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Historical Background

The French: Trappers and Traders (continued)

DEVELOPMENT OF LOUISIANA

Not long after La Salle's initial penetration of the lower Mississippi region in 1682 and his aborted Texas venture in 1685, the French took steps to found permanent settlements along the lower Mississippi. In 1698, the Le Moyne brothers, the Sieur d'Iberville and the Sieur de Bienville, sons of a prominent Quebec official, obtained a patent from Louis XIV to colonize the mouth of the Mississippi. Early the next year, the expedition of 4 vessels and about 200 colonists and soldiers temporarily landed at Dauphin Island, in Mobile Bay. It then moved westward in the gulf to Ship Island, just offshore from present Biloxi, Miss. Leaving the fleet and colonists at the island, Bienville and Iberville explored the lower Mississippi in small boats. Though they separated at one time, they finally reunited at the island. After Iberville sailed away to Canada, the colonists and soldiers settled on the mainland at Old Biloxi, near present Ocean Springs, and constructed Fort Maurepas. Bienville continued his exploration of the region. When Iberville returned, the brothers built Fort de la Boulaye about 40 miles below the site of New Orleans and garrisoned it between 1700 and 1707.

A dance of the Natchez Indians. From an on-the-scene drawing by Antoine du Pratz, published in 1758. (Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution.)

Because of adverse conditions at Fort Maurepas, including disease, a shortage of food, and poor morale, Iberville decided to relocate most of the colonists on the Mobile River, about 30 miles above its entrance into Mobile Bay. There he built Fort Louis de la Mobile, and set up a post on Dauphin Island as port of entry to the colony. In 1710#151;11, after Iberville's death, Bienville moved the colony to the site of Mobile, and built a new Fort Louis, renamed Fort Conde in 1720. The Mobile settlement, despite the protests of the Spanish commander at nearby Pensacola, grew steadily and soon numbered more than 1,000. Other settlers founded New Biloxi, which became the seat of government for Louisiana, and some soon moved up the rivers and streams into present Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and beyond. As early as 1700, Pierre Charles le Sueur had led an expedition of 20 men northward against the treacherous current of the Mississippi as far as the Minnesota River, where he set up a temporary base called Fort L'Huillier. Iberville had visited Arkansas Post, and Bienville had explored along the lower Red River.

In 1712, Louis XIV, anxious to develop Louisiana but having an empty treasury, turned to a commercial venture. He granted Sieur Antoine Crozat a trading monopoly and other rights in the province, whose boundaries were set to take in the settlements in the Illinois country, including St. Denis, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Starved Rock, but not those in the Wisconsin region. Crozat sent Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac to replace Bienville as Governor. Cadillac immediately invoked the enmity of the settlers by imposing a series of severe restrictions on them, paying trappers low prices for skins, and charging exorbitant prices for supplies. He also failed to maintain the good relations with the Indians that Bienville had inaugurated. In 1715, stirred by rumors of mineral wealth in Missouri, Cadillac investigated the area but found nothing. When he returned, he found that the Indians had risen against the settlers. In 1717, the disillusioned Crozat recalled him to France.

French posts and settlements in present United States. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

That same year, Crozat turned his patent over to one of the most amazing promotional enterprises in Western European history—the Company of the West, a stock concern headed by John Law, a glamorous Scotsman. After failing in his attempt to found a Government-sponsored national bank in his mother country, in 1716 Law had persuaded the French Crown to endorse his scheme to exploit the resources of Louisiana. The following year he formed his company, which absorbed Crozat's patent. Then, in 1718, as the speculative shares in Law's ventures soared in price, the Crown agreed to back his banknotes. Shortly thereafter, the King authorized one of Law's companies, in return for a guarantee to pay a specified portion of the national debt, to manage the mint, issue coinage, and collect all national taxes.

Based largely on rumors of wealth in the lower Mississippi region, speculation in Law's stock reached proportions unparalleled in Europe at the time. Law proposed, among other things, to settle 6,000 whites and 3,000 Negro slaves in Louisiana. He actually settled 700 German colonists near Arkansas Post. In 1720, the "Mississippi Bubble" burst, the complex structure of Law's corporate system collapsed, and the colony near Arkansas Post was abandoned, the settlers moving to a site near New Orleans. Thousands of people who invested in Law's scheme lost money, but Louisiana enjoyed a sudden spurt of growth and publicity.

