The history of New Orleans, if fully written out from its earliest
day, in connection with the first adventures and discovery of the
Mississippi Valley, would be one possessing more interest to the people
of this country, than that of almost any other portion of the American
Continent. To do this, in any degree to satisfy the inquiring mind,
is not the purpose of the author of these few pages. The writer only
designs to give a brief portrait of the breathing mass, that fills up
the great emporium of the Valley of the Mississippi. To say that all
_live_, in the common understanding of the term, who spend their time
there, would be to give a false coloring to a large portion of the
picture, which the reader may be assured is true in all its lineaments.
It is important, however, to the reader, to know something of the
early history of this section of the country, as well as a general
description of the city, and some things connected with it, to be able
to duly appreciate and understand, why a life in New Orleans differs
so widely from any other in the whole range of civilization. And while
standing on the Levee, and looking over that great busy mart, where
the products and treasures of that vast region of the Mississippi
Valley and its tributaries, are constantly being poured out, it would
seem that a word could not be said of New Orleans, without requiring a
full history of its discovery, beginning of settlement, adventures of
individuals in other portions of the Valley, along the banks of this
great artery of the breathing earth, which is constantly pouring its
floods into the bosom of the ocean. As a brief sketch is demanded of
the early times of this range of our country, I shall only notice a few
things.
One among the most singular facts in the history of discoveries, is
that this mighty flood of many waters, was first met with more than one
thousand miles from its mouth. The first discoverer was a Spaniard, by
the name of De Soto. He started from the Island of Cuba, in the year
1538, with six hundred men, landed on the coast of Florida, passed to
the North, through Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, and came to the
river, at the place now known as Chickasaw Bluffs.
In passing from 1538, down to 1717, many adventurers from the old
countries, as well as from the colonies, came, and scarcely more than
roused the panther and alligator from their lairs, and passed on,
leaving them quietly to return to their repose, and there to remain,
until another should come after them in search of the “_fountain of
immortal youth_,” which was the object sought after by those who first
traversed this region of our country, and whom the Indians had now
made to believe there existed such a fountain, in which, if a man
should bathe, he would, even if old, return back to the sunny days
of youth, his life be without end and clothed in immortal youth. But
this glorious fountain was never realized, yet on they came, for many
years, company after company; and most of them found a resting place,
unburied, in the midst of the swamps and desolation of a wild and
unbroken wilderness.
The result of these several companies, in search of the fountain of
“living waters,” was a settlement under the patronage of the French
government, after the purchase from Spain, one at Natchez, and one
at Balize, on Lake Pontchartrain; and finally, in the year 1718, at
the city of New Orleans, this Babel of all Babels, this Sodom of all
Sodoms, was commenced. And here let me ask the reader to pause and
contemplate the scenes which have been enacted in this modern Golgotha.
Turn back to the pages of its history, although never written; yet to
read it, let the imagination have its widest range, excite it as livid
as the lightning flash amid the lowering thunder cloud; and then call
up the fullest measure of human woe, of moral degradation, of human
suffering, and contemplate the blackest rage of human passion, and all
the dark and damning deeds that the fiends of the infernal regions
could perpetrate, and you would have before you a faint moonlight
picture of the early days of New Orleans. But now, a change has come
over the drama of life, yet not in the spirit of her dreams. For the
same boiling caldron of human passion is still there, swallowing up its
victims, and as in olden times, leaving not a shred or a remnant, to
tell from whence they came or whither they have gone.
This was New Orleans a century ago, and this is New Orleans to-day. And
notwithstanding a change is in her outward forms, by throwing aside the
bowie knife, the dirk and pistol, yet the weapons by which destruction
is now accomplished, are none the less sure, none the less fatal. For
unlike the knife and pistol, they never maim, but strike strong and
deep into the very life blood of the victim.