CHAPTER III

ENSLAVEMENT BY THE FRENCH

     IN the French colonies of America, Indian slavery was never authorized by legal declaration during the early colonial period.¹ In fact, the matter received no attention whatever from the home government. Such lack of notice on the part of the monarch was due to the insignificance of American affairs in general, and to the unimportance of the institution of Indian slavery in particular. Gradually, however, as the matter began to assume importance in the system of trade, through the influence of the trading companies certain indirect royal action was taken in the eighteenth century, and this action recognized the existing institution as legal. The modifications which the king sought to accomplish in it did not aim to destroy the institution, but rather tended to make it better suited to the requirements of trade.

     Some doubt appears to have existed regarding the legal status of Indian slaves, and, in order to remove it, Jacques Raudot, the intendant at Quebec, decreed in April, 1709, that “all the Pawnis and Negroes, who have been bought and who shall be purchased hereafter, shall belong in full proprietorship to those who have purchased them as their slaves.”² The state of unrest caused by the “coureurs de

bois” and others stirring up the tribes in order to take captives for sale to the French as slaves, interfered with the success of the trading corporation then in possession of Louisiana, and on October 25, 1720, the Company of the Indies issued a command from Paris, stating that such action was contrary to the command of the king, and harmful to both the commercial welfare of the Company and the establishments which it hoped to make in the territory of the Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas tribes. The Sieur de Bourgmont, in the service of the Company in that area, was directed to arrest and confiscate the merchandise of the “voyageurs” who should come to trade within the confines of his jurisdiction without first obtaining permission and declaring to him the motives with which they wished to trade. Bienville, then in immediate charge of the colony in Louisiana, was directed to execute this order of the Company at once, and all other officers as well were enjoined to carry it out and to give any aid and assistance to M. de Bourgmont which he might require in fulfilling his instructions.¹

     On July 23, 1745, the royal council at Paris sanctioned the possession of Indian slaves by declaring that all slaves who might follow the enemy to the colonies of France, and their effects, should belong to his most Christian Majesty.² After the acquisition of Canada the Parliament of Great Britain showed itself favorable to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Accordingly, the forty-seventh article of the capitulation of September 8, 1760, provided: “The negroes and Pawnees, of both sexes, shall remain in their quality of slaves, in the possession of French and Canadians to whom they belong; they shall be at liberty to

keep them in their service in the colony, or to sell them; and they shall also continue to bring them up in the Roman religion.”¹

     Public opinion in France never concerned itself with the matter of Indian slavery. There appears to have been no opposition to it, either in France or in the French colonies of America. Public opinion early countenanced the institution of slavery in the colonies without distinction of color or race.² It was negro slavery that brought profit to the trader as well as to the colonist. The Indian slave in the French colonies possessed no champion, such as the Indian slave in the Spanish territory had in Las Casas. Within the French territory under discussion, negro slavery continued, without meeting violent opposition, as long as the territory remained under French control. And with it continued Indian slavery, gradually growing weaker as negro slavery grew stronger, and so less likely to attract attention.

     Much of the French exploration was carried on by the missionaries. Slave holding was not inconsistent with the belief of these religious travelers.³ Two objects inspired their zeal: the “greater glory of God,” and “the influence and credit of the order of Jesus,” of which many of them

were members.¹ To the missionaries about to start from Paris to explore the Ottawa country, the direction was given: “Remember it is Christ and the Cross you are seeking, and if you aim at anything else, you will get nothing but affliction for body and mind.”² The Jesuit held that if the object was good, the action was right. It would redound to the glory of God to convert any heathen, bond or free, therefore, slave holding by a monk was legitimate.

     The records do not show any great numbers of slaves owned by the missionary explorers. There are certain reasons why this was so. Abnegation of self was a part of the Jesuitic doctrine, so the monk could have no need for any considerable number of personal attendants. He possessed no mines or lands for the working of which slaves could be used. What services the fathers could not perform in the extension of their faith, were performed partly by servants brought from France, and partly by “donnés,” or those who voluntarily gave their labor. At the missions³ and in the Indian villages where the missionaries stayed, the Indians rendered them free service and furnished them with supplies. Then, too, the Indian domestic did not prove very satisfactory.⁴ The slave was a subject for conversion, but the French missionary did not spend much time on the conversion of single individuals. He

aimed rather to collect the heathen in groups about a religious center, and to guide and teach them somewhat after the manner of his brethren in Paraguay. Yet we find that the French missionaries possessed some Indian slaves.¹ It would not do to refuse to save any soul, neither was it advisable to risk the chance of offending any Indian, whatever his rank, who might make them the gift of a slave. Most of the slaves held by the missionaries appear to have been gifts. Sometimes to accept such a slave was to save the person from death. Some of the slaves were purchased. By teaching them the French language, and the principles of the Christian Church, the clergy hoped to make missionaries of some of them, and so extend the scope of their religion.

