TRANSFER TO THE UNITED STATES.

Great political changes were going on in Europe at this time. Napoleon's ambitious eye was turned on Louisiana also. On the 15th of September, 1800, Spain retroceded the territory to France by a secret treaty, for war was then in progress with England, and Napoleon did not care to expose Louisiana to the mercy of the English fleet. So the government remained ostensibly Spanish until Laussat arrived on March 26, 1803, to take possession for France as colonial prefect. The population was wild with joy at being Frenchmen again, but they admitted that there was no cause of complaint against the Spanish Government.

For some time previous Napoleon had been in negotiation with the United States for the sale of Louisiana, and Laussat had not been in the colony more than a few weeks before he was informed that he had been appointed commissioner on the part of France to deliver the colony to its new owners. The Spanish officers had not been withdrawn, and on the 30th of November, 1803, Casa Calvo and Salcedo made, in the city hall, a formal delivery of the colony from Spain to France. On the 20th of December William C. C. Claiborne received the keys of the city from Laussat, and with this sign Louisiana became the territory of the United States.

RÉSUMÉ.

So much for the current of events during more than a century of French and Spanish control. Into minute particulars the writer has not entered, for such would ill suit the purpose of this volume. All that in any way throws light on the conditions of culture in the colony has been incorporated with a jealous eye, as far, at least, as materials have been accessible. The facts that give external evidence of culture are, briefly, these: In 1727 a company of Ursuline nuns came over to take charge of the hospital and to teach. As late as 1795 the Spanish Bishop Peñalvert, in a sharp attack on the moral and educational condition of the colony, found occasion to commend the work done in the Ursuline school. Shortly before the middle of the eighteenth century, Governor Bienville urged on the French Government the establishment of a college, a request he had often made before. Toward the last quarter of the century there had been established a Spanish school under four masters, but it was not well attended.* There were at the time several private French schools that were quite well attended.

*Misconceptions exist as to the encouragement of education by Spain. L. Loewenstein, in a little sketch of the St. Louis Cathedral, speaks of the above-mentioned school as the solitary instance of help given by the Spanish Government for education. We find, however, in the early legislative records of the State that the title was confirmed to certain lands in St. Charles Parish that had been granted by the Spanish Government for school purposes. In an address (De Bow's Review, January, 1847) before the Louisiana Historical Society, Mr. H. A. Bullard said: “It can not be denied that the new Government was liberal, and even paternal. Lands were distributed gratuitously to meet the wants of an increasing population, and direct taxation was unknown in the province."

DON ANDRES ALMONASTER.

In this early period Louisiana can boast of at least one publicspirited benefactor to education and religion. We have seen above how Almonaster provided a school house for the Spanish school when the great fire had consumed their own building. He further built, at a cost of $114,000, a hospital (1784-1786), a chapel for the Ursulines (1787), and in 1792 the St. Louis Cathedral, designed to cost $50,000, was begun at his charges.*

EXTRACTS FROM CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS.

This is the limited material the histories furnish us for sketching a picture of the culture of those times. Fortunately a goodly number of contemporary descriptions of the country are extant, and from them may be gathered here and there passages giving their authors' appreciation of the people and their cultivation. Of course these do not agree with one another, but doubtless from these conflicting estimates the reader may reach a judgment for himself. In forming our opinions, however, we must bear it in mind that character is elusive, and estimations of character subjective. Therefore from any very jaundiced account we must infer the personal disappointments of the critic, or at least a lack of adaptability to new circumstances and conditions.

I. Voyage à la Louisiane, 1794-1798. Baudry des Lozières. Paris, 1802.

The faculties of the Louisiana m in develop early. He has from birth the greatest readiness for arts and sciences. If this was seconded by education, he might one day take position among the most polished people in the world.

The women, born in a healthy climate, where corrupt customs do not degrade the moral nor alter the physical nature, are of a blooming freshness. Their countenances bespeak health and lovely innocence. All are either pretty or beautiful, gay without coquetry, amiable without deception, their teeth long keep their whiteness, and their lips are always carmine. We may without flattery or exaggeration apply to them what we hear told of the Circassians and Georgians (p. 15). *

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*

Some years before the epoch of which we are speaking some Capuchin missionaries had fixed their abode in Louisiana, and they can not be reproached with ever ⚫having meddled with te po al affairs. The monks were righteous and instituted good customs.

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We have also to say much in praise of the Ursulines' convent, which was established alınost at the same time. It was the only school for girls; therefore precious. There they cultivated the decided taste they have for virtues and the arts of pleasing. It was a great blessing to have this resource in a country so remote from all communication, and I am sure that the so precise agreement of customs and language between this country and France, an agreement much greater than any that exists in the other colonies, is due to this convent. Out of it have gone women worthy objects of admiration, girls of heroic virtue, mothers of families that might even serve as a pattern to those cited in other countries (p. 17). When Louisiana shall have reached but a part of the splendor of which she is * Cable, Creoles of Louisiana, p. 99.

