theatres. Arrest of six upholders of French principles. Carondelet re-builds the fortifications around the city. 1794. Don Francisco de Rendon appointed intendant. Don Louis de Penalvert appointed Bishop of I>ouisiana and Florida. Genet, the French ambassador to the United States, plans an expedition against the Spanish dominions. Genet gains recruits in the bordering States. Carondelet com- pletes the fortifications of New Orleans. Publication of the first newspaper — Le Moniteur de la Louisiane. Beginning of a canal drawing off stag- nant waters from New Orleans. 1795. Carondelet sends Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos to New Madrid to detach Ohio from the United States. Intended insurrection of the slaves discovered. Slaves resist. Twenty-five killed. Twenty-five more hung. United States and Spain conclude a treaty — October 27. 1796. Cabildo petition the King to prohibit the introduction of slaves. Business of growing sugar cane has a new lease of life. Completion of the " Canal Carondelet." Grants of land made to French loyalists. Tax im- posed on bread and meat and wheat to light and provide watchmen for the city. Spain declares war against England — October 7. 1797. Cabildo increased by six additional regidors. Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos appointed Spanish Commissioner to meet United States Commis- sioner. Andrew Ellicot appointed United States Commissioner. Caron- delet refuses to surrender the Posts on the Mississippi. Expedition sent to detach the Western Country from the United States. Commotion at Natchez — June. Gayoso issues a proclamation commanding the people to return to their allegiance. Meeting of the people of the district. Com- mittee sent to Gayoso demanding they should be left unmolested. Gayoso grants the request. Yellow fever in New Orleans. Departure of Baron de Carondelet. Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos succeeded as Governor. 1798. Gayoso issues his proclamation — January. Fort Paumure evac- uated by the British — March 23. Fort at the Walnut Hills evacuated — March 29. Mississippi territory erected — April 7. Winthrop Sargent ap- pointed Governor of the territory. Royal Schedule gives the intendant the right of granting lands belonging to the crown — October 21. 1799. Don Joseph Vidal Commandant of Concordia makes an arrange- ment with Governor of Mississippi territory for reciprocal interchange of slaves — April 30. Morales refuses to allow a place of deposit to United States citizens in New Orleans. Gayoso and Wilkinson enter into a pro- visional agreement for mutual surrender of deserters in respective armies. New Madrid annexed to Upper Louisiana. Death of Gayoso — July 18. The Marquis of Casa-Calvo military Governor. Don Ramon de Lopez y'Angullo arrives at New Orleans as Intendant of Louisiana and West Florida. 1800. Existing prohibition of the introduction of slaves suspended. Spain promises to surrender Louisiana to France — October i. ERA OF FORMATION. 311 1801. Right of Deposit in New Orleans restored to citizens of United .States. Cession of Louisiana to France effected — Marcli 21. Napoleon appoints General Victor Captain-General. ]?y Royal Schedule, King ap- proves Carondelet's proposition for draining the city — May 10. Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. Treaty ratified between the United States and France — June i. Arrival of Don Juan Manuel de Salcedo as Governor of Louisiana and West Florida — June. Departure of Marquis de Casa Calvo for Havana. Daniel Clarke appointed United States Consul in New Orleans. Treaty concluded between Chickasaws and United States — October 24. Treaty concluded between Choctaws and United States — December 17. 1802. Peace of Amiens — March 25. King forbids by Royal Schedule the grant of any land in Louisiana to any citizen in the United States — July iS. Citizens refused the right of deposit in New Orleans and impor- tation of goods prohibited in American bottoms. Departure of Lopez for France. Death of Lopez on the voyage. 1803. Morales issues a proclamation permitting importation of flour and provisions from United States. King orders that the United States should enjoy their right of deposit in New Orleans — March i. Act of Congress, providing the granting of licenses at the custom-house of Fort Adams. Arrival of Laussat, the Colonial prefect, at New Orleans. Laussat issues a proclamation. Address presented to him by merchants and planters. Arrival of the Marquis de Casa-Calvo from Havana — April 10. The United States purchase Louisiana from France (for sixty million francs), by treaty signed April 30. Casa-Calvo issues a proclamation surrendering Louis- iana to Spain — May 18. King of Spain protests against the sale of Louisiana. Departure of Spanish nuns for Havana. Claiborne and Wil- kinson appointed United States' Commissioners for receiving Louisiana from France. Surrender of the keys of New Orleans to France by Spanish otificers — Nov. 30. Laussat issues a proclamation announcing the sale of Louis- iana to the United States. Laussat issues proclamations m regard to government of the province. Arrival of United States troops under Clai- borne and Wilkinson — December 20. Formal surrender of Louisiana by Laussat to the United States — December 20. Claiborne issues a procla- mation as Governor-General and Intendant of the province — December 20. Claiborne establishes a court of pleas composed of seven judges — Decem- ber 30. Convention between United States and Spain ratified. THE ERA OF FORMATION. 1804. Louisiana divided into the territories of Orleans and District of Louisiana by Act of Congress — March 26. New form of government goes into operation with Claiborne as Governor, Prevost as Judge of the Superior Court, Hall as District Judge of the United States and Dickenson, District Attorney — October. Territory divided into twelve counties with an in- ferior Court with one Judge — December. New Orleans chartered a city. Committee appointed to prepare a civil and criminal code. Office of dis- 312 ERA OF FORMATION. count and deposit established by the bank of the United States in New Orleans. 1805. Act passed by Congress establishing a government in Louisiana similar to that of the Mississippi territory except in regard to estates of peo- ple dying intestate and the prohibition of slavery — March 2. Act passed confirming inchoate titles and grants to land. Provision made by the Legis- lative Council for relief of insolvent debtors and improvement of land navi- gation — June. Court of probates established. Treaty with Cherokee Indians in regard to United States mail — October 7. Treaty with Creek Indians in regard to United States road. Spanish governor of Texas assumes a threatening attitude. 1806. Meeting of the first territorial Legislature — January 25. Act passed regulating the care of slaves. Act passed establishing schools in the several counties and for improvement of the navigation of the Canal. Colonel Cushing marches to Natchitoches with four companies. Wilkinson arrives at Natchitoches. Porter sent to New Orleans. Reports of Burr's conspiracy. Wilkinson arrives at New Orleans. Meeting of merchants at New Orleans — December 9. Burr's plans exposed. Sum raised to pay expenses of sailors needed in the United States service. Bollman, the abettor of Burr, arrested. Arrest of Ogden and Swartwout by order of Wilkinson. Release of Bollman on writ of habeas corpus. Workman addresses an official Communication to Claiborne. 1807. Meeting of Legislature — January 12. Arrest of General Adair by Wilkinson's connivance. Arrest of Workman/Kerr and Bradford. Release of Workman and Kerr on writ of habeas corpus. Arrest of Burr. Legislature passes an act abolishing County Courts. Legislature passes an act fixing the members of the house of representatives at twenty-five. Pike, while seeking for the source of the Red River, arrested by Spaniards. Pike's papers seized and retained; he is released. A court of inquiry into Wilkin- son's conduct held. 1808. Meeting of the Second Territorial Legislature — January 8. Leg- islature passes an act establishing the civil and criminal code. Act passed establishing a school in every parish. Court of inquiry reported in favor of Wilkinson. England assumes a threatening attitude. Wilkinson ordered to assemble troops at New Orleans. 1809. Congress passes an act appropriating twenty-five thousand dollars to extend the canal Carondelet to Mississippi, if advisable — February 9. Madison President. Wilkinson arrives in New Orleans. Ordered to Fort Adams. Recalled and his place supplied by Wade Hampton. i8io. Legislature appropriates twenty thousand dollars to the establish- ment of a college. United States citizens drive out the garrison at Fort Baton Rouge. Meeting of a convention at St. Francisville. A constitu- tion framed and Fulwar Skepwith appointed governor. President issues a proclamation claiming the disputed territory for the United States — Octo- ber 16. Claiborne takes possession of the disputed territory. Committees of Congress investigate Wilkinson's conduct. ERA OF I-OKMATIO.V. 313 181 1. Revolt of slaves in the parish of St. John the Iniptist. Revolt put down; sixty-six slaves killed. Two new judicial districts erected by legislature. Town of Vidalia established. Charters granted to the Planter's Bank and the liank of (Orleans. Exclusive privileges granted to Livingston and Fulton to build boats employing steam for eighteen years. Congress passes an act enabling the people of the territory to form a State govern- ment — February 11. Court-martial ordered for the trial of Wilkinson. Convention to adopt a State Constitution meets at New Orleans — Novem- ber I. Court-Martial acquits Wilkinson — December 23. 1812. Arrival at New Orleans from Pittsburg of the New Orleans, the first vessel propelled by steam — January 10. State constitution adopted and signed by members of the convention — January 22. Act passed by Congress for the admission of Louisiana as State — April. Same act declared all waters of said State free to all United States' citizens and not taxable. Congress passes an act extending limits of the State. Wilkinson directed to return to New Orleans and resume command — April 12. Arrival of Wilkinson in New Orleans — June 8. Congress declares war on P:ngland June 18. First session of State Legislature — June 27. Claiborne elected governor. Country devastated by a hurricane— August 19. Second ses- sion of the Legislature — November 23. Supreme district and parish courts organized. 1813. Congress orders the President to occupy that part of West Florida west of the River Perdito — February 12. Wilkinson seizes Fort Charlotte — April 13. Massacre at Fort Minis by Creek Indians — September 13. Defeat of the Creeks at the Tallusatche towns — November 3. Defeat of the Creeks at Talledega by Jackson. Defeat of the Creeks at Autosse and Tallahassee. 