Pastimes: The Founding of Louisiana

During the reign of King Louis XIV, Minister of Marine Louis de Pontchartrain was responsible for France’s American colonies. Pontchartrain realized that whoever controlled the Mississippi River controlled much of North America, and he was determined that it would be France and not its arch enemy, the English. 

Eager to plant the fleur-de-lys in the Mississippi Valley, Pontchartrain chose thirty-seven-year-old Pierre le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville to lead an expedition to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Iberville was one of eleven sons born to a minor nobleman in Canada. As a boy he was trained to become a Jesuit priest, but the young man instead joined the fight to drive the English out of Canada. Iberville became famous as a skilled backwoodsman and navy officer who defeated the English in several battles.

On October 24, 1698, Iberville left France with four ships and about two hundred settlers bound for America. Accompanying him were several brothers, including eighteen-year-old Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur d’Bienville. Despite his young age, Bienville also was a navy officer and had been wounded in battle against the English.

When Iberville arrived in the Gulf of Mexico, he and his men explored and named a number of the islands off the Alabama-Mississippi coast. One island had numerous raccoons, which the French called “wild cats,” so it was called Cat Island, and Horn Island was so named because one of the men lost a powder horn there. The most important discovery was a deep-water anchorage at an island Iberville dubbed Ship Island.

Fearing his large ocean-going ships would not be able to cross the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi River, Iberville left those vessels at Ship Island and set out on February 27, 1699, with two smaller boats and about fifty men to reach the river’s mouth. After discovering and naming the Chandeleur Islands, he entered the Mississippi River on March 2. Appropriately, it was Mardi Gras day.

At the Bayougoula Indian village in modern-day Iberville Parish, Iberville smoked the calumet, or peace pipe, and secured guides to take him farther upriver.

Upstream from the village, the guides pointed to a red pole stuck in the ground on the east bank and explained that it was a boundary marker dividing the Houma and Bayougoula Indians’ hunting grounds. The Indians called the pole “Istrouma,” but Iberville named it “Baton Rouge” (“red stick”) because of its color. That name was also given to a settlement the French established there ten years later.

Farther upstream, the party came to a long, looping bend in the river and discovered that the Mississippi was cutting a new channel across the meander’s narrow neck. The Bayougoula told Iberville that the new channel was shorter and faster than rowing all the way around the meander. Iberville took their advice and called the place “pointe coupee,” or “cut point.” After the river finished cutting this new channel, the old meander filled in to become the ox-box lake False River in modern-day Pointe Coupee Parish.

By the time Iberville reached the mouth of the Red River, his men were exhausted from paddling against the mighty Mississippi’s current, and he decided to turn back. Along the way, the Indian guides told him he could reach Ship Island faster by going through Bayou Manchac (meaning “shortcut”), a small stream that flowed into the river just below Istrouma.

Iberville decided to explore this shorter route with a handful of men while Bienville led the others back the way they had come. Bayou Manchac was difficult to traverse because there were many logjams the men had to portage around. Iberville also wrote that the bayou was filled with “crocodiles” and mentioned in passing that he had killed a “small” one for supper. It was eight feet long. 

Eventually, Iberville’s Indian guides abandoned him, and he had to find his own way through the watery maze. His journey took him through Bayou Manchac to the Amite River and then across lakes Maurepas, Pontchartrain, and Borgne, and into the Gulf near Ship Island. Iberville named the largest lake he discovered after his superior, Count Pontchartrain, and the smaller lake after Pontchartrain’s son, Count Maurepas. 

Amazingly, after all of Iberville’s troubles, he and Bienville reached Ship Island within two hours of one another. Iberville then built Fort Maurepas on Biloxi Bay to serve as the colony’s headquarters. This small log fort was the first French settlement in Louisiana. 

Dr. Terry L. Jones is professor of history emeritus at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Louisiana Pastimes, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.