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capable, she will become the country of the arts. The men that she brings forth have a great natural aptitude for everything that calls for the effort of conception or the resources of memory. The temperature of the climate that gives to their existence its happiest development renders them susceptible to force of mind as of body. They resemble in their development their trees and their plants. I do not know if I deceive myself, but wherever I have seen the earth give forth beautiful productions spontaneously I have thought that I saw men equally beautiful and vigorous. Are we aught but walking plants? Are we so suited to the earth that by our very living we are subject to the laws of vegetation? (p. 336).

II. Vue de la colonie Espagnole du Mississippi, etc., par un observateur résident sur les lieux. Duvallon, éditeur. Paris, 1803.

It is still to be observed that the physiognomy, that mirror of the soul, presents in both sexes more good nature than goodness, more conceit than pride, more cunning than penetration, and is ordinarily neither spiritual nor distinguished. * (p. 202).

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From what I have just said it results that the Creoles of this country, nearly all of them born of parents of low origin who came to seek their fortune in this corner of the world and did not find it, brought up consequently in poverty, ignorance, and coarseness, have necessarily preserved the imprint of their surroundings, except a few of them, whose parents, either well born or washed of their vulgarity by a little wealth, have had them educated in Europe. Accordingly with this exception, an exception strongly pronounced in this country, most of the Creoles of Louisiana have the vices and faults that belong to the manner in which they have generally speaking been educated. They are coarse, envious, selfish, avaricious, presumptuous, abusive, lacking sensibility, deceitful, sharp tongued, boastful, and, beyond all, utterly (à vingt-quatre carats) ignorant (many of them not knowing how to read and write even), and they pride themselves on their ignorance so far as to greatly prefer a shotgun to a pen and paddling a canoe to coming near a desk. One of these I have described said naively before me one day that his surest way of getting to sleep was to open a book. Another had such an antipathy for all that sprung from the typographic art that it was only neces sary to hand him a printed sheet, a simple newspaper, to get rid of him at once. and send him scampering off at a great rate. A third, on the contrary, who preferred reading and zealously devoted himself to it, passed under my very eyes as a sort of fool or crack-brained fellow. In a word. a library in this country is, I think, almost as rare as the phoenix, and whether in the city or in the country, a very few assorted books can be found, and that, too, only in the homes of a few Frenchmen established in the colony.

I am going in this matter to cite a fact of little importance, but characteristic, in support of what I have just said. A governor-general of French nationality or origin, M. de Carondelet, thought fit a few years ago to give his permission for the establishment of a printing house in New Orleans for the publication of a gazette entitled “Le Moniteur de la Louisiane." [Cf. above, p. 17.] In this were printed items relative to commerce, agriculture, or other objects of public utility as well as paragraphs for political news. Our Creoles are generally very curious and eager about all foreign news. This newspaper was moreover well edited. In consideration of all this it was to be presumed that there would be consequently a number of subscribers to this colonial newspaper. Well, what was the case? I will tell you. I got it from the editor himself that never, since the first publication of this newspaper up to the present time, has it reached a number of eighty subscriptions at once, mostly from Europeans or foreigners. Parsimony on one side, dislike for reading on the other, is what renders our Creoles averse to such

things. From this characteristic one can picture to himself the rest. Moreover we must bear well in mind that if the Spanish Government did not find a taste for literature established in this country it has not at least introduced it. Ah, do you all whom the love of study and literature inflames, shun a residence in Louisiana? The air of this region is fatal to the muses (p. 205, et seq.).

From this picture of the moral imperfections which are common to the men of Louisiana I willingly turn to the details of some good qualities which it would be unjust to refuse them, and which we know, besides, are often joined with vices and faults which seem opposed to them in the heart of man, that impenetrable abyss of contradictions that unites at one and the same time extremes and confounds them together. Faithful to their engagements, good husbands, tender fathers, and submissive sons, they are, besides, laborious, even industrious, well adapted to the mechanic arts, workmen by instinct, and they easily imitate all works which depend on correctness of vision and suppleness of hand. They are not at all given over to libertinage; and even, although very ignorant, they have in their youth a certain natural perspicacity, and a peculiar aptness for learning the little they are taught. It is true that this is a fire of straw and soon extinguished for lack of nourishment and training. Perhaps they only lack, to develop their intellectual faculties and give resource to their enervated souls, able teachers and good institutions, and this is just what has always been wanting and still is wanting in this country. Perhaps also (and I am quite sure of it) such institutions can never take root in this place, and it will be requisite, from dire necessity, for the Creole youth, in order to take advantage of education, to be dispatched from their country and sent beyond seas into Europe, or at least to some of the principal States of the northern part of America, where some years ago pretty good colleges were formed, whose number and worth will increase with time.