1814. Defeat of the Creeks by Jackson — March 27. Peace made with Creeks — August 9. Arrival of Colonel Nichols at Pensacola. He issues a proclamation trying to stir the people of Louisiana to revolt — August 29. Repulse of Perry at Fort Boyer. Jackson drives the British from Pensa- cola — November 7. Jackson arrives in New Orleans — December 2. British threaten New Orleans. Gunboats under Lieutenant Jones captured — December 14. Jackson issues a general order putting the city under martial law. Legislature grants an amnesty to the pirate Lafitte and those of his followers who enlisted to serve during the war. 1815. Battle of New Orleans. Defeat of the British — January 8. Legislature appropriates two thousand dollars. News received of the treaty of Ghent, signed December 24 — February 13. Jackson orders all French subjects possessing certificates of discharge to retire into the interior — February 28. Jackson has Louallier arrested on the ground of his being a spy — March 5. Hall grants a writ of habeas corpus in favor of Louallier. Hall arrested as aiding and abetting mutiny. Hollander arrested. Hollan- der discharged. Court-Martial sustain Louallier — March 9. Jackson re- leases Hall — March 11. News of peace confirmed; Louallier released — March 13. Jackson fined one thousand dollars for his hij^h-handed methods. 314 ERA OF DEVELOPMENT. 1816. Villere elected governor — December. 1817. Ex-Governor Claiborne elected United States Senator — January. Branch of the Bank of the United States established in New Orleans Death of Claiborne — November. Johnson succeeds as United States Sen- ator. Criminal Court of the City of New Orleans established — March. Louisiana State Bank incorporated. 1819. Legislature appropriates annually six hundred dollars for public schools and three thousand dollars for college of New Orleans, and em- powers Regents of the college to raise by lottery twenty-five thousand dol- lars. Canal projected by Orleans company to connect Marigay's Canal with Mississippi. New Orleans inflicted with yellow fever. 1820. Law passed organizing the militia. Alexander Millne and others empowered to open turnpike road from Lake Pontchartrain to Mississipjji. Governor Villere instructed to urge on President of the United States the expediency of completing fortifications in Louisiana. Trials by jury granted to the parish courts of St. Helena and Washington. Town of Franklin made a seat of justice. Monroe incorporated. Thomas B. Robertson elected governor. 1821. City Government empowered to sell its landed property on the terms of perpetual grounded rent. Board of Public Health established. Act passed for extending and improving public school system. Act passed prohibiting gambling. Opelousas incorporated. THE ERA OF DEVELOPMENT. 1822. Legislature divides the State into three Congressional districts. Appropriations made for the improvement of navigation in Pearl and Red Rivers. Legislature authorizes New Orleans to create public fund or stock to the amount of three hundred thousand dollars to be expended in paving and watering the city. 1823. Frost of great severity — February 16. Town of Donaldson incor- porated. Charter of the Bank of Orleans extended to 1847. 1824. Bank of Louisiana established, State being one half shareholder. Governor in his message to the Legislature urges their attention to the fail- ure of the General Government to take proper measures in regard to the public lands. Revised civil code and new code of practice promulgated. Governor Robertson resigns to become a judge of the United States Dis- trict Court. President Thibodaux of the Senate acts as Governor. Plenry Johnson inaugurated governor — December. 1825. Arrival of Lafayette. Legislature appropriates fifteen thousand dollars for his entertainment. Law passed prohibiting aliens from holding office within State. City Court of New Orleans organized. Public road ordered to be opened from Vidalia to Harrisonburg. Act passed establish- ing College of Louisiana to be supported by public school funds of East and West Feliciana and by annual appropriation of five thousand dollars heretofore voted to the College of Orleans — February 18. Company in- ERA OF DliVELOPMEXT. Z\^ corporated for opening of turnpike road from New Orleans to Mississippi. Duties of tlie Board of Health conferred upon City Council of New Orleans. Memorial sent to Congress by Legislature urging Construction of Canal direct from Lake I'ontchartrain to Mississippi. Act passed removing seat of government from New Orleans to Donaldsonville— February. Act passed prohibiting the bringing of slaves into the State for sale. Clos- ing of Bayou Manchac authorized. Board of Internal Improvements created. 1826. Two Primary and one Central School established in New Orleans. College of Orleans discontinued and its State support voted to the schools. Unlimited issue of gambling licenses by State Treasurer decreed to raise a fund for the support of the Charity Hospital Orphan Asylum College of Louisiana and Schools. Tax imposed on two city theaters for the good of the schools. 1827. Memorial forwarded by Legislature to Louisiana Senators for pre- sentation in Congress begging for adjustment of the Public Lands Question. $10,000 voted to the heirs of Thomas Jefferson. Act passed abolishing any sentencing for white persons to the jjillory. Emancipation of slaves under thirty years permitted in certain cases. Barataria and Lafourche Canal Company formed to build a canal from the Mississippi to Bayou Lafourche. Public School System amended and Fund increased. College of Louisiana permitted to raise $40,000 by Lottery. Regents of Public Schools permitted to raise $40,000 by Lottery. 1828. Visit of General Jackson. Celebration of the Anniversary of Battle of New Orleans — January 8. Annual Message of the Governor touching public lands question. Legislature resolved that the policy of Government had retarded and repressed the progress of the State. Prohibi- tion upon the introduction of slaves removed. Pierre Derbigny Governor. 1829. Edward Livingston elected Senator of United States. Act passed prohibiting the introduction into the State of a slave child ten years or under separate from its mother ; any one selling such a child held liable to a fine. Act passed providing for a complete levee system. Death of Derbigny — October 7. Jacques Dupre, President of the Senate, acting Governor. 1830. Legislature meets for its tenth Session at Donaldson — January 4. Pontchartrain Railroad Company incorporated. Attempts made to incite blacks to insurrection. Act passed making it death for any one to e.xcite the slaves against the whites. Act passed prohibiting the teaching of slaves to read. Provision made for running boundary-line between Louisiana and the territory of Arkansas according to the act of Congress approved May 19, 1S28. Two thousand dollars appropriated for opening Bayou des (liaises to navigation. Act passed excluding free persons of color from the State. Franklin and Thibodauxville declared incorporated towns. 1831. New Orleans again made the seat of government — January 8. Bienvenu Roman elected as Governor — January 31. Law relating to expulsion of free persons of color amended. Orleans Fire Company organ- ized. Gambling houses prohil)ited outside of New Orleans. George A. 3i6 ERA OF DEVELOPMENT. Waggaman elected United States Senator, vice Livingston resigned. New Orleans a.nd coast generally damaged by hurricane — August i6. 1832. Lake Borgne Navigation Company incorporated. Union Bank of Louisiana incorporated. Jackson and Covington incorporated towns. ^50,000 appropriated for a penitentiary at Baton Rouge. Gambling saloons permitted in New Orleans, but taxed annually $7,500.. Louisiana depopu- lated by Asiatic cholera. 1833. $20,000 voted to the College of Jefferson. Lafayette chartered a town. Provision made for a State Library. Lotteries abolished. 1834. New Orleans Improvement Company organized. Chamber of Commerce organized. Act passed relative to steamboats. 1835. Edward White, Governor. State made a stockholder in the Bara- taria and Lafourche Canal Company. Law enacted imposing fine or impris- onment upon keepers of gambling saloons. 1836. Louisianians moved by the struggles of the Texans for indepen- dence. Governor proclaims neutrality. War against Seminoles in Floridas. $75,000 appropriated for equipment. Large number of Railroad Company's troops incorporated as well as many other stock companies. Robert C. Nichols chosen United States Senator. 1837. Fourteen banks suspend specie payments — May 13. Inundation of rag money. Numerous bankruptcies. Lake Borgne Navigation Company incorporated. Loan of $500,000 in State bonds made to the New Orleans and Nashville Railroad. Alexander Mouton chosen United States Senator. 1838. Banks issue post-notes. Port Hudson, Springfield and Thibodeaux incorporated towns. Education of the deaf and dumb authorized. 1839. Banks reinstated in their privileges. Number of Justices of Supreme Court increased to five. Commercial Court of New Orleans created. Law against betting enacted. Act passed against the carrying away of slaves. New Orleans Exchange destroyed by fire — February 12. Bienvenu Roman, Governor — February 4. 1840. Legislature abolishes imprisonment for debt. Legislature makes appropriation for the cutting of a channel through the falls at Alexandria. Extraordinary rise of the Mississippi. Banks again suspend specie pay- ments. 1841. Clinton and Port Hudson Railroad ordered forfeited to the State. Work undertaken by the Board of Public Works to open the mouth of the Atchafalaya and of the Grand River. Lotteries again generally abolished. State grants her share of the Public Lands. Bill passed submitting to popular vote the question of calling a convention to amend Constitution. 1842. Law enacted prohibiting banks from violating charters 'and provid- ing for the liquidation of insolvent banks. Seven banks fail. Law passed retrenching expenses of State Government. Tax imposed upon real estate in several parishes ; other levies also imposed to increase State resources. More efficient organization of Militia ordered. School System reformed. Howard Association of New Orleans organized. Civil Code amended. Disastrous fire in Baton Rouge. ERA OF DEl'ELOPMENT. 317 1843. Alexander Mouton, Clovernor. Insolvent Laws revived. Court of I'jrors and Appeals in Criminal cases organized. 1844. Convention convened at Jackson to amend Constitution — August 5. Convention adjourned to New Orleans. Henry Johnson elected United States Senator. 1845. New Constitution adopted in Convention — May 14. New Consti- tution ratified by popular vote. Act passed for the adjustment and liquida- tion of debts proper of the State. Arrival of Hubbard from Massachusetts. Hoard of Commissioners for better organization of schools. College of Louisiana ordered sold. City of Carrollton incorporated. Appropriation made for the encouragement of silk culture. 1846. Isaac Johnson elected Governor. Hostilities break out on the Rio Cirande. Legislature votes $100,000 for raising and transporting four regiments to aid of General Taylor. 