Where La Salle had sowed, others were to reap, yet so comprehensive were his plans, so well matured, so entirely feasible withal, that what followed was but the natural result of his efforts. La Salle was like the general who falls in the moment of victory. All honor then to his name![1]
Therefore while we record his failure, individually, to do all he purposed in this, his last expedition, the success which came later was due to the master mind of La Salle. We shall not find, in any explorer of his time, so original a mind united with such rare gifts for doing the work to which he devoted himself.
For a time, the project of colonizing Louisiana[2] quietly slept. It was then revived by a naval officer named Iberville,[3] who thus became, in a manner, heir to La Salle's projects.
Iberville promised to rediscover the mouth of the Mississippi, and hold it afterward by building a fort at its mouth, just as La Salle would have done if he had lived to carry out his schemes.
Although it had slumbered long, the moment the project was renewed by so capable a man as Iberville, every intelligent Frenchman saw its importance. The minister Ponchartrain approved it directly it was broached to him, the more because he knew that if any man could succeed in what he undertook, Iberville would.
Iberville had seen much service in Canada, Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland. Being himself a naval officer of rank, he would command his own ships, and not be hampered by a divided command, or the jealousy of a rival, which had proved such a formidable stumbling-block to La Salle.
As the war was now over, Iberville wished to distinguish himself by some worthy action done in the interests of peaceful conquest.
Two ships were therefore got ready, which sailed from Rochefort in October, 1698, and anchored at St. Domingo[4] in December. Sailing thence they fell in with the Florida coast January 27. A bay opened before them. Iberville wished to put into this port, but on attempting to do so he found it in the possession of three hundred Spaniards from Vera Cruz, whose commander forbade his landing there. This place was called Pensacola.[5]
Fearing the Spaniards were on the same errand[6] with himself, Iberville at once made sail for the westward, hugging the shores as closely as possible in order not to miss the river among the mists which commonly hang over and hide it from view. Finding in Mobile Bay a harbor where his ships could safely ride, while he himself continued the search along the shore in boats, Iberville came to an anchor there.
Very shortly his exploring parties came to the Pascagoula River, where they found many savages living. From this river they pushed on through the intervening lagoons that everywhere intersect this shallow shore, till, on the 2d of March, the Mississippi itself was entered through one of its numerous passes.
Sailing on up the river, Iberville passed first one populous town and then another, receiving everywhere a cordial welcome from the savages, yet doubting within himself whether he was on the true Mississippi, till one day a chief brought him a letter[7] which Tonty had left for La Salle thirteen years before, when, after searching for his chief in vain, this trusty comrade had turned back for the Illinois.
After mentioning that he had found La Salle's cross thrown down, and had set up another in a better place, the letter concludes by saying, "It is a great chagrin to me that we are going back without finding you, after having coasted the Mexican (Louisiana) shore for thirty leagues, and the Florida twenty-five."
This letter having removed all Iberville's doubts, he fell down the river again, and having nowhere found, within sixty leagues of the Gulf, a proper place to begin a settlement on, he turned back to the Bay of Biloxi, where a spot was chosen and the ground marked out for one.
After seeing the establishment at Biloxi well under way, Iberville took ship for France. He was back again early in January, 1701. During his absence an English corvette had sailed twenty-five leagues up the Mississippi to a point where the river sweeps grandly round to the east. At this place her captain was warned back by the French, from which circumstance the bend received the name of the English Turn, which it has ever since borne.
Iberville also learned that English traders from Carolina[8] had penetrated into the Chickasaw country above him. Finding himself menaced both by sea and land, and delay dangerous, Iberville shut up the entrance from sea by mounting some cannon near the mouth of the river.
The century turned noiselessly on its hinges with no other establishments in all this great domain of Louisiana except that planted by La Salle on the Illinois, and the one at Biloxi.
In 1701 Iberville began a settlement at Mobile. The next year he erected storehouses and barracks on Dauphine Island[9] for permanent occupation. In a few years this island became the general headquarters of the Louisiana colony. Nothing worthy of the name, however, existed before 1708. Up to this time the handful of colonists lived on what was sent them from France, or obtained by trading French goods with the savages. They sowed wheat, but found the climate too damp for growing it with success. They also began the planting of tobacco, which did so well that its culture presently became a mainstay of the colony.
But while Iberville had thus gained a foothold, in what might be called a good strategic position for approaching the Mississippi, either from sea or through Lake Ponchartrain, he was actually but little nearer than the Spaniards at Pensacola, who kept a watch on all his movements. Never did nature seem more persistently thwarting the schemes of men than in the attempt of these Frenchmen to enter upon what they considered their rightful inheritance.
[1] La Salle's Name is perpetuated in many places in the United States, notably in a city and county of Illinois.
[2] Colonizing Louisiana quietly slept, partly, but not wholly, in consequence of war between England and France.
[3] Iberville, Le Moyne de, was one of eight brothers, all eminent in the annals of Canada. He was considered one of the greatest sailors France has produced. In 1685 he assisted in expelling the English from Hudson's Bay. Afterward he took part in the defence of Quebec by Frontenac; destroyed Pemaquid; and took St. John's, Newfoundland. As a commander he was almost uniformly successful. Iberville's name is perpetuated in a town and parish of Louisiana.
[4] St. Domingo, or Hayti, had been seized by French buccaneers, 1630. The French government took possession of the island, 1677, thus establishing a dépôt for their operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
[5] Pensacola (Indian). A place of much historic interest. First discovered, according to the Spaniards, by Narvaez, then by Maldonado, one of De Soto's captains. It received several Spanish names, notably that of Santa Maria de Galve, but finally retained that of the neighboring tribe of savages.
[6] On the Same Errand. That the Spaniards knew of the Mississippi is clear from their having given it the name Iberville afterward found so apt when ascending it,—Rio de los Palissades,—a title suggested by the enormous rafts of uprooted trees which the river brought down and left stranded at its mouth.
[7] Tonty's Letter was left in the forks of a tree where the Indians found it. It may be seen in full in Charlevoix, ii. 259.
[8] English Traders from Carolina were pushing their way across the Appalachians. Many French Protestants who had fled from their country on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were settled in South Carolina, and it was feared the English would attempt to settle a colony of them in Louisiana.
[9] Dauphine, originally Massacre Island.