The episodes of the capture of Pensacola by the French, its recapture by the Spaniards, the desertion of a large part of the French garrison, the successful resistance of Sérigny to the siege of Dauphin Island by a Spanish fleet, the opportune arrival of a French fleet, and the capture again of Pensacola, furnished occupation and excitement to the colonists for a few months, but had no other result. The port was returned to Spain when peace was restored.[57] For several years the French at Natchitoches, and the Spaniards a few miles off at the Mission of the Adaes, had lived peacefully side by side. The French lieutenant in command of the post took advantage of the outbreak of hostilities to destroy the Spanish Mission. It was, however, immediately reoccupied by the Spaniards in force, and was permanently retained by them. In Illinois, through the arrival of a band of Missouris who had come to chant the calumet bedecked in chasubles and stoles, and tricked out in the paraphernalia of the altar, Boisbriant learned that a Spanish expedition from Santa Fé, in 1720, had been completely annihilated by these savages.
NEW ORLEANS IN 1719.
[This is reproduced from plate ii. of Thomassy’s Géologie pratique de la Louisiane. There is another cut in Gay’s Popular History of the United States, ii. 530. To M. de Vallette Laudun, or Laudreu, sometimes referred to as the Chevalier de Bonrepos, is ascribed the authorship of a Description du Mississipi, écrite de Mississipi en France à Mademoiselle D. ... (Paris, 1720), the writer being the captain of the ship “Toulouse.” It was reprinted as Relation de la Louisiane, écrite à une dame par un officier de marine, in the Relations de la Louisiane et du fleuve Mississipi, published at Amsterdam in 1720, which corresponds to vol. v. of Bernard’s Recueil des voyages au nord. It was reprinted as Journal d’un voyage à la Louisiane fait en 1720 par M. ..., capitaine de vaisseau du roi, both at Paris and La Haye in 1768 (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 280, 1,641).—Ed.]
Far more important in their effect upon the prosperity of the colony than any question of capture or occupation which arose during these hostilities were the ordinances passed by the Company of the West, on the 25th of April, 1719, in which were announced the fixed prices at which supplies would be furnished to inhabitants at different points, and the arbitrary amounts that would be paid at the same places for peltries, tobacco, flour, and such other articles as the Company would receive. Gayarré summarizes the condition of the colonists under these rules as follows: “Thus the unfortunates who were sent to Louisiana had to brave not only the insalubrity of the climate and the cruelty of the savages, but in addition they were held in a condition of oppressive slavery. They could only buy of the Company at the Company’s price. They could only sell to the Company for such sum as it chose to pay; and they could only leave the colony by permission of the Company.” Whites brought from Europe and blacks brought from Africa “worked equally for one master,—the all-powerful Company.”
Through a title based upon La Salle’s occupation in 1685, strengthened by the explorations of Bienville and Saint-Denys in 1700, the subsequent journeys of Saint-Denys in 1701, 1714, and 1716, and the occupation of Natchitoches, the French laid claim to a large part of what now constitutes Texas. Benard de la Harpe left Dauphin Island toward the end of August, 1718, with fifty men, to establish a post on his concession at Cadodaquais. He settled on land of the Nassonites, eighty leagues in a straight line from Natchitoches. He was instructed to open up trade with the neighboring Spaniards, and through him Bienville forwarded a letter to the Spanish Governor. A correspondence ensued between La Harpe and the Governor at Trinity River, in which each expressed doubts as to the right of the other to be where he was. La Harpe closed it with an assurance that he could be found in command of his fort, and could convince the Governor that he knew how to defend it. No overt act followed this fiery correspondence, and La Harpe shortly after went on an extended tour of exploration to the northward and westward of his concession. We hear no more of this post from French sources; but Spanish authorities assert that after the Mission at Adaes was broken up, the Spaniards returned with an armed force and the French retired to Natchitoches. That post was then put under charge of Saint-Denys. Great stress was laid at Paris upon the necessity for occupying the coast to the west of the mouth of the Mississippi, and positive orders had been issued to that effect by the King on the 16th of November, 1718. Nothing was done, however, until 1720, when six men were landed one hundred and thirty leagues west of the Mississippi and left to perish. In 1721 these orders were reiterated, and La Harpe was appointed “commandant and inspector of commerce of the Bay of St. Bernard.” On August 16 he sailed to take possession of that bay. His equipment and his force were totally inadequate for the purpose. He made a landing at some point on the coast; but finding the Indians hostile, he was obliged to abandon the expedition. With this futile attempt all efforts on the part of the French to occupy any point on the coast of Texas ceased. On the other hand, they remained in uninterrupted possession of Natchitoches;[58] and the Spaniards, though they continued to occupy Adaes as long as the French were at Natchitoches, never renewed their attempts on the region of the Osage and the Missouri.
NEW ORLEANS AND THE MISSISSIPPI.
[This is a part of the “Carte de la Côte de la Louisiane, par M. de Sérigny en 1719 et 1720,” as given in Thomassy’s Géologie pratique de la Louisiane, 1860.—Ed.]
During the year 1721 the mortality of the immigrants on the passage over seriously affected the growth of the colony. Among other similar records it is reported that in March two vessels arrived, having on board forty Germans,—all that remained out of two hundred. The same month the “Africaine” landed one hundred and eighty negroes out of two hundred and eighty on board when she sailed, and the “Duc du Maine” three hundred and ninety-four out of four hundred and fifty-three. The pains of the poor creatures did not end with the voyage. Some of them “died of hunger and suffering on the sands of Fort Louis.” Enfeebled by the confinement and trials of a protracted ocean voyage, immigrants and slaves alike were landed on the beach at Biloxi, where neither suitable food nor proper shelter was furnished them.[59] Indeed, so great was the distress for food in 1721, that the very efforts put forth to increase the population were a source of embarrassment and suffering. There were not provisions enough left at Biloxi in September to maintain the garrison; and once again, after more than twenty years’ occupation by the French, the troops at Biloxi were dispersed among the Indians for subsistence.