1847. Money voted for the closing of crevasses at New Carthage and Grand Levee and for erection of a break-water at Bayou Lafourche. $1 50,000 appropriated for the erection of the New State House at Baton Rouge. University of Louisiana established. State Insane Asylum at Jackson established. Treasury Department created. Act passed providing for the disposal of the " Improvement lands " granted by Congress. School fund created based on proceeds of the sale of public lands. Houses of refuge for vagrants, etc., established in New Orleans. Pierre Soule elected United States Senator. 1848. Road and Levee fund created. Internal Improvement Fund created. Thirty-five thousand dollars voted for the University of Louisiana. Bureau of Statistics created. Law about divorce amended. E.xtra Session of the Legislature called by Governor — December 24. 1849. Five hundred and fifty thousand dollars appropriated for support of schools. Ten thousand dollars voted to completion of Barataria and Lafourche Canal. 1850. Legislature convened in the new State House at Baton Rouge — January 21. Joseph Walker inaugurated Governor — January 28. Grant of way through lands belonging to the State to the New Orleans and Jackson R. R. Co. Twenty thousand dollars gi^anted for the completion of Barataria and Lafourche Canal. Jefferson City incorporated. Board of Health created. 1851. Convention to amend Constitution meets — July. Constitution ratified by popular vote — November. 1852. Bureau of Statistics abolished. One hundred and thirty-eight thousand dollars voted for school e.xpenses. State Institution for the deaf, dumb and blind founded at Baton Rouge. 1853. Paul O. Hebert inaugurated governor — January. Plorrible epi- demic of yellow fever. Legislature sanctions a general system of free banking. Reorganization of the school system. Reclamation of swamp lands granted by Congress begun. Tragic ending of the Lopez expedition. 1854. Another yellow fever epidemic. Free School Accumulating Fund 3i8 ERA OF CONFLICT. created. Appropriation of fifty thousand dollars for reclamation of swamp lands. Local Option law passed. Drainage Tax imposed. 1855. Act prohibiting aliens from holding office passed. State Insane Asylum established. New Orleans empowered to establish free schools. Married women enabled to contract debts. Town almshouse incorporated. New Orleans Savings Institution incorporated. Robert C. Wyckliffe in- augurated Governor. i8j6. The Last Island storm — August 10. One hundred and thirty thousand dollars voted to the Penitentiary. 1858. Political disturbance. Five hundred men claiming to act under a Vigilant Committee seize Court House and State Arsenal. " Know Nothing" Party take possession of Lafayette Square. Disturbance subsides. Gerard Stitto elected mayor. 1859. Judah P. Benjamin United State Senator. i860. Lincoln elected President. Thomas Overton Moore elected Gov- ernor. Extra session of Legislature — December 10. Act passed calling for a State Convention. Appropriation of five hundred thousand dollars for arming of volunteers. Hon. Wirt Adams Commissioner for Mississippi addresses Legislature, announcing what his State has done and asking co-operation of Louisiana. Immense Popular Meeting held at New Orleans — December 21. Enthusiastic demonstrations made upon the news of the secession of South Carolina. Governor Moore issues a proclamation for an extra session of the Legislature — November. Legislature meets and passes an act providing for a State Convention — December 10. Act passed providing five hundred thousand dollars for organization and arming of military companies. Mass Meeting held to ratify nomination of " Southern Rights " candidates for Convention. THE ERA OF CONFLICT. 1861. State Convention meets — January 23. Ordinance of Secession adopted — January 26. Resolution passed in regard to the navigation of Mississippi. Barracks and arsenal at Baton Rouge occupied by State troops — January 11. Delegates to the Convention for the formation of a Southern Confederacy elected — January 30. Meeting of Convention — February 4. Jefferson Davis elected President. Surrender of Fort Sumter — April 13. Battle of Bull's Run — July 21. Forts Jackson and St. Philip and the Arsenal at Baton Rouge seized — January 10. United States Revenue Cutter Lewis Cass seized — January 13. Barracks and Marine Hospital at New Orleans seized. State Convention meets — January 24. Ordinance of Secession adopted — January 26. Act passed transferring $536,000 to Confederate Government — January. Confederate Government demands troops. Three thousand troops raised. Governor Moore calls for three thousand additional troops — April 24. Sixteen thousand men under arms — June i. 1862. Federal naval force under Admiral Farragut and military force ERA OF COX/' L/C 7\ 319 under Clenenil lUitler dispatched against New Orleans — January. Farra- gut passes Forts Jackson and St. Philip — April 24. Capture of New Orleans — April 25. Surrender of Forts Jackson and St. I'hilip — April 28. Capture of liaton Rouge and Natchez. Governor Moore calls for five and a half ref^iments — February 14. General Butler takes possession of the city. General Shepley appointed Military Governor of Louisiana — August. 1863. Surrender of Vickshurg — July 4. General Shepley provides a system of courts for the State. Free State General Committee appointed. Michael Ilahn elected Governor — February 22. Henry W. Allen chosen Governor by Confederates. 1864. Convention for revision of Constitution held — April 6. Constitu- tion abolishing slavery adopted. Constitution adopted by the people — September 5. Legislature elected and five delegates to Congress — Septem- ber 5. Legislature rejects bill giving colored people power of Suffrage. 15oard of Education for Freedmen established by General Banks. Major- Cieneral Canby relieves Major-General Banks. 1865. Troops drafted by Major-General Canby — February 15. Gov- ernor Ilahn resigns and is succeeded by Lieutenant-Governor Wells — March 4. Surrender of Lee — April 9. Confederate Governor Allen resigns from his position — June 2. Governor Wells elected — November. Legis- lature assembles — November 23. Randall Hunt and Henry Boyce elected United States Senators — December 6. Bill passed appropriating twenty thousand dollars for relief of disabled soldiers. Amendment to Constitu- tion adopted by Legislature. 1866. Regular session of Legislature — January 22. Bill passed authoriz- ing election of Municipal officers at an earlier date than fixed by charter. Bill vetoed by the Governor. Bill passed over Governor's veto. John T. Monroe elected mayor of New Orleans — March 12. General Canby sus- pends Monroe from the duties of Mayor because he had refused to take oath of allegiance — March 19. General Canby appoints J. A. Roziere, Mayor pro tempore. President revokes Cieneral Canby's order and reinstates Monroe. Convention of 1864 meets at New Orleans — July 30. Riot in New Orleans. Forty policemen and rioters killed — July 30. Legislature meets — December 28. Legislature refuses to ratify fifteenth amendment to the Constitution. 1867. Military Reconstruction Act passed — March 2. Louisiana joined with Texas to form fifth Military District. General Sheridan appointed Commander of district — March 19. General Sheridan removes Herron, Attorney-General, Monroe Mayor of New Orleans and Abell, Judge of first district Court and appoints successors — March 27. General Sheridan begins the registration of voters under the Reconstruction Act — May 15. Governor Wells substitutes Board of Levee Commissioners for those appointed by Legislature. General Sheridan appoints another set of Com- missioners. General Sheridan removes Governor Wells and substitutes Durant — June 3. Durant declines and Benjamin F. Flanders is appointed. General Sheridan closes the registration of voters— July 31. General 326 Ej^A OF COiVFLICT. Sheridan relieved and Cleneral Hancock substituted — August 17. Teople vote for a convention — September. Constitutional Convention meets — November 22. Constitution enacted. 1868. General Hancock relieved and General Buchanan substituted — March 18. Constitution ratified — April iS. Henry C. Warmouth, Gov- ernor. Mr. Conway elected Mayor. Act by Congress admitting Southern States to the Union becomes a law —June 25. Legislature meets — June 27. Fourteenth Amendment adopted. William P. Kellogg and John S. Harris elected United States Senators. Political Riots in Northern Louisiana. Political Riot at Opelousas — September 28. Conflict in St. Bernard Parish — October 26. 1869. Legislature assembles — January 4. Passage of the Social Equality Bill. Passage of the Public School Law. Passage of Act authorizing a loan of five million dollars. Passage of Act incorporating Ship Island Canal Company. Act to incorporate Crescent City Live Stock Landing and Slaughter House Company declared unconstitutional. Act to incorporate Louisiana Transit Company passed. New Vagrant Law enacted. Revenue Bill passed. Fifteenth Amendment Ratified — February 28. Contention about the power of the Governor to fill vacancies. Wyckliffe, Auditor of the State indicted on charges of corruption. 1870. Legislature meets — January 3. Governor vetoes twenty-one bills involving appropriations to the amount of $6,875,000. Extra session of Legis- lature convened — March 3. Education Bill passed. Bill passed giving city of New Orleans a new charter. Bill passed to maintain the freedom and purity of elections — February iS. Registration Bill passed. Act passed granting to New Orleans, Mobile and Chattanooga R. R. Co. three million dollars in State bonds. Act passed establishing Eighth District Court in New Orleans. Auditor Wyckliffe impeached. Wyckliffe convicted and re- moved from office — March 3. James Graham elected auditor and Antoine Dubreclet State Treasurer — November 2. People ratify four Constitutional Amendments. 1871. Legislature meets — January 2. General J. R. West elected Senator — January 10. (The cost of this legislature to the State was about $960,000.) Injunction granted at request of Governor restraining State Auditor from the payment of warrants outstanding against appropriations made by the legislature. Commission appointed to investigate the matter. Investigation reveals a regular system of forgery. Loose manner of issuing warrants strongly condemned. State Central Committee call a State Convention — July. Committee announces Convention would be held in the United States Circuit Court Room — August 8. Opposers of Warmouth meet in Custom House — August 9. Friends of Warmouth meet in Turner's Hall — August. Death of Lieutenant-Governor Dunn — November 22. Gov- ernor calls an extra session of Senate to fill the vacancy and for other business — December 6. Senator Pinchbeck elected Lieutenant-Governor. Act passed providing for State Board of Education. 1872. Legislature meets — January i. Resolution passed declaring con- Era of coxFLtcT. 