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History of Louisisana

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The second reason is, That in this colony a scarcity is never to be
apprehended. On my arrival in it, I informed myself of what had happened
therein from 1700, and I myself remained in it till 1734; and since my
return to France I have had accounts from it down to this present year
1757; and from these accounts I can aver, that no intemperature of
season has caused {186} any scarcity since the beginning of this
century. I was witness to one of the severest winters that had been
known in that country in the memory of the oldest people living; but
provisions were then not dearer than in other years. The soil of this
province being excellent, and the seasons always suitable, the
provisions and other commodities cultivated in it never fail to thrive
surprizingly.

One will, perhaps, be surprized to hear me promise such fine things of
a country which has been reckoned to be so much inferior to the
Spanish or Portuguese colonies in America; but such as will take the
trouble to reflect on that which constitutes the genuine strength of
states, and the real goodness of a country, will soon alter their
opinion, and agree with me, that a country fertile in men, in
productions of the earth, and in necessary metals, is infinitely
preferable to countries from which men draw gold, silver, and
diamonds: the first effect of which is to pamper luxury and render the
people indolent; and the second to stir up the avarice of neighbouring
nations. I therefore boldly aver, that Louisiana, well governed, would
not long fail to fulfil all I have advanced about it; for though there
are still some nations of Indians who might prove enemies to the
French, the settlers, by their martial character, and their zeal for
their king and country, aided by a few troops, commanded, above all,
by good officers, who at the same time know how to command the
colonists: the settlers, I say, will be always match enough for them,
and prevent any foreigners whatever from invading the country. What
would therefore be the consequence if, as I have projected, the first
nation that should become our enemy were attacked in the manner I have
laid down in my reflections on an Indian war? They would be directly
brought to such a pass as to make all other nations tremble at the
very name of the French, and to be ever cautious of making war upon
them. Not to mention the advantage there is in carrying on wars in
this manner; for as they cost little, as little do they hazard the
loss of lives.

In 1734, M. Perier, Governor of Louisiana, was relieved by M. de
Biainville, and the King's plantation put on a new footing, by an
arrangement suitable to the notions of the person {187} who advised
it. A sycophant, who wanted to make his court to Cardinal Fleury,
would persuade that minister, that the plantation cost his Majesty ten
thousand livres a year, and that this sum might be well saved; but
took care not to tell his Eminence, that for these ten thousand it
saved at least fifty thousand livres.

Upon this, my place of Director of the public plantations was
abolished, and I at length resolved to quit the colony and return to
France, nothwithstanding all the fair promises and warm solicitations
of my superiors to prevail upon me to stay. A King's ship, La Gironde,
being ready to sail, I went down the river in her to Balise, and from
thence we set sail, on the 10th of May, 1734. We had tolerable fine
weather to the mouth of the Bahama Streights; afterwards we had the
wind contrary, which retarded our voyage for a week about the banks of
Newfoundland, to which we were obliged to stretch for a wind to carry
us to France: from thence we made the passage without any cross
accident, and happily arrived in the road of Chaidbois before
Rochelle, on the 25th of June following, which made it a passage of
forty-five days from Louisiana to France.

* * * * *

_Some Abstracts from the Historical Memoirs of Louisiana, by_ M. Du
Mont.

I

_Of_ Tobacco, _with the way of cultivating and curing it._

The lands of Louisiana are as proper as could be desired, for the
culture of tobacco; and, without despising what is made in other
countries, we may affirm that the tobacco which grows in the country
of the Natchez, is even preferable to that of Virginia or St. Domingo;
I say, in the country of the Natchez, because the soil at that post
appears to be more suitable to this plant than any other: although it
must be owned, that there is but very little difference betwixt the
tobacco which grows there and in some other parts of the colony, as at
the Cut-point, at the Nachitoches, and even at New Orleans; but
whether it is owing to the exposure, or to the goodness of {188} the
soil, it is allowed that the tobacco of the Natchez and Yasous is
preferable to the rest.

