Explorers and TravellersGreely, A. W. (Adolphus Washington)
History
Explorers and Travellers
Greely, A. W. (Adolphus Washington)
Explorers; Travelers
With Mobile commenced, the royal storehouses erected, and the alliance
of the Choctaws and Chickasaws secured, Iberville felt that the colony
of Louisiana was on a secure foundation, and on March 31st he sailed
from Dauphine Island, then the headquarters of that colony for which he
had done so much, and which he was destined never again to see.
The domain of Louisiana, obtained by so much heroic endeavor and
individual suffering on the part of Joliet, Marquette, La Salle, Tonti,
Iberville, and their associates, passed at once, by an edict of Louis
XIV., into a monopoly and under the control of a courtier, Anton Crozat,
for trading purposes, by the decree of September 14, 1712. In this
decree the limits of Louisiana were for the first time defined,
including "all the territories by us (France) possessed, and bounded by
New Mexico and by those of the English in Carolina.... The river St.
Louis, formerly called the Mississippi, from the sea-shore to the
Illinois, together with the rivers St. Phillipe, formerly called the
Missouries, and the St. Jerome, formerly called the Wabash (the Ohio),
with all the countries, territories, lakes in the land, and the rivers
emptying directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis.
All the said territories, countries, rivers, streams, and islands we
will to be and remain comprised under the name of the government of
Louisiana."
There was another and blacker page to the decree, whereby Crozat was
further authorized to introduce African slavery: "If the aforesaid Sieur
Crozat considers it advisable to have negroes in the said country of
Louisiana, for agriculture or other use on plantations, he can send a
ship each year to trade directly with the Guinea coast, ... and is
further authorized to sell negroes to the settlers of Louisiana."
But prior to this condition of affairs the great Canadian naval
commander had passed to his final reward, having died of yellow fever at
Havana, July 9, 1706. The last leaf in his history was, however, an
effort, through his personal bravery and skill, to secure French
domination in America by driving out of the Antilles the determined
English seamen whose successful raids so often militated against the
interests of France. Despite his health, undermined by fevers, Iberville
left France with a fleet with which he hoped to carry out this great
plan. Intending to make a descent upon Barbadoes, he learned that the
English, warned of his plans, were prepared for him. He therefore seized
on the islands of Nevis and St. Christopher, where his fleet captured an
enormous amount of booty of all kinds. He decided next to ravage the
English colonies in the Carolinas, but stopping at Havana for
reinforcements he lost his own life by the epidemic which destroyed
eight hundred others of his fleet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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