321 fidence in George W. Carter, the speaker — January 2. Governor Warmouth arrested by United States otificials. Governor Warmouth calls an extra session of Legislature. Speaker's chair declared vacant and O. H. Brewster chosen to fill the same. " Carterites " assemble in the " Gem Saloon " and style themselves " legal house of Representatives." Hoth rival bodies in session — January 6. Wheyland, member of the Warmouth House killed in a street scuffle — January 7. Expulsion of Carter and election of Brewster ratified — January 24. Committee appointed by Congress to investigate. Bill passed funding the indebtedness of the State. Continuous political contentiohs and frauds. Convention of the "Custom House Ring" headed by Packard held at New Orleans — April 30. Association formed for the resistance of excessive taxation. Resolutions adopted condemning the extravagance of State Government — May 6. Wing of the Republican party headed by Pinchback nominates State Officers — May 28. Democratic Convention assemble in New Orleans — June 3. Reform Convention assem- ble in New Orleans — June 4. Democratic Reformers and Liberals nominate McEnery for Governor. United Republicans nominate Kellogg. Election takes place — November 4. Dispute with regard to returns. Kellogg brings suit for an injunction restraining the Warmouth board from canvassing the returns. Governor Warmouth calls extra session of legislature — Decem- ber 9. Governor Warmouth promulgates the new election law. Judge Durell decides hi favor of Kellogg. Warmouth publishes his idea of the election returns. Legislature (as formed by Republican statement) meets — December 9. (jovernor Warmouth impeached and suspended from office. Lieutenant-Governor Pinchbeck assumes the duties of Governor. " Fusion " Legislature meets in City Llall — December 11. 1873. William P. Kellogg and John McEnery each inaugurated as Gov- ernor — January 14. Congress appoints a committee to investigate the trouble. Committee makes a report recommending Congress to pass a bill to insure an honest re-election under the authority of United States — February 20. Bill lost. Mass Meeting held passing resolutions supporting the McEnery government — March i. Members of the McEnery Legisla- ture seized and marched as prisoners to guard-house — March 6. Act passed by Kellogg Legislature for enforcement of the collection of taxes. " Committee of two hundred " issues an address to the people. Conflict between negroes and whites in Colfax — April 13. Convention of the people held in New Orleans — November 24. Similar Assemblage held by Kellogg party. Louisiana case argued by Congressional Committee on Elections and Privileges. No decision reached. 1874. Legislature assembles — Januarys. Act passed prescribing regula- tions for a registration of voters. Five Constitutional Amendments ordered to be submitted to the people. State Convention of Republican party meet — August 5. Antoine Dubruclet nominated for State Treasurer. Democratic State Convention meet — August 24. John C. Monicure nominated for treasurer. Coushatta tragedy — August 30. Mass Meeting held at New Orleans to protest against the Kellogg administration — September 14. 322 ERA OF PKOGNESS. D. B. Penn, unsuccessful candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, calls on the people to arm themselves and drive out the usurpers — September 14. Severe conflict in New Orleans between insurgents and police. Latter worsted — September 14. McEnery and Penn surrender the State build- ings to General Brooke — September 17. General Brooke appointed military governor. Governor Kellogg resumes his duties — September 19. AdvLsory Committee appointed from both parties to agree upon some system of regis- tration — September 29. Election held — November 2. Returning Board canvasses the returns of the election. Oscar Arroye resigns from the board on the ground of its unjust and false methods. Returning Board completes its labors and publishes the returns — December 24. Dubruclet elected treasurer. Fifty-four Republicans and fifty-two Democrats elected to Legislature. President orders General Sheridan to make a tour of inspec- tion South and assume command of Department of South, if necessary — December 24. 1875. Legislature meets. Great disturbance. United States troops called in — January 8. Congressional Committee makes a report to Con- gress — January 15. Another Congressional Committee sent to New Or- leans — January 22. " Wheeler Adjustment "agreed to. Governor Kellogg calls an extra session of the Legislature — April 14. Wheeler adjustment ratified by Legislature. Estilette, Conservative, elected speaker. Suit brought against the auditor for irregularity in his accounts. 1876. Democratic Conservative Convention meets — January 5. Don A. Pardie elected United States District Court Judge, but not confirmed by Senate. Legislature meets — January 3. J. B. Eustis elected United States Senator by Democrats, only three Republicans voting. Act passed making five Amendments to the Constitution. Judge Hawkins removed. Governor, Kellogg impeached by the House of Representatives — February 28. Senate acquits him. Republican Convention to nominate State officers held — May 30. Democratic Convention to nominate State officers held — July 24. President sends a Committee of Republicans to inspect election. Deputation from Democratic party also go to New Orleans. Presidential election held — November. Both parties claim the victory. Both Houses of Congress send Committees to New Orleans to make investigation. 1877. Both Governors inaugurated — January 8. Both Legislatures meet. President sends a commission to New Orleans — April 5. Packard Legis- lature breaks up — April 21. Government troops withdrawn — April 24. Nichols Government takes possession of the State House. Judge Henry M. Spofford elected United States Senator. Act passed regulating assess- ment of taxes. New election law enacted. New school act enacted. Mem- bers of the late returning board charged with making counterfeit returns — Julys- THE ERA OF PROGRESS. 1878. Thomas C. Anderson convicted — January 28. Thomas C. Ander- son acquitted by Supreme Court — March 18. Legislature pass a resolution ERA OF PROGRESS. 323 condemning the admission of Kellogg as Senator in place of Spofford — January 17. Legislature pass twenty-one amendments to State Constitution. Legislature convened in extra session — March S. Acts passed relating to the retrenchment of expenditures. Yellow P'ever Epidemic. Riot in Tensas and Concordia Parish. Appropriations made to increase the depth of the water on the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi. Wide channel cut through the sand bar. Democratic Conservative Convention — August 6. Republican Convention — September iS. State election held November 5. Large Democratic gains. 1879. Legislature meets — January6. J. T. Moncure elected Speaker. Act passed providing for a State Constitutional Convention. B. F. Jonas elected Senator. Difficulty in assessing the taxes. Election of delegates to Con- stitutional Convention — March 18. Meeting of Convention — April 21. Ordinance relative to State debt ordered to be submitted to the people. Constitution enacted. Democratic State Convention — October 6. Repub- lican State Convention — October 21. Constitution ratified by the people — December 8. Wiltz elected Governor. Ordinance relative to State debt passed. 1880. Legislature meets under the new Constitution at Baton Rouge — January 14. Bureau of Agriculture and Immigration created. Act passed providing for the payment of the interest on the public debt. Act passed to liquidate the indebtedness of New Orleans through a Board of Liquida- tion. Bands of negroes strike work in parishes St. John, St. James and St. Charles — March. University for Higher Education of colored boys opened. 1881. Organized strike in New Orleans — September i. Great railroad development in Louisiana. Death of Governor Wiltz. Lieutenant-Gov- ernor McEnery succeeded him — October. Special Session of Legislature — December 5. Act passed completing restoration of Capitol at Baton Rouge. Act passed making appropriations for expenses of Government, interest on public debt, public schools, and public charities, etc. Legislature begins its second extra session — December 26. Act passed providing for the investing of the interest tax fund and for payment of reduced interest on .State bonds. 1882. Unprecedented floods and overflows. Louisiana State University reorganized. Governor expresses dissatisfaction with the Constitution of 1879. Acts passed to meet the heavy debts of New Orleans. Mr. Tulare, a citizen of New Orleans, gives large donations for the education of the white youth of that city. Two hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the mouths of the Mississippi by La Salle — April 10. 1883. Cases in which Vermont and New York brought action against Louisiana to enforce payment of consolidated bonds dismissed by Chief- Justice Waite — March 5. Levee Convention held at Baton Rouge — June 19. Democratic Convention at Baton Rouge — December 18. Governor McEnery renominated. 1884. Republican State Convention held at New Orleans— March 5. 324 ERA OF PROGRESS. John A. Stevenson nominated for Governor. Election held — April 22. McEnery elected Governor and Knoblock Lieutenant-Governor. Legislature meets — May 12. James B. Eustis elected United States Senator — May 20. Convention held in favor of Republican Presidential Candidates — August 30. Presidential election. State largely Democratic — November 4. Mississippi Valley Railroad completed. 1885. Citizen's Committee of one hundred organized in New Orleans — May. World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition formally closed — June i. Prohibition Convention held — August 19. State Execu- tive Committee constituted. North, Central and South American Exposition opened — November 10. Randall L. Gibson, United States Senator. 1886. Legislature meets — May 10. Act passed closing all places of business on Sunday. Act providing for police juries throughout the State. Act passed for the protection of settlers on State Lands. Act passed for the protection of alluvial State Lands by erection of levees. Act passed to collect and enforce payment of annual License tax. Act passed appropriat- ing fourteen thousand dollars to Southern University of New Orleans. Act passed regulating the hours of labor for women and children. 1887. Political contest between Governor McEnery and Ex-Governor Nichols to secure the nomination of the Democratic Convention — August. 