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From the men let us pass to the women, the most interesting portion of society. We have already observed their exterior, and shall now examine the moral side. In this respect, as in the physical, they have more advantages and gain more from being known than the men. They have in general more penetration and less rudeness. As poorly educated as the men, the lack of education is less apparent in them, and the bad qualities which result therefrom are by no means as evident as in the former. Many of them even possess a natural vivacity and instinct for sociability, and few men in this country are endowed to an equal extent. If a stranger of fair appearance enters a house and asks to spend the night, ordinarily it will be the mistress of the place that receives him, entertains him, and does all the honors of the house, while the master, after a few minutes' conversation to which he contributes very little, feeling more likely than not as if he were on thorns, will go without ceremony to his rustic occupations, not to make his appearance again until meal time, seeming to be rather the agent than the spouse of the lady. Accordingly, the women of Louisiana, having more resolution and intelligence than their Creole husbands, take that ascendency over them which is based on their superior wit and decision of character, and no perceptible abuse arises, the management of affairs being nevertheless united. (p. 241 et seq).

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Moreover, the Louisiana women, particularly those born on the plantations and living there, have various estimable qualities. Respectful daughters, affectionate wives, tender mothers, and careful housekeepers, exhibiting many details of domestic economy, honest, reserved, decent-to put it all in a word, they are in general very good women (p. 245).

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In fine, it is hardly necessary to observe that all that has just been put forth relative to the physical and moral characteristics of the Creoles of Louisiana, men and women, is only from the general point of view, and needs restriction in every respect. If among them there are many men ignorant, harsh, selfish, false, meddling, boastful, and conceited, others may be found to match them who are

enlightened, humane, generous, sincere, complaisant, modest, and truthful, particularly those who have been educated in Europe * (p. 246).

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There is in this country no other public institution appropriated to the education of youth except a mere school established by the Government and composed of, say, 50 children, almost all from poor families, where instruction is given in French and Spanish in reading, writing, and ciphering, and the convent of French nuns, who have a few boarding pupils and keep a class for day pupils. There is also a boarding school, which was formed for young Creoles (men) about fifteen months ago by a man who does not lack talents in this direction; but as cheapness is the main thing in this country, and the cost of his school, for the maintenance of which he proposed to employ special teachers besides himself, appeared too dear to the colonists, the fine fellows, not being able to dispute the teacher's personal merits, sought to depreciate his exactness and care over a small number of pupils intrusted to him by European parents, or parents who had been educated in Europe, and thus make an excuse for not patronizing him. This school, not being able to support itself in a suitable manner with so little means, has come to almost nothing, and our great merchants of New Orleans and others have continued to send their children, because of saving $2 a month, to little schools scattered here and there in the city, and so make a good excuse for getting them out of the way a part of the day without reflecting on the emptiness and positive harmfulness of that sort of education; and our sugar, cotton, and indigo planters in the country are contented to pick up on the public road a poor devil to whom they give lodging, board, and a trifling wage for his undertaking to give instruction as far as his knowledge goes-that is to say, no great way-to restive pupils, aware that the wretched pedagogue has no real authority over them and perceiving soon that their preceptor is almost regarded by their parents as an out and out servant or a hireling domestic. Such is the care that is paid in this country to that essential part of public order, education; such is the encouragement they give, the regard and consideration they show to the persons charged by the State with a work as ungrateful and painful in its details as it is noble and interesting in its aims. Yet these same people will say, in order to excuse the tone of ignorance and coarseness that reigns among them, that their country lacks good teachers! Ah, put on it the valuation that you ought-most of all, that which dollars, of which you are besides very saving, can not secure, and which springs from a rational esteem and certain considerations to which an honorable soul is more alive than to everything else—and you will then have instructors worthy to bear that respectable name, in place of your schoolmasters, absolutely incapable of communicating to your youth the feeblest spark of taste for the fine arts or of conducting them beyond the threshold of the gate of science, closed to them forever as well as to their stupid pupils. Or, better still, send these youths, rough and half savages, out of the country, make them cross seas and go and find in Europe the flame of genius and talent, to come back one day and enlighten their country, as Prometheus went long ago to the hearth fire of the sun, stole the celestial fire, and bore it to the earth to animate Pandora (p. 293 et seq).

III. Mémoires sur la Louisiana et la Nouvelle-Orléans, par M. * *. (Catalogued in the Peabody Library of Baltimore as Wante.) Paris, Bullard, 1804.

The only buildings which are susceptible of any remark are the barracks, the park of artillery, and the public storehouses, all of which were built by the French when the colony belonged to that Government. A charity hospital is also to be seen there which has been constructed at the expense of a merchant who, in his relations with the Spanish Government, made a fortune so immense that he was