     The chief, though not the earliest, source of Indian slaves among the French was that of captives taken in war with the Indian tribes. For many years after the coming of the French to Louisiana, they and the Natchez Indians lived in friendly intercourse. Minor Indian troubles in 1711² and 1715³ resulted in the enslavement and transportation of certain Indians to Cape François on the island of Haiti. The hostilities begun with the Natchez Indians in 1715 continued intermittently until 1740.⁴ In 1730, because of ill treatment by M. du Chapart, governor of Fort Rosalie, who wished the site of a Natchez village on which to build a town, and because of other abuses, the Natchez rose against the French and massacred over two hundred of them.⁵

Governor Périer formed an army and advanced against them in their fort. The Natchez offered to leave the place if their lives were spared. Their offer was accepted, but they were detained as prisoners, all but twenty who escaped.¹ About four hundred and fifty of the tribe, including the Great Sun, the Little Sun and several of the principal war chiefs, were captured and carried to New Orleans.² The women and children were retained as slaves on the plantations. Some of the prisoners were burned in New Orleans.³ The Great Sun, the Little Sun, their families, and more than four hundred of the captives, were sent at once to Cape Franqois, Haiti, and most of them sold to the planters as slaves.⁴ The two chiefs and their families were retained as prisoners on the island. On April 22, 1731, the minister informed the Company that, in his opinion, the only solution of the matter lay in selling as slaves the survivors of the two families. The registers of the Company contain the following record: “It was resolved to order the sale of the survivors of the said two families of Natchez Indians.”⁵

     The Natchez war was the most important of those between French and Indians in Louisiana. There were, however, minor difficulties, from time to time, in which the same policy of enslaving the captive Indians was followed by the French. The war with the Fox Indians, 1712, serves as an example of these lesser troubles.¹ By 1720, war had broken out between the French and the Chickasaw, whom the English had stirred up.² An intermittent warfare with this tribe and others continued in 1724,³ 1728,⁴ 1736⁵ (with a peace in 1740),⁶ 1750,⁷ and 1752.⁸ Captives were enslaved by both sides. Some of these were left with the Indians to dispose of at will. Others were kept among the French as slaves.⁹

     During the period of colonial history, each European nation was in alliance, from time to time, with various Indian tribes. In time of war with other tribes, the allied Indians took an active part, and not infrequently they were urged on to hostilities by their white friends for various reasons. One of these reasons was to obtain war captives to give to the whites for slaves. In 1698, Tonti had encouraged the Illinois, who were in alliance with the French, to capture and enslave the Iroquois Indians and so break

their power.¹ La Salle favored the same course.² In 1708, the Canadian French were exciting the Indians about Kaskaskia to wage war with each other, and were on the spot to get slaves to sell to the English.³ The Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor-general of Canada, in 1706 demanded of the Ottawa of Detroit certain captives as slaves for the allied Sonnontouan to replace their men slain by the Ottawa,⁴ and others to be slaves to the French, in return for a missionary and a French deserter they had killed.⁵ The slaves were duly presented in 1707.⁶ The demands of the governor-general were part of a military plan to form an alliance of the western tribes with the French, and continued the Indian custom of giving slaves to make reparation for injuries committed or for foes slain.⁷ Thus the allied Indians were satisfied, and a token of subjection was obtained from the Ottawa.⁸ As late as 1723, de Vaudreuil was accused of urging on the Abnaki against the Illinois to get slaves for him.⁹ Apparently, such action was as agreeable to the Indians as to the French. An Indian orator of the Arkansas tribe, in his address given in honor of Bossu’s arrival in 1762, said: “We warriors will strike the common enemy to get prisoners which shall serve as slaves.”¹⁰

     Sometimes the French went still further, and demanded that conquered tribes make war on other tribes in order to

get captives for them to take the place of Frenchmen killed during the war. Such a condition Sieur de Louvigny placed on the conquered Fox Indians in 1716.¹

     As already observed, kidnapping was the means earliest adopted by all the European nations for taking Indians as slaves. In 1524, accordingly, Verrazano attempted to capture an Indian family consisting of an old woman, a young girl and six children, on the northeast coast of North America. But the girl proved so intractable that the soldiers were forced to give up the attempt to take the whole family to the ship, and finally carried away but one small boy who was too young to make any resistance.² The purpose of Verrazano’s expedition was to obtain for France a place in the discoveries in which the rival powers, Spain, Portugal and England were engaged. Some proof that the expedition reached the New World was desirable. A native would furnish it.

     In Cartier’s first expedition, 1534, he seized some of the natives and carried them on board his ships. The relations with the Indians were so friendly that he was able, by gifts and explanations, to persuade them that he meant no harm. Two of them were finally detained on board and carried to France.³ On the second expedition, in 1535, Cartier, replying to the request of the chief, Taiguragui, that the French

carry away another chief, Agona, declared that the king of France had forbidden him to bring back either man or woman, and permitted him to bring to France only two or three little boys to learn the language.¹ But these pretended instructions did not prevent Cartier from seizing Taiguragui and other chiefs for the purpose of carrying them to France. On the outcry of the Indians against such an act, he promised that the chiefs should be well treated, and that after visiting France for the purpose of telling the king about the land of Saguenay, they should be returned to their own country within the space of twelve months.²

     On his setting out for the New World in 1562, the queen of France commanded Ribaut to bring back some of the natives.³ In obedience to her command, Ribaut attempted to detain two of the natives on board ship to carry them to France, but the savages managed to escape and swam to shore.⁴

