Introduction to History of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana

Chapter I

The art of navigation nearly to the close of the fifteenth century was confined to the inland seas and the coasts of the European or Eastern world. The compass not then being known, the seaman, in his voyages, was guided on his course by capes, head­lands, the sun and stars; consequently, his voyages were of no great extent. Tradition had filled the wider seas with dangers and monsters dire; storms guarded all unknown regions and forbade all venture into the unknown. An obscuration by clouds of the sun and stars filled the seaman's soul with a sense of dread for fear he might lose his course and miss the port he sought. Furthermore, there was a danger line in the wide western sea and in the equatorial regions that he dared not approach. The decending (sic) waters of the one would surely prevent his return home the heat of the other would dissolve his ship.

But towards the close of the fifteenth century, new though vague ideas as to the shape of the surrounding seas began to be entertained; the geographer and the philosopher assumed to teach that the earth, instead of being a flat or vast plain, was round; they denied that the sea extended to an immeasurable distance in all directions from and around the earth and flowed over at some unknown limit and was wasted in the void below; or that the equatorial sea was a hot, seething cauldron in which life was impossible. Men now began to reason, that should this earth of ours be round or globular, the sea must reach from shore to shore of its different coasts. Should this be true, at once was dissolved the many doubts, and the absurd theories that then perplexed the geographer as well as the philosopher. In a great measure it would make plain many facts belonging to sea and land that appeared inscrutable: such as the flow of rivers, the rising and falling of the tides and the dip of the horizon.

Columbus had believed for years that the earth was round or globular, and that the waters of the ocean extended from the eastern shore of Europe to the western shore of India. If so, guided by that wonderful instrument, the compass which had then come into use he could sail across any sea to any land which it reached. Abjuring all traditional dangers he resolved to prove that nature's works were consistent, and an aimless creation impossible. His eagerness to prove his faith by his works became more fully aroused just at this time by the wonderful stories brought from the far east by the Venician traveler, Marco Polo. These convinced him that the earth was round, and that by sailing to the west he could reach India then the land of wonders and fabulous wealth, by a much shorter and safer route than by the long and dangerous overland route Marco Polo had traveled. He determined to prove the correctness of his theory.

With this theory well defined in his own mind, and with maps and charts in hand, he went forth in search of help, being poor, to enable him to undertake his great venture. Patiently, for years, he explained his theory of the conformation of the earth and urged the feasibility of the enterprise all in vain. The ignorance of that period, as it was in ours when Morse begged a pittance to prove his telegraphic theory, closed the ears of bankers and thrones to his appeals. Genoa, his native state, Portugal and other powers rejected him as the wildest of adventurers.

"What," exclaimed the learned schools and the great statesmen, "the earth round and like a globe swinging in space! and people on the other side with their feet towards ours! Impossible absurd; they would fall from the earth into the void below; the ocean would be emptied of its waters; the rivers would run dry, and the earth become a desert. More, should the earth be globular and a ship sail down to the other side, it could never return, for a ship cannot sail up hill."

As a last chance, Columbus approached the throne of Castile, or Spain. The King and Queen became interested in his theory, listened to his explanations until such rich visions of empire and wealth and the extension of the Holy Church arose in their minds, that they determined to equip a fleet and send him forth on his great venture.

In due time a fleet of three small vessels, so small that few at this day would venture on a hundred miles from shore, were made ready. With much difficulty a crew was enlisted, and in August, 1492, Columbus sailed from the port of Palos on that voyage which has built up and revolutionized governments, religion, philosophy and knowledge. Touching at the Azore Islands, said to have been discovered by, a ship driven by adverse winds out of her course, he thence turned the prows of his little fleet directly west into the wide waters of the deep and unknown Atlantic. After sailing many days to the west, without any sign of land appearing, the fears and superstitions of his crew began to make them uneasy. They murmured, and then demanded that the ships should be turned towards home. But Columbus, selfpossessed, by pursuasions (sic) and promises influenced his men to trust him and go yet further into the unknown sea. At last signs appeared which nerved the hearts of his trembling crew birds began to fly over and around the ships, driftwood was seen in the water, then a green bush floated by. These signs of land not far off were too plain to be unheeded; sail was shortened, and while moving slowly forward a close watch, by eager eyes, was kept for land. About midnight a light was seen moving as if carried by a person walking. Immediately the ships were stopped in their forward movement for fear of going ashore and all waited impatiently and wonderingly the marvelous revelation the morning was to bring forth. And when that memorable morning of October the 12th, 1492 came, a new world in all its pristine beauty lay before Columbus and his anxious crew. The fact that the earth was as a globe, that the waters of the sea reached from shore to shore was proved, and Columbus had triumphed.

