Since the beginning, New Orleans has been a city that has survived, sometimes, it seems, despite the best efforts of man and God. It all started in 1682 when Robert Cavelier de LaSalle, while exploring the mostly unknown North American continent, entered the Mississippi River from the Illinois River, eventually making his way to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the route, he claimed this brave new world for the glory of France and named the region for King Louis XIV.
He then raced back to France, where the king’s fledgling territory ran into its first obstacle. It seems Louis was not too crazy about LaSalle’s idea of building a colonial empire for France by establishing a city on the river. All could have been lost then and there. But the king noticed that the land was adjacent to the Spanish claim of what would eventually become Texas—which just so happened to be owned by his brother-in-law and which Louie planned to get his hands on once his ailing kin kicked the bucket. It looked like smooth sailing for LaSalle—that is, until he got back to the New World and was unable to locate the mouth of the river again. Eventually he landed his crew in the pre-Texas region with the bright idea of hiking all the way back to Canada and retracing his steps. His crew, understandably, killed him. All of which goes to show how much people hate it when you give them bad directions.
It was another decade before anybody else in France had the guts to go near Louisiana, and it may have been even longer had the King of Spain not announced that all land bordering the Gulf of Mexico was his. So in 1698 Louis sent the Le Moyne brothers—Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville (commonly referred to as Iberville and Bienville) to defend France’s land claim. Of course, they had problems of their own, mostly in the form of a hurricane (which wiped out the first settlement in its second year) and fires. (In fact, the city’s history is full of devastating fires, which is ironic considering that it is surrounded by water.) The first order of business was setting up a base of operations along the modern-day Mississippi Gulf Coast and naming Biloxi the capitol of the Louisiana Territory. It was now time to find the Mississippi River. But rather than risk mutiny and death as LaSalle had, the brothers enlisted the help of local Indians in their search.
Now these Native Americans, the Choctaws, were an interesting bunch. They were not the stereotypical proud warriors of old Western movies or even the spiritual peace-loving tribes of new Western movies. As the late historian John Chase put it, “Their outstanding characteristic was laziness; in truth it is doubtful that the world ever knew a class of people of whom it can more correctly be said that they didn’t give a damn.” Chase goes on to point out that although the region basically required an amphibious way of life, the Choctaws never learned to swim or even bathe. And whereas most Native Americans wore feathers at their head, the Choctaws attached them at the waist so that they stuck out in back like a tail.
This was a motley crew.
That bit of trivia concerning the Choctaw character is worth mentioning because it has some relevance to modern New Orleans. The city’s population has long been known for its laissez-faire attitude toward just about every aspect of life, which most observers have attributed to the city’s European roots (we even use French words to describe it). However, in light of what we now know about the Choctaws, it could be surmised that the City That Care Forgot started forgetting to care long before the Europeans arrived.