FRANCE WINS THE PRIZE.

"A soldier, fire, and water, soon make room for themselves."

Iberville died at Havana in 1706, leaving his uncompleted work to his younger brother, Bienville,[1] who set vigorously about it.

Many believed Natchez to be the best point on the river for founding a settlement. Natchez therefore assumed importance to French plans for the future. But Natchez was the principal seat of a powerful nation whose enmity it would be impolitic to arouse by making forcible entry upon their lands. An opportunity soon offered itself, however, which Bienville quickly took advantage of.

In the first place some outrages committed by the Natchez upon passing traders gave Bienville the pretext he sought for building a fort at their village, which was promptly done (1714).

These people being overawed, the next step taken was the building of a fortified house at Natchitoches,[2] on the Red River, as a check to the Spaniards, who, already, were working their way east from the Rio Grande toward the Mississippi, partly to overawe the troublesome Comanches, and partly to engross the Indian trade of that region for themselves. Thus early in its history the Mississippi and its commerce were become a bone of contention between English, Spaniards and French.

Again the folly of farming out the trade of a whole country to a single individual, which had been tried in Canada with such bad effects, was repeated here in Louisiana. This monopoly was granted (1712) to Anthony Crozat for twenty-five years. Like all speculators, Crozat aimed to make the most in the shortest time, letting the future of the colony take care of itself. He was to control, absolutely, all that came into the colony or went out of it. Agriculture was neglected and trade only encouraged. And all trade was monopolized by Anthony Crozat. This was the penny wise, pound foolish, colonial system of France, adopted with the purpose of putting a little money into the royal treasury at a nominal saving to it of certain sums required for maintaining its authority in the colony. This policy turned the colony into a trading-post, and the people themselves into dependants of Crozat.

When Crozat entered upon his exclusive privileges there were but twenty-eight families in the whole province, of whom not more than half were actual settlers, the rest being either traders, innkeepers or laborers, who had no fixed residence.

The roving traders, or Coureurs de Bois,[3] bartered French goods with the Indians for peltries and slaves, which were sold in the settlements. It was found that tobacco, indigo, cotton and rice could be profitably cultivated, but none except slaves were employed in tilling the soil, which, indeed, is comparatively worthless in the neighborhood where the colonists first located themselves. Consequently only such things as would help to eke out a subsistence—such as corn, vegetables and poultry—were cultivated at all. In a word, the colony literally lived from hand to mouth. Instead of growing stronger and richer, of its own robust growth, it grew, if possible, weaker and poorer by reason of a policy, or system, under which no colony has ever thrived.

Little inducement was held out for the colonist to identify himself with the country, or feel that he and it must grow up together. He was a sojourner in a strange land. He could never hope to get rich by trade, since every thing must pass through the hands of Crozat's agents, at a price fixed by them.

This was by no means the whole weakness of Louisiana in her infancy. Perhaps the primary evil lay in the fact that so far the French neither controlled access to the Mississippi, in the place where they were, or had formed any settled plan for securing that solid foothold on its banks which alone could render them masters of the situation.

Crozat's failure was, in the nature of things, foreordained. His scheme, indeed, proved a stumbling-block to the colony and a loss to himself. In five years (1717) he was glad to surrender his monopoly to the crown.

From its ashes sprung the gigantic Mississippi Scheme of John Law,[4] to whom all Louisiana, now including the Illinois country, was granted for a term of years. Compared with this prodigality Crozat's concession was but a plaything. It not only gave Law's Company proprietary rights to the soil, but power was conferred to administer justice, make peace or war with the natives, build forts, levy troops and with consent of the crown to appoint such military governors as it should think fitting. These extraordinary privileges were put in force by a royal edict, dated in September, 1717.

The new company granted lands along the river to individuals or associated persons, who were sometimes actual emigrants, sometimes great personages who sent out colonists at their own cost, or again the company itself undertook the building up of plantations or lands reserved by it for the purpose. One colony of Alsatians was sent out by Law to begin a plantation on the Arkansas.[5] Others, more or less flourishing, were located at the mouth of the Yazoo, Natchez and Baton Rouge. All were agricultural plantations, though in most cases the plantations themselves consisted of a few poor huts covered with a thatch of palm-leaves. The earliest forts were usually a square earthwork, strengthened with palisades about the parapet.

The company's agricultural system was founded upon African slave labor.[6] Slaves were brought from St. Domingo or other of the West India islands. By some their employment was viewed with alarm, because it was thought the blacks would soon outnumber the whites, and might some day rise and overpower them; but we find only the feeblest protest entered against the moral wrong of slavery in any record of the time. Negroes could work in the fields, under the burning sun, when the whites could not. Their labor cost no more than their maintenance. The planters easily adopted what, indeed, already existed among their neighbors. Self-interest stifled conscience.

The new company wisely appointed Bienville governor. Three ships brought munitions, troops, and stores of every sort from France, with which to put new life into the expiring colony.

It was at this time (February, 1718) that Bienville began the foundation of the destined metropolis of Louisiana. The spot chosen by him was clearly but a fragment of the delta which the river had been for ages silently building of its own mud and driftwood. It had literally risen from the sea. Elevated only a few feet above sea-level, threatened with frequent inundation, and in its primitive estate a cypress swamp, it seemed little suited for the abode of men, yet time has confirmed the wisdom of the choice.

Here, then, a hundred miles from the Gulf, on the alluvial banks of the great river, twenty-five convicts and as many carpenters were set to work clearing the ground and building the humble log cabins, which were to constitute the capital, in its infancy.

The settlement was named New Orleans,[7] in honor of the Regent, Orleans, who ruled France during the minority of Louis XV.

Up to this time it was supposed that large ships could not cross the bar, at the river's mouth, but upon sounding the channel, enough water was found to float one of the company's ships, which then sailed up to New Orleans. From this day, the river may be said to have been fairly open to commerce with the outside world. As respects the passage up and down, it had practically become an every-day excursion for the Canadian voyageurs who, with the Indians, had so long formed its floating population. These adventurers now drew up their canoes, along the bank, at New Orleans, whose promiscuous assemblage of Indians, habitants, convicts, soldiers and priests, they joined.

Father Charlevoix, the historian of New France, thus describes New Orleans as he saw it in 1721:—

"The most just idea I can give you is to imagine two hundred persons who have been sent to build a city, and who are encamped on its banks. This city is the first which one of the greatest rivers of the world has seen rise on its borders. It is composed of a hundred barracks placed without much order, a large storehouse built of wood, two or three houses which would not adorn a poor village in France, and part of a wretched barrack which they have been willing to lend the Lord, for his service, and of which He had scarcely taken possession when He was thrust out and made to take shelter under a tent."

In the cluster of French names,—Louisiana, New Orleans, Ponchartrain, Iberville and Maurepas,—the great personages who bore a conspicuous part in the founding of Louisiana are fittingly perpetuated.

From Quebec to New Orleans, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf, a line of posts, half-military, half-religious, had sprung up in La Salle's footsteps. France had won the prize.