|
|
1699 |
||||||||||||
| South America & Caribbean: Provisions shipped to Scottish settlers on the coast of Panama (new Caledonia) fall into Spanish hands and the colony packs up for a trip home. | ||||||||||||
| North America: Cahokia is a first permanent settlement in the Illinois wilderness by French Missionaries; Virginia capital moves to Williamsburg. American colonies forbidden to export wool. Yellow fever strikes at Charleston and Philadelphia. | ||||||||||||
| Europe: Events in Europe this year influencing Louisiana. | ||||||||||||
|
January 1699
|
February 1699
Iberville and Bienville pioneer the settlement of the North American Gulf Coast. They land on Dauphin Island at the mouth of Mobile Bay on their way to establish colonies in the Mississippi River delta in the name of Louis XIV. They are the first Europeans to enter the mouth of the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico. The French had begun colonizing the Illinois territory twenty years before. |
March 1699
March 2 On this night Iberville and his men enter the mouth of a great river, not knowing if it is the river of LaSalle. March 3 The winds prevent them from making soundings between petrified wooden rafts floating at the head of three outlets, about three leagues from the sea. It is Mardi Gras so Iberville and his explorers camp out on the West Bank of the Mississippi River 60 miles south of the furture site of New Orleans. In honor of the holiday Iberville names the camp site Pointe du Mardi Gras and a nearby waterway Bayou Mardi Gras. Father Anastase Douay, a member of the expedition, celebrates the first holy mass of record in French Louisiana near present day Venice, La. As they move upriver Indians show them a portage between the River and Lake Pontchartrain. Bienville believes that this is a good place to establish a settlement. March 14 On this date Iberville's party reaches the village of the Bayougoula Indians . The explorers name the area the District of Iberville, which is now Iberville Parish. They are looking for proof that this is truely the Mississippi River. That proof is in the form of a letter that the explorer Tonti left in 1686 when he came down the river searching for the lost settlement of LaSalle. Iberville is already 30 leagues up the river, and it is not without some suspicion that he accepts the offer of the chief of the Bayagoulas to take him to the letter. They travel as far as the Red River and there, across the river from the mouth of this tributary, is a Houmas Indian village. He learns that Tonti's letter was left with the chief of the Quinipissas of Mongoulachas. Sauvolle and Bienville are sent to retrieve the letter. Having the proof he needs that he is on the Mississippi River, Iberville turns back toward the base camp on Ship Island. Sending Bienville and Sauvolle down the big river he enters Bayou Manchac, which he names the Iberville River. The next day his group enters the Amite River and then passes through Lake Maurepas and Lake Pontchartrain. He names these lakes after his boss, France’s Minister of Marine (Navy) and establishes the New Orleans area as an "island". He reaches Ship Island ahead of Bienville and Sauvolle.. |
April 1699
|
May 1699
May 1 By this date the fort and cabins at Biloxi are completed, the fort is armed with 12 cannon and stocked with ammunition. May 4 Iberville returns to France to resupply the colony. He leaves Sauvolle in command of the fledgling settlement with Bienville as his second in command. (historians debate whether this Sauvolle was another brother). |
June 1699
|
July 1699
|
August 1699
|
September 1699
|
October 1699
|
November 1699
|
December 1699
Iberville returns bringing supplies and reinforcements, and learns of the attempt of the English to plant a colony somewhere on the Mississippi. He proceeds at once to the Mississippi and 54 miles from the mouth builds a fort, which some writers have called Ft. Maurepas and others Fort Iberville (or Fort De La Boulaye, Ft. Mississippi). He places Bienville in charge of this fort. |
|
|
As the first Governor of Louisiana Pierre Le Moyne, sieur de Iberville 38, leads four brothers to the colony‹Joseph (Le Moyne sieur) de Sérigny, Jean Baptiste de Bienville, 19, Gabriel d'Assigny and Antoine de Chateauguay and two uncles by marriage Charles and Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denis. Pierre Le Sueur , a cousin and explorer, joined the Le Moynes push toward the headwaters of the Missouri, as far as Kaskaskias to establish not only the crown's interest, but also the family's mining rights for lead and silver. |
English Turn is named because Bienville, coming downstream from his explorations, met the British who had come up the river to choose a site for a settlement. Bienville convinces Captain Lewis Banks that the territory was in possession of the French. In Bienville visits the Colapissa Indians who live near Slidell, La. The Indians called the Pearl River "taleatcha" rock river because of pearls found in shells from its waters. The French found the river water good to drink. | Lake Pontchartrain is named for the French minister of Marine by Bienville. Indians called it Okwa-ta, wide water. An early port of embarkation was at the site where bayou St. John flows from the lake. It was the best water route to the city of New Orleans. Lake Maurepas is named by Iberville for Comte de Maurepas, French Marine Minister and son of Pontchartrain. Local villages: Maurepas, Bear Island, Whitehall & Head of Island will be settled by Germans, French & Spanish. The Civil War Gunboat Bonnet Carre sank here. | Near present day Mandeville, Bienville meets Acolapissas Indians who reported that two days before their village had been attacked by two Englishmen and 200 Chicasaws. English were rivaling the French for this area. Bienville explores the "River of the Washas" or "the west fork" in the fall, from the Mississippi River to Washa (ouacha) Indian village near Supreme, La. Later the French would call the bayou "Lafourche (fork) of the Chitamachas", then Bayou Lafourche. |
Jean Baptiste Destrehan |
||||||||
Go to the year 1700 | Go to the year 1700 | |||||||||||