Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (58 page)

Reynaud, scrubbing at the iron stains on his wrists, spoke. “How did you do it?”

She sent him a small smile over her shoulder. “By sacrificing your good repute, I fear.”

“As if I had any,” he said with grim amusement, “but go on.”

She turned back to lean against the bed, explaining as best she could. Though she tried to put the story in some logical order, it sounded disjointed and pointless even to her own ears. He seemed to have no difficulty in following it, however.

“Masterly,” he said, his voice quiet, dulcet, when she had done. “So I am your slave, helpless to prevent your revenge?”

She had never seen a man look less helpless, she thought, sending him a resentful glance from under her lashes. The firelight caught his wet body with a glistening red-gold sheen, emphasizing its power and strength and also, she realized, its angular, masculine beauty.

She shied away from his question, however, asking instead, “Will you be content to forget the war of the Natchez? Can you?”

His expression turned somber. “There was a man who died not so long ago among the Natchez. He had been a guardian of the temple, responsible for keeping the fire kindled by the sun, the sacred fire that had been kept burning for generations beyond number. On his deathbed, he confessed that he had let the fire go out one day years ago. Greatly afraid, for it was an offense for which the punishment was death, he brought profane fire from his wife’s cook fire to rekindle the blaze. When the Natchez heard this story, they knew that this was the reason their lands had been taken from them, the reason they had been defeated by the French, the reason they were being punished. Because they had lost the sacred flame. It was for this reason that my brother, the Great Sun, surrendered to the French. The day of the Natchez is ended. And so why should I not be content? What else is there to fight for?”

“You believe as your brother does?”

“It makes no difference so long as I am not required to lead the tribe any longer.”

He was too civilized to believe such legends, of course, and yet she could not be sure. There had always been depths to this man that she did not know, could not quite reach.

“What of the others who are still at large?”

“Some, feeling their lives forfeited, will try only to sell them dearly. Others will blend their blood with that of the Chickasaw, the Ouachita, perhaps even the Choctaw, and so will live.”

“We heard that Path Bear escaped.”

“Yes. He will be gathering men now to attack Fort Saint Jean Baptiste again, I expect; he talked of nothing else after our retreat from there. It will be a mistake to take on St. Denis for he fights not like a Frenchman, but like an Indian.”

“We must warn St. Denis!”

“I did that long ago.”

“I never knew you had communicated with anyone at the fort,” she said slowly.

“It seemed best that you not know.”

He rinsed his hair, raking it back with his fingers, then rose in a sudden cataract of water and stepped out. Taking up the toweling, he began to dry himself with vigorous strokes.

Watching him, Elise asked in dangerous tones, “Best for whom?”

He paused, then, flinging the toweling aside, stalked toward her. “For you, because to hear from me could only keep open old wounds, because it was less difficult to stay away from you that way, as I knew I should. But now you have arranged it so that I am legally bound to you as your slave. Why?”

“Is that what’s troubling you?” she demanded, resisting an impulse to step backward as he advanced. “Do you resent being bound as my servant?”

He reached out to touch her face, a gentle brush of his warm fingers. “No, why should I? I have been your slave from the moment I faced you across the dining table of Commandant Chepart. You have held my love and my life in your hands since you first touched me under a winter sky. You are my wife and in you resides the sun that warms me, that heals me, that renews the spring of joy. I am yours.”

“Reynaud,” she whispered, her throat aching.

“But, again, why?”

“You left me once; it seemed best to make certain you could not do it again.”

“Only because—”

She reached to place her hand on his mouth. “I know, but the parting was a small death. I love you, Reynaud, as I have loved you, unknowing, since I was given to you in marriage by the Great Sun.”

“My meddlesome brother who thought he knew what was best for us.”

“And did.”

They were silent, thinking of the leader of the Natchez, St. Cosine, and the others who would be soon sailing for St. Domingo.

Finally Elise said, “Your mother, perhaps we can find a way to take her from the king’s plantation after a time. She can come to us at the house on the Bayou Duc du Maine.”