The way of planting and curing tobacco in this country, is as follows:
they sow it on beds well worked with the hoe or spade in the months of
December, January, or February; and because the seed is very small,
they mix it with ashes, that it may be thinner sowed: then they rake
the beds, and trample them with their feet, or clap them with a plank,
that the seed may take sooner in the ground. The tobacco does not come
up till a month afterwards, or even for a longer time; and then they
ought to take great care to cover the beds with straw or cypress-bark,
to preserve the plants from the white frosts, that are very common in
that season. There are two sorts of tobacco; the one with a long and
sharp-pointed leaf, the other has a round and hairy leaf; which last
they reckon the best sort.

At the end of April, and about St. George's day, the plants have about
four leaves, and then they pull the best and strongest of them: these
they plant out on their tobacco-ground by a line stretched across it,
and at three feet distance one from another: this they do either with
a planting-stick, or with their finger, leaving a hole on one side of
the plant, to receive the water, with which they ought to water it.
The tobacco being thus planted, it should be looked over evening and
morning, in order to destroy a black worm, which eats the bud of the
plant, and afterwards buries itself in the ground. If any of the
plants are eat by this worm, you must set another one by it. You must
choose a rainy season to plant your tobacco, and you should water it
three times to make it take root. But they never work their ground in
this country to plant their tobacco; they reckon it sufficient to stir
it a little about four inches square round the plant.

When the tobacco is about four or five inches high, they weed it, and
clean the ground all about it, and hill up every plant. They do the
same again, when it is about a foot and a half high. And when the
plant has, about eight or nine leaves, and is ready to put forth a
stalk, they nip off the top, which they call topping the tobacco: this
amputation makes the {189} leaves grow longer and thicker. After this,
you must look over every plant, and every leaf, in order to sucker it,
or to pull off the buds, which grow at the joints of the leaves; and
at the same time you must destroy the large green worms that are found
on the tobacco, which are often as large as a man's finger, and would
eat up the whole plant in a night's time.

After this, you must take care to have ready a hanger (or
tobacco-house,) which in Louisiana they make in the following manner:
they set several posts in the ground, at equal distances from one
another, and lay a beam or plate on the top of them, making thus the
form of a house of an oblong square. In the middle of this square they
set up two forks, about one third higher than the posts, and lay a pole
cross them, for the ridge-pole of the building; upon which they nail the
rafters, and cover them with cypress-bark, or palmetto-leaves. The first
settlers likewise build their dwelling-houses in this manner, which
answer the purpose very well, and as well as the houses which their
carpenters build for them, especially for the curing of tobacco; which
they hang in these houses upon sticks or canes, laid across the
building, and about four feet and a half asunder, one above another.

The tobacco-house being ready, you wait till your tobacco is ripe, and
fit to be cut; which you may know by the leaves being brittle, and
easily broke between the fingers, especially in the morning before
sun-rising; but those versed in it know when the tobacco is fit to cut
by the looks of it, and at first sight. You cut your tobacco with a
knife as nigh the ground as you can, after which you lay it upon the
ground for some time, that the leaves may fall, or grow tender, and
not break in carrying. When you carry your tobacco to the house, you
hang it first at the top by pairs, or two plants together, thus
continuing from story to story, taking care that the plants thus hung
are about two inches asunder, and that they do not touch one another,
lest they should rot. In this manner they fill their whole house with
tobacco, and leave it to sweat and dry.

After the tobacco is cut, they weed and clean the ground on which it
grew: each root then puts out several suckers, which are all pulled
off, and only one of the best is left to {190} grow, of which the same
care is taken as of the first crop. By this means a second crop is
made on the same ground, and sometimes a third. These seconds, indeed,
as they are called, do not usually grow so high as the first plant,
but notwithstanding they make very good tobacco. [Footnote: This is an
advantage that they have in Louisiana over our tobacco planters, who
are prohibited by law to cultivate these seconds; the summers are so
short, that they do not come to due maturity in our tobacco colonies;
whereas in Louisiana the summers are two or three months longer, by
which they make two or three crops of tobacco a year upon the same
ground, as early as we make one. Add to this, their fresh lands will
produce three times as much of that commodity, as our old plantations;
which are now worn out with culture, by supplying the whole world
almost with tobacco for a hundred and fifty years. Now if their
tobacco is worth five and six shillings a pound, as we are told above,
or even the tenth part of it, when ours is worth but two pence or
three pence, and they give a bounty upon ships going to the
Missisippi, when our tobacco is loaded with a duty equal to seven
times its prime cost; they may, with all these advantages, soon get
this trade from us, the, only one this nation has left entire to
itself. These advantages enable the planters to give a much better
price for servants and slaves, and thereby to engross the trade. It
was by these means, that the French got the sugar trade from us, after
the treaty of Utrecht, by being allowed to transport their people from
St. Christopher's to the rich and fresh lands of St. Domingo; and by
removing from Canada to Louisiana, they may in the like manner get not
only this, but every other branch of the trade of North America.]