     Some of the Indians kidnapped by the explorers mentioned were slaves only in a modified sense. They were not put to servile labor, yet they were deprived of their liberty and were at the disposal of their captors. Some were held as objects of curiosity. Others were taken for a definite purpose: to furnish information regarding their native country, and to serve as interpreters in later expeditions. For such a reason La Harpe, in 1719, in his journey in the southwest, when returning to the coast, resolved to capture some of the Indians, hoping that by good treatment he might induce them to allow him to settle in their country and to carry out his plans. Under the pretence of landing to obtain water for his ships, he seized a dozen or more, and sailed for Mobile.¹

     The Indians soon became suspicious of the explorers and traders, especially in the sections where more than one of the rival races carried on exploration and trade. Such a state of affairs Du Tisné found in 1719, when he was badly received by the Pawnee whom the Osage had told that his purpose was to entrap Indians for slaves.²

     The great purpose of the French in the new world was trade. Their expeditions, excluding those of the missionaries, were commercial in nature. With them gold hunting was not a primary consideration, as was the case with the Spaniards, and that for the simple reason that no gold could be found. Nor were they seeking a refuge from persecution like the English. The great fur trade was being

developed by them. This trade was carried on with the Indians, and in all sections where captives in war or kidnapped Indians were purchased from the natives, such purchase was usually a part of the trade in furs.

     The custom of purchasing Indians originated with the early explorers and discoverers. Sometimes such a purchase was made for a purely commercial reason: to obtain a slave to perform some certain labor. At other times the buyer was moved by an humanitarian motive: to save an Indian from torture or death at the hands of his captors. The purchased Indian might then be allowed to return to his own tribe and be retained as a slave at the will of his new master. In 1678, Du Lhut, when setting out from Montreal on his travels westward, bought an Indian to act as a guide.¹ Du Tisné, in 1719, similarly acquired some slaves from a chief at Natchitoches.² In 1724, de Bourgmont purchased a considerable number of slaves from the Kansas tribe. Mention is made of fifteen at one time, six at another.³ For these he was forced to pay double price, as the Indians stated that the year before, a Frenchman had given such a price to a party of Illinois who were with them.⁴ Sometimes the slaves obtained by these explorers and traders were used in their own expeditions. At other times, they were sent back to the settlement along with other merchandise. De Bourgmont sent some of those whom he purchased back to New Orleans. La Vérendrye, also, in 1731, sent back slaves to the French settlements, and in writing of his action implied that he thought he deserved much credit for furnishing the colonists with slaves.⁵

     Until well into the latter half of the eighteenth century

Indian slaves were held by the settlers of Detroit, who obtained them in trade with friendly Indians who in turn took them in war with the Pawnee, Osage, Choctaw and other western tribes.¹ In 1741, the so-called “Nation of the Serpent” entirely destroyed seventeen villages, killed all the men and older women, made slaves of the young women, and traded them for horses and other merchandise.² A report to the home government in 1720, concerning Natchitoches, declared that the most extensive commerce which could be carried on with the Indians of that section, would be in slaves, horses, skins, etc.³ Another report sent by La Salle told of the Alabama Indians bringing twenty-seven or twenty-eight Mobile Indian women and children into the colony, and disposing of them to the French.⁴

     The friendly and allied Indians appreciated the results to be obtained from the sale of their captives to the whites, and not only sold them to the “coureurs de bois” and other traveling traders, but took them directly to the French settlement for sale, as is shown in the preceding paragraph. Apparently all the leading French settlements afforded a ready market for such slaves. Mobile furnishes a case in point. In November, 1706, a party of Ouacha arrived in the settlement bringing some Abnaki captives for sale.⁵ In the same month, also, some Choctaw brought to the settlement Cahouita and Altamaha captives for the same purpose.⁶

     It was the Jesuit and French missionaries who first advocated the purchase of Indian captives by the traders, in order to prevent their being put to death. By putting them in a mild condition of servitude they hoped to place them in a position where they would be Christianized.¹ Both Tonti² and La Salle³ advised such a course of action.

     The colonists favored the same action for a more commercial reason. The French of Kaskaskia, in 1708, were urging the allied Indians to war, and were on the spot to obtain captives to sell as slaves to the English.⁴ De Vaudreuil, governor-general of Canada, throughout the first quarter of the eighteenth century was urging the Abnaki to wage war on the Illinois to obtain slaves for him.⁵

     An important factor in the French colonial trade was the “coureurs de bois.” These men, having cut loose from civilization, wandered at will among the Indians, trading for the various commodities which they could dispose of in the settlements of either the French or English colonies. One of these commodities was Indian slaves, obtained for the most part from the tribes who had captured them in war. Judging from the number of these white men of the woods, their unrestrained life, and the evidence given by the men of the time, it seems not unlikely that this feature of colonial trade produced a considerable portion of the Indian slaves

used by the French.¹ If the “coureurs de bois” did not find a sufficient number of slaves among the tribes they visited, they not infrequently stirred up the tribes to war, so that they might obtain the captives for sale. On July 25, 1707, La Salle wrote from Fort Louis to the Minister of Marine that the “coureurs de bois” from Canada were thus stirring up the Indian tribes against each other, in order to obtain Indian slaves to sell in Louisiana.² The work of the “coureurs de bois” was, however, by no means limited to Louisiana, but extended over all the area claimed by the French. The desire of the English for Indian slaves afforded an opportunity for profit that could not be rejected. They always found a ready market for their Indian slaves with the English of the Carolina country. The control of the French officials over this wandering class was always slight, and since there was practically no export trade in Indians to be had in Louisiana, and since all the Indians whom they obtained could not be disposed of in the colony, they turned to the English colonies for the purpose.

