Iberville’s Expedition—Settlement at Biloxi and Mobile—Amicable Relations of the French and Spanish Colonies from 1700-1719.

The French expedition referred to in the previous chapter, the delay of which was so fateful to the growth and commercial future of Pensacola, appeared off the mouth of the harbor in January, 1699. But, observing the Spanish flag flying from the mast-head of two war vessels lying in the Bay and from the flagstaff of Fort San Carlos, they did not enter the harbor, but cast anchor off the Island of Santa Rosa. Thence an application was made to the Spanish governor for permission to enter, which was promptly refused.

After that curt refusal of the Spaniards, the fleet, consisting of three vessels under the command of Lemoine d’ Iberville, accompanied by his brothers, Bienvielle and Sauville, which was taking out a colony with the necessary supplies to settle southern Louisiana, sailed westward and took formal possession of the country west of the Perdido river.

Iberville’s first settlement was made at Biloxi on the twenty-seventh of February, 1699, but it was afterwards abandoned, in 1702, and removed to Mobile.

To the accession of Philip V., a Bourbon prince, to the Spanish crown, whilst Louis XIV. reigned in France, must be attributed the strangely peaceful settlement of the Perdido as the boundary line between Louisiana and Florida. For the politic, if not natural, harmony existing between two kings belonging to the same royal family, a grandfather and a grandson, both the objects of jealousy and suspicion to the other nations of Europe, necessarily inspired a like feeling in their respective colonial officers. Hence it was that we find that the ineffectual expedition of Governor Ravolli of Pensacola, in 1700, to expel the French from Ship Island, was the last instance of hostility between the Louisiana French and the Florida Spaniards for a period of nineteen years.

Indeed, so intimate were the relations between the two colonies, that Iberville, coming from France, in 1702, with two war ships taking succor to the French colonists, terminated their voyage at Pensacola, and thence sent the supplies to Mobile in small vessels. Again, in 1703, he began a voyage to France by sailing from Pensacola.

The War of the Spanish Succession, in which England was the antagonist of Spain and France, tightened the bonds of amity between the colonies of the latter. In 1702, in anticipation of an English expedition against Pensacola, Governor Martino readily procured from Bienville a needed supply of arms and ammunition. On the other hand, in 1704, Governor Martino promptly furnished food from his stores at Pensacola to the famine-threatened colonists at Mobile; that kind office being a just requital of a like humanity which had been exercised by Bienville, in 1702, towards the starving garrison of San Carlos.

In 1706-7, eighteen Englishmen from Carolina, heading a large body of Indians, made inroads upon the Spanish settlements in Florida, and, strange as it may seem, extended their operations as far westward as Pensacola. In the latter year, Bienville was applied to by the Spanish governor to aid him in defending Pensacola from an impending attack by the Englishmen and their Indian allies. Prompt and bold in action, Bienville at once advanced from Mobile with one hundred and twenty Canadians to assist the Spaniards. But no conflict occurred, for after a few days of hostile demonstrations the enemy abandoned their enterprise, owing to the want of necessary supplies.

In other ways, too, the good feeling and intimate relations of the two colonies were manifested. We learn, from a letter of the mean, jealous, and growling Governor Condillac of Louisiana to Count Pontchartrain, that, in 1713, there existed a trade between Pensacola and Mobile, in which the former was supplied by the latter with lumber, poultry and vegetables—a petty traffic, but not too small to excite the jealousy of the old grumbler.

Such were the friendly relations existing between the Florida Spaniards and the Louisiana French up to 1719, being the year after Bienville had founded the city of New Orleans; relations which must be borne in mind to enable us to form an enlightened judgment upon the actions of the men engaged in the bloody drama which was ushered in by the nineteen years of kind offices and good fellowship which have been mentioned.

Lemoine d’ Iberville, a Canadian, esteemed the most skillful officer of the French navy brilliantly distinguished on many occasions, was selected to command the expedition to southern Louisiana, designed to perfect by colonization the claim France founded upon the voyage of La Salle. He and his brothers, Bienville, the founder of New Orleans, Sauville, Sevigny and ChateaugnÉ presented a group of men seldom accorded to one family.

During a visit to Havana, d’ Iberville died on the ninth of July, 1706, leaving to his brothers the task of perfecting the great enterprise to which the last seven years of his own life had been devoted.