“You would accept her?”

“Gladly, but do you think Madeleine—”

“Yes, I think so. But by Natchez custom it is your house,” he reminded her, his voice deep.

“Ours,” she corrected with a quick shake of her head. “But perhaps someday we may all be able to return to my — our land near St. Rosalie and the Grand Village to rebuild. We could divide our time between the two places.”

“Ah, Elise, I love you beyond the telling. If I had not before, I would now.” His strong arms encircled her, drawing her closer against his naked, tattoo-marked chest and the heated length of his body. “And because it is so, and since we are together when it seemed we might never be so again, have you any orders for me, my mistress?”

“Yes,” she whispered, holding his dark gray gaze, “love me, love me hard and long and always.”

His gaze was warm with promise, his answer firm and resonant in his chest. “Elise,
chérie, untsaya athlu
. I live to obey.”

T
RACING AN INCIDENT that happened over two hundred and fifty years ago through various written accounts can be a fascinating experience; it can also be frustrating. The massacre of the French by the Natchez Indians at Fort Rosalie on November 28, 1729, and the subsequent events, has been mentioned by most major historians of the Louisiana scene. The problem is that few of them agree on the details. The number of colonists killed has been calculated at as high as five hundred and as low as two hundred and thirty-five. Estimates of the strength of the Natchez as a tribe vary from seven thousand to two thousand. One account states flatly that the Choctaws were the only other tribe contacted by the Natchez in the conspiracy, while another mentions massacres by Indian allies at other French forts during the months of the uprising. One historian speaks of only four Natchez warriors being burned at the stake by Perier in New Orleans, though several others include two women among those burned. One says that these unfortunates were captured by French soldiers; another claims it was done by Indian allies of the French, while yet another identifies the allies as the Tunicas. Of the Natchez captured and sold into slavery in St. Domingo, modern Haiti, one source says there were over four hundred, another only forty. Among the different authorities, the spelling of the name of commandant at Fort Rosalie is given as De Chopart, De Chopard, De Chepart, De Chepard, De Chepar, and D’Etcheparre. Some accounts are so obviously prejudiced in favor of the French that the tales of atrocities given must be discounted, especially when they are not mentioned elsewhere. Others are so pro-Indian/and-French that they, too, must be taken with a grain of salt.

Another case in point is the attack by the Natchez on Fort Saint Jean Baptiste, the present site of Natchitoches, Louisiana. The time it occurred is set down variously as the winter of 1729, directly after the massacre at Fort Rosalie; the spring of 1730, after the defeat of the Natchez at their fort near the Grand Village; and in the fall of 1731 after the scattering of the remnants of the Natchez following the capture of the Great Sun. It seems possible that the fort may have faced Indian attack more than once, which would account for the apparent contradictions. The attack mounted in October 1731, which resulted in the defeat by St. Denis and his Natchitoches allies of the Natchez, and the death of the chief of the Flour Village who supposedly instigated the Fort Rosalie massacre, are best documented. However, the spring of 1730 was the time of the most daring raids by the Natchez against the French, with several parties of soldiers ambushed and killed. There is enough evidence of a war party sent against the fort at this time to give reason to place the characters of my story there for a few pivotal chapters of the book.

I chose as my primary source of information for the writing of
Fierce Eden
the volume by M. Antoine Simon Le Page Du Pratz entitled
The History of Louisiana.
Du Pratz was a Dutchman who came to Louisiana in 1718. He lived for eight years at Fort Rosalie, working among the Natchez and eventually fighting them in the uprising of 1723. A year before the massacre of 1729, he left the Natchez country to take up a position as supervisor of the king’s plantations near New Orleans. His history, published originally in Paris in 1758 and later reprinted in English, contains the most detailed account of the life-style and customs of the Natchez, along with a wealth of material concerning the natural resources of early Louisiana. The events leading up to the massacre, and following it, are given with impartiality. This book is also the basis for much of the background information available at the museum of the Natchez Indians, the Grand Village of the Natchez, at Natchez, Mississippi.