     Some effort was made by the French officials to prevent this trade, but the attempt met with indifferent success. It was not the traffic in human beings which disturbed them, but the fact that their enemy, the English, were profiting by the transaction. In 1714, a report of

Cadillac to the home government lamented both his inability to restrain the French allied Indians from trading with the English in slaves and other commodities, and also his embarrassment at not being able to prevent the French colonists from trading with the English in skins and Indian slaves.¹ Such opposition, however, was not general among the French colonial officials. Some of the most prominent ones were engaged in this same slave trade with the English, even when appearing to be opposed to it. In 1708, Bienville ordered the Canadian French to cease exciting the Indians of Kaskaskia to wage war on each other to obtain slaves for them.² Yet, in the same year, he proposed, since the French would not cultivate the land, to obtain the needful supply of labor by seizing Indians and sending them to the West Indies in exchange for negroes.³ And in his report to the home government mentioned above, Cadillac complained of the selling of Indian slaves to the English by Bienville.⁴ Such transactions by the French officials were carried on secretly. The Sieur de Ste. Heleine, nephew of Bienville, was killed by the English allied Indians while on such an expedition to sell Indians to the English of Carolina.⁵

     Some opposition to the trade was shown by the Jesuits, since the hoped for result of having numbers of slaves to convert, if purchased by the French, did not materialize.

Accordingly, in 1693, they petitioned the governor of Canada to prohibit the trade in Indian slaves. The request was granted and an order issued to that effect, but without definite result. The “coureurs de bois” continued the trade in spite of the penalty of fine and imprisonment.¹

     Certain of the Indians possessed by the explorers were gifts from Indian chiefs. On his second voyage, in 1535, the chiefs of the Saguenay River country gave Cartier three children.² Afterwards, owing to mutual suspicions on the part of the French and Indians, one of these children made her escape.³ On the resumption of good feeling, the Indians promised to return her. Later, another chief offered Cartier two children, one of whom was accepted.⁴

     In 1564, Laudonnière led an expedition to the region of Florida. Desiring to penetrate into the interior and realizing that the friendship of the Indians was necessary for such an attempt, he sought to obtain from an Indian chief two of his prisoners, whom he proposed to use in winning the friendship of another chief by presenting them to him.⁵ At first, the chief declined to give away the prisoners; but, upon Laudonnière’s renewing his request, the chief yielded, the prisoners were produced, and were taken back by the French to Fort Carolina.⁶

     Champlain desired to send to France some girls to have

them “instructed in the law of God and good manners.” An opportunity to satisfy this desire came with the wish of the Montagnais to present something to the French traveler. Three girls were given him, whom he named Faith, Hope and Charity, and whom he had instructed in religion, domestic work, etc.¹ Still other Indians were taken to France by the expedition. One of the sagamores of the Montagnais gave his son to M. du Pont for that purpose. Still another savage, an Iroquois woman, the Frenchman begged of the tribe which was about to eat her.² Other and similar instances of obtaining Indians are recorded for the same general humanitarian and religious purpose.³

     The Illinois gave Marquette and Jolliet an Indian slave boy, whom Jolliet took with him when going to Quebec, and who was drowned on the journey.⁴ The Ottawa gave Marquette a young man,⁵ and a Kishkakon chief gave him “a little slave he had brought from the Illinois a

few months before.”¹ In the same manner, Indians were given to La Salle and to his companion, Tonti, on their expeditions.² In 1699, Father Anastasius accepted from the Indians the gift of an Indian girl as a slave.³ In 1703, M. de Saint Cosmé, a missionary priest traveling from Canada to Natchez, possessed in his party a young Indian slave boy.⁴

     When Du Lhut was in Montreal in 1678, the savages gave him three slaves.⁵ At another time, 1684, the Indians wished to give him some slaves as an atonement for their having murdered some Frenchmen.⁶ In 1700, the “Mantantons” (Mdewakanton), at a feast in his honor, presented Le Sueur, among other gifts, with an Indian slave.⁷ In 1719, La Harpe, on his journey northwest from Natchitoches, was given a young Kansas slave by the chiefs of several nations gathered together. One of the chiefs expressed his sorrow that he had but one slave to give, and La Harpe, in his letter to Terrisse, regrets that he did not arrive sooner, and by receiving them as slaves, prevent the seventeen companions of his slave from being eaten.⁸

     The Indians realized that the trade in captive slaves was profitable. When, in 1724, the Kansas tribe charged de Bourgmont double price for slaves sold him, they feared that he would be angry at the price asked, and that

in consequence they would lose future trade. So they presented him with five slaves as a gift.¹

     Throughout history the children of slave mothers have generally been considered slaves. A report on the condition of Louisiana, 1716, declared that the inhabitants were accustomed to sell the children of their Indian female slaves.² Later, in 1724, a royal decree provided that children born of marriages between slaves should be slaves, and should belong to the masters of their mothers, and not to the masters of their fathers, if father and mother should belong to different masters.³

