Upper Louisiana

“ The face of the country in Upper Louisiana is somewhat broken, but the soil is generally fertile. "It is elevated and healthy, and well watered, with a variety of large rapid streams, calculated for mills and other water works. From Cape Girardeau, above the mouth of the Ohio, to the Missouri, the land contiguous to the river is generally much higher than on the east side, and in many places very rocky on the shore. Some of the heights exhibit a scene truly picturesque. ”

“ From the tops of these elevations, the land gradually slopes back from the river, without gravel or rock, and is covered with valuable timber. It may be said with truth, that, for fertility of soil, no part of the world exceeds the borders of the Mississippi; the land yields an abundance of all the necessaries of life, and almost spontaneously; very little labour being required in the cultivation of the earth. That part of Upper Louisiana, which borders on North Mexico, is one immense prairie; it produes nothing but grass ”

“ Spanish Fort—West End—they are well enough; but if I might have one small part of New Orleans to take with me wherever I may wander in this earthly pilgrimage, I should ask for the old Carrollton Gardens.
They lie near the farthest upper limit of the expanded city. I should want, of course, to include the levee, under which runs one side of the gardens’ fence; also the opposite shore of the Mississippi, with its just discernible plantation houses behind their levee ”

“ Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.—Across the Mississippi to the far south, clearing and planting had gone on with much bustle and enterprise. The cotton and sugar lands of Louisiana, opened by French and Spanish settlers, were widened in every direction by planters with their armies of slaves from the older states. New Orleans, a good market and a center of culture not despised even by the pioneer, grew apace. In 1810 the population of lower Louisiana was over 75,000. The time had come, said the leaders of the people, to fulfill the promise made to France in the treaty of cession ”

“ When the Spanish denied the Americans free access to the Gulf, a situation arose which might have led to war, but resulted instead in the purchase of Louisiana from the French by the United States in 1803, Spain having relinquished the region to France in 1800. Louisiana then embraced all the present State of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, the Dakotas, Nebraska, most of Kansas and Indian Territory, and all of Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ Louisiana is a proud State, her people are a noble and a proud people, they have a right to be so—look at her! With a soil and a climate congenial to the production of the richest staples now ministering to the luxuries and necessities of man—with a river emptying into her commercial mart the productions of a world, her planters are princes, in feeling, fortune, and position. At their mansions is dispensed a noble hospitality, rich in the feasts of body and mind, generous and open as was Virginia's in her proudest days. ”

“ Sweeping away to the west, the south, and the north, its area of 14 States and Territories embraces great cities, beautiful towns and villages, farms and gardens, mighty waterways, vast railway systems, and a wealth of gold, silver, and other resources which a wise Providence provided for His people. Can the mind of man conceive a more resplendent territory? And when it is remembered that the Louisiana Purchase States are only a part of the still more glorious whole, is it any wonder that the American people are proud of their country and true to their Government? ”

“ Flatboats and barges came floating down the Mississippi past the plantation home where little Suzanne and Françoise were growing up to womanhood. Many of the immigrants who now came to Louisiana were the royalist noblesse flying from the horrors of the French Revolution. Governor Carondelet was strengthening his fortifications around New Orleans; for Creole revolutionists had slipped away to Kentucky and were there plotting an armed descent in flatboats upon his little capital, where the rabble were singing the terrible songs of bloody Paris. ”

“ The tree-planted levee was still populous on summer evenings with promenaders and loungers. The quadroon caste was in its dying splendor, still threatening the moral destruction of private society, and hated—as only woman can hate enemies of the hearthstone—by the proud, fair ladies of the Creole pure-blood, among whom Madame Lalaurie shone brilliantly. Her elegant house, filled with "furniture of the most costly description,"—says the "New Orleans Bee" of a date which we shall come to,—stood central in the swirl of "downtown" gayety, public and private. ”

“ The ground on which New Orleans is situated, being an earth accumulated by the ooze, in the same manner as is that both below and above, a good way from the capital, is of a good quality for agriculture, only that it is strong, and rather too fat. This land being flat, and drowned by the inundations for several ages, cannot fail to be kept in moisture, there being, moreover, only a mole or bank to prevent the river from over-flowing it ”

“ But the fertile plains of Louisiana are perhaps more valuable than all the mines of Mexico; which there would be no doubt of, if they were duly cultivated. They will breed and maintain ten times as many people, and supply them with many more necessaries, and articles of trade and navigation, than the richest mines of Peru.
The most important place in this country, and perhaps in all North America, is at the Forks of the Missisippi, where the Ohio falls into that river; which, like another ocean, is the general receptacle of all the rivers that water the interior parts of that vast continent. ”

“ VIII.
22 Fort Rosalie, in the country of the Natchez, was at first pitched upon for the metropolis of this colony. But though it be necessary to begin by a settlement near the sea; yet if ever Louisiana comes to be in a flourishing condition, as it may very well be, it appears to me, that the capital of it cannot be better situated than in this place. It is not subject to inundations of the river; the air is pure; the country very extensive; the land fit for every thing, and well watered; it is not at too great a distance from the sea, and nothing hinders vessels to go up to it. ”

“ When the plans in contemplation shall have been carried into effect, and the swamps behind the city drained, a measure the more beneficial, as the soil of these swamps is beyond all imagination fertile; then the surrounding country, and the city itself, will become as healthy as any other part of the Union. With the increasing population, we have no doubt, that Louisiana will present the same features, as Egypt in former days, bearing, as it does, the most exact resemblance to that country. ”