1888. Howard Memorial Library, valued at $100,000, erected in New Orleans by the heirs of Charles T. Howard of that city. THE PEOPLES' COVENANT AS EMBODIED IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA. The changing conditions of so peculiarly constituted a people as were the citizens of Louisiana necessarily resulted in a varying succession of desires as to the composition of the bond of union that held together the people and sections of the Commonwealth. This led to a frequent change of constitutions but shows the growth and progress of the State alike in population and in ideas. The first Constitution was adopted January 22, 1812. It gave the right of suffrage to adult, white male ta.x-payers of one year's residence. Repre- sentatives must own $500 in land; senators $1,000 in land; governor $5,000 in land. Governor chosen by legislature from two highest candidates in a popular election. The second Constitution was adopted November 5, 1845. I^s chief object was to restrict the legislature in chartering corporations and to prohibit State aid to corporations. It dropped the property qualification and made the choice of a governor depend on popular vote. The third Constitution was ratified November i, 1852. It secured an elective judiciary for short terms. The fourth Constitution was ratified .September 5, 1864. It made no limitation except for crime on adult white, male suffrage. First constitution to mention slavery for the purpose of abolishing it. It was never recognized by Congress. The fifth Constitution was ratified August 17-18, 1868. It prohibited slavery, gave the right of suffrage to all adult male citizens of one year's residence and in other ways accepted the results of the war. It was amended in 1870 and 1874. The sixth and last Constitution was ratified in December, 1879. [In 1861 a .State Convention passed an ordinance of secession which it refused to submit to the popular vote. In the same way it ratified the Con- stitution of the Confederate States.] The Constitution of 1879 's divided into a preamble, 19 sections, 264 articles and 4 ordinances. The Preamble reads as follows : "This Constitution is framed to secure to the people with the aid of God, 3^5 326 THE CONSTirUriOiY. the author of all good government, public peace and prosperity and the blessings of liberty." Section One embraces in 12 articles a declaration of rights: Article I. The government derives its powers from the will of the people and its sole object is to protect them. Article II. The people shall be secure against unreasonable seizure of person and property. Articles III. and IV. The right of bearing arms, religious freedom, the right of assembly, the right of petition, freedom of speech and of the press shall be inviolate. Article V. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever be per- mitted except as a punishment for crime. No person shall be put on trial twice for the same offence. Article VI. The law must give reparation for injury without unreason- able delay. No person shall be condemned without due process of law. The accused is not bound to witness against himself. Article VII. Criminal trials must be held in the town where the offence is committed. In specified cases the jury may count less than twelve mem- bers. Article VIII. The accused shall have the right of challenge. (Here follows a detailed method of conducting trials.) Article IX. Bail shall be allowed. Excessive bail or excessive fines can- not be imposed nor cruel nor unusual punishments inflicted. Article X. The writ of habeas corpus shall be suspended only when in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety demands it. Article XI. The military power is subject to the civil power. Section Two treats of the distribution of powers : The powers of the government are three — Legislative, Executive and Judicial. These powers must not infringe except in so far as this Constitu- tion directs or permits. Section Three deals with the legislative department. This is vested in a Senate and House of Representatives. The number of members is deter- mined by population. Qualifications of members : five years citizenship of the State, and two years residence in the district which elects, and oath. Term of office : four years. Members are subject to certain incapacities as to holding office. Their persons shall be inviolable during the sessions. If they have any interest in the pending deliberations they must declare them- selves interested parties and abstain from voting. Biennial sessions. Verification of powers, rules of procedure, choice of the functionaries, disciplinary power, adjournment, quorum, printing of journal all carefully provided for. Promulgation by insertion in the official journal. The chambers alone can pardon treason, suspend the laws, limit the disciplinary powers of the courts. Appropriation and revenue bills must take their initiative in the House but the Senate may amend. The governor may veto but a two thirds vote of both houses overrides his THE CONSTITUTION. 327 veto. Appropriations may be vetoed in part. The governor may not keep a bill more than five days. Adjournment of the legislature before the expi- ration of this limit prevents a bill from becoming a law. The chambers can involve the State in debt only to repel an invasion or put down an insurrection. K.xcept in giving to railroads and canals the right of way over public lands the State cannot aid corporate or individual enterprises and cannot abandon claims against them. It cannot furnish pecuniary aid to any religion, nor to institutions of charity not under its authority. The law cannot fi.\ the price of manual labor, nor grant a preference to any religion. In a very large number of cases .special and local laws are prohibited. Where the Constitution does not prohibit, laws of private or local interest are permitted. Section Four deals with the e.\ecutive department. This is composed of a governor, lieutenant-governor, auditor, treasurer and secretary of state. The governor is elected by the same electors, at the same time and in the same places as the members of the two houses. Term of office : four years. A majority elects. In case of a tie the chambers in joint session elect. Qualifications. Thirty years of age, ten years' citizenship of United States and residence in the State, neither a member of Congress, nor federal office-holder, or have ceased to be for at least si.x months. Salary, $4,000. Powers. Execution of the laws, command of the militia, right to demand reports of his subordinates and to send messages to the legislature, also to convoke the legislature in extraordinary cases but not for more than twenty days, pardoning power, nominating power in specified cases and filling of vacancies with consent of the senate, if in session. Time and place of elec- tion, term of office are the same for the lieutenant-governor as for governor. Circumstances in which he becomes acting-governor specified. He presides in the senate, but does not vote except in case of a tie. Treasurer, auditor and secretary of state are elected for four years. Section Five deals with the judicial department. It has four divisions. I. The Supreme Court. Ii. Courts of Appeal, in. District Courts, iv. Justices of the Peace. The Supreme Court has a chief justice and four judges, nominated by the governor with the senate. Term of office: twelve years. Qualifications: ten years law practice. Salary $5,000. Jurisdiction, time and place of sit- ting, rules of procedure and accountability defined. Qualifications, time and manner of appointment, terms of office, salaries, rules of procedure, jurisdiction, accountability, issue of writs, time and place of sitting determined for the three other courts. Powers and duties of the procuror-general, clerks of the courts, coroners, sheriffs and constables. Section Six treats of the State militia. A well-ordered militia is neces- sary. No pay except for active service. The police cannot form a part of the militia. In time of peace soldiers can not be lodged at a private house except with the consent of the owners. Citizens may be excused from service. Section Seven defines suffrage and election. Vote is to be by ballot. 328 THE CONSTITUTION. Qualifications of elector: male sex, citizen of United States or having ex- pressed legally an intention of becoming one, twenty-one years of age, resi- dence of one year in State, six months in parish, thirty days in the electoral district. Qualifications for office holding: citizen of the State, resident and voter in the place where office is bestowed. Disqualifications for both : conviction for crime, idiocy, insanity. Race, color or former condition of servitude no disqualification. Electors privileged from arrest on the day of election. No liquors sold on election day within a mile of voting places. Contested elections provided for. Section Eight treats the power of impeachment and removal. All ex- ecutive officers, superintendent of public instruction and the judges of the courts of record may be impeached. Process described. The governor may remove every office holder at the request of two thirds of the mem- bers of each chamber. Section Nine is devoted to taxes and the revenue. Taxes are levied by the State, counties and towns. Purposes carefully limited. Manner of col- lecting described. No revenue bill can be passed by legislature within the five days of the close of the session nor for a period longer than ten years. Exempts certain professions, also certain kinds of property. Provides for poll tax not to exceed #1.50, also for levee tax. Public calamities alone can authorize the chambers to delay the payment of the taxes. Mode of pro- cedure in case of non-payment. Section Ten defines the rights of debtors and creditors, and fixes the amount of property allowed the debtor. Section Eleven treats of the public schools. The State must support public schools for all children between six and eighteen. Poll tax goes to the schools of county where it is raised. Other taxes distributed in propor- tion to the number of children. No part of public school revenues can be given to religious schools. The State must support the University of New Orleans, organize a special university for the blacks, and maintain the University of Baton Rouge. Section Twelve deals with the construction of corporations. General laws must direct the organization of private corporations. Every corpo- ration must conform to the Constitution. Banking institutions cannot without crime or pecuniary responsibility receive deposits or contract debts if they know themselves to be insolvent. Every monopoly is abolished except the railroad. Regulates the building and use of abattoirs. Section Thirteen treats of the affairs of the several counties. The chambers form, modify, dissolve them. Determines the minimum extent and population. Section Fourteen states special provisions and exceptions to the general provisions of the Constitution respecting the city of New Orleans. Section Fifteen states that the government shall have full control of the new canal and Shell road and determines that they can neither be sold nor leased. THE CONSTIJCrJOX. 