     The uses to which Indian slaves were put, either in early or later colonial times, were determined by economic conditions. Among the explorers, the need for guides and interpreters was imperative, and one finds the French, like the Spanish, using Indian slaves for this purpose. On his second expedition, Cartier made such use of the Indian children whom he carried to France on his first expedition.⁴ Laudonnière in 1564, intended to use slaves for this purpose.⁵ Du Lhut purchased a slave to act as guide.⁶ The Mallet expedition, in 1739, used a slave as guide.⁷ One of the slaves purchased by de Bourgmont on his expedition in 1724, was retained with the expedition as interpreter, and was taught French by de Bourgmont himself.⁸ Doubtless

the instances might be multiplied if the records were complete, though it is not likely that enslaved Indians were used for this purpose to the same extent as the friendly allied or converted Indians.¹

     The French never sent out any great expeditions like those of the Spaniards. Hence among the explorers the use of slaves as domestics was limited. Among the colonists, one finds Le Page du Pratz, on his arrival in Louisiana, buying an Indian woman to act as cook and interpreter.² The early Louisiana colonists experienced the need for servants, and, May 26, 1700, expressed the hope that the Indians would supply such need.³ The life of the Illinois colonist was less luxurious than that of the inhabitant of Louisiana; in consequence, the need of slaves in household service was less.

     Early in the eighteenth century life among the French of Louisiana, both rich and poor, was quite licentious,⁴ and one of the means of fostering this life was the use of Indian women, slave and free. The demoralization resulting from such a condition attracted attention, and in 1709 it was urged that girls suitable for wives be sent over in order “to prevent these disorders and debaucheries.”⁵

     Agricultural pursuits appear to have been the chief labor to which the French put Indian slaves. Such pursuits, along with trading, formed the chief industry of the

colonies.¹ But it was the general tendency of the French to prefer the novelty and excitement of the trader’s life, rather than the more quiet existence of the agriculturalist. Bienville complained much of this state of affairs, and sought to remedy it.² The consequence of this tendency was to make the price of labor high,³ and the use of Indian slaves was a means at hand to solve the difficulty. In the simpler life of the inhabitants of the Illinois country, agriculture was the chief industry of the settlers until the close of the period under discussion.⁴ And the farmers increased the results of their industry by the extensive use of Indian slaves.⁵

     Throughout the French territory in the military stations, both soldiers and frontiersmen found use for their Indian women slaves as cooks and in performing the other domestic labors of fort and camp.⁶ The male slaves were used in erecting fortifications, performing other heavy labor, and as guides in military expeditions.⁷

     The custom of using Indian slaves as a bribe or reward was common. In either case the purpose of the whites

was the same: to procure the friendship and alliance of the tribes. In the northwest the French demanded that certain subdued tribes bring them Indian slaves, which they might use to replace the members of the allied tribes whom the conquered tribes had killed during the war.¹ In the area where the claims of the European nations overlapped, alliance of the tribes was especially desired by each nation. These Indian captive slaves or slaves purchased from other tribes were often returned to their own tribes as a peace offering or as a token of friendship. Thus the alliance of the tribes was won, and a barrier created against the encroachments of the Spanish and the English.² Such use

was made of slaves by de Bourgmont, in 1724, in the Kansas country. With a messenger sent from there to the Comanche, he sent also two Comanche slaves whom he purchased from the Kansas in order that his messenger be well received.¹ He also purchased some Padouca slaves in order to return them to their people.²

     In 1728, the king of France issued an edict regarding certain concessions of land, and required a tax of five livres on each slave, the proceeds of which were to be used in building churches and hospitals.³ Thus the Indian slaves, along with the negroes, served as a property basis in this one instance, as they did many times in the English colonies[.] They were also regarded as property in all legal and business transactions and were classed along with negroes, domestic animals and real estate, which could be sold to satisfy their owners’ debts.⁴

     The early slavery among the French was mild in nature.⁵ The system was of a patriarchal type. The Indian slaves often worked along with their owners, especially those engaged in agricultural labor, and were treated as children who must be guided, directed, punished or rewarded by their superiors. Cramoisy, writing of Bienville’s expedition of 1737, states that a Chickasaw slave who acted as guide, had belonged to his owner five years and was always treated as one of the family.⁶ A French settler in the Fox

Valley is spoken of as living with his Pawnee slaves in feudal style.¹

     The relation of the French and the Indians, bond or free, was always different from that existing between the English and the Indians. The Frenchman never looked upon the Indians with the disdain and contempt for an inferior race which was displayed by the English. Marriage between French and Indians was common. The social result of this close connection was more pronounced in case of the Frenchman than in that of the Indian. It meant the “Indianizing” of the Frenchman, or the bringing him to the social level and to the life and habits of the red man. The most striking result of this tendency was supplied by the “coureur de bois;” but the same result was apparent even in the case of the superior colonists of lower Louisiana. And to this result the Indian slave contributed in a measure. The lack of social distinction between Frenchman and native tended toward kind treatment on the part of the owner, and to a shifting of the social planes of master and slave toward that of equality. Yet instances of cruelty to slaves are not lacking. The punishments of the age were cruel, whether the offender was bond or free.²