If you have a mind to make your tobacco into rolls, there is no
occasion to wait till the leaves are perfectly dry; but as soon as
they have acquired a yellowish brown colour, although the stem is
green, you unhang your tobacco, and strip the leaves from the stalks,
lay them up in heaps, and cover them with woolen cloths, in order to
sweat them. After that you stem the tobacco, or pull out the middle
rib of the leaf, which you throw away with the stalks, as good for
nothing; laying by the longest and largest of the leaves, that are of
a good blackish brown colour, and keep them for a covering for your
rolls. After this you take a piece of coarse linen, at least eight
inches broad and a foot long, which you spread on the ground, and on
it lay the large leaves you have picked out, and the others over them
in handfuls, taking care always to have more in the middle than at the
ends: then you roll the {191} tobacco up in the cloth, tying it in the
middle and at each end. When you have made a sufficient number of
these bundles, the negroes roll them up as hard as they can with a
cord about as big as the little finger, which is commonly about
fifteen or sixteen fathom long: you tighten them three times, so as to
make them as hard as possible; and to keep them so, you might tie them
up with a string.

But since the time of the West India company, we have seldom cured our
tobacco in this manner, if it is not for our own use; we now cure it
in hands, or bundles of the leaves, which they pack in hogsheads, and
deliver it thus in France to the farmers general. In order to cure the
tobacco in this manner, they wait till the leaves of the stem are
perfectly dry, and in moist, giving weather, they strip the leaves
from the stalk, till they have a handful of them, called a hand, or
bundle of tobacco, which they tie up with another leaf. These bundles
they lay in heaps, in order to sweat them, for which purpose they
cover those heaps with blankets, and lay boards or planks over them.
But you should take care that the tobacco is not over-heated, and does
not take fire, which may easily happen; for which purpose you uncover
your heaps from time to time, and give the tobacco air, by spreading
it abroad. This you continue to do till you find no more heat in the
tobacco; then you pack it in hogsheads, and may transport it any
where, without danger either of its heating or rotting.

II.

_Of the way of making_ Indigo.

The blue stone, known by the name of Indigo, is the extract of a plant
which they who have a sufficient number of slaves to manage it, make
some quantities throughout all this colony. For this purpose they
first weed the ground, and make small holes in it with a hoe, about
five inches asunder, and on a straight line. In each of these holes
they put five or six seeds of the indigo, which are small, long, and
hard. When they come up, they put forth leaves somewhat like those of
box, but a little longer and broader, and not so thick and indented.
When the plant is five or six inches high, they take {192} care to
loosen the earth about the root, and at the same time to weed it. They
reckon it has acquired a proper maturity, when it is about three feet
and a half high: this you may likewise know, if the leaf cracks as you
squeeze the plant in your hand.

Before you cut it, you get ready a place that is covered in the same
manner with the one made for tobacco, about twenty-five feet high; in
which you put three vats, one above another, as it were in different
stories, so that the highest is the largest; that in the middle is
square, and the deepest; the third, at bottom, is the least.

After these operations, you cut the indigo, and when you have several
arms-full, or bundles of the plant, to the quantity judged necessary
for one working, you fill the vat at least three quarters full; after
which you pour water thereon up to the brim, and the plant is left to
steep, in order to rot it; which is the reason why this vat is called
the rotting-tub. For the three or four hours which the plant takes to
rot, the water is impregnated with its virtue; and, though the plant
is green, communicates thereto a blue colour.

