The Settlement of Louisiana

IN THE 24th of September, 1698, two frigates, Le Badine, of thirty guns and two hundred men, commanded by M. d’Iberville; and Le Marin, of thirty guns, commanded by M. la Comte de Surgere, with two store-ships, were fitted out by order of the King, and sailed from Rochefort to plant a colony on the Mississippi. On the 4th of December, they arrived at Cape Francois, St. Domingo, where they found M. le Marquis de Chateaumorant, who commanded the frigate Le Francais, of fifty guns, to whom M. d’Iberville delivered instructions for him to join in the expedition to the Mississippi River,. . . On the 6th of February, M. d’Iberville anchored off the pass, between Horn and Ship Island, which he named, and finding it difficult to enter this channel, he sailed four leagues further to the west, where he discovered the Chandeleur Islands….

On the 27th M. d’Iberville and Bienville embarked in two feluccas, with Father Anatase and thirty men each, to explore the mouths of the Mississippi River. On the 2nd of March they entered a large river, which Father Anatase, who had accompanied M. de la Salle, recognized as the Mississippi from the appearance of its turbid waters. On the 7th, having advanced forty leagues up the river, they perceived at some distance three canoes filled with Indians, who all fled except one man, to whom they gave some presents, and learned from him that they belonged to the Bayagoula nation. They met several canoes of Indians belonging to the Ouacha nation, living near the fork of the Mississippi, who told them that they did not live far from the Chitimachas nation.

On the 14th they arrived at the Bayagoula and Mongaulacha nations, numbering about eight hundred warriors. They found here several cloaks, which had been given them by M. de la Salle…. It was here, while looking for Father Anatase’s breviary, they found several prayer books in an Indian basket, in which were written the names of several Canadians who had accompanied the late M. de la Salle down the river; together with a letter addressed to him by Chevalier de Tonty, informing him "that having learned of his departure from France to form a settlement on this river, he had descended it as far as the sea with twenty Canadians and thirty Chaounans," from the neighborhood of the Ouabache. This discovery now relieved them from all doubts of the river they were in, and they ascertained the mouth of the Mississippi to be in about twenty-nine degrees north latitude….

On the 12th of April M. d’Iberville set out to visit a bay about nine leagues from Ship Island, to which he gave the name of St. Louis. On finding the water very shallow there, he concluded to fix his settlement at Biloxi. Here he built a fort with four bastions, which he mounted with twelve cannons, and gave the command of it to his brothers Sauvolle and Bienville; and having manned it with a force of thirty-five men, he set sail for France on the 4th of May….

On the 7th of December, a salute was fired at the fort, announcing the arrival of M. d’Iberville and La Surgere, in the ships Renomme of fifty, and the Gironde of forty-six guns, with many officers and passengers…. M. Le Sueur also came as a passenger in the Gironde. He had acquired celebrity by his travels in Canada; and was now sent on the part of M. L’Huillier, Farmer General, to make a settlement on the Mississippi, and to work some mines there which he had discovered some years before.

M. d’Iberville was informed of the attempt of the English to find the Mississippi, and he resolved to make a settlement on its banks. He accordingly set sail on two shallops, with fifty men, and arrived in the river on the 15th of January, 1700. He had previously sent in M. de Bienville to the Bayagoulas to procure guides, and to select a place above inundation. They conducted him to a ridge, of high land, at a distance of about eighteen leagues from the sea. Four days after, M. d’Iberville arrived there and commenced building a fort. . .

On the 28th of May, 1700, M. d’Iberville set sail for France, and on the same day M. de Bienville took command of the fort on the Mississippi. On the 29th he dispatched M. de Saint Denis to explore the country in the Red River, and to watch the Spaniards. On the 30th of May, 1701, the Enflammee of twenty-six guns, commanded by M. de la Ronde, arrived at Ship Island. Among the passengers was M. Sagan, a traveler from Canada, who had presented a memoir to the minister, M. de Pontchartrain, assuring him that he had traveled all over the Mississippi, and had found mines of gold on its banks; and that the Indians had worked them. The minister, putting faith in his statements, granted to M. Sagan some privileges, and ordered M. de Sauvolle to supply him with twenty-four pirogues and one hundred Canadians, to accompany him to the Missouri.

On the 22d of August, M. de Sauvolle died at Biloxi, and M. de Bienville was left sole commander of the colony.

On the 16th of September, a party of Chactas arrived at Biloxi to demand of the French some troops to assist them to fight the Chicachas. The Chactas nation contained forty villages, and over five thousand warriors. On the 25th of October, twenty Mobileans arrived at Fort Biloxi. This nation was situated about one hundred and forty leagues up that river, and contained about four hundred men. On the 18th of December, a shallop arrived from Pensacola with the news that M. d’Iberville and Serigny had arrived there with the King’s ships, the Renommee of fifty guns, and the Palmier of forty-four guns. This news spread joy in the garrison, as it had then been living on corn for more than three months. It had lost by sickness upwards of sixty men, leaving only one hundred and fifty persons in the colony.

M. de Bienville received orders by the shallop to evacuate Biloxi, and remove to Mobile River. On the 5th of January, 1701, M. de Bienville took up his march for the Mobile River, leaving but twenty men under the command of M. de Boisbriant to man the fort. At Dauphin Island, M. de Bienville had an interview with M. de Serigny and Chateaugue, who had arrived there with a detachment of sailors and workmen, to build a magazine for the reception of the goods and provisions which had been brought from France. On the 16th M. de Bienville commenced a settlement on the Mobile River, about eighteen leagues from the sea. On the 10th M. le Sueur returned from his expedition to the Scioux, with two hundred thousand pounds weight of copper ore.