Other sources consulted include Alcee Fortier’s
A History of Louisiana;
Garnie W. McGinty’s
A History of Louisiana;
Francois X. Martin’s
The History of Louisiana; Charlevoix’s Louisiana: Selections from the History and Journal
, written by the Jesuit priest Pierre F. X. de Charlevoix;
Louisiana, The Pelican State
and
Louisiana, A Narrative History,
both by Edwin Adams Davis;
Louisiana, A Pictorial History
by Leonard V. Huber;
The Natchez
by Charles D. Van Tuyl, including a short English-Natchez dictionary;
History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw & Natchez Indians
by H. B. Cushman;
The Grand Village of the Natchez Revisited
, Archaeological Report No. 12, by Robert S. Neitzel; Lyle Saxon’s
Fabulous New Orleans;
Harnett Kane’s
Queen New Orleans;
Grace King’s
New Orleans,
The Place and the People;
with brief excursions into many others.

The depiction of the Natchez Indians, their matrilineal society, their practices, beliefs, and living conditions closely follows Du Pratz, though with an assist now and then from other sources. Where some important point that needed to be illustrated was obscure, I chose to use the known practices and traditions of other mound-building Indians of the Mississippi River valley or other matrilineal Indian societies, such as the Algonquin, Sioux, Seneca, Pawnee, Seminole, Kiowa, and Cree. The social customs of the Natchez were of great interest to the French and several sources seek to explain the structure of their society, including the practice of matrilineal descent, female ownership, marriage ceremonies, rights of divorce, female control of abortion, the lasciviousness of the women compared to the habitual virtue of the men, and, in contrast to the general impression of Indian women working alone in the fields, the practice of the Natchez men aiding them in the heavy labor of preparing the ground for planting. The Natchez men, in fact, had complete control of planting and harvesting corn, including their own feast and dancing at harvest time.

A number of Natchez depicted in
Fierce Eden
actually lived, including the Great Sun, who was indeed half Natchez, half French; his mother who was called by the French
Bras Pique,
which has been translated as Tattooed Arm; his brother, St. Cosme; and the chief of the Flour Village whose given name is not known. Historical personages among the French who played their appointed parts were Governor Perier; his brother, Alexis, Sieur le Perier de Salvert; the king’s lieutenant, the Chevalier de Loubois; Louis Antoine Juchereau de St. Denis and his wife, Doña Manuela. All other characters are purely imaginary.

Those who are puzzled by the mention of the Bayou Duc du Maine, a name that does not appear on any modern map of Louisiana, should refer instead to the Dugdemona Bayou, the modern, Anglicized version of the same. This stream, called variously a river, a creek, and finally a bayou, meanders through the middle of the north and central sections of the state.

The Natchez as a tribe were destroyed after the events described in this book. The survivors were adopted into many other tribes, among them the Ouachita, Tunica, Tensas, Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw. Descendants of these survivors accompanied the Creeks and Cherokees over the Trail of Tears in the 1830s to the Oklahoma Indian Territory. Today there is a Natchez community at Gore, Oklahoma, where many live who can claim Cherokee-Natchez or Creek-Natchez ancestry. There are no full-blood Natchez living today.

For readers interested in further study of the Natchez Indians, I recommend a visit to the Grand Village of the Natchez, near Natchez, Mississippi. In the museum, there is an excellent diorama of the Grand Village, plus displays of pottery, bones, tools, trade goods, and other items found in excavations of the mounds from 1931-1972. There can also be seen the remnants of the mounds that once held the Temple of the Sun of the Natchez and the house of the Great Sun. The ancient plaza has been carefully reconstructed, rescued from beneath the silt of two centuries and more, and a replica of a Natchez hut, complete with cane thatch, has been built to one side. Beyond the edge of the bluff that holds the village site runs St. Catherine Creek where once the Natchez bathed and played. It flows quietly over its gravel bed and sandbars, beneath the tall trees hung with vines, beside the willows and rustling cane, clear and pure and timeless.