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

Vaudreuil’s appointment as governor of Canada. Kerlerec was host at a dinner for two hundred guests followed by a remarkable show of fireworks. To ignite the display, two doves were released by Madame Kerlerec and Marquise de Vaudreuil. In their beaks, the doves carried lit tapers to set the extravaganza ablaze.
    And so, a more accurate account of Vaudreuil’s term would be ten years of political corruption and Indian wars. He kept up the enmity between the Chickasaws and the Choctaws, and civil war broke out among the former. Receiving reinforcements from France, Vaudreuil undertook an expedition against the Chickasaws in 1752, which accomplished little except for the devastation of their country.
    Vaudreuil was, however, the first governor to establish a real levee system in New Orleans, which offered some relief and protection from floods. He also suggested colombage as a method of construction. This method employed a heavy framework of squared timber filled in with either bricks, briquette entre poteaux, or a mud-and-moss mixture, bousillage. You can still see evidence of bousillage construction in French Quarter buildings. He suggested that buildings be placed three feet off of the ground, and that they be built no higher than two stories and constructed with galleries.
    At the time of Vaudreuil’s administration, the Jesuits had settled on the plantation Bienville abandoned when he returned to France. It ran from Canal Street to Felicity Street and included the site of the present Jesuit Church on Baronne Street. It was in that area in 1751 that they planted sugarcane sent to them by the Jesuits in Cuba.
    In 1753, Vaudreuil left to become the governor of Canada. He was replaced as governor of Louisiana by Louis Billouart, Chevalier de Kerlerec. Kerlerec was nicknamed Chef Menteur (Chief Liar) by the Indians. This was the name originally given to the stream that meandered beside the present day highway of the same name through the Rigolets to the Lake and on to the Gulf. It was the “Chief Liar” among streams because its current flowed deceptively in either direction with the tide. The Indians seemed to understand Kerlerec very well.
    Governor Kerlerec had violent disputes with his commissioner, Vincent de Rochemore, who accused him of being a dictator and of robbing the treasury. Kerlerec , in turn, accused Rochemore of theft and neglect of his duties. These conflicts, together with a laissez-faire attitude toward the colony, made progress impossible. The unsuccessful wars of Louis XV limited the help that could be given to Louisiana, and the poor financial policy of the colony caused instability in the currency. In 1761, Kerlerec was recalled to France and thrown into the Bastille, but his friends managed to secure his release.
    The French and Indian Wars had been going on in North America since 1689. The last of these four wars, from 1754 to 1761 (although the treaty was not signed until 1763), involved a conflict between French and British possessions in the New World. In this war, Colonel George Washington fought against the French in the Ohio Valley. Louisiana was almost a forgotten territory. No new colonists came. Few ships or supplies arrived.
    The Acadians
    In Acadia (later called Nova Scotia), which had been won by the British at the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713, the British and the French Acadians had been living side by side in peace for half a century. Now, the British feared that if Acadia were invaded, the French Acadians would fight against them. Therefore, the governor demanded that the French Acadians swear allegiance to the British crown and give up their Catholic religion. They refused and were exiled. Many of these excellent farmers, after a lengthy odyssey, found new homes in Louisiana during the period of Spanish domination.
    Queen Anne’s War ended disastrously for France, causing her to lose all of her colonies in America and nearly all in India. Her loss of Canada made the Louisiana