     It has been said that the dominating feature of French colonial life was trade. But religious and commercial advancement went hand in hand. From the earliest arrival of the French, the missionary labors of the Church extended not only to the Indian tribes, but also to the negro and Indian slaves held by the colonists. The conversion of the Indian was an asset for the growth of trade. French

commissions, as well as Spanish, provided for the conversion of the Indians.¹ Priest and friar were everywhere present. Each Christianized Indian slave marked a gain in the advancement of the faith, and made possible a readier access to trade with the convert’s tribe and those of his friends.² But the religious training and teaching of slaves were not entirely a matter of policy. It was rather a part of the generally kind treatment of the master. The rites of the Church were commonly accorded them. The Louisiana church records certain accounts of the birth, baptism, marriage and burial of Indian slaves.³ The Mobile and New Orleans registers are similar to the church registers to be found throughout Lower Canada wherever a church was established. The parish registers of Levis, Quebec and Long Point are cases in point. Throughout the first and part of the second half of the eighteenth century, these registers show that Indian slaves, many of whom, in Quebec for instance, were brought from Louisiana, were baptized,

and then records kept of such baptisms as in the case of the whites.¹ The church records of Kaskaskia² and Vincennes³ make frequent mention of the birth, baptism and death of Indian slaves (called Panis) down to the time of British occupation; but from that time they became more and more infrequent as Indian slavery gradually gave way to negro slavery. The baptismal register of Mobile, Alabama, dating from 1704 to 1740, contains baptismal records of whites, blacks and Indians. From the register it appears that witnesses to the baptism of a slave were not considered necessary, though sometimes used. In some instances the person baptized is recorded as the slave of a certain person. In other cases he is mentioned as a slave, and the owner’s name is not given. The earliest baptism of an Indian slave in this record is that of a fifteen-year-old slave of Iberville. Baptisms of Indian slaves are quite as frequent as those of negro slaves. February 8, 1734, is the latest date of Indian slave baptisms in the register. Some of these Indian slaves are recorded as legitimate children of slave parents.⁴

     The laws of France did not permit the holding of any Christian in slavery. This meant that the conversion of Indians or other slaves would confer freedom upon them.⁵

But the law was never enforced. The French clergy went on continuously with their work of converting, baptizing and teaching both bond and free; and in the “Code Noir” of 1724, Louis XV commanded that all slaves in the French colonies, “be educated in the Apostolic Roman Catholic religion, and be baptized,” and enjoined their owners to have these matters attended to within a reasonable time.¹ The code dealt directly with negro slaves, but the Indian slaves still in existence were necessarily included in its provisions.

     In Louisiana Indian slavery began with the founding of the colony. A report of the colony written in 1704, states that at Fort Louis de Louisiane, having a white population of 180 soldiers and 27 French families numbering 64 persons, (a total of 244 white persons), there were six Indian boy slaves from twelve to eighteen years of age, and five Indian girl slaves from fifteen to twenty years of age.² In 1708, the colony consisted of fourteen officers, seventy-six soldiers, thirteen sailors, three priests, six mechanics, one Indian interpreter, twenty-four laborers, twenty-eight women, twenty-five children, (a total of 190 free persons), and eighty Indian slaves.³ In 1713, besides the soldiers, there were twenty-eight families, twenty negroes and a few Indian women and children.⁴ The following statistics are

given in the archives of the Ministry of the Colonies in Paris:¹

     Census of New Orleans, November 24, 1721. Recapitulation: Men, 446; Women; 140; Children, 96: Negro slaves, 523; Indian slaves, 51.

     Census of New Orleans in 1723. Recapitulation: Men, bearing arms, 229; Women or girls, 169; Children, 183; Orphans, 45; Slaves, 267.

     General census of the Colony of Louisiana on January 1, 1726. Recapitulation: Masters, 1952; Hired men and servants, 276; Negro slaves, 1540; Indian slaves, 229.

     General census of the Department of New Orleans on July 1, 1727. Recapitulation:

     From these statistics it will be seen that in Louisiana the negro slaves far outnumbered the Indian slaves, and that the ratio of the number of Indian slaves to the number of whites in the colony was very small. A memoir concerning Natchitoches, 1720 or 1721, states that the number of black slaves in that settlement was thirty-four, and the number of Indian slaves, six (two men and four women).² A report on the condition of Louisiana at large in 1744 declared that there were very few Indian slaves in the colony,

“because we are at peace with all nations: these we have were taken in former wars, and we keep them.”¹ Another account, in 1750, states that the inhabitants of New Orleans consist of “French, Negroes, and some savages who are slaves—all these together do not number . . . more than 1,200 persons.²

     The smallness of the number of Indian slaves in Louisiana appears due to several reasons: the generally friendly relations of the French and the neighboring tribes; the absence of extensive agriculture at an early date; the neglect of the colonial authorities to develop a trade in savage slaves, like that of Carolina; and the rapid increase in the importation of negro slaves by the time that occupations profitable for slave labor were developed.

     In the northern part of the Mississippi Valley, also, Indian slavery began with the coming of the whites. Slavery at Vincennes and in the country below the present site of Terre Haute, Indiana, was regulated by the laws of Louisiana. That in the country to the north was regulated by the customs of Canada. Indian slavery in Canada began early. Record exists of Indian slaves in Montreal in 1670.³ In Louisiana the greater number of slaves were negroes; whereas in Canada the larger portion were Indians.⁴ In the early history of Vincennes most of the slaves were Indians, for the inhabitants were more extensively engaged in the Indian trade than in agricultural pursuits. The same was true of the country about Detroit. Some of these

Indians went, of course, to Louisiana; but the larger portion went to Canada. A report in 1750 shows that in the five French villages of the Illinois country there were eleven hundred whites, three hundred blacks and sixty Indian slaves.¹ Indian slavery, already giving way to negro slavery, continued so to do after British occupation.