At the bottom of the great vat, and where it bears on the one in the
middle (which, as was said, is square) is a pretty large hole, stopped
with a bung; which is opened when the plant is thought to be
sufficiently rotten, and all the water of this vat, mixed with the
mud, formed by the rotting of the plant, falls by this hole into the
second vat; on the edges of which are placed, at proper distances,
forks of iron or wood, on which large long poles are laid, which reach
from the two sides to the middle of the water in the vat; the end
plunged in the water is furnished with a bucket without a bottom. A
number of slaves lay hold on these poles, by the end which is out of
the water; and alternately pulling them down, and then letting the
buckets fall into the vat, they thus continue to beat the water; which
being thus agitated and churned, comes to be covered with a white and
thick scum; and in such quantity as that it would rise up and flow
over the brim of the vat, if the operator did not take care to throw
in, from time to time, some fish-oil, which he sprinkles with a
feather upon this scum. For these reasons this vat is called the
battery.

{193} They continue to beat the water for an hour and a half, or two
hours; after which they give over, and the water is left to settle.
However, they from time to time open three holes, which are placed at
proper distances from top to bottom in one of the sides of this second
vat in order to let the water run off clear. This is repeated for
three several times; but when at the third time the muddy water is
ready to come out at the lowermost hole, they stop it, and open
another pierced in the lower part of that side, which rests on the
third vat. Then all the muddy water falls through that hole of the
second vat, into the third, which is the least, and is called the
_deviling (diablotin.)_

They have sacks, a foot long, made of a pretty close cloth, which they
fill with this liquid thick matter, and hang them on nails round the
indigo-house. The water drains out gradually; and the matter which is
left behind, resembles a real mud, which they take out of these sacks,
and put in moulds, made like little drawers, two feet long by half a
foot broad, and with a border, or ledge, an inch and a half high. Then
they lay them out in the sun, which draws off all the moisture: and as
this mud comes to dry, care is taken to work it with a mason's trowel:
at length it forms a body, which holds together, and is cut in pieces,
while fresh, with wire. It is in this manner that they draw from a
green herb this fine blue colour, of which there are two sorts, one of
which is of a purple dove colour.

III.

_Of Tar; the way of making it; and of making it into Pitch_.

I have said, that they made a great deal of tar in this colony, from
pines and firs; which is done in the following manner. It is a common
mistake, that tar is nothing but the sap or gum of the pine, drawn
from the tree by incision; the largest trees would not yield two
pounds by this method; and if it were, to be made in that manner, you
must choose the most thriving and flourishing trees for the purpose;
whereas it is only made from the trees that are old, and are beginning
to decay, because the older they are, the greater quantities they
contain of that fat bituminous substance, which yields tar; it {194}
is even proper that the tree should be felled a long time, before they
use them for this purpose. It is usually towards the mouth of the
river, and along the sea-coasts, that they make tar; because it is in
those places that the pines chiefly grow.

When they have a sufficient number of these trees, that are fit for
the purpose, they saw them in cuts with a cross-cut saw, about two
feet in length; and while the slaves are employed in sawing them,
others split these cuts lengthwise into small pieces, the smaller the
better. They sometimes spend three or four months in cutting and
preparing the trees in this manner. In the mean time they make a
square hollow in the ground, four or five feet broad, and five or six
inches deep: from one side of which goes off a canal or gutter, which
discharges itself into a large and pretty deep pit, at the distance of
a few paces. From this pit proceeds another canal, which communicates
with a second pit; and even from the first square you make three or
four such trenches, which discharge themselves into as many pits,
according to the quantity of wood you have, or the quantity of tar you
imagine you may draw from it. Then you lay over the square hole four
or five pretty strong bars of iron, and upon these bars you arrange
crosswise the split pieces of pine, of which you should have a
quantity ready; laying them so, that there may be a little air between
them. In this manner you raise a large and high pyramid of the wood,
and when it is finished, you set fire to it at the top. As the wood
burns, the fire melts the resin in the pine, and this liquid tar
distills into the square hole, and from thence runs into the pits made
to receive it.