329 Secti(;n Sixteen embraces certain general provisions. Seat of the government at Baton Rouge. Treason defined. The law may regulate the sale and use of spirituous liquors and prohibit gambling. Every town or county must support its own poor. Every lottery shall be prohibited after Jan. i, 1S95, and every lottery shall be subject to a tax of at least ^40,000. The law must protect the working classes and assure them the payment of their wages. It must establish a Bureau of Health, protect against the illegal practice of medicine and organize a Bureau of Agriculture. Conviction of crime punishable by imprisonment renders incapable of jury service. No one can hold two offices, nor after handling public revenues accept an ofiice without previous discharge. Office- holders cannot receive other remuneration than their regular salary. Eng- lish the official language, but the laws may be promulgated in French. Section Seventeen establishes the method of amendment and revision. Two thirds of both houses must first vote in favor, then a majority of the popular vote makes the change. Section Eighteen is devoted to a schedule facilitating the application of the Constitution. Section Nineteen incorporates four ordinances with the Constitution. The first facilitates the payment of various ta.xes. Second provides for the payment of a large sum due the fiscal agent of the State. The third pro- vides for a loan of $25,000. The fourth provides for the payment of the interest on State bonds. 3 ^ .:: A SELECTION OF BOOKS TOUCHING UPON THE STORY OF LOUISIANA. The books devoted to the story of the growth of Louisiana from the earliest times through the Spanish and French domi- nation are many. Nearly all the best works are in French or are translations from the French. The literature of the period of the American rule is rather scanty. As has already been shown the fiction and romance of the State are of comparatively recent growth but they are very promising and enlist now the best work of some of America's most popular writers. The histories of the State are classed in the following list : I. " Historical Collections of Louisiana," by B. F. French in 5 vols. (1S46-53). This is one of the fullest works on the early history. Does not go beyond 1770. II- The second of the great works on early Louisiana history is the " History of Louisiana," by Charles Gayarre, in 5 vols. (N. Y. 1851-54.) President Adams of Cornell says of the volumes that this work is " The fruit of arduous and loving study, not only in Louisiana but also in the archives of France and other European States." III. His final work was published in 1S85. Was mainly the same as the preceding, but was brought down to 1861. In this edition two volumes are given to the French, one to the Spanish and one to the American. Its title, " History of Louisiana: the Spanish Domination, the French Domination, the American Domination." IV. Gayarre publishes still another work not to be confounded with the preceding : " Louisiana, its Colonial History and Romance." It abounds in anecdote and is valuable as a picture of early Southern life. V. " The History of Louisiana from the Earliest Period," by Francois Xavier Martin, 2 vols. (N. O. 1827-29.) "A complete and in the main accurate compendium of the materials at his command," says Mr. A. M. Davis. Extends to 181 5. In 1882 a new edition was published to which was appended Annals of Louisiana up to 1S61. By J. F. Condon. VI. Other works dealing with portions of the period prior to the Civil War are : 330 A'OOA'S RELATING TO LOUISIANA. ^X I. "A Description of Louisiana." By Father Louis Hennepin. Trans- lated from the edition of 1683. (N. Y. 1880.) "The most valuable as well as the most graphic of the original accounts of La Salle's explorations and the only detailed narrative of Hennepin's voyage up the Mississippi." President Adams. 2. " History of the American Indians" by James Adair. A work of great value. It treats particularly of those nations adjoining the Mississippi. 3. Description of the English Province of Carolana, by the Spaniards called Florida and by the French Louisiana. By Daniel Coxe. A verv curious work. 4. Travels through that part of North America for- merly called Louisiana. By M. Bossu. (London, 177 1) 2 vols. 5. "Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi." By Dr. Shea. A collection of translations of several voyages. Carefully annotated. 6. Early Jesuit Missions. By Bishop Kip. (Albany, 1866.) 7. Sketches, Historical and Descriptive of Louisiana. By Major Amos Stoddard. (1812.) An unos- tentatious and modest book. 8. New Orleans and Environs. A brief historical sketch of the territory and State and of the city of New Orleans from earliest period to 1845. 9- Charlevobc's " New France." Translation. (London, 1763.) An account of personal adventures. 10. Butel Dumont, George M. History of Louisiana from 16S7-1740. Derives its interest ^ 4" from his personal experiences. 11. History of Louisiana. By L^^Fage. ^^ \'''<''"'Ypj (London, 1774.) Because of his residence has a value which his manifest egotism and whimsical theories cannot entirely obscure. 12. "Travels in Louisiana and the Floridas in the year 1S02," giving a correct picture of those countries. By Benjamin Duvallon. Translation. (N. Y. 1806.) 13. Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres; or reminiscences of the life of a former merchant. Tran.slated from the German. (N. Y. 1S54.) Relates largely to affairs in and about New Orleans during the early part of this century. 14. History of Kansas. Embracing a concise sketch of Louis- iana in its relations to American slavery. By John N. HoUoway. (1868.) 15. Memoir of the War in Western Florida and Louisiana. By Arsine Latour. Translation. (Phila. 1816.) 16. Bonner's History of Louisiana to 1840. VII. Numerous works in French treat of the same period, but they do not seem to have been translated. VIII. For the Louisiana Purchase see Constitutional History of United States, by Von Hoist. Vol. I. IX. There is no comprehensive work upon the period since the begin- ning of the Civil War. There are the various histories of the Rebellion ; also : I. "General Butler in New Orleans" by James Parton. 2. "Life of A. P. Dostie or the Conflict in New Orleans" by Emily Hazan Reed. 3. " Life of David Glasgow Farragut, First Admiral of the United States Navy," by his son. (New York.) A large space devoted to the capture of New Orleans and the opening of the Mississippi. 4. A soldier's Story of the War. Including the marches and battles of the Washington Artillery and other Louisiana troops. An appendix of camp stories and tales of the Crescent City. 5. "The Creoles of Louisiana" by George W. Cable. (N. Y., 1884.) A history of the Creoles and of New Orleans. 332 BOOKS RELATING TO LOUISIANA. In Fiction Louisiana forms the setting for the following : I. " Atala " by Chateaubriand, a story of Indian life in Louisiana founded upon the author's travels there. Romantic but not accurate. 2. "Rene" by Chateaubriand. Another Indian tale similar to Atala. 3. "Creole Stories " by Prof. James A. Harrison. 4. '• Creole Tales " by J. B. Cobb. 5. "Lafitte, the Pirate of the Mexican Gulf." A tale by J. H. Ingraham. 6. "Old Creole Days," "Dr. Sevier," "Madame Delphine," "The Gran- dissimes " and " Bonarventure " by George W. Cable. 7. " Monsieur Motte," "Bonne Maman " and "Madame Lareveilliere " by Grace King. " A faithful presentation of the impulsive Southern temperament instinct with the warmth of the Southern sun." 8. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Has an alleged but not entirely trustworthy picture of slave life in Louisiana before the war. 9. "The Man without a Coun- try " by Edward Everett Hale. 10. " Philip Nolan's Friends " by Edward Everett Hale. 11. " In War Times at La Rose Blanche" by Mrs. M. E. M. Davis. A lively and pathetic picture of home life in Louisiana during the Civil War. (Boston, 188S.) In Poetry, the following titles may be enumerated as bearing on Louis- iana's Story : I. " Evangeline " by Henry W. Longfellow. 2. " Ballads of the War " by A. J. H. Duganne. 3. "Louisiana" by Mrs. Hemans. 4. "The Battle of New Orleans " by Thomas Dunn English. 5. " Out of the Plague Stricken City" by M. B. Williams; Yellow fever. 6. " War Lyrics " by Henry Howard Brownell. Several of them deal with events in Louisiana — The River Fight in particular. 7. "The Heart of Louisiana" by Harriet Stanton. 8. "We Come! We Come!" by W. Mayfield. 9. " Mumford the Martyr of New Orleans " by Ina Porter. INDEX. Abadie, M. de, governor of colony, 104 ; siirreiidered colony to Spain, 104. Acadian settlers in Louisiana, 102, 103, 241. Adair, American general at Battle of New Orleans, 22S. Atkins, Henry Watkins, Confederate gover- nor, 273. Aubrey, M., director-general for France, 107 ; shields the Spaniards, loS ; provost over- ruled by colonists, log ; recognizes Ulloa as governor, 109 ; courtesy toward Spanish officers, 112. Baton Rouge, British fort at, 122 ; captured by Galvez, 124; citizens ask protection of United States, 191 ; establishes provisional government, 191 ; State House erected, 253- Battalion d'Orleans, The, 215. Bay St. Louis, settlement at, 22 ; natural beauties of, 25. Bienville, LaMoyne de, his mission to the Indians, 28; meets English frigate, 29; succeeds Sauvolle, 30; establishes post at Mobile, 30; receives supplies, 31 ; quarrels with colonial officers, 32 ; made lieutenant- governor, 32; dispatched against the In- dians, 37; builds Fort Rosalie, 47 ; quarrels with L'Kpinay, 38; character of, 40; or- dered to secure a site for a town on the Mississippi, 47 ; commissioned as governor, 47 ; chooses site of New Orleans, 48; cap- tures Pensncola, 49; recaptures Pensacola, 53; urges agriculture, 59; cast down by Law's failure, 64; occupies Fort Rosalie, 64 ; attacks the Indians, 66 ; sees prosperity in the colony, 71 ; superseded by P^rier, 72; again appointed governor, 88; attacks the Indians, 89; defeated by them, 91 ; in disgrace, 92; again fails in Indian cam- paign, 95 ; superseded by Vaudreuil, 95 ; his character, 96. r.ienviUe, Noyan, arrested by O'Rielly, 115; executed, ti6. Biloxi, settlement at, 22 ; natural beauties of, 25 ; condition of the settlement, 30. Bollman, Dr. Erick, arrested for conspiracy, 1S7; re]eased on /utieas cor/us, 188. Bor^, Etienne, establishes sugar-cane culture, 142 ; mayor of New Orleans, 171. Boisbriant, M. de. in charge of fort at Biloxi, 30; among the Illinois, 54; governor of the Illinois country, 59. Buccarelly, Don Antonio Maria, Spanish governor, 1 18. Buccaneers, The, 19, 20; see Lafitte. Burr, Aaron, intrigues of, 186; threatens New Orleans, 187; arrest of, 189. Bvitler, General B. F., in New Orleans, 270. Cable, George W., 299. Cadillac, La Motte, governor of colony, 32 ; goes gold-hunting, 36; superseded by L'Epinay, 37. Canal, from Lake Ponchartrain, made by Carondelet, 144. Caresse, arrested by O'Reilly, 115 ; e.xecuted 116. Caroline, the schooner, at Battle of New Orleans, 214; blown up, 216. Carondelet, Don Francisco Louis Hector, Baron de, Spanish governor, 136; fortifies New Orleans, 139; makes treaties with Indians, 139; intrigues for United States territory, 141; cuts canal from Lake Pon- chartrain, 144; tampers wiih people of Kentucky and Tennessee, 146; and Wilkin- son, 149; appointed governor of Mexico, 150. Casa Calvo, Marquis de, Spanish governor, 154; superseded by Salcedo, 155; returns to province, 166; his campaign of dinners, 169; delivers province to Fiance, 170. Cat Island, settlement at, 22 ; location of, 23 ; mutiny at, 100; invested by British, 204. Chainpmeslin, Cointe de, attacks Pensacola, 52- Chopart, commander at Fort Rosalie, 74 ; killed by Indians, 76. Charles V. of Spain and Germany, 12, 13. Charlevoix, Father, in New Orleans, 62 ; sees wild indigo growing in Mississippi, 69. 