THE

WESTERN

MONTHLY REVIEW.

MARCH, 1828.

[We give the following extracts as samples of the civil history of the 'Geography and History of the Western States'-of which the first volume is now from the press. The work will be published in May next.-ED.]

HISTORY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

It will be obvious to the smallest degree of reflection, that the limits prescribed to us will prevent our treating this article with the copiousness and minuteness, which ordinarily characterizes history. The origin and progress of the disputes and contests of the Spanish, French and Anglo-American colonies in the valley of the Mississippi, thus treated, would alone form a very considerable work. Our object is, to give a connected and synoptical view of the commencement and progress of the population of the whites in these forests down to this time; and we shall condense the article, as far as possible, and give it in the unpretending form of annals, premising, that, having compared different authorities for the French and Spanish part of it, we have mostly relied on the manuscript, and as yet untranslated authority of M. de La Harpe.

The English and the Spanish dispute the honor of the discovery of this country. There seems to be sufficiently authentic testimony to the fact, that Sebastian Cabot sailed along the shores of the country, since called Florida, but a few years after America had been discovered by Columbus. The Spanish contend, that it was discovered in the thirtieth degree of north latitude by Juan Ponce de Leon, in 1512. This Spanish navigator is said to have been led to undertake this voyage, in consequence of a tradition, which he had heard at Cuba, probably derived from the intercourse of the Indians of that island with those of Florida, that there existed, somewhere in this region, a fountain, which had the property of operaVOL. I.-No 11.

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ting rejuvenescence upon old age, and afterwards perpetuating youth. This would have been a discovery still more precious, than the gold of Montezuma and the Incas. He fitted out a small squadron, and directed his path over the ocean to the supposed point of these precious waters. He discovered land on Easter day, and gave it the name of Florida, from the Spanish name of that festival, pasqua de flores-the festival of flowers, or, according to Herrerra, from the appearance of the country, the trees of which at that time were covered with abundant and beautiful blossoms. The name imports the country of flowers.

He wandered in the flowering forest, searching in vain for the fountains of rejuvenescence. Instead of those fountains, he encountered fierce and determined savages, very different from the timid and effeminate Indians of Cuba. He was glad to escape, and return to Puerto Rico, whence his expedition was fitted out.

Between 1518 and 1524, Grijalva and Vasques, both Spaniards, landed on the shore of Florida. One of the two, and authorities do not agree which, treacherously carried off a number of the natives, as slaves. Grijalva returned again to the country, and received the just retribution of such perfidy. He landed with a considerable number of men, of whom two hundred were slain by the savages, in remembrance, and in retaliation of the injury of enslaving and carrying off their friends. He made another attempt to land on these shores, and was again attacked by the savages; and on his return to Hispaniola, he lost one of his ships, having been unfortunate in his whole enterprize. He returned, gave himself up to despair, and died of a broken heart. Francis de Garay obtained the first grant of Florida; but died without entering upon his grant. De Allyon succeeded to his grant; and as history says nothing of him, it only proves, that little was thought of the country at this period.

In 1528, Pamphilo de Narvaez obtained a grant of Florida; and the boundaries of the grant were specified. He fitted out a considerable armament, with four or five hundred men. With this force he landed, and marched into the interior; and we first begin to hear the names of the tribes and villages of the natives from his jour nal. The extent of his march was to Appalacha, a village with forty cabins. He had been decoyed thus far by the natives, who, finding that the grand object of the Spaniards was to obtain gold, pretended, that there were mines in their vicinity. On their own ground, they turned upon him, defeated him, and harassed him on his retreat. On his return voyage, somewhere not far from the mouth of the Mississippi, his fleet was attacked by a storm, in which most of his ships were wrecked, and in which he, and many of his men perished.