Columbus, believing he was on the western coast of India, named the inhabitants Indians hence the name of the original people of the American continent. In a subsequent voyage, he sailed for miles along the shore of the main land south of the Carribean (sic) sea, and yet died not knowing he had discovered a new world.

This discovery of Columbus aroused a wild spirit of adventure among all the maritime people of Europe, and adventure after adventure was sent out to the new world, mainly in quest of gold and glory. Many sought, in the interest of commerce, a shorter route to India by way of the northern sea, but this vast continent, its extent then unknown, lay directly in the way. In search of this route, Cartier, a French navigator, in 1535, entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and ascended the river of that name to an Indian village where now stands the town of Montreal.

In 1605 De Monts founded the town of Port Royal in Nova Scotia which claims to be the first European settlement in America. Champlain in 1608, established a trading post on the St. Lawrence river, which post in the course of years has become the historic city of Quebec. Sixty years after the establishment of this post, during which time the French had secured strong position on the St. Lawrence, Father Marquette, a Catholic priest and missionary learned from the Indians of a great river further west, by them designated The Father of Waters, because of its immense volume, and resolved to see it. In the light canoe or boat used by the Indians, he made his way down the Illinois River to the Mississippi, which he entered, in 1674 and continued down it as far as the mouth of the Arkansas. Returning to Quebec, he told of this immense river; and in 1683 La Salle and others, about twenty in number, made their way to it, descending it to the Gulf of Mexico and in honor of Louis the XIV, then King of France, La Salle named the country through which the Mississippi flowed, Louisiana. Deeply impressed with the future possibilities of this great waterway and the adjacent country through which it carried him, he returned to Canada and immediately sailed for France. Convincing the King of the magnificence of such an acquisition to his domain, by order of the King a fleet was fitted out and La Salle; with a number of emigrants, set sail for the mouth of the Mississippi to establish a colony in Louisiana. But not having correctly ascertained the bearing of the outlet of the river, he failed to find it and landed at some point west on the coast of Texas. His brother soon departed with the fleet to France, leaving La Salle and the colonists ashore in the new world. Discontent arising among the colonists, La Salle in search of succor, started by land to Canada, but was assassinated by his followers, who disappeared in the wilds of Texas, and the colonists who remained at the place of landing were shortly afterwards made prisoners by a squad of Spanish soldiers from Mexico. This terminated for a number of years, all efforts of the French to colonize Louisiana.

The year 1698 is memorable in the history of Louisiana, for early in that year the brothers, Bienville and Iberville, entered the Gulf of Mexico with men and arms in search of the Mississippi, duly empowered by the King of France to take lawful possession thereof. Anchoring near Dauphine Island, they erected a small fort on Biloxi Bay, and for the first time, after so many years of delay and disappointment, the flag of France floated out in the breeze of the Mississippi valley, proclaiming to the world that France claimed legal ownership of the same. Early next year Bienville sailed up the river and es­tablished a garrison where now stands Fort St. Phillip, since so famous in the history of this country. Possession thus being secured, in 1712 the first civil government in all this wide expanse of unexplored coun­try was authoritatively proclaimed.

The officer commissioned to administer this civil government after several years of perplexity and failure resigned his commission and the civil authority was turned over to Bienville. With that energy and judgment which characterized the man, he pushed further up the river, and in 1718 erected a fort and laid out the city of New Orleans. Forty-five years thereafter, the inhabitants of Louisiana having heroically endured many perils and privations, battling with the natives, disease and famine, the French government, exhausted by her long wars and missrule, and deriving no income from this far western colony; ceded New Orleans and all the territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain. A Spanish emigration followed the cession, but it failed to bring peace and prosperity to the colony, or revenue to the Spanish Coffers. The French and Spaniards could not assimilate. Spain, in a short while, found the territory of Louisiana so costly a burthen that, in 1781, she gladly receded it to France. But France was now in the clutches of Napoleon I, and delirious with revolution, was contending in battle with all the powers of Europe. The movement of her armies required money, and in 1803 she sold Louisiana to the United States for the sum of $15,000,000. Slowly moves the march of empire. From the year 1535, when Cartier entered the St. Lawrence River, to the cession of Louisiana to the United States, 1803 elapsed a period of 268 years, filled with wildest romance, adventure and heroic endurance.

Claiborne Parish History | AHGP Louisiana

Source: The History of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, by D. W. Harris and B. M. Hulse, 1886

 

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