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
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