Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans by John B. Garvey, Mary Lou Widmer Read Free Book Online

consulted Father Nicholas Ignace de Beaubois, Superior of the Jesuits (however few there may have been) in Louisiana at the time, who advised him to try to procure the services of the Ursuline nuns. Bienville did so, and twelve nuns arrived on August 7, 1727. Their Superior was Mother Tranchepain, and among them was the talented Marie-Madeleine Hachard , to whom we owe a charming description of the journey and the city in 1727. Their first convent was built in 1730.
    In February 1724, Bienville was ordered to return to France to render an account of his conduct. Disagreements between Bienville and his Superior Council had always existed, and the officers were successful in having him recalled. During his second administration, he had taken Pensacola in 1719 (though it was returned to Spain in 1723), undertaken a war against the Natchez and defeated them, and begun negotiations for the coming of the Ursuline nuns. Nevertheless, he was replaced by Governor Étienne de Périer, who arrived in 1725.
    The old Ursuline convent.
    The Natchez Massacre
    During Périer’s administration, a great war with the Indians took place. In 1729, the Natchez were ordered by the commandant of Fort Rosalie, a vile little man named the Sieur de Chépart, to abandon one of their finest villages, the White Apple, in order that he might establish a plantation there. The Natchez Indians decided that they would never have peace until they destroyed the French at Fort Rosalie. On November 28, 1729, they surprised the fort, killing two hundred men. They took women, children, and slaves as prisoners.
    The Choctaws allied themselves with the French, killing many of the Natchez and recovering some of the prisoners. Then the Choctaws dispersed.
    The Natchez entrenched themselves and resisted for some time. Finally, they escaped to a mound in the Black River, leaving their prisoners behind. On November 15, 1730, Périer left with 650 soldiers and 350 Indian warriors for the Black River. He brought back 427 prisoners, who were sent to Santo Domingo and sold as slaves. The rest of the tribe was adopted by the Chickasaws , and the Natchez name was lost forever.
    When the children who had been orphaned in the Indian War arrived in New Orleans, the Ursuline nuns began their orphanage. They also put bars on the windows of their convent (which still remain today) in fear of a similar Indian attack in New Orleans.
    The war with the Indians had been too costly. In 1731, the Company of the Indies gave Louisiana back to France. In April 1732, Louisiana became, once again, a royal province. The population at this time numbered five thousand whites and two thousand blacks in the entire territory. France removed the duty on goods coming from France to Louisiana in order to stimulate trade.
    In 1732, Bienville returned for his third term as governor. This third administration was a disaster because of war with the Indians. Bienville was forced to make war on the Chickasaws, and hostilities did not end until April 1740. In 1743, Bienville asked to be relieved of his command and returned to France. He was sixty-two years old and had spent approximately forty-four years in Louisiana.
    Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal
    Bienville’s successor was Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, called the Grand Marquis. While it is true that he brought culture, elegant manners, and elaborate entertainment to the colony, such pleasures were available only to the wealthy. His administration was filled with nepotism in political appointments, misuse of army provisions for personal profit, trade monopolies, and general neg-ligence of duty. His wife, the Marquise de Vaudreuil, looked quite elegant driving her “imported from Paris” four-horse carriage around New Orleans, but once inside the governor’s palace, she engaged in selling of drugs, and the governor shared the profits.
    A good picture of the times is painted in the report of the ceremony honoring