The Story of the Thirteen Colonies

by H. A. Guerber

Arriving at Quebec, after meeting with many adventures, La Salle told Frontenac that France ought to make good her claim to the land by building trading posts at intervals all along the principal streams. He added that it was also necessary to have a fort at the mouth of the Mississippi, and soon after went to France to tell the king about his discoveries, and ask for help.

Louis XIV. gave La Salle several ships loaded with supplies; and a small army of colonists having joined him, the explorer set out. His fleet reached the Gulf of Mexico in 1684; but, owing to some mistake, it sailed past the mouth of the Mississippi without seeing it. As the captain would not believe La Salle and turn back, they coasted on until they finally landed at Mat-a-gor´da Bay, in Texas.

Here a fort was built; but the spot proved so unhealthful that many colonists died. The ships having gone back, run aground, or been dashed to pieces, the French could not get away again by sea. La Salle therefore decided to set out on foot, so as to join Tonty and obtain more supplies for his unhappy colony.

As had been agreed, Tonty had come down the Mississippi to meet La Salle. But after waiting vainly for him several months, he went northward again, leaving a letter in the fork of a tree, and telling the Indians to give it to the first white man they saw. Long before reaching this place, La Salle's men became angry because their expedition had been a failure. They blamed their leader for all their sufferings, and, falling upon him unawares, basely murdered the man who is known as the "father of French colonization in the Mississippi valley."

Although La Salle was dead, his plan was too good to be abandoned. Some thirteen years later, therefore, a Frenchman named Iberville (e-ber-veel´) came out from France to found a fort at the mouth of the Mississippi. He sailed up the stream, and received from the Indians Tonty's letter, which, they gravely said, was a "speaking bark." As Iberville found no good place for a fort near the mouth of the "Father of Waters," he built Bil-ox´i, on the coast of what is now the state of Mississippi.

Shortly after, a party of Frenchmen, exploring the banks of the river, saw an English ship sailing upstream. The newcomers said they had come to build a fort on the Mississippi; but the Frenchmen either deceived them by telling them this was not the stream they sought, or gave them to understand they had come too late. So the English turned around and sailed away, and ever since that bend in the great river has been called the "English Turn."

Iberville's brother, Bienville (be-aN-veel´), in 1718 built a fort and established a colony on the spot where New Or´le-ans now stands. He gave the place that name in honor of the French city of Orleans.

There was no more trouble with the English, but this colony came very near being swept away by the Natch´ez Indians, who made an agreement with the Choc´taws to fall upon the white men on a certain day and hour, and kill them all. To make sure that there should be no misunderstanding, each chief was given a small bundle of sticks, with directions to burn one every day, making the attack only after the last had been consumed.

An Indian boy, seeing his father burn one of these sticks, stole two, and secretly set fire to them; and though he thus found out that they were nothing but ordinary wood, his theft made his father attack the French two days too soon.

Instead of a general raid upon all the settlements, only one was surprised, two hundred men being killed, and the women and children carried off into captivity. The other French colonists had time to arm, and they defended themselves so bravely that the plans of the Indians came to naught.