     Indian slaves, mostly children, are recorded in Detroit in 1710,² 1712,³ and 1715.⁴ Their use continued there until the English occupation. A report in 1733 shows the Canadians trading in Indian slaves whom they seized or purchased from other Indians.⁵ By the terms of the surrender of Montreal, 1760, already mentioned, the English guaranteed to the settlers all the rights in property they had enjoyed, and Article IV of the capitulation provided that all negro and Pawnee slaves should remain in their condition of servitude.⁶ In 1763, the population of Canada comprised about 70,000 Europeans, 30,000 Indians and 400 black slaves.⁷ It will be seen that the number of negro

slaves was very small as compared with the number in Louisiana. And, judging from the frequent mention of Indian slaves in the parish records,¹ and the not inconsiderable trade in such slaves that went on with the western tribes, one may concede the truth of the assertion that the number of Indian slaves in that territory, under Canadian law, exceeded the number of negro slaves, even though, in proportion to the white population, the number was small.

     In the French colonies, the earliest method of manumission was to grant slaves their freedom verbally and without further formality. In the Wisconsin country, during the first half of the eighteenth century, at least, there appears to have been some requirement or obligation, perhaps imposed by custom, for the owners of Indian slaves to free them after a certain period of servitude.² But on April 11, 1735, a memorandum of the king to de Beauharnois and Hocquart declared that the judges of the colonies might conform themselves to the custom of considering the Indians held in servitude as slaves, and that masters who might wish to grant such Indians their freedom should do so by notarial deed.³ Accordingly, on September 1, 1736, an ordinance was issued at Quebec by Hocquart, the intendant, stating, with the consent of the Marquis de Beauharnois, governor and lieutenant-general of the colony, that anyone wishing to free any slave must make affirmation to that effect before a notary, to which he would be held. The act would be registered in the “greffe”

of the nearest royal jurisdiction. A manumission performed in any other way was declared null and void.¹

     As above stated, it was customary for the French colonists to sell the children of their female slave.² The practice might, and did, mean that a father sold his own child. Notice of the matter having been called to the attention of the king, an attempt was made to prevent the practice by inserting in the instructions sent to the colony in 1721-1722, a provision forbidding the sale of either a female negro or Indian slave or her child, if a free colonist were the father of such a child. The same instructions further declared it in harmony with religion and the welfare of the colony that at the end of a certain period of time both mother and child should be given their liberty, and so be made free inhabitants of the colony.³ Such a kindly attitude on the part of the home government met with but little response in the colonies.

     Several causes contributed to the passing of Indian slavery in French territory. Wherever the American Indians have been brought into contact with the white races, the result has been disaster to the red men. The Indian’s nature is not adapted to the white man’s scheme of life. The Indian absorbed the white man’s diseases and vices. Not the least of these vices was the love for strong drink, and the weakness of the natives in this respect was recognized and encouraged by the traders of all nations. The decrease in game and other food supplies as the Indians retreated from the sea,¹ famine followed by gluttonous excesses, wasting of the forests of the table lands,² all resulted in inferior living conditions and a consequent decrease in the birth rate and weakening of the tribes. As the weakened tribes withdrew from contact with the whites they usually joined with stronger tribes. The removal of tribes from their immediate neighborhood, and the union with other and distant tribes, acted as a check on the whites’ obtaining Indians as slaves. Such was the case with the tribes from whom the French of the Illinois country and Canada drew their slaves.³

     It has already been seen that the French missionaries of early colonial days believed that the enslavement of Indians would serve as a means of spreading the Christian religion. They found, however, that the method of obtaining Indian slaves by trade only increased the distribution of spirituous liquors among the tribes; and so, in 1693, they asked the king to prohibit the Indian slave trade. An order to this effect was accordingly issued, but with little result. The “coureurs de bois” found means to carry on the trade clandestinely

notwithstanding the penalty attached.¹ Again, in 1736, the king decided formally to prohibit the enslavement of Indians and issued a decree to that effect;² but to no advantage.³

     The gradual passing out of existence of Indian slavery, furthermore, was due, in no small measure, to its unsatisfactory character. The leading colonists early made up their minds to this effect. Bienville, in a letter to the Minister of Marine, July 28, 1706, stated that the French colonists earnestly requested negroes to till their lands, for whom they were willing to pay silver, since the colonies found Indian slaves unsatisfactory. He furthermore requested permission for the colonists to transport Indian slaves to the West Indian Islands in exchange for negroes. The fact that the colonists were willing to trade three Indians for two negroes is sufficient proof of the small value of Indians as slaves.⁴ Another letter to the home government, in 1717, records the same state of affairs in the colony.⁵

     Indian slaves were prone to run away, and their use by the French as individual laborers, or their use only in small groups, if worked together, made escape comparatively easy. A letter of Périer to the home government, May 12, 1728, declared that the traffic in Indian slaves and their use in the French colony was contrary to the welfare of the country, since such slaves served but a short time before they escaped back to their own tribes or to neighboring Indians. Moreover, these deserting Indians persuaded the negro slaves to run away with them.¹ A letter from the President of the Navy Board to la Jonquière and Bigot, May 4, 1749, represented that the Indian slaves brought up in the colony by the officers or by the inhabitants, generally left them when they attained a certain age and again became uncivilized; that they were the more dangerous on account of the knowledge which they had acquired of the country, being better able than others to make incursions therein; and that through the habit of keeping these slaves the whites were dissuaded from becoming domestic servants.²

