CHAPTER III.

CROZAT'S EXPERIMENT.

Binuilly

IN all his difficulties Bienville showed firmness and courage. But the French government was becoming prejudiced by the attacks upon his administration. His requests that more laborers might be sent were not properly heeded; and the need of negroes, horses, and oxen does not seem to have impressed the authorities at home. In July, 1707, Bienville's arrest was ordered. De Muys was appointed his successor, with instructions to in

vestigate the charges against him; but he died on the way out. Diron d'Artaguette, who was sent to take La Salle's place as commissary-general, was then entrusted with the investigation. He pronounced the accusations miserable calumnies, and Bienville was permitted to remain at his post. He again urged the necessity of negro labor in the climate of Mobile, suggesting that Indian slaves might be exchanged for negroes in the West Indies. But his supe

riors opposed the plan, and the colonists made little headway with agriculture. The attacks on the governor were renewed by La Vente and others, and he, losing patience, began to make charges against his enemies. At the close of the year

1710 these controversies were still raging, while the colonists themselves were distributed among the Indian towns to obtain food. About this time also an English corsair made a descent on Dauphine Island and pillaged it. A statement of the condition of the colony two years earlier (August, 1708) shows a total of 279 souls, of whom eighty were Indian slaves.

Early in the year 1709 the high floods swept over Fort Louis, and Bienville decided to remove the settlement to more elevated ground. He chose the site of the modern city

It was

of Mobile. Here a wooden fort was built in 1711. replaced in a few years by one of brick, which was called Fort Condé de la Mobile, and here many of the colonists made their homes. This was the beginning of the first city ever built by white men within the limits of Alabama.

So far, however, the colony had been a burden, rather than a source of revenue, to the French government. The settlers had raised a little tobacco and wheat, but they had found no mines of gold or silver. When D'Artaguette returned to France he could make but a gloomy report. He found King Louis, whose brilliant reign was now drawing to an unhappy close, little disposed to make further expendi

CONTRACT WITH CROZAT.

41

tures on his possessions across the Atlantic. France, in fact, was exhausted by the long wars in which it had been engaged. Finding Louisiana an unproductive investment, the king looked about for some one to take it off his hands.

He found

such a person in Antoine Crozat, a wealthy merchant.

By a contract signed at Paris on September 14, 1712, the king granted to Crozat the control of the commerce of Louisiana for fifteen years. In the contract the province is roughly defined as extending from New Mexico to the English colony of Carolina, and from the Gulf to "the Illinois." Crozat was authorized to open mines, which were to become his property with a reservation of a certain portion of the output to the crown. He was to become the owner of all lands on which he could set up manufactories or make other improvements. The laws and customs of Paris were to prevail in the province. Crozat, for his part, was to send every year two shiploads of emigrants to the colony, and one shipload of negro slaves from Guinea; to forfeit his lands in case the improvements on them were abandoned; and to pay the salaries of the king's officers in the colony during the last six years covered by the contract.

When Crozat's agents reached the province in May, 1713, they found that the total population, including the soldiers, was three hundred and twenty-four. The settlers were widely scattered, divided by rivers and lakes, and protected by six wretched forts, including the one on Mobile Bay and another on Dauphine Island. With the especial representatives of Crozat's interests came also a new governor for the province, Antoine de la Mothe (La Motte) Cadillac, and his family, and a new commissary-general, Duclos. Bienville was retained as royal lieutenant, second in command to the gov

ernor.

Cadillac had won some distinction in Canada, but as governor of Louisiana he was not successful. His despatches to the authorities in France show that from the first he was

disappointed in the colony. He complained of everybody and everything. Dauphine Island, he said, was a miserable spot. He represented that wheat could not be raised; that the only crops were Indian corn and vegetables; that the only hope of profit to Crozat lay in trade with the Spanish settlements and in the discovery of mines. Bienville, he said, had governed for years without finding any mines; he himself could have found them in a short time. Of the morals of the soldiers and colonists he spoke most bitterly. He wished a church erected at Mobile, but the colonists preferred not to have one.

These representations were like the reports of Bienville's old enemy, La Vente, who had described the inhabitants as chiefly drunkards, gamesters, and blasphemers.

Nevertheless, the management of Crozat did seem to stimulate the drooping colony. He sent provisions, miners, and slaves. Bienville kept at work strengthening the French interest among the Indians, which was continually threatened by the intrigues of the English from the Carolinas. To this end he effected a peace with the Alabamas, about the beginning of the year 1714, and obtained their consent to the building of a fort in their country. Obtaining also the necessary authority from the colonial council, a body intended to assist the governor in the direction of affairs, he sailed from Mobile in April with two small vessels, carrying canoes, cannon, small firearms, provisions, and merchandise for the natives. His command was made up of soldiers, Canadians, and Indians.

He sailed up the Mobile and entered the Alabama. Passing the site of Mauvila, De Soto's battleground, he arrived at one of the Alabama villages, not far above the place where Selma now stands. He also passed in succession the towns of Autauga (Atagi), Powackte (Pawoti), and Ecuncharte (Ikan-Tchati). The last was one mile west of the site of Montgomery. The Indians received him joyfully. At Coo

BUILDING OF FORT TOULOUSE.

43

sawda he left the sailing vessel, and explored both the Coosa and Tallapoosa for some distance in a canoe. Finally he fixed on the town of Tuskegee (Taskigi), on the east bank of the Coosa, four miles above the junction of the two streams, as the best place for a fort. Here the rivers are but a quarter of a mile apart. The work was begun with religious ceremonies, in the presence of many Indians. The fortification was constructed of wood, with four bastions, on each of which two cannon were mounted. It was called Fort Toulouse. One hundred years later, as we shall see, an American fort was built on the site of the Frenchman's.

Work on the fort and the exploration of the neighborhood occupied Bienville through the summer. He visited Tookabatcha (Tukabatchi) on the Tallapoosa, went among the lower Creeks on the Chattahoochee, and crossed that river into the present Georgia. On his return to Mobile he left Marigny de Mandeville in command at Fort Toulouse, with thirty soldiers and a priest.

Soon after Bienville's return Cadillac set off on a search for mines of gold and silver in the Illinois country, and he did not return until October, 1715. He represented to the government at home that on this journey he had everywhere set the Indians against the English. As a matter of fact he had aroused their anger against himself. While descending the Mississippi he is said to have declined to smoke with the chiefs of the Natchez (Naktche) tribe, and this is supposed to have caused the hostility of that tribe to the French. Meantime, Bienville was doing all in his power to strengthen the hold of the French on the tribes lying north and northeast of Mobile. He was aided by a war between the English and the Indians on the borders of Carolina, which extended to the distant Chickasaw nation, where a number of English traders were slain. He sent to the Choctaws a demand for the head of the warrior who had introduced the English among them; and a head was sent to Mobile.