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1718 |
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| South America & Caribbean:Events of this year in this region influencing Louisiana. | |||||||||||
| North America:French colonists begin erecting a crude settlement at New Orleans and the Spanish build a crude chapel at San Antonio de Valero. William Penn dies. The Collegiate School in Connecticut changes its name to Yale. Prirates Edward Teach and Stede Bonnet die in the Carolina colonies. A large Irish-Scot emigration to America begins | |||||||||||
| Europe: Spanish King Philip V seizes Sicily, inciting a Quadruple Alliance of France, England, Holland and the Holy Roman Empire.The Bank of England issues its first bank notes. A French chemist demonstrates chemical reactions to the acadamy. The wife of the English minister to Constantinople writes about innoculation against smallpox in the near east. Painters Antoine Watteau in France and Sir Godfrey Kneller in Britain; Voltaire presents Oedipe after his release from the Bastille. | |||||||||||
| January 1718
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February 1718
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March 1718
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April 1718 |
May 1718
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June 1718
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July 1718
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August 1718
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September 1718
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October 1718
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November 1718
Claude Joseph Villars Du Breuil sails out of LaRochelle in November to be the royal Contractor of Public Works in New Orleans. He is also Contractor of Buildings and Fortifications for the King. He brings with him not only his wife and two children, but also carpenters, a tailor, a shoe maker, a number of laborers and two female domestics. Many land grantees and officials of the colony were also aboard the Comte de Toulouse. He later builds for himself the most excellent house in the colony . His good fortune extends to 1744 when the census shows him owning several plantations, 500 slaves, brick kilns and silk manufactories. He grew indigo and sugar. After that his fortune dwindled and his estate was sold at auction. |
December 1718
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| Founding of New Orleans by Jean Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville. First sighted as an Indian portage from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico in 1699 by Bienville and Iberville. The city is named by him in honor of the Duc d’Orleans, Regent of France. It will be called the Crescent City because of its location on a bend of the Mississippi. Bienville will continue to run Louisiana from Biloxi until 1722. | A first plan of the city of New Orleans is drawn in Paris by Perrier the man chosen to be the king's engineer in Louisiana. Fortunately he dies enroute and the plan is never used. | LePage du Pratz (1689-1775) who owns a plantation on Bayou St. John from 1718 to 1734 reports that trade with Saint-Domingue includes squared cypress beams suitable for building, completely marked and cut, ready to assemble, as well as bricks and essentes (flat wooden shingles). Profit is easily 100% from the island that early in its existance denuded its forests to build and clear for plantation crops. Ships from the island bring back sugar, coffee and guildive, a brandy made from sugar cane. Du Pratz served in the French Army during the German campaign of the War of Spanish Succession. He sailed for Louisiana in 1718 and later settled in Natchez. In 1728 he is the Director of the Company of the Indies’ plantation near New Orleans. He leaves for France in 1734. In 1758 he publishes a three volume work entitled Historie de la Louisiane. |
Lt. Blondel, who will die in command, takes over as Commandant at Natchitoches from Mr. du Tisnet. Fort St. Joseph established above False River. |
The Western Company introduces white Creole rice to the colony and it is planted in small quantities. | The parliament of Paris takes advantage of the failure of the great nobles to assert themselves. They issue a series of edicts and remonstrances against the financial policies of the government. But the Regent reaffirms the claim of absolute monarchy.
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