     Among the slaves the boys were not so much to be depended upon as the girls, since they were stubborn, resented more strongly their being held in slavery, and were more inclined to run away. Long’s journal, 1768-1782, speaking of the western Indians, records: “They are also full of pride and resentment, and will not hesitate to kill their masters in order to gratify their revenge for a supposed injury. The girls are more docile, and assimilate much sooner .into the manners of civilization.”³ It is probable that

slaves coming from the Pawnee tribe, and held so largely by the French of Detroit and Canada, were more satisfactory than those coming from other tribes.¹ It has been said that “it would be difficult to find another of the wild tribes of the continent capable of subjection to domestic slavery.”² But the Pawnee, like other slaves, ran away.³

     Though Indian slaves were not as profitable laborers as might be desired, their loss was to be avoided, if possible. The matter was so serious as to interest the action of the authorities, and in 1709, Jacques Raudot, intendant of Canada, issued an ordinance containing an injunction which forbade any slave running away, and containing provisions for imposing a fine of fifty livres on those who aided such runaways.⁴

     Indian slaves were too few in number and too inferior in capacity for labor to supply the needs of the colonists. So an attempt was made by the home government to supply the needed laborers by establishing the system of indentured servants in the colonies. On November 16, 1716, an ordinance directed that vessels leaving France for any of the king’s American colonies were to carry thither, if of fifty tons, three servants; of sixty to one hundred tons, four servants; of one hundred tons and upward, six servants. The period of service of such servants was fixed at three years. They were required to be of sound body, between the ages of eighteen and forty, and in height not under four feet. These servants were to be examined before

the officers of the admiralty to see if they fulfilled the requirements of the law, and were to receive another examination by the commissary on landing in America. Such of the redemptioners as the captain might not sell were to be given to some of the planters who had none, and who were to pay their passage. The ordinance was repeated May 20, 1721, with the additional provision that merchants of the ports having permission to trade with the colonies were to pay sixty livres for each redemptioner whom they had to furnish, if individuals for that purpose were not furnished them by the government.¹

     The purpose of France, in making such careful provision for sending indentured servants to the New World, was a real effort to increase the population and, therefore, the trade of America.² Moreover, the home government feared the danger that might come to the colony by the increase of the black over the white population, and hoped this indentured servant system would be a means to that end. But the scheme had little result. The colonists preferred black slaves to white servants. Their term of service was for life instead of a short period. They were easier to control, cheaper to keep, and were better workers. Yet, it has been estimated that from 1711 to 1728, two thousand five hundred redemptioners were brought to the French colonies.³ Such a number of white servants must, in a measure, have checked the acquisition of Indian slaves.

     But the need for laborers was to be supplied in the French colonies by the black, instead of the white race. Although the home government grew to fear the result of

the rapid increase of the negro element, yet, at first, it favored the importation of blacks to the American colonies. In 1688, Louis XIV issued an edict authorizing the importation of negroes from Africa into America.¹ Article XIV of the letters patent granted by the king to Crozat, September 30, 1712, gave the latter permission, if he found it advisable to have the blacks in Louisiana, to send a ship every year to the coast of Guinea to obtain them, and to sell them to the inhabitants of the colony.² So, from the first, negro slaves were present in the French colonies, though during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, they were outnumbered by the Indian slaves.³

     In 1713, there were but twenty negro slaves in Louisiana,⁴ but with the granting of the charter of the Western Company in 1717, their increased importation began. A provision of the charter required that during the lifetime of the charter (twenty-five years,) not less than three thousand negroes be carried to the colony. The first large importation was made by the Company in June, 1719, when five hundred negroes were brought from the coast of Guinea.⁵ For several years, the importation of negroes into Louisiana was one of the most profitable monopolies of the Western Company.⁶ One authority states that, during the period from 1717 to 1723, one thousand, four hundred and forty-one negroes were brought in.⁷ Another states that

from 1717 to 1728 eighteen were introduced.¹ The “Code Noir” of 1724 shows that the negro slaves had become the majority by that time, for no direct mention is made in it to Indian slaves.² In 1727, it was reported that on each of the “concessions,” or leading grants, there were, at least, sixty negroes cultivating corn, rice, indigo and tobacco.³

     To open up and work the mineral resources of Louisiana, Philip François Renault was sent out by the Company of the West in 1719. On his way, he bought at San Domingo, in the name of his Company, five hundred negroes for working the mines. These negroes were taken into the Illinois country.⁴ The number of negroes in the Illinois country never equaled that of the country farther south, yet in 1750, a Jesuit missionary found one thousand, one hundred whites, three hundred blacks, and sixty Indian slaves in five villages of the Illinois country,⁵ and by 1763, the black population numbered over nine hundred.⁶

     From the foregoing account it will be seen that the steadily increasing number of negro slaves, resulting from a promotion of the commercial interests of the home government and from the more satisfactory labor performed by the blacks, must have been the leading cause that produced the steady decrease in the number of Indian slaves among the French.