FORT ROSALIE.
[“Plan du Fort Rozalie des Natchez,” in Dumont’s Mémoires historiques de la Louisiane, ii. 94. There is also a plan of Fort Rosalie in Philip Pittman’s Present State of European Settlements on the Mississippi (London, 1770), p. 40.—Ed.]
According to Dumont, the Choctaws and Natchez had conspired to attack the French simultaneously at New Orleans and Natchez, and the attack at Natchez was made in advance of the day agreed upon for the outbreak. At this, he says, the Choctaws were exasperated, and announced that they were willing to move in conjunction with the French upon Natchez. According to their own professions, however, their friendship for the French was uninterrupted, and they denied any previous knowledge of the outbreak at Natchez. Whatever the motive which prompted it, a joint military campaign against the Natchez was now organized with the Choctaws. All the credit in the affair was gained by the Indians. They were first in the field, and they did all the open fighting. When the French tardily arrived on the spot, instead of the surprise, the sudden attack, the rapid flight, and the complete victory or defeat which had hitherto characterized most Indian warfare, they found the Natchez behind rude fortifications, within which they had gathered all their people, together with the women and children captured at the recent attack on the village. The French were compelled to approach these defences with all the formalities of a siege. At the end of what Périer bombastically terms “six days of open trenches and ten days of cannonade,” the Natchez on the 26th of February, 1730, surrendered the captive women, children, and slaves to the Choctaws, withdrew their entire force, and fled to the opposite bank of the Mississippi. The knowledge that the French captives were with the Indians probably hampered the French in their attack.
The services of tribes friendly to the French were secured during the summer to harass the miserable Natchez; and on the 1st of August the Governor could proudly report that by this means he had been able since their migration to kill a hundred and fifty. “Lately,” he says in one of his despatches, “I burned four men and two women here, and the others I sent to Santo Domingo.” Smarting under the disgrace cast upon their reputation by the fruitless results of this campaign, the French felt the necessity for subduing the fugitive Natchez, who still preserved their tribal organization and their independence. An alleged negro insurrection the next summer furnished opportunity for hanging “ten or a dozen of the most culpable” of the negroes, and further demonstrated the necessity for some attempt to recover the prestige of the French name.
In the month of November, 1730, Périer started on a crusade against his foes. The force which he ultimately brought together for this expedition is said to have been a thousand men, of whom seven hundred were French. In January, 1731,[66] he succeeded in running down the Natchez in their fort, situated a short distance from the river on the west side, where he besieged and finally captured—according to his own account—four hundred and fifty women and children and forty-five men. Again the greater part of the warriors of the tribe escaped him. The captives were sent to Santo Domingo, where they were sold as slaves.
The resources of the colony were now better understood. Buffalo-wool, pearls, and mines were no longer relied upon. Prosperity had eluded the grasp of the greater part of the settlers; but if agricultural experiments had not proved remunerative as they had been handled, they had at least demonstrated the fertility of the soil. The hopes of commercial success, with so scant a population and under the restrictions of the monopoly, were shown to be delusive. The climate had proved a severe trial to the health of the settlers.[67] Perhaps the character of the immigrants, their improvident habits, and their reckless exposure had much to do with it, and had made the test an unfair one. At all events the experience of the Company was but a repetition of that of Crozat; and in 1731 the rights granted in the charter were surrendered to the King. During Périer’s administration a change was made in the character of the girls sent over to the colony. In 1728 there arrived a ship bearing a considerable number of young girls who had not been taken from the houses of correction. They were cared for by the Ursulines until they were married.
It is not easy to follow the growth of the colony. When Crozat turned matters over to the Company, there were said to be seven hundred inhabitants; but four years afterward the Company officials, in one of their reports, put this number at four hundred. The official estimate in 1721 was five thousand four hundred and twenty, of whom six hundred were negroes. La Harpe, in his memorial, puts the population in 1724 at five thousand whites and three thousand blacks. At the time of the retrocession to the King the white population was estimated at five thousand, and the negroes at over two thousand.
The treasury notes of the Company at that time constituted the circulating medium of the colony. Fifteen days were allowed, during which their use could be continued. After that their circulation was prohibited, with appropriate penalties.
The Government signalized its renewal of the direct charge of the colony by efforts to build up its commerce. Bienville succeeded in securing his appointment as governor, and in 1733 returned to Louisiana. The finances of the colony having undergone the disturbance of the withdrawal of the paper money of the Company, the Government consulted the colonial officers as to issuing in its place some card money. These gentlemen recommended that the issue should be postponed for two years. The impatience of the Government could, however, be restrained but a year, when the entering wedge of two hundred thousand livres was ordered,—the beginning of more inflation. In 1736 Bienville, owing to the unfriendly attitude of the Chickasaws, felt the necessity of success in some movement against them, if he would retain the respect and friendship of the Choctaws. He therefore made an imposing demonstration against the Chickasaw villages. According to his own account, he had with him over twelve hundred men, who in an attack on one of the villages were repulsed with such severe loss that the whole party were glad to get back to the shelter of their permanent forts, without the satisfaction of knowing that they had either killed or wounded one of the enemy.