333 334 INDEX. Cliateaguay, La Moyne de, left in command at Pensacola, 50; surrenders to Spaniards, 5°- Claiborne, Governor, of Mississippi, commis- sioner to receive Louisiana for United States, 171; takes possession, 173; issues proclamation as governor, 173 ; urges action against Spaniards, 185; denounces Burr's treason, 1S8; organizes militia, 188; raises American flag at Francisville, 192 ; unable to avert Indian troubles, 201 ; assists Jack- son, 203; in 1815,211; seeks aid of Lafitte's pirates, 215 ; administration closed, 252. Clarke, Jr., Daniel, raises militia for protec- tion of New Orleans, 175. Codero, Don Antonio, Spanish governor of Texas, invades Louisiana, 1S5 ; intrigues with Wilkinson, 186. Coffee, General, American general, 205, 206, 207. Collot, General, on defenses of New Orleans in 1795, 148. Creeks and Chickasaws (see Indians). Creoles, The, their love for France, 122 ; their " genealogy," 165 : join Clarke's mili- tia, 175; defense of, 180; loyalty of in 1812, 211, 212, 214, 215; in Louisiana, 240 ; interested in literature, 296. Crozat, Sieur Antony, granted exclusive right of trade in Louisiana, 32; ignorance regarding the colony, 35; abandons his contract, 38. Dacquin, at Battle of New Orleans, 215. D'Artaguette, marches against the Indians, 89; defeated by them, 92. Davis, Mrs. RL E. M., 299. DeLeon (see Leon). Depassau, Captain George, leads an attack on Baton Rouge, 191. Derbigny, Pierre, elected governor, 244; dies in ofifice, 245. Dernisseau, M., granted control of trade of the Missouri, 96. DeSoto (see Soto). Delery, 296. Dufour, 296. Dugud, 296. Delpit, 296. Doucet, M., joins revolt against Spain, no. Dupre, Jacques, succeeds Governor Der- bigny, 245. English, in Louisiana, 24, 29, 80, 98, 122, 124, 128, 201; defeated at Mobile, 202; appear before New Orleans, 204 ; entrenched near New Or!' ans, 214 ; attack the Anieiicans, 207; defeated in Battle of New Orleans, 233. Espeleta, joins expedition against Pensacola, 126, 128. " Filles a la Cassette," 165. Flournoy, General, supersedes Wilkinson, 200; superseded, 202. Focault, commissary, joins in revolt against Spain, no. " Frankland, State of," desires to join Spain, 135- French privateer threatens New Orleans, 146. Galvez, Don Bernard de, Spanish governor, 121; and Col. Morgan, 122; assaults the English, 123 ; captures Baton Rouge ; made brigadier-general, 124; leads expedition against Mobile, 124; captures Mobile, 125; assaults Pensacola, 125; branch of, 127; captures Pensacola, 12S; honored and re- warded, 129; made captain-general, 130; his character, 130; his wife, 130. Gayarre, Charles, his history of Louisiana, 296. Gayoso, Don Manuel, Spanish governor, 150; restricts immigration, 153; death of, 154. Genet, M., intrigues against Louisiana, 141. Gibbs, Major-General Samuel, British gen- eral, 215; leads British charge, 229. Gourges, Dominic de, 16. Grandpre, Governor, 184, 191. Guizot, on John Law's failure, 60. Hahn, Michael, elected governor, 273. Hearn, Lafcadio, 299. Hebert, P. O., elected governor, 247. Herrera, General, invades Louisiana, 186; retreats before Wilkinson, 186. Iberville, Pierre Le Moyne de, reaches Louisi- ana, 22, 23 ; enters the Mississippi, 25 ; sails for France, 26; returns, 30; sails for France, 30; detained in Europe, 31. Indians, trouble with, 66; outbreak of, 75; capture Fort Rosalie, 76; excesses of, 77; attacked by Le Sueur, 78; defeated by Perier, 84 ; Natchez tribe make a last stand, 85-86 ; defeat Bienville and D'Artaguette, 91-95 ; make treaties with Carondelet, 139; attack Fort Mims, 201. Irving, Theodore, on De Soto, 13. Izrabel, Don Jose Cabro de, commands Span- ish expedition against Pensacola, 125; de- lays the attack, 126 ; supports attacked by Galvez, 127. Jackson, Andrew, 180, 199; routs the Indians at Talladega, 201 ; at Tohopeka, 202 ; super- INDEX. 335 sedes General Floiirnay, 202 ; strenglliens defenses, 202 ; takes Pensacola, 202 ; foi li- fies New Orleans, 203 ; movements asainst British, 204, 205, 206; engages British forces, 207; " the man for the emergency," 208; enemies in New Orleans, 212; fights the battle of New Orleans, 219, 22.1, 227, 231. Johnson, Henry, elected governor, 244. Johnson, Isaac, elected governor, 246. Joliet, Louis, 20. Jones, Lieutenant, his tlotilla captured by British, 204. Kemper brothers, the, arrest and rescue of, 184. Kerlerec, AL le Capitain, governor of colony, 99; troubles of, loi. King, Grace, 299. " Know Nothing," disturbance, 255. Lacaste, at Battle of New Orleans, 215. Lafitte, Jean, the buccaneer, 197, 198; joins the American forces, 215. LafreniJre, attorney-general, leads revolt against Spain, no; arrested by O'Reilly, 115; execution of, 116. La Salle, Robert Cavelier de, 21. Last Island, destruction of, 254. Laussat, M., French prefect, 160; arrives in New Orleans, 165: and Casa Calvo, 169; instructed to deliver Louisiana to the United States, 169 ; publishes terms of treaty, 170; snubs Spanish officers, 172; delivers province to United States, 173. Law, John, 43 ; hi* financial schemes, 44-4'^ ; secures grant of land in Louisiana, 57 ; fail- ure of, 60. Laudonnifere, Rene Gonlaine de, 16. Leon, John Ponce de, i6. L'Epinay, M. de, governor of colony, 37, 3S. Lepouse, 296. Le Sueur, M., marches against the Indians, 78. Lopez, Don Ramon, Spanish Intendant, 154; removes restrictions of Gayoso, 154. Lopez, General, the " fillibuster," 247. Loubois, Chevalier, attacks the Indians, 79; builds new Fort Rosalie, 79. Louisiana, first settlement of, 22 ; natural beauties of, 23 ; right of trade in, granted to Crozat, 32; under Law's schemes, 4;; character of early settlers, 48; harassed by Spaniaids and Indians, 53; lands granted to prominent Frenchmen, 57; first success- ful planters in, 60; made independent of Canada, 65; resources of, 69; prosperity begins, 71 ; trouble with Indians, 75-77 ; de- clared free to all Frenchmen, 86; devastated by tornado, 97 ; cotton and sugar cultivated, 98; financial depression in, loi ; growth of, 102; transferred to Spain, 103; resists transfer to Spain, 107; submits, 115; under O'Reilly, iiS; under Unzaga, 121; during American Revolution, 121 ; growth of emigration, 123 ; elation at successes against British, 124 ; depression in, 129; boundaries fixed by treaty of 1783, 130; population of, 111 1785, 133; revival of emigration, 133; fortified by Carondelet, 140; development of sugar industry, 145 ; boundaries by treaty of 1795, 145; troubles with United States, 153; increase of immigration, 155; ceded to France, 156; sold to United States, 157; ignorance of Napoleon's plans, 161 ; population in 1803, 162 ; state of province, 174; boundaries of, 176; attractions of, 177; called "Territory of Orleans." 178 ; society in, 179; sugar industry, 182; dur- ing Burr's insurrection, 189; admitted into the Union, 196; enlarged, 196; population in 1813, igg; careless as to defenses, 203 ; after Battle of New Orleans, 238; Consti- tution of, 242; classes in, 243; sugar in- dustry most prosperous, 245 ; sends troops to Mexican War, 246; depression in busi- ness, and finances, 252 ; society and life in, 255; slavery in, 257; secession of, 259; expedition against, 263 ; after the war, 275, 279; prosperity of, 2S6. Louisiana, The ship, at Battle of New Or- leans, 214; escapes from British, 217; si- lences the British batteries, 218. Mansfield, Battle of, 274. Marquette, Father, 20. Marquis, Captain, joins revolt against Spain, no; arrested, 115; executed, 116. Mazent, M., joins revolt against Spain, no. Menendez, Pedro de Aviles, 16. Merciir, 296. Martin, Judge, his History of Louisiana, 296. Milhet, arrested by O'Reilly, 115; executed, 116. Mims, Fort, massacre at, 293. Mir6, joins expedition against Pensacola, 126, 128; strives to promote emigration lo- Louisiana, 133; and Wilkinson, 134; >"- trigues of, 135. Mississippi City, natural beauties of, 25. Mississippi Company, The, constituted, 44 ; send war-ships, 49; send supplies and rein- forcements, 52; embarrassments of, 59; Z2>(^ INDEX. failure of, 60; surrender all riglits to the crown, 86, Mississippi River, The, reached by De Soto, 14; navigated by Spaniards, 15; reached by Joliet, 20; by La Salle, 21; region about its delta, 22 ; above its mouth, 24; entered by d'Iberville, 25 ; closed to traders by O'Reilly, 117 ; made free by treaty, 130 ; commerce restricted by Salcedo, 155 ; con- trol secured by United States, 160; trade of, 176; enjoys steam navigation, 239; frozen, 244; opened by Federal forces, 273 ; improvements of, 291. ■ Mobile, first capital of Louisiana, 22. Montplaissir, M. de, establishes tobacco fac- tory, 49. Moore, Thomas O., elected governor, 247; seizes arsenals and military stores, 259. Morgan, Colonel George, asks right of pas- sage for American army, 122. Mouton, Alexander, elected governor, 246. Mouton, Alfred, Confederate General, 272. Napoleon, his design against Louisiana, 156; sells Louisiana to United States, 158. Narvaez, Pamphilo (or Panfilo) de, 16. Natchez, The (see Indians). Negro plot, 144; and insurrection, 192 New Iberia, settlement of, 123. New Orleans, 22 ; site of, chosen, 48; visited by Charlevoix, 62; poor sanitary arraug- ments of, 65, condition of in 1726, 72, fortified, 78, prosperity of in 1732, 87; resists Spanish occupation, 107 ; society in 1766, no, submits to O'Reilly, 114; fire at, 134, "census of, 134; rebuilt, 136; trade with Philadelplua, 136; defenceless condi- tion of, 139; fortified by Carondelet, 139; place of refuge for French eiitigres, 143 ; sanitary condition of, in 1795, 147; defenses of, 156; overrun with spies, 153 ; character of in 1803, 162, 163 ; real character of, 181; martiallawin, 187; Burr's emissaries i") 187; growing importance of, ig6 , threatened by British, 203 ; and General Jackson, 212; Battle of, 224, 229; rejoicing over victory, 235 ; a Creole city, 239; enor- mous traflic of, 245; expedition against, 263, Farragtit captures, 270; disturbances ■ in, 280, 281 ; exposition, 288. Nichols, Colonel, leads British land forces, 202. Oaks, The, dueling ground, 248. Ocean Springs, natural beauties of, 25. Ogden, Peter V., arrested for conspiracy, 187. O'Reilly, Don Alexander, lands at New Orleans, 113; arrests the insurrectionists, ris; punishes them, 115; stamps out insur- rection, 116; his character, 116, 118; his administration, 117; superseded by Bucca- re!ly, 118. Packenham, Sir Edward, British commander at Battle of New Orleans, 215: makes a reconnaissance, 217; at Battle of New Orleans, 226 ; death of, 230. Panmure, Fort, captured by Englisli insur- gents, 128. Pass Christian, natural beauties of, 25. Pauger, M. de, examines site of New Or- leans, 54. Pensacola, 22, 24 ; captured by Bienville, 49 ; retaken by Vallero, 50 ; captured by Champ- meslin and Bienville, 53; captured by Spaniards under Izrabel and Galvez, 128; captured by Jackson, 202. Percy, Sir W. H., commands British fleet, 202. Perier, M, de, supersedes Bienville as gover- nor, 72 ; asks aid against Indians, 73 ; re- ports Indian troubles, 77; determines to exterminate the Natchez Indians, 80; mas- sacres the Chouacas, 83 ; destroys the Natchez, 84; disliked by colonists, 88. Plnnche, at Battle of New Orleans, 215. Port Hudson, captured, 273. Porter, Major, drives Spaniards from Ameri- can territory, 185. Rhea, John, president of " West Florida," 192. Robinson, Thomas R., elected governor, 224. Roman, Bienvenu, elected governor, 245; again elected, 246. Roosevelt, T. L., on The Caroline, 214. Rosalie, Fort, buih, 37; destroyed by In- dians, 76; new fort built, 79. Roux, M., commandant of Cat Island, killed by his soldiers, 100. St. Ceran, 296. Salcedo, Don Juan Manuel de, Spanish gov- ernor, 155 ; restricts the Mississippi com- merce, 155. Sanvolle, de la Villantry, lieutenant of d'Iber- ville, 26; death of, 30. Serigny, La Moyne de, arrives, 49. Sevier, John, governor of " Fiankland," 135. Shea, Dr., on De Soto, 15. Ship Island, settlement at, 22 ; location of, 23- Shreveport, Confederate capita. 