The following is an extract taken from his journal:

"Having arrived in the colony in December, 1699, with thirty workmen, he set out for the Tamarois in June, 1700. He stopped at the mouth of the Missouri River, and from thence proceeded to the Illinois River, where he was joined by three Canadian travelers, who brought him a letter from Father Marest, a Jesuit from the mission house of ’L’Immaculee Conception de la Sainte Vierge aux Illinois."

"At twenty-two leagues above the Illinois, he passed a small river, which he named the Buffalo: and on going nine leagues further he met a party of Canadians descending the Mississippi, returning to the Illinois. On the 30th July, he met seventeen Scioux in seven canoes, going to avenge the death of three Scioux by the Illinois, one of whom had been burnt, and the other two killed at Tamarois, a few days before his arrival at this village. He promised the Chief of the Illinois to pacify the Scioux if they should come to make war on him. He presented to the chief of the party some merchandise to induce him to return to his nation. He told him that the King of France did not wish them to make war, and if he would desist he should be supplied with everything necessary. The chief accepted the presents, and promised to obey the King….

"On the 1st September, he passed the Wisconsin river, which is about half a league wide at its mouth. On ascending this river about forty-five leagues, he found a portage of more than a mile in length, consisting in part of marshy ground, from which a little stream took its rise and flowed into the Puan bay, inhabited by a great number of Indian tribes, who trade in furs to Canada….

"From the 10th to the 14th, M. de Sueur traveled seventeen leagues and a half, passed the river Raisin, and also on the same day a great river coming from the North called the Bon-Secours, on account of the great number of buffalo, deer, bears and roebucks found there. Three leagues from the banks of this river is a lead mine, and at seven leagues above, on the same side, he passed another river, in the neighborhood of which he discovered a copper mine, from which he took sixty pounds of ore in a former voyage: but to make it of any value, a peace must first be made between the Scioux and the Outagamis. At a league and a half further to the North-West is a lake, six leagues long and more than a league in width, called Lake Pepin….

On the 15th he passed a small river, and saw several canoes descending, filled with Indians. He heard them make a noise similar to that just before they are going to fall upon their enemy; and, having placed his men behind some trees, he ordered them not to fire until the word of command was given. The chief of the party, after making some observations, advanced with the calumet, (which is a sign of peace among the Indians,) and said that, not having seen before any Frenchmen navigating the Mississippi in boats like theirs, they took them to be English, and raised the war-cry.

"M. le Sueur told them that the King of France, of whom they had heard so much in Canada, had sent him to settle in the country, and he wished all the nations who inhabited it, as well as those under his protection, to live in peace….

He then entered Blue River [Minnesota], so called from some mines of blue earth which he found on its banks. At this place he met nine Scioux, who told him that this river came from the country of the Scioux of the West. He built a post here, but finding that his establishment did not please the Scioux of the East as well as the neighboring tribes, he had to tell them that his intentions were only to trade in beaver skins, although his real purpose was to explore the mines in this country, which he had discovered some years before.

"He then presented them with some powder, balls, knives and tobacco, and invited them to come to his fort, as soon as it was constructed, and he would tell them the intentions of the King his master. The Scioux of the West have, according to the accounts of those of the East, more than a thousand huts.

"They do not use canoes or cultivate the land, but wander in the prairies between the upper Mississippi and the Missouri, and live by hunting.

"All the Scioux say they have three souls, and that after death the good one goes to a warm country, the bad one to a cold country, and the third watches the body. They are very expert with their bows. Polygamy is very common among them. They are extremely jealous, and sometimes fight duels for their wives. They make their huts out of buffalo skins, sewed together, and carry them with them. Two or three families generally live together. They are great smokers. They swallow the smoke, but some time after they force it up from their stomach through their nose….

"On the 1st of December, they invited M. Ie Sueur to a great feast which they had prepared for him. They made a speech, and presented him with a slave and a sack of oats…. . .

On the 18th of March, 1702, M. d’Iberville arrived at Dauphin Island, in the frigate Palmier, which he brought into port without any difficulty, there being twenty-one feet or more of water at the pass. On the 19th, M. de la Salle arrived with his family at For[t] Mobile, which had just been finished, and the headquarters of the colony about to be removed there from Dauphin [Massacre] Island. On the 25th, M. de Tonty, who had been sent by M. d’Iberville on a mission to the Chactas and Chicachas, arrived at Mobile, bringing with him some of the principal chiefs of those nations, to make a treaty of peace. By presents and entreaties M. d’Iberville made them agree to live in peace together. On the 27th, M. d’Iberville returned to Dauphin Island, and from thence he went to Pensacola. On the 13th of April, M. Dugue arrived with a transport ladened with provisions. On the 31st, M. d’Iberville and de Serigny departed for France. On the 12th of May, eight Alibamon Chiefs arrived at Mobile to consult with M. de Bienvillle whether they should continue to war with the Chicachas, Tomes, and Mobilians. He advised them to make a peace, and gave them some presents for this purpose. On the 24th of June, a Spanish shallop arrived from Pensacola, on board of which was Don Jose de Roblas, Captain of Infantry, and a son of the nurse of Count de Montezuma, bringing a letter from Francisco Martin, Governor of Pensacola, asking to be supplied with some provisions, which M. de Bienville granted.

On the 10th of August, M. de Bienville was informed that M. St. Denis and some Canadians had invaded the territory of our allies to capture slaves, which he ordered to be restored.

On the 1st of October, M. Davion, missionary, and Father Limoge, a Jesuit, arrived from the Mississippi, to give notice that one of their brethren and three Frenchmen had been murdered on the Yasous River, by two young Courois, who had acted as their guides.

On the 11th of November, Don Francisco Martin arrived from Pensacola, with the news that France and Spain were at war with England, and asked for a supply of arms and powder, which was given him.