Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2009 - (Page 58) Galveztown’s 1788 population census reported 268 residents, even as many of them continued to petition to leave, LOUISIANA especially to relocate to the Canary Islander settlement at St. Bernard. DeVilliers too wrote that the community had numerous empty or collapsed houses and others only sheltering animals. In August 1793, another hurricane flooded the fields and devastated the town. This prompted the priest, who lived in a squalid cabin that apparently flooded during normal south Louisiana rain storms, to threaten to leave unless he could have a proper rectory. His wish was granted in 1794, the same year in which two hurricanes battered Galveztown, causing flooding, destruction of houses and the barracks, and the drowning of numerous livestock. And the hurricanes were followed by a torrential flood on the Amite River which overcame the planted fields. Fifteen years after its settlement, Galveztown seemed nearly as desperate as it had been at the outset. DeVillier was followed by Captain Francisco Rivas who became commandant in December 1794, at a time when the Spanish government had once again identified Galveztown as a place of strategic importance. It was, wrote the current governor, Francisco Luis Hector, Baron de Carondelet, “a point of transit much frequented, both by Americans going to Georgia and Natchez, and by the savages going to the capital and elsewhere. I consider it of the supremest importance to rebuild the fort of Galvez-town, now in total ruin … its situation to be at the point formed by the confluence of the Amit and Ibervile rivers … and made to hold a garrison of a hundred men in time of war, (from the New Orleans garrison) and a hundred and fifty militamen from the district.” But Rivas had inherited an unhappy community filled with residents who desperately wanted to move elsewhere, knowing that Canary Islanders in other settlements were much more successful. The commandant prodded them to work harder; the governor was unsympathetic. In CANARY ISLANDS AFRICA Approximately 2,000 Isleños, as Canary Islanders in Louisiana have been called, arrived in Galveztown over a several year period, beginning in 1778. April 1796, however, the Amite River flooded the streets so deep that residents paddled pirogues within the town. Rivas began to express sympathy for their plight to Carondelet. Rivas’ opinion was reinforced when Juan Maria Perchet, touring Spanish military installations, filed a report about Galveztown that observed the settlement was too close to the Amite and surrounded by water-filled swamps — a reprise of Bouligny’s earlier warning. Perchet documented the population at 109 individuals in 21 families. “They are lodged in miserable cabins. The lands that surround this place are little suited for labor and sterile for the progress of agriculture.” On the map that Perchet drew of Galveztown, he noted “the houses … are only huts which at the time of building cost only 80 pesos. The only important buildings are the residences of Captain Paoli and that of the commander of the post which belongs to the King. (The latter) besides being very uncomfortable is threatening to collapse at any moment.” But the Spanish government continued to focus on the need for territorial defense because, in 1795, the Treaty of San Lorenzo had ceded Spanish territory above the 31st parