ACADIAN FRENCH SETTLERS.
SUGAR _vs._ COTTON--ACADIA--A SPECIMEN OF MISSISSIPPI FRENCH LIFE--BAYOU
LA FOURCHE--THE GREAT FLOOD--THEOLOGICAL ARBITRATION--A RUSTIC BALL
--OLD-FASHIONED WEDDINGS--CREOLES AND QUADROONS--THE PLANTER--NEGRO
SERVANTS--GAULS AND ANGLO-NORMANS--ANTAGONISM OF RACES.
Forty years ago, there was quite an excitement among the
cotton-planters, in the neighborhood of Natchez, upon the subject of
sugar-planting in the southern portion of Louisiana. At that time it
was thought the duty (two and a half cents per pound) on imported
sugars would be continued as a revenue tax, and that it would afford
sufficient protection to make the business of sugar-planting much more
profitable than that of cotton. The section of country attracting the
largest share of attention for this purpose was the Teche, or Attakapas
country, the Bayous La Fourche, Terre Bonne, and Black. The Teche and
La Fourche had long been settled by a population, known in Louisiana as
the Acadian French. These people, thus named, had once resided in Nova
Scotia and Lower Canada, or Canada East as now known. When peopled by
the French, Nova Scotia was called Acadia. Upon the conquest by the
English, these people were expelled the country, and in a most inhuman
and unchristian manner. They were permitted to choose the countries to
which they would go, and were there sent by the British Government.
Many went to Canada, some to Vincennes in Indiana, some to St. Louis,
Cape Girardeau, Viedepouche, and Kaskaskia in Mississippi, and many
returned to France.
Upon the cession, or rather donation to Spain of Louisiana by France,
these, with many others of a population similar to these, from the
different arrondissements of France, were sent to Louisiana, and were
located in Opelousas, Attakapas, La Fourche, and in the parishes of St.
John the Baptist, St. Charles, and St. James (parishes constituting the
Acadian coast on the Mississippi). On the La Fourche they constituted,
forty years ago, almost the entire population. They were illiterate and
poor. Possessing the richest lands on earth, which they had reclaimed
from the annual inundations of the Mississippi River by levees
constructed along the margins of the stream--with a climate congenial
and healthful, and with every facility afforded by the navigation of
the bayou and the Mississippi for reaching the best market for all they
could produce--yet, with all these natural advantages, promising to
labor and enterprise the most ample rewards, they could not be
stimulated to industry or made to understand them.
They had established their homes on the margin of the stream, and
cleared a few acres of the land donated by the Government, upon which
to grow a little corn and a few vegetables. With a limited amount of
stock, which found subsistence upon the cane and grass of the woods,
and with the assistance of a shot-gun, they managed to subsist--as
Peake's mother served the Lord--after a fashion.
Their houses were unique: a slender frame, often of poles cut from the
forest, and rudely squared, served the purpose. Into the studding were
placed pins, extending from one to the other, horizontally, and about
ten inches apart. The long gray moss of the country was then gathered
and thrown by layers into a pit dug for the purpose, with the soil,
until the pit was full, when water was added in sufficient quantities
to wet the mass through; this done, all who are assisting in the
construction of the house--men, women, boys, and girls--jump in upon
it, and continue to tramp until mud and moss are completely
intermingled and made of proper consistence, when it is gathered up and
made into rails about two feet long. These rolls are laid over the
pins, commencing at the bottom or sill of the building, when each roll
is bent down at the ends, covering the intervals between the pins,
pressed hardly together, and smoothed with the hands, inside and out,
forming a wall some five inches in thickness, with a perfectly smooth
surface. The roof is first put on, and the floors laid. When this mud
dries thoroughly it is white-washed; the house is then complete, and
presents quite a neat appearance. It will continue to do so if the
white-washing is annually continued. If, however, this is neglected,
the lime falls off in spots, and the primitive mud comes out to view:
then the appearance is anything but pleasant. No pains are taken to
ornament their yards, or gather about them comforts. There is a pig or
two in a pen in the corner of the yard, a hen-roost immediately at the
house, a calf or two at large, and numerous half-starved, mangy
dogs--and innumerable ragged, half-naked children, with little, black,
piercing eyes, and dishevelled, uncombed hair falling about sallow,
gaunt faces, are commingling in the yard with chickens, dogs, and
calves. A sallow-faced, slatternly woman, bareheaded, with uncared-for
hair, long, tangled, and black, with her dress tucked up to her knees,
bare-footed and bare-legged, is wading through the mud from the bayou,
with a dirty pail full of muddy Mississippi water.
A diminutive specimen of a man, clad in blue cottonade pants and
hickory shirt, barefooted, with a palm-leaf hat upon his head, and an
old rusty shot-gun in his hands, stands upon the levee, casting an
inquiring look, first up and then down the bayou, deeply desiring and
most ardently expecting a wandering duck or crane, as they fly along
the course of the bayou. If unfortunately they come within reach of his
fusee, he almost invariably brings them down. Then there is a shout
from the children, a yelp from the dogs, and all run to secure the
game; for too often, "No duck, no dinner." Such a home and such
inhabitants were to be seen on Bayou La Fourche forty years ago, and
even now specimens of the genuine breed may there be found, as
primitive as were their ancestors who first ventured a home in the
Mississippi swamps.
The stream known as Bayou La Fourche, or The Fork, is a large stream,
some one hundred yards wide, leaving the Mississippi at the town of
Donaldsonville, eighty miles above the city of New Orleans, running
south-southeast, emptying into the Gulf, through Timbalier Bay, and may
properly be termed one of the mouths of the Mississippi. Its current
movement does not in high water exceed three miles an hour, and when
the Mississippi is at low water, it is almost imperceptible. Large
steamers, brigs, and schooners come into it when the river is at flood,
and carry out three or four hundred tons of freight each at a time.
The lands upon the banks of this stream are remarkably fertile,
entirely alluvial, and decline from the bank to the swamp, generally
some one or two miles distant. This Acadian population was sent here
during the Spanish domination, and with a view to opening up to
cultivation this important tract of country. It was supposed they would
become--under the favorable auspices of their emigration to the
country, and with such facilities for accumulating money--a wealthy and
intelligent population. This calculation was sadly disappointed. The
mildness of the climate and the fruitfulness of the soil combined to
enervate, instead of stimulating them to active industry, without which
there can be no prosperity for any country. A few acres, though half
cultivated, were found sufficient to yield an ample support, and the
mildness of the climate required but little provision for clothing.
Here, in this Eden upon earth, these people continued to live in a
simplicity of primitive ignorance and indolence scarcely to be believed
by any but an actual observer. Their implements of agriculture were
those of two centuries before. More than half the population wore
wooden shoes, when they wore any at all. Their wants were few, and were
all supplied at home. Save a little flour, powder, and shot, they
purchased nothing. These were paid for by the sale of the produce of
the poultry-yard--the prudent savings from the labor of the women--to
the market-boats from the city.
There were, at the period of which I write, but half a dozen Americans
upon the bayou. These had found the country illy adapted to the growth
of cotton, and some of them had commenced the planting of sugar-cane.
The results from this were very satisfactory, and consequently
stimulating to the enterprise of men of means, who felt they could be
more profitably employed in this new culture than in cotton, even in
the very best cotton regions.
There was one man of high intelligence and long experience who denied
this--Stephen Duncan, of Natchez--and the subsequent experience of many
brought bitter regret that they had not yielded to the counsels of Dr.
Duncan.
The great flood of 1828 had not touched the La Fourche or Teche, while
the entire alluvial plain above had been covered many feet, and for
many months. This was the most terrible inundation, perhaps, ever
experienced in that region; and every one appeared to be now satisfied
that to continue to cultivate lands already reduced to man's dominion,
or to open and prepare any more, subject to this scourge, was madness.
Hence the emigration from this chosen section to the new El Dorado.
Lands rose rapidly in South Louisiana as an effect of this, while
above, in the flooded district, they were to be bought for almost a
nominal price. Those who ventured to purchase these and reduce them to
cultivation realized fortunes rapidly; for there was not a sufficient
flood to reach them again for ten years. The levees by this time had
become so extended as to afford almost entire immunity against the
floods of annual occurrence. The culture of sugar received a new
impetus and began rapidly to increase, and capital came flowing in.
Population of an industrious and hardy character was filling up the
West, and the demand from that quarter alone was equal to the
production, and both were increasing so rapidly as to induce the belief
that it would be as much as all the sugar lands in the State could
accomplish to supply this demand. Steam power for crushing the cane was
introduced--an economy of labor which enhanced the profits of the
production--and a new and national interest was developed, rendering
more and more independent of foreign supply, at least that portion of
the Union most difficult of access to foreign commerce--the great and
growing West.
The Americans, or those Americans speaking English alone, immigrating
into these sections of Louisiana, so far as the language, manners, and
customs of the people were concerned, were going into a foreign land.
The language of the entire population was French, or a patois, as the
European French term it--a provincialism which a Parisian finds it
difficult to understand. The ignorance and squalid poverty of these
people put their society entirely out of the question, even if their
language had been comprehensible. They were amiable, kind, law-abiding,
virtuous, and honest, beyond any population of similar character to be
found in any country. Out of some fifty thousand people, extending over
five or six parishes, such a thing as a suit for slander, or an
indictment for malicious mischief, or a case of bastardy was not known
or heard of once in ten years. This will seem strange when we reflect
that at this time schools were unknown, and not one out of fifty of the
people could read or write, and when it was common for the judge of the
District Court to ask, when a grand jury was impanelled, if there was a
man upon it who could write, that he might make him foreman. And not
unfrequently was he compelled to call from the court-room one who
could, and trump him on the jury for a foreman, as the action was
termed. There was not upon the La Fourche, which comprised three large
parishes, but one pleasure carriage, and not half a dozen ladies'
bonnets. The females wore a colored handkerchief tastily tied about
their heads, when visiting or at church; and when not, not anything but
blowzed, uncombed hair.
The enterprise of the new-comers did not stimulate to emulation the
action of these people. They were content and unenvious, and when
kindly received and respectfully treated, were social and generous in
their intercourse with their American neighbors. They were confiding
and trustful; but once deceived, they were not to be won back, but only
manifested their resentment by withdrawing from communicating with the
deceiver, and ever after distrusting, and refusing him their
confidence. They were universally Catholic; consequently, sectarian
disputes were unknown. They practised eminently the Christian virtues,
and were constant in their attendance at mass. The priest was the
universal arbiter in all disputes, and his decision most implicitly
acquiesced in. They had a horror of debt, and lawsuits, and would
sacrifice any property they might have, to meet punctually an
obligation. Fond of amusements, their social meetings, though of most
primitive character, were frequent and cordial. They observed strictly
the exactions of the Church, especially Lent; but indulged the Carnival
to its wildest extent. Out of Lent they met to dance and enjoy
themselves, weekly, first at one, and then at another neighbor's house;
and with the natural taste of their race, they would appear neatly and
cleanly dressed in the attire fabricated by their own hands in the loom
and with the needle.
The method of invitation to these reunions was simple and speedy. A
youth on his pony would take a small wand, and tie to its top end a red
or white flag, and ride up and down the bayou, from the house where the
ball was intended, for two or three miles; returning, tie the wand and
flag to flaunt above the gate, informing all--"_This is the place._"
All were welcome who came, and everything was conducted with strict
regard to decent propriety. Nothing boisterous was ever known--no
disputing or angry wrangling, for there was no cause given; harmony and
happiness pervaded all, and at proper time and in a proper manner all
returned to their homes.
Marriages, almost universally, were celebrated at the church, as in all
Catholic countries. The parsonage is at the church, and the priest
always on hand, at the altar or the grave; and almost daily, in this
dense population, a marriage or funeral was seen at the church. It was
the custom for the bride and groom, with a party of friends, all on
horseback, to repair without ceremony to the church, where they were
united in matrimony by the good priest, who kissed the bride, a
privilege he never failed to put into execution, when he blessed the
couple, received his fee, and sent them away rejoicing. This ceremony
was short, and without ostentation; and then the happy and expectant
pair, often on the same horse, would return with the party as they had
come, with two or three musicians playing the violin in merry tunes on
horseback, as they joyfully galloped home, where a ball awaited them at
night, and all went merry with the married belle.
These people are Iberian in race, are small in stature, of dark
complexion, with black eyes, and lank black hair; their hands and feet
are small, and beautifully formed, and their features regular and
handsome; many of their females are extremely beautiful. These attain
maturity very early, and are frequently married at thirteen years of
age. In more than one instance, I have known a grandmother at thirty.
As in all warm countries, this precocious maturity is followed with
rapid decay. Here, persons at forty wear the appearance of those in
colder climates of sixty years. Notwithstanding this apparent early
loss of vigor, the instances of great longevity are perhaps more
frequent in Louisiana than in any other State of the Union. This,
however, can hardly be said of her native population: emigrants from
high latitudes, who come after maturity, once acclimated, seem to
endure the effects of climate here with more impunity than those native
to the soil.
The Bayou Plaquemine formerly discharged an immense amount of water
into the lakes intervening between the La Fourche and the Teche. These
lakes have but a narrow strip of cultivable land. Along the right
margin of the La Fourche, and the left of the Teche, they serve as a
receptacle for the waters thrown from the plantations and those
discharged by the Atchafalayah and the Plaquemine, which ultimately
find their way to the Gulf through Berwick's Bay. They are interspersed
with small islands: these have narrow strips of tillable land, but are
generally too low for cultivation; and when the Mississippi is at
flood, they are all under water, and most of them many feet. The La
Fourche goes immediately to the Gulf, between Lake Barataria and these
lakes, affording land high enough, when protected as they now are, for
settlement, and cultivation to a very great extent. Its length is some
one hundred miles, and the settlements extend along it for eighty
miles. These are continuous, and nowhere does the forest intervene.
At irregular distances between these Acadian settlements, large sugar
plantations are found. These have been extending for years, and
increasing, absorbing the habitats of these primitive and innocent
people, who retire to some little ridge of land deeper in the swamp, a
few inches higher than the plane of the swamp, where they surround
their little mud-houses with an acre or so of open land, from the
products of which, and the trophies of the gun and fishing-line and
hook, and an occasional frog, and the abundance of crawfish, they
contrive to eke out a miserable livelihood, and afford the fullest
illustration of the adage, "Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be
wise."
The contrast between these princely estates, and the palatial mansions
which adorn them, and make a home of luxuriant beauty, and the little
log huts, their immediate neighbors, tells at once that the population
is either very rich or very poor, and that under such circumstances the
communication must be extremely limited; for the ignorance of the poor
unfits them for social and intelligent intercourse with their more
wealthy and more cultivated neighbors. This is true whether the planter
is French or American. The remarkable salubrity of the climate,
combined with the comforts and luxuries of home, causes the planter to
spend most of his time there, where he can give his attention to his
business and mingle with his brother planters in a style and manner
peculiar to Louisiana and the tastes of her people. Intercommunication
is facilitated by steamboat travel, and as every plantation is located
upon a navigable stream, the planter and family can at any time suiting
his business go with little trouble to visit his friends, though they
may be hundreds of miles apart. Similarity of pursuit and interest draw
these together. There is no rivalry, and consequently no jealousy
between them. All their relations are harmonious, and their intercourse
during the summer is continuous, for at that season the business of the
plantation may be safely trusted to a manager, one of whom is found on
every plantation.
This social intercourse is highly promotive of a general amity, as it
cultivates an intimacy which at once familiarizes every one with the
feelings, situation, and intentions of the other. Sometimes the
contiguity of plantations enables the families of planters to exchange
formal morning and evening calls, but most generally the distance to be
overgone is too great for this. Then the visiting is done by families,
and extends to days, and sometimes weeks. Provisions are so abundant
that the extra consumption is never missed, and the residences are
always of such dimensions that the visitors seem scarcely to increase
the family--never to be in the way; and the suits of apartments
occupied by them were built and furnished for the purpose to which they
are then devoted. The visitor is at home. The character of the
hospitality he is enjoying permits him to breakfast from seven till
ten, alone, or in company with the family if he chooses. Horses, dogs,
and guns for the gentlemen--billiards, the carriage, music, or
promenading, with cards, chess, backgammon, or dominos for the ladies,
to pass away the day until dinner. At this meal the household and
guests unite, and the rich viands, wines, and coffee make a feast for
the body and sharpen the wit to a feast of the soul. This society is
the freest and most refined to be found in the country.
Upon the coast of the Mississippi, from Baton Rouge to many miles below
the city, the proximity of the large plantations presents an
opportunity of close and constant intercourse. A very large majority of
these are the property and habitations of the cultivated and
intelligent Creoles of the State. And here let me explain the term
Creole, which has led to so many ludicrous, and sometimes to painful
mistakes. It is an arbitrary term, and imported from the West Indies
into Louisiana. Its original meaning was a native born of foreign
parents; but universal use has made it to mean, in Louisiana, nothing
more than simply "native;" and it is applied indiscriminately to
everything native to the State--as Creole cane, Creole horse, Creole
negro, or creole cow. Many confound its meaning with that of quadroon,
and suppose it implies one of mixed blood, or one with whose blood
mingles that of the African--than which no meaning is more foreign to
the word.
The Creole planters, or what are termed French Creoles, are descended
from a very different race from the Acadian Creole, or Iberian. The
first colonists who came to Louisiana were men of the first blood and
rank in France. The Ibervilles, the Bienvilles, St. Denises, and many
others, were of noble descent; and the proud prestige of their names
and glorious deeds still clings around their descendants now peopling
the lands they conquered from the desert, the savage, and the flood.
These daring men brought with them the chivalrous spirit which
descended to their sons--the open, gallant bearing; the generous
hospitality; the noble humanity; the honor which prefers death to a
stain, and the soul which never stoops to a lie, a fraud, or a meanness
degrading to a gentleman. They have been born upon the banks of the
great river of the world; they have seen all the developments of
talent, time, and enterprise which have made their country great as the
river through which it flows. Accustomed from infancy to look upon this
scene and these developments, their souls with their ideas have been
sublimated, and they are a population unsurpassed in the higher
attributes of humanity, and the nobler sympathies of man, by any on the
face of the earth--surrounded by wealth, tangible and substantial,
descending from generation to generation, affording to each all the
blessings wealth can give.
The spirit of hospitality and independence has ennobled the sons, as
hereditary wealth and privilege had the sires who planted this colony.
These sires laid the foundation of this wealth, in securing for their
posterity the broad acres of this fat-land where now they are to be
found. None have emigrated: conscious of possessing the noblest
heritage upon earth, they have remained to eliminate from this soil the
wealth which in such abundance they possess. As they were reared, they
have reared their sons; the lessons of truth, virtue, honor have borne
good fruit. None can say they ever knew a French Creole a confirmed
drunkard or a professional gambler. None ever knew an aberration of
virtue in a daughter of one.
The high-bred Creole lady is a model of refinement--modest, yet free in
her manners; chaste in her thoughts and deportment; generous in her
opinions, and full of charity; highly cultivated intellectually and by
association; familiar from travel with the society of Europe; mistress
of two, and frequently of half a dozen languages, versed in the
literature of all. Accustomed from infancy to deport themselves as
ladies, with a model before them in their mothers, they grow up with an
elevation of sentiment and a propriety of deportment which
distinguishes them as the most refined and polished ladies in the whole
country. There is with these a softness of deportment and delicacy of
expression, an abstinence from all violent and boisterous expressions
of their feelings and sentiments, and above all, the entire freedom
from petty scandal, which makes them lovely, and to be loved by every
honorable and high-bred gentleman who may chance to know them and
cultivate their association. Indeed, this is a characteristic of the
gentlemen as well as the ladies.
These people may have a feud, and sometimes they do; but this rarely
remains long unsettled. No one will ever hear it publicly alluded to,
and assuredly they will never hear it uttered in slanderous
vituperation of the absent party. I may be permitted here to narrate an
incident illustrative of this peculiarity.
A gentleman, knowing of a dissension between two parties, was dining
with one of them, in company with several others. This guest spoke to
the hostess disparagingly of the enemy of her husband, who, hearing the
remark, rebuked his officious guest by remarking to him: "Doctor, my
lady and myself would prefer to find out the foibles and sins of our
neighbors ourselves." The rebuke was effectual, and informed the
doctor, who was new in the country, of an honorable feeling in the
refined population of the land of his adoption alien to that of his
birth, and which he felt made these people the superior of all he had
ever known.
No one has ever travelled upon one of those palatial steamers abounding
on the Mississippi, in the spring season of the year, when the waters
swell to the tops of the levees, lifting the steamer above the level of
the great fields of sugar-cane stretching away for miles to the forest
on either bank of that mighty river, who has not been delighted with
the lovely homes, surrounded with grounds highly cultivated and most
beautifully ornamented with trees, shrubs, and flowers, which come upon
the view in constant and quick succession, as he is borne onward
rapidly along the accumulated waters of the great river. This scene
extends one hundred and fifty miles up the river, and is one not
equalled in the world. The plain is continuous and unbroken; nor hill
nor stream intersects it but at two points, where the Plaquemine and La
Fourche leave it to find a nearer way to the sea; and these are so
diminutive, in comparison with all around, that they are passed almost
always without being seen.
The fringe of green foliage which is presented by the trees and shrubs
adorning each homestead, follows in such rapid succession as to give it
a continuous line, in appearance, to the passers-by on the steamer.
These, denuded of timber to the last tree, the immense fields, only
separated by a ditch, or fence, which spread along the river--all
greened with the luxuriant sugar-cane, and other crops, growing so
vigorously as at once to satisfy the mind that the richness of the soil
is supreme--and this scene extending for one hundred and fifty miles,
makes it unapproachable by any other cultivated region on the face of
the globe. Along the Ganges and the Nile, the plain is extensive. The
desolate appearance it presents--the miserable homes of the population,
devoid of every ornament, without comfort or plenty in their
appearance--the stinted and sparse crops, the intervening deserts of
sand, the waste of desolation, spreading away far as the eye can
reach--the streams contemptible in comparison, and the squalid,
degraded, thriftless people along their banks, make it painful to the
beholder, who is borne on his way in some dirty little craft,
contrasting so strangely with the Mississippi steamer. Yet, in
admirable keeping with everything else, all these present a grand
contrast to the valley of the Mississippi, and only prove the latter
has no equal in all that pertains to grandeur, beauty, and abundance,
on the globe. To appreciate all these, you must know and mingle with
the population who have thus ornamented, with labor and taste, the
margin of this stream of streams.
As this great expanse of beauty is a fairy-land to the eye, so is the
hospitality of its homes a delight to the soul. In this population, if
nowhere else in America, is seen a contented and happy people--a people
whose pursuit is happiness, and not the almighty dollar. Unambitious of
that distinction which only wealth bestows, they are content with an
abundance for all their comforts, and for the comfort of those who, as
friends or neighbors, come to share it with them. Unambitious of
political distinction, despising the noisy tumult of the excited
populace, they love their homes, and cultivate the ease of quiet in
these delicious retreats, enjoying life as it passes, in social and
elegant intercourse with each other, nor envying those who rush into
the busy world and hunt gain or distinction from the masses, through
the shrewdness of a wit cultivated and debased by trade, or a fawning,
insincere sycophancy toward the dirty multitude they despise. By such,
these people are considered anomalous, devoid of energy or enterprise,
contented with what they have, nor ambitious for more--which, to an
American, with whom, if the earth is obtained, the moon must be striven
for, is stranger than all else--living indolently at their ease,
regardless of ephemeral worldly distinctions, but happy in the comforts
of home, and striving only to make this a place for the enjoyment of
themselves and those about them.
To the stranger they are open and kind, universally hospitable, never
scrutinizing his whole man to learn from his manner or dress whether he
comes as a gentleman or a sharper, or whether he promises from
appearance to be of value to them pecuniarily in a trade. There is
nothing of the huckster in their natures. They despise trade, because
it degrades; they have only their crops for sale, and this they trust
to their factors; they never scheme to build up chartered companies for
gain, by preying upon the public; never seek to overreach a neighbor or
a stranger, that they may increase their means by decreasing his; would
scorn the libation of generous wine, if they felt the tear of the widow
or the orphan mingled with it, and a thousand times would prefer to be
cheated than to cheat; despising the vicious, and cultivating only the
nobler attributes of the soul.
Such is the character of the educated French Creole planters of
Louisiana--a people freer from the vices of the age, and fuller of the
virtues which ennoble man, than any it has fallen to my lot to find in
the peregrinations of threescore years and ten. The Creoles, and
especially the Creole planters, have had little communication with any
save their own people. The chivalry of character, in them so
distinguishing a trait, they have preserved as a heritage from their
ancestors, whose history reads more like a romance than the lives and
adventures of men, whose nobility of soul and mind was theirs from a
long line of ancestors, and brought with them to be planted on the
Mississippi in the character of their posterity.
Is it the blood, the rearing, or the religion of these people which
makes them what they are? They are full of passion; yet they are gentle
and forbearing toward every one whom they suppose does not desire to
wrong or offend them; they are generous and unexacting, abounding in
the charity of the heart, philanthropic, and seemingly from instinct
practising toward all the world all the Christian virtues. They are
brave, and quick to resent insult or wrong, and prefer death to
dishonor; scrupulously just in all transactions with their fellow-men,
forbearing toward the foibles of others, without envy, and without
malice. In their family intercourse they are respectful and kind, and
particularly to their children: they are cautious never to oppress or
mortify a child--directing the parental authority first to the teaching
of the heart, then to the mind--instilling what are duties with a
tenderness and gentleness which win the affections of the child to
perform these through love only. Propriety of deportment toward their
seniors and toward each other is instilled from infancy and observed
through life. All these lessons are stamped upon the heart, not only by
the precepts of parents and all about them, but by their example.
The negro servants constitute a part of every household, and are
identified with the family as part of it. To these they are very kind
and forbearing, as also to their children, to whom they uniformly speak
and act gently. A reproof is never given in anger to either, nor in
public, for the purpose of mortifying, but always in private, and
gently--in sorrow rather than in anger; and where punishment must be
resorted to, it is done where only the parent or master, and the child
or servant, can see or know it. This is the example of the Church. The
confessional opens up to the priest the errors of the penitent, and
they are rebuked and forgiven in secret, or punished by the imposition
of penalties known only to the priest and his repentant parishioner. Is
it this which makes such models of children and Christians in the
educated Creole population of Louisiana? or is it the instinct of race,
the consequence of a purer and more sublimated nature from the blue
blood of the exalted upon earth? The symmetry of form, the delicacy of
feature in the males, their manliness of bearing, and the high
chivalrous spirit, as well as the exquisite beauty and grace of their
women, with the chaste purity of their natures, would seem to indicate
this as the true reason.
All who have ever entered a French Creole family have observed the
gentle and respectful bearing of the children, their strict yet
unconstrained observance of all the proprieties of their position, and
also the affectionate intercourse between these and their parents, and
toward each other--never an improper word; never an improper action;
never riotous; never disobedient. They approach you with confidence,
yet with modesty, and are respectful even in the mirth of childish
play. Around the mansions of these people universally are
pleasure-grounds, permeated with delightful promenades through
parterres of flowers and lawns of grass, covered with the delicious
shade thrown from the extended limbs and dense foliage of the great
trees. These children, when wandering here, never trespass upon a
parterre or pluck unbidden a flower, being restrained only by a sense
of propriety and decency inculcated from the cradle, and which grows
with their growth, and at maturity is part of their nature. Could
children of Anglo-Norman blood be so restrained? Would the wild
energies of these bow to such control, or yield such obedience from
restraint or love? Certainly in their deportment they are very
different, and seem only to yield to authority from fear of punishment,
and dash away into every kind of mischief the moment this is removed.
Nor is this fear and certainty of infliction of punishment in most
cases found to be of sufficient force to restrain these inherent
proclivities.
Too frequently with such as these the heart-training in childhood is
neglected or forgotten, and they learn to do nothing from love as a
duty to God and their fellow-beings. The good priest comes not as a
minister of peace and love into the family; but is too frequently held
up by the thoughtless parent as a terror, not as a good and loving man,
to be loved, honored, and revered, and these are too frequently the
raw-head and bloody-bones painted to the childish imagination by those
parents who regard the rod as the only reformer of childish errors--who
forget the humanities in inspiring the brutalities of parental
discipline, as well as the pastoral duties of their vocation. They
persuade not into fruit the blossoms of the heart, but crush out the
delicate sensibilities from the child's soul by coarse reproofs and
brutal bearing toward them. The causes of difference I cannot divine,
but I know that the facts exist, and I know the difference extends to
the adults of the two races.
The Anglo-American is said to be more enterprising, more energetic and
progressive--seeks dangers to overcome them, and subdues the world to
his will. The Gallic or French-American is less enterprising, yet
sufficiently so for the necessary uses of life. He is more honest and
less speculative; more honorable and less litigious; more sincere with
less pretension; superior to trickery or low intrigue; more open and
less designing; of nobler motives and less hypocrisy; more refined and
less presumptuous, and altogether a man of more chivalrous spirit and
purer aspirations. The Anglo-American commences to succeed, and will
not scruple at the means: he uses any and all within his power, secures
success, and this is called enterprise combined with energy. Moral
considerations are a slight obstacle. They may cause him to hesitate,
but never restrain his action. The maxim is ever present to his mind:
it is honorable and respectable to succeed--dishonorable and
disreputable to fail; it is only folly to yield a bold enterprise to
nice considerations of moral right. If he can avoid the penalties of
the civil law, success obviates those of the moral law. Success is the
balm for every wrong--the passport to every honor.
"His race may be a line of thieves,
His acts may strike the soul with horror;
Yet infamy no soiling leaves--
The rogue to-day's the prince to-morrow."