273. INDEX. 337 Smith, Charles C, on Acadian settlers, 103 (note). Soto, Hernando de, 11-15. Spaniards in Li>iiisi.ina, 24; attack Mobile, 50; harass the colony, 53-57; obtain col- ony by treaty, 103 ; delay taking possession, 108; colonial revolt against, no; fleet and army dispatched to Louisiana, 112; in- trigues to gain United Slates territory, 135 ; ignorance of Napoleon's p!ans, 160; admin- istration of, 163 ; delivers i)rovince to France, 170; relinquish last territory, 1S5. Steele, Andrew, secretary of "West Florida," 192. Swartwout, Samuel, arrested for conspiracy, 187. " Territory of Orleans," see Louisiana. "Territory of West Florida," The, organ- ized, 192; anne.\ed to "Territory of Or- leans," 192. Thomas, Captain, leads attack on Baton Rouge, 191. Ulloa, Don .Antonio de, arrives to take posses- sion of Louisiana for Spain, 104; delays the act, 107; resisted by colonists, loS; sails for Cuba, loS. United .States, Independence of, 130; citizens intrigue for union with .Spain, 135 ; troubles with Louisiana, 153; purchases Louisiana for France, 158; takes possession of Louis- iana, 173. Unzaga, Don Luis de, Spanish governor, iiS; his administration, 121. Vallero, Marquis of, retakes Pen.sacola, 50. Vaudreuil, Pierre Francois, Marquis de, gov- ernor of colony, 96; attacks the Indians, 98; appointed governor of Canada, 99; character of his administration in Louis- iana, 99. Victor, General, acts for French govern- ment, 160. Villi^re, General, at Rattle of New Orleans, 215; elected governor, 243. Villiere, M. de, joins re\olt against Spain, 1:0; drives Ulloa from the province, no; atteiripts to leave colony, 112; murder of, 115. Watt, Mr., on Law's schemes, 46. Walker, Joseph, elected governor, 247. While, Edward, elected governor, 246. Wilkinson, James, appears in New Orleans, 133; favors Miro's schemes, 134; intrigues of, 135; and Carondelet, 149; andOayoso, 150; in New Orleans, 154; U. S. commis- sion to secure Louisiana, 171 ; takes posses- sion, 173; marches against Spaniards, 186; intrigues with Governor Codero, 186, (note); fortifies New Orleans against Burr, 1S7; urges new fortifications, 199; super- seded, 200. Wycklifife, Robert, elected governor, 247. THE STORY OF THE STATES EDITED BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS m The Story of Louisiana is the third issue in the proposed series of graphic narrations descriptive of the rise and development of the American Union. As the record of a commonwealth whose people are unique alike in effort and environment and whose story is opening to modern romancers a most attractive field for study the publishers indulge the hope that this volume will receive from every section of the great Republic the popular recognition and approval that so charming a story of so interesting a State would seem to warrant. Great care is being exercised in the selection of writers for the series and the expressions of pop- ular and critical approval of the plan adopted are gratefully acknowledged by the publishers. This third volume will be speedily followed by two others already in press: The Story of Vermont by John L. Heaton. The Story of Kentucky by Emma M. Connelly. The Story of Massachusetts by Edward Everett Hale will be one of the earliest issues in the spring of 1 889. THE STORY OF THE STATES. Among the other volumes secured for the series, several of which are already well toward completion, are : '1 he Story of California . The Story of Virginia The Story of Connecticut The Story of Missouri The Story of Texas The Story of Maryland . The Story of Delaware . The Story of the Indian Territory The Story of Michigan The Story of Colorado . . , The Story of the District of Columbia The Story of Oregon The Story of Maine The Story of Pennsylvania The Story of Kansas The Story of Mississippi . The Story of W'isconsin . The Story of Florida The Story of Alabama The Story of Tennessee . The Story of Arkansas . Uy Noah Brooks By Mauion IIarland By Sidney Luska By Jessie Benton Frkmont By E. S. Nadal By John R. Coryell By Olive Thorne Miller By George E. Foster By Charles Moore By Charles M. Skinner By Edmund Alton By Margaret E. Sangsier By Almon Gunnison By Olive Risley Seward By Willis J. Abkott By Laura F. Hinsdale By Reuben G. Thwaites By S. G. W. Benjamin By Annie Sawyer Downs By Laura C. Holi.oway By Octave Thanet The stories will be issued at the uniform net subscription price of $1.50 per volume. Announce- ments of additions to the series will be made in succeeding volumes. Inquiries respecting the series may be addressed to the publishers, D. LOTHROP COMPANY, BOSTON. THE STORY OF THE STATES. {Already /mblished.) I— The Story of New York, by Elbridge S. Brooks. II — The Story of Ohio, by Alexander Black. The initial volumes of this new and notable contribution to American history have been so favorably received that little doubt can remain as to the need of the series they inaugurate and the permanent popularity of the style adopted for their telling. "Of the series instructively," says the Eosfoii Globe, "one can hardly say too much in praise. In a new field it contrib- utes essentially and influentially to the right estimation of national character and of the mission of the future." I — THE STORY OF NEW YORK. One volume, 8vo, fully illustrated, $1.50. Every American should read this book. It is not dull history. It is story based on historic facts. " With all the fascinations of a story," says \\\^ Journal of Education, " it still remains loyal to historic facts and the patriotic spirit." OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. "A valuable contribution to picturesque history." — Boston Advertiser. " Vivid, picturesque and entertaining," — Minneapolis Tribune. " To one familiar with the history of New York State this book will be exceedingly refresh- ing and interesting. Mr. Brooks is an entertaining writer and his Story of New York will be read withavidity. He is no novice in historic writing. This book will' add to his reputation and will find its way into thousands of private libraries." — Utica Press. " Admirable, terse, breezy, vernacular, entertaining and ingenious." — Brooklyti Times. " Its method and style are to be welcomed as original and new to American histories and are to be commended strongly for the study and skill with which they are employed. . It is particularly adapted to the business spirit which now controls American effort, and conl tributes to healthful encouragement of it. ... A fascinating interest, as well as an intelli- gent understanding, is secured without any abatement in any of its periods, «« interest that at times is as cofitrolling as that which is enjoyed in the novel. . . . The series will occupy a unique and high place among American histories in literary power and agreeable instruction." — Boston Globe. " There is not a slow page in the book." — Christian at Work. '' Mr. Brooks has already amply proved his skill as a writer of historical books. His style IS lucid, and he has in^ an eminent degree the facultv of selecting and presenting fact? in a fashion to interest the imagination as well as to instruct the mind, "in the present volume the human element, the effect of character upon surroundings and of surroundings upon character, the picturesque features of colonial life, the important landmarks in State growth have been so combined and worded into a consistent and often amusing narrative that one forgets at times whether he is reading dry history or pleasant romance." — Christian Union. "One of the most noticeable features of the book is the absence of the dullness which neces- sarily attends a minute description of the formation and growth of a State, for Mr. Brookshas skipped all this and catching the spirit of the times has given page after page of historic events and not one dull one." — Leiviston yournal. THE ST OKY OF THE STATES 11— THE STORY OF OHIO. 0..e vol., Svo, 3-6 1>->SW. '•'">■ iH""™'"'. 5'' 50- This volume has been received with the most enthusiastic aooroval No existing ^vork occupies precsely the same field. uL at once picture, te.K.-book and story. Mr. Black's sk.ll ,n „,Kle s° 'i ,.o so brief a compass so much valuable matter hi dett r„dlin. of all the varying phases of Olno's story and It rescue presentation of what in other hands nnght be C U^e dry detail of history have secured alike popular recog- nition and popular approval. OPIXIOXS OF THE PRESS. .. TO incorporate wU.in .o.e th- >— ^^ ^^^ ^S^^^l^^^ a„d valuable and .s well adapted for popuia ^^^_^^^^^ reader." -C/i^^-'i-" ■'"«"■ , U is one of those rare vol- <■ Mr B'ack's book .s a success from.tbe fi'-^'Palhinetfne reads tbvdush and thoroughly delight." - Bo^iou Co,mncrc,al. ^^^^.^ ^.^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ,^5^,^^^ Milwaukee Wisconsin. j , ^e^t central .. J„st the book to put into the bat^^i ^ ^Z^J.^:" '^2^:^^ commonwealth of our nation. -/'A//^'^'^///^ m„d u as a e,.d..»bl. .-d c,.,o,abfc boot. _ ,„4,p„l,M. ...„„™»d.ccoo..-...»i....P.p*»;; --^^^ .. . .,0. o, ,.. "»p'""7;:t:: ■„::.„ „..,d-b„,o.i,.." - "■•»*■„.,.» "Than this, no history can be more alluring National Republican. ^^ _ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^.j^ ^ dvcrtiser. .. A remarkable story uncommonly well told. ^^^^^^^^ .^ ^^^^.^^^ ^^ „^^ -The book reads like a pleasant story and the interest end." - A Ibany Express. H.eriture " — Boston Traveller. .. A notable addition not only to historical but to ^^^ r^^,^,,^,,. Union. <• A picturesque and dramatic story told iiatura ly and e. • Pr ^^^^ ^^ ..ALrvwell worth reading ^^^Te^h^^ry^^^^^^^ any age which can appreciate vigorous ana > ^ ^^^^^. a^,„„„. .