Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans Read Online Free PDF Page A

concessions of land in what was later to be the city of New Orleans were made on the west bank of Bayou St. John. Bienville granted this tract to Louis Juchereau de St. Denys, a friend from Canada and an outstanding figure in Louisiana history. He was one of the first settlers in Louisiana, arriving on his second visit with Iberville in 1699 at the age of twenty-three. He later founded the city of Natchitoches, the oldest city in Louisiana. The St. Denys Concession is shown on a map drawn by Allou d’Hemecourt, which can be found in the Louisiana State Museum Library.
    Other concessions along the Bayou were granted to Antoine Rivard de La Vigne, two and a half arpents; Nicholas “Alias Delon,” two and a half arpents; and Baptiste Portier, three arpents; three others were granted the same day, but were not recorded. “These concessions had narrow water frontages two and a half to three arpents each. They were long, narrow ribbons of land extending from Bayou St. John to Bayou Gentilly, granted by the French Colonial Government at Mobile” (Freiberg 1980, 30-31).
    The village of Bayou St. Jean, as the French called it, and the suburb of Gentilly, which was built up on the natural levees of the Metairie-Gentilly distributary, were the earliest habitations and plantations in the region. Bayou St. John, in its present form, came into being four hundred to six hundred years ago, when all flow activity in the Metairie and Gentilly distributaries ceased.
    By the year 1712, the Louisiana colony as a whole had not prospered. The sites were not self-supporting and war between France and Spain made it difficult for France to maintain a colony so far away, scattered over such an immense territory and protected by five forts. Therefore, Louis XIV, in 1712, transferred control of Louisiana to a wealthy banker named Antoine Crozat for a period of fifteen years.
    In 1713, Crozat replaced Bienville with Antoine de La Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, the founder of Detroit, who was to be the governor of Louisiana. In his new position, Cadillac failed miserably. He lacked tact in dealing with the Indians, and the first Natchez War broke out in 1716.
    The Natchez were a brilliant tribe of Indians. They worshipped the sun and kept a fire burning perpetually in their temple. The story of Noah’s ark was part of their culture. In 1716, they rose against the French, and Bienville was sent to fight them. With only a few men in his detachment, he put two of them to death and made terms with the others. In the same year, Bienville built Fort Rosalie on the site that had been selected by his brother years before.
    In 1717, just five years after Crozat was granted his charter, he gave it up. Trade with the Spanish in Mexico had not materialized and trade with the Indians was not profitable. He declared that he had spent four times his original investment and had seen no profit.
    Louisiana, then a colony of seven hundred people, was transferred to the Company of the West (called the Company of the Indies after 1719), which was to have authority in the colony for twenty-four years, to enjoy a monopoly of trade, to name the governor and other officers, and would in turn be obliged to send to Louisiana six thousand white colonists and three thousand blacks within ten years. The president of the Company was the famous John Law, private advisor to Philippe, the Duc d’Orléans.
    John Law, Impresario of High Pressure
    John Law was a Scotsman, a professional gambler, and a financial genius. He had escaped Great Britain fifteen years earlier after killing a man in a duel and had spent the intervening years traveling all over Europe, trying to develop his great plan.
    Law was a well known manipulator. It is therefore easy to understand that he sought and secured good will and confidence of Philippe of Orléans, regent of France after the death of Louis XIV. Like Law, Philippe was a gambler and a womanizer, and the friendship of the two rogues was inevitable. In