This demoralizes: the expedient for the just--that which will do, not
that which should do, if success requires, must be resorted to. This
idea, like the pestilence which rides the breeze, reaches every heart,
and man's actions are governed only by the law--not by a high moral
sense of right. Providence, it is supposed, prepares for all exigencies
in the operations of nature. If this be true, it may be that the
peculiarities of blood, and the consequence to human character, may, in
the Anglo-American, be specially designed for his mission on this
continent; for assuredly he is the eminently successful man in all
enterprises which are essential in subduing the earth, and aiding in
the spreading of his race over this continent. Every opposition to his
progress fails, and the enemies of this progress fall before him, and
success is the result of his every effort. That the French Creoles
retain the chivalry and noble principles of their ancestry is certainly
true; but that they have failed to preserve the persevering enterprise
of their ancestors is equally true.
Emigration from France, to any considerable extent, was stayed after
the cessation of Louisiana to the United States, and the French
settlements ceased to expand. The country along and north of Red River,
on the Upper Mississippi and the Washita, was rapidly filled up with a
bold, hardy American population, between whom and the French sparsely
peopling the country about Natchitoches on the Red, and Monroe on the
Washita River, there was little or no sympathy; and the consequence was
that many of those domiciled already in these sections left, and
returned to the Lower Mississippi, or went back to France.
There had been, anterior to this cession, two large grants of land made
to the Baron de Bastrop and the Baron de Maison Rouge, upon the Washita
and Bartholomew, including almost the entire extent of what is now two
parishes. These grants were made by the European Government upon
condition of settlement within a certain period. The Revolution in
France was expelling many of her noblest people, and the Marquis de
Breard, with many followers, was one of these: he came, and was the
pioneer to these lands. A nucleus formed, and accessions were being
made, but the government being transferred and the country becoming
Americanized, this tide of immigration was changed from French to
American, and the requisite number of settlers to complete the grants
was not reached within the stipulated period, and they were, after more
than half a century, set aside, and the lands disposed of as public
lands by the United States Government. Had the government continued in
the hands of France, it is more than probable that the titles to these
tracts would never have been contested, even though the requisite
number of settlers had not been upon the lands to complete the grants
at the specified period; and it is also probable there would have been,
in proper time, the required number. But this transfer of dominion was
exceedingly distasteful to the French population.
The antagonism of races itself is a great difficulty in the way of
amalgamation, even though both may belong to the same great division of
the human family; but added to this the difference of language, laws,
habits, and religion, it would almost seem impossible. In the instance
of Louisiana it has, so far, proved impossible. Although the French
have been American subjects for more than sixty years, and there now
remain in life very few who witnessed the change, and notwithstanding
this population has, so far as the government is concerned, become
thoroughly Americanized, still they remain to a very great extent a
distinct people. Even in New Orleans they have the French part and the
American part of the city, and do not, to any very great degree, extend
their union by living among each other. Kind feelings exist between the
populations, and the prejudices which have so effectually kept them
apart for so long a time are giving way rapidly now, since most of the
younger portion of the Creole-French population are educated in the
United States, and away from New Orleans; consequently they speak the
English language and form American associations, imbibe American ideas,
and essay to rival American enterprise. Still there is a distinct
difference in appearance. Perhaps the difference in bearing, and in
other characteristics, may be attributable to early education, but the
first and most radical is surely that of blood.
The settlements upon the Red and Washita Rivers did not augment the
French population in the country; it has declined, but more signally
upon the latter than the former river. There remain but few families
there of the ancient population, and these are now so completely
Americanized as scarcely to be distinguishable. The descendants of the
Marquis de Breard, in one or two families, are there, but all who
located on the Bayou Des Arc (and here was the principal settlement),
with perhaps one family only, are gone, and the stranger is in their
homes.
The French character seems to want that fixity of purpose, that
self-denial, and steady perseverance, which is so necessary to those
who would colonize and subdue a new and inhospitable country. The
elevated civilization of the French has long accustomed them to the
refinements and luxuries of life; it has entered into and become a part
of their natures, and they cannot do violence to this in a sufficient
degree to encounter the wilderness and all its privations, or to create
from this wilderness those luxuries, and be content in their enjoyment
for all the hardships endured in procuring them: they shrink away from
these, and prefer the inconveniences and privations of a crowded
community with its enjoyments, even in poverty, to the rough and trying
troubles which surround and distress the pioneer, who pierces the
forest and makes him a home, which, at least, promises all the comforts
of wealth and independence to his posterity. He rather prefers to take
care that he enjoys as he desires the present, and leaves posterity to
do as they prefer. Yet there are many instances of great daring and
high enterprise in the French Creole: these are the exceptions, not the
rule.