If you would make pitch of this tar, take two or three red-hot cannon
bullets, and throw them into the pits, full of the tar, which you
intend for this purpose: immediately upon which, the tar takes fire
with a terrible noise and a horrible thick smoke, by which the
moisture that may remain in the tar is consumed and dissipated, and
the mass diminishes in proportion; and when they think it is
sufficiently burnt, they extinguish the fire, not with water, but with
a hurdle covered with turf and earth. As it grows cold, it becomes
hard and shining, so that you cannot take it out of the pits, but by
cutting it with an axe.

{195}

IV.

_Of the Mines of_ Louisiana.

Before we quit this subject, I shall conclude this account by
answering a question, which has often been proposed to me. Are there
any Mines, say they, in this province? There are, without all dispute;
and that is so certain, and so well known, that they who have any
knowledge of this country never once called it in question. And it is
allowed by all, that there are to be found in this country quarries of
plaster of Paris, slate, and very fine veined marble; and I have
learned from one of my friends, who as well as myself had been a great
way on discoveries, that in travelling this province he had found a
place full of fine stones of rock-crystal. As for my share, I can
affirm, without endeavoring to impose on any one, that in one of my
excursions I found, upon the river of the Arkansas, a rivulet that
rolled down with its waters gold-dust; from which there is reason to
believe that there are mines of this metal in that country. And as for
silver-mines, there is no doubt but they might be found there, as well
as in New Mexico, on which this province borders. A Canadian
traveller, named Bon Homme, as he was hunting at some distance from
the Post of the Nachitoches, melted some parcels of a mine, that is
found in rocks at a very little distance from that Post, which
appeared to be very good silver, without any farther purification.
[Footnote: See a farther account and assay of this mine above.]

It will be objected to me, perhaps, that if there is any truth in what
I advance, I should have come from that country laden with silver and
gold; and that if these precious metals are to be found there, as I
have said, it is surprizing that the French have never thought of
discovering and digging them in thirty years, in which they have been
settled in Louisiana. To this I answer, that this objection is only
founded on the ignorance of those who make it; and that a traveller,
or an officer, ordered by his superiors to go to reconnoitre the
country, to draw plans, and give an account of what he has seen, in
nothing but immense woods and deserts, where they cannot so {196} much
as find a path, but what is made by the wild beasts; I say, that such
people have enough to do to take care of themselves and of their
present business, instead of gathering riches; and think it
sufficient, that they return in a whole skin.

With regard to the negligence that the French seem hitherto to have
shewn in searching for these mines, and in digging them, we ought to
take due notice, that in order to open a silver-mine, for example, you
must advance at least a hundred thousand crowns, before you can expect
to get a penny of profit from it, and that the people of the country
are not in a condition to be at any such charge. Add to this, that the
inhabitants are too ignorant of these mines; the Spaniards, their
neighbours, are too discreet to teach them; and the French in Europe
are too backward and timorous to engage in such an undertaking. But
notwithstanding, it is certain that the thing has been already done,
and that just reasons, without doubt, but different from an
impossibility, have caused it to be laid aside.

This author gives a like account of the culture of Rice in Louisiana,
and of all the other staple commodities of our colonies in North
America.

{197} _Extract from a late_ French _Writer, concerning the Importance
of_ Louisiana _to France_.

"One cannot help lamenting the lethargic state of that colony,
(Louisiana) which carries in its bosom the bed of the greatest riches;
and in order to produce them, asks only arms proper for tilling the
earth, which is wholly disposed to yield an hundred fold. Thanks to
the fertility of our islands, our Sugar plantations are infinitely
superior to those of the English, and we likewise excel them in our
productions of Indigo, Coffee, and Cotton.

"Tobacco is the only production of the earth which gives the English
an advantage over us. Providence, which reserved for us the discovery
of Louisiana, has given us the possession of it, that we may be their
rivals in this particular, or at least that we may be able to do
without their Tobacco. Ought we to continue tributaries to them in
this respect, when we can so easily do without them?

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