“ I saw far back in the distance an indomitable man, faint and discouraged, after the terrible sufferings of a winter at a bleak fort in the wilderness, drag his weary limbs to the spot where New Orleans now stands, and defiantly unfurling the flag of France, determined to establish the capital of Louisiana on the treacherous banks of the Mississippi. ”

“ If we may give credit to the tradition of these people, and if we would reason on the facts I have advanced, we shall be naturally led to believe, and indeed every thing in this country shews it, that the Lower Louisiana is a country gained on the sea, whose bottom is a crystal sand, white as snow, fine as flour, and such as is found both to the east and west of the Missisippi; and we may expect, that in future ages the sea and river may form another land like that of the Lower Louisiana. The Fort Balise shews that a century is sufficient to extend Louisiana two leagues towards the sea. ”

“ One historic clash in New Orleans (on the 14th of September 1874) between the “White League” (“White Man’s Party”) and the Republican police is commemorated by a monument, and the day is regarded by Louisianans as a sort of state independence-day. Finally, in 1876, Francis Tillon Nicholls (b. 1834) , a Democrat, was chosen governor, but the Republican candidate, S. B. Packard, claimed the election, and with a Republican legislature for a time occupied the State House. ”

“ To add to all these commotions, a hideous revolution had swept over San Domingo; the slaves in Louisiana had heard of it, insurrection was feared, and at length, in 1794, when Susanne was seventeen and Françoise fifteen, it broke out on the Mississippi no great matter over a day's ride from their own home, and twenty-three blacks were gibbeted singly at intervals all the way down by their father's plantation and on to New Orleans, and were left swinging in the weather to insure the peace and felicity of the land. ”

“ It is not to be wondered, that there is none to be found in the Lower Louisiana, which is only an earth accumulated by ooze; but it is far more extraordinary, not to see a flint, nor even a pebble on the hills, for upwards of an hundred leagues sometimes ”

“ The land slopes almost imperceptibly to the southeast. The bottom lands of the Mississippi River at the Arkansas line have an elevation of 130 feet, at Natchez 66 feet, at Baton Rouge 34 feet, at New Orleans 15 feet. The average elevation of the State is only about 75 feet above sea level. All the rivers have flood plains of generous width, more or less liable to inundation at times of high water. ”

“ The first nation that I meet with is the Oumas, which signifies the Red Nation. They are situated about twenty leagues from New Orleans, where I saw some of them upon my arrival in this province. Upon the first establishment of the colony, some French went and settled near them; and they have been very fatal neighbours, by furnishing them with brandy, which they drink to great excess.
Crossing the Red River, and proceeding still upwards, we find the remains of the nation of the Tonicas, who have always been very much attached to the French, and have even been our auxiliaries in war. ”

“ By means of this nation we have in Louisiana very beautiful horses, of the species of those of Old Spain, which, if managed or trained, people of the first rank might ride. As to the oxen and cows, they are the same as those of France, and both are at present very common in Louisiana.
The south side conveys into the Red River only little brooks. On the north side, and pretty near the Nachitoches, there is, as is said, a spring of water very salt, running only four leagues. This spring, as it comes out of the earth, forms a little river, which, during the heats, leaves some salt on its banks. ”

“ It has, however, a compensating advantage, being deemed the healthiest region in the State. It embraces several large cotton plantations, and a considerable region devoted to the cultivation of the sugar cane. The parish which bears its name is one of the most populous in Louisiana. It is the [Pg 40] centre of the land of shepherds, the very Arcadia of those who deal in domestic animals. To that employment, the greater part of the inhabitants are devoted, and they number their flocks and herds by thousands. ”

“ A colony of Germans sent over by John Law to the Arkansas removed to the Mississippi above New Orleans, and gave to its bank the name of the “German Coast,” by which it is still known. In recent years there has been an immigration of Italians into Louisiana, which seems likely to prove of great social and economic importance. The industrial activity of the state has required more labour than has been available. The negroes have moved more and more from the country to the towns, where they easily secure work at good wages. ”

“ Laurence, go up this river, pass the cataracts quite to the bottom of Lake Erié, where they find a small river, on which they also go up to a place called the Carriage of the Miamis; because that people come and take their effects, and carry them on their backs for two leagues from thence to the banks of the river of their name, which I just said empties itself into the Ohio. From thence the Canadians go down that river, enter the Wabache, and at last the Missisippi, which brings them to New Orleans, the capital of Louisiana. ”

“ This bay may be about thirty leagues in length, after having received the Mobile, which runs from north to south for about one hundred and fifty leagues. On the banks of this river was the first settlement of the French in Louisiana, which stood till New Orleans was founded, which is at this day the capital of the colony.
The lands and water of the Mobile are not only unfruitful in all kinds of vegetables and fish, but the nature of the waters and the soil contributes also to prevent the multiplication of animals; even women have experienced this. ”

“ We may therefore well imagine that the air is perfectly good there; the blood is pure; the people are healthy; subject to few diseases in the vigour of life, and without decrepitude in old age, which they carry to a far greater length than in France. People live to a long and agreeable old age in Louisiana, if they are but sober and temperate.
This country is extremely well watered, but much more so in some places than in others. The Missisippi divides this colony from north to south into two parts almost equal. ”

“ I accept with pleasure, and with pleasure reciprocate your congratulations on the acquisition of Louisiana: for it is a subject of mutual congratulation, as it interests every man of the nation. The territory acquired, as it includes all the waters of the Missouri and Mississippi, has more than doubled the area of the United States, and the new part is not inferior to the old in soil, climate, productions, and important communications. ”