He was succeeded by Ferdinand de Soto, governor of Cuba.He was a man of great bravery and boldness, and of a chivalrous and enterprising spirit. He contemplated the conquest and colo

nization of Florida. His powerful armament sailed from Havanna, and consisted of nine ships, nearly a thousand men, between two and three hundred horses, and live stock of different kinds; indicating a purpose to establish a colony. He landed this formidable force, and was attacked immediately on landing; but he was one of those early adventurers in America, who rather coveted He marched far into the interior, peneglory, than gold. trated the Indian country, as far as that of the Chickasaws, fought many battles with them, rather courting, than avoiding danger; and he was, probably, the first white man, who saw the Mississippi, which he crossed on this expedition, not far from the entrance of Red river. He had already passed a winter in the country, in continual rencontres with the Indians. On Red river he sickened, and died. He had rendered himself such an object of terror and hatred to the Indians, that in order to preserve his remains from violation, or prevent the knowledge of his death, his body was enclosed in the hollow section of an oak tree, and sunk in Red river. His followers, reduced to two or three hundred men, in want and despair, felt but too happy to get away from these inhospitable shores, and once more to leave Florida without a white inhabitant.

The great and illustrious Protestant, Admiral Colligny, had formed the project of establishing a colony of hugunols, as the Pro testants were called in France, on these remote shores, that they might find an asylum from persecution in the wilderness. Charles of France was anxious to get rid of his hugunot subjects, and furthered the project. An expedition was fitted out, and the command given to Francois Ribault. The settlers were landed not far from the present position of St. Augustine. To the eastward of the bay of St. Joseph he built a fort, which the French contend, It was called was the first fortification erected in the country. and a year 1564; fort Charles, in honor of the king. It was in the number of families were established here.

This colony suffered various disasters from disaffection, and mutiny, and hunger, and desertion by the parent country. After a considerable interval of time, Ribault arrived with seven ships and large reinforcements from France; but it was only to draw from the new settlement all the men, that could be spared, for an attack M. de Laudoniere was left upon the Spanish fleet in those seas. In the abin the new fort without an adequate force, to defend it. sence of Ribault, it was attacked by Don Pedro Menendez, who commanded a Spanish force in that region, charged by the king of Spain, to root out the French heretics from Florida, and plant good Spanish Catholics in their place. He attacked the fort, and carried it by storm. All, that escaped the sword, were immediately hung, with this inscription labelled on their backs-Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics, enemies of God and the Virgin."

A private Gascon gentleman in France, of good family and fortune, named Dominique de Gourgues, determined to avenge the massacre of his countrymen by his own private means. He fitted out a small armament, proceeded to the country, enlisted a number of the natives, as allies, attacked the Spaniards, and, after some severe fighting, carried the fort. All, that survived the capture, were hung on the same trees, where the French had so miserably perished, with this retaliating label on their backs-Not as Spaniards, or soldiers, but as traitors, and assassins.' But the vicinity of powerful Spanish colonies in the islands, so near to the shores of Florida, gave them such advantages for retaining possession of that country, that Gorgues and his friends soon felt themselves compelled to abandon it; and it was left to the undisturbed occupancy of the Spaniards for nearly half a century.

Almost fifty years elapsed, before we hear any thing more of the French in North America. In 1608, a fleet arrived in the St. Lawrence, commanded by Admiral Champlaine, and founded the important city of Quebec. There is one surprising coincidence in the discovery and first settlements of the three great colonizing powers in this division of North America,the Spanish, French and English. The Spaniards fixed their first colony east of the Mississippi on the barren sands of Florida. The first French establishment in the north was in the icy and inclement climate of Quebec. Their first southern colonial experiments were in Florida, and on Biloxi, both as sterile regions as could have been selected. The English first planted a colony at Jamestown, in Virginia, no way remarkable for its comparative promise of fertility; and at Plymouth, in Massachusetts, as discouraging a point, from its appearance at the time of landing in the depth of winter, and from its natural sterility, as little inviting, as could well be imagined. Providence seems to have settled the arrangement, that the most dreary and sterile regions should be the first settled.

Even after the French were established on the fertile borders of the Mississippi, where the prodigious power of vegetation, constantly in operation before their eyes, must have taught them the prolific character of the soil, they long drew from France, or the Spanish colonies, supplies of provisions, which the earth under their feet was much more capable of producing. We are told, that the first Dutch settlers of Albany and Schenectady brought the bricks for the first houses from Holland, which might have been made of a better quality from the earth which was thrown up in the excavation of their cellars. Such is the force of prejudice; and so slow are the advances of reason.

The Spanish at this period were less enlightened, than the French; but in their projects of establishing colonies, they had been taught by experience, and their reasonings, touching the proper measures and arrangements for the permanence and prosperity of colonies,