The Natchez Indians hunt buffalo. From an on-the-scene drawing by Antoine du Pratz, published in 1758. (Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution.)

Under the impetus first of Crozat's company and then of the boom generated by John Law, the French expanded all their frontiers in Louisiana. In 1714, Bienville occupied a site just north of present Montgomery, Ala., which he fortified in 1717 and named Fort Toulouse. Only intermittently garrisoned, it served as a spearhead for French efforts to gain Indian allies in the imperial contest with the English and Spanish, as well as a defensive outpost for the protection of the settlements at Mobile Bay. In 1716, Bienville established a fort and trading post at the Natchez Indian village up the Mississippi from the site of New Orleans. Named Fort Rosalie, the post became the center of a significant settlement and was a key French post between 1716 and 1763. It was of such strategic value that over the course of time it quartered Spanish, British, and United States troops. The village on its flank became the city of Natchez, Miss.

While Bienville was thus engaged with Forts Toulouse and Rosalie, one of his young proteges, Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, had contacted the Spanish on the Rio Grande and persuaded them to reopen their mission field in east Texas. In 1717, St. Denis built a trading post at Natchitoches on the Red River in Louisiana. From this key post, the French not only smuggled goods for several decades into the Spanish Empire, but they also controlled the "northern tribes," which lived in the region of the Red and Canadian Rivers, especially the important Taovayas. In a few years, St. Denis' post grew into a prosperous village.

"The French Voyageur." From a painting by Mrs. Samuel B. Abbe. (Courtesy, Minnesota Historical Society.)

In 1718, Bienville at last set out to found a city on the site he had chosen almost two decades earlier. He laid out New Orleans and 4 years later moved there the seat of government for Louisiana from New Biloxi. Almost overnight, New Orleans began to rival Quebec and Montreal as the metropolis of New France. Despite a flood in 1719, it grew rapidly. In 1722, the King gave the Capuchins ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Louisiana, and 5 years later the Jesuits and the Ursuline Sisters arrived in strength. To promote the growth of New Orleans, Bienville imported from France a shipload of marriageable girls, who were chaperoned by the nuns until satisfactory mates could be found. The voyageurs and coureurs de bois flocked down the river to vie for their hands. Bienville also settled a small group of Germans in one section of the town, and welcomed immigrants from all nations. Into New Orleans began to flow virtually all the commerce of the Mississippi Valley, from the Illinois country and even farther north. By 1762—when France transferred western Louisiana, including New Orleans, to Spain—the city was one of the six largest in North America.

In 1720, the French had erected Fort de Chartres, a temporary base, in the Illinois country. The fort and the nearby village of Prairie du Rocher bloomed for a brief time. The settlement, however, was never as important as its neighbors, Kaskaskia, where the Jesuits established an academy, and Cahokia, where the Sulpicians maintained an Indian school. Across the Mississippi from Kaskaskia a fourth settlement—Ste. Genevieve—joined the little cluster of Illinois villages. Originally a fur depot, by 1740 it had developed into a town. Because of its location on the west bank of the river and its ready availability to the trappers and traders who were penetrating deeply into the Missouri country, it soon equaled if not surpassed the other Illinois towns. Another factor promoting growth was the opening of small lead mines in the Missouri Ozarks, which also utilized it as a port.

In 1731, the 20-year monopoly granted to Crozat—transferred to Law, and thereafter owned by the bankrupt Company of the Indies—was abandoned, 1 year before it expired. Louisiana once again became a royal province. Despite the confusion of the era of commercial control, it had brought expansion and prosperity. It had also linked the Illinois country to Louisiana—a natural occurrence because of the Mississippi River connection—and fostered the growth of both areas. Because of Indian trouble and natural hazards, the northern portage route from the Illinois country to the Great Lakes was almost abandoned in favor of the river route south. Thus, most of the French communities lost their connections with the northern settlements and became identified with New Orleans and Louisiana. And it was largely from the Louisiana settlements that the great fur trade of the trans-Mississippi West developed.

"French Habitation in the Country of the Illinois. From an engraving by an unknown artist, published in 1826. (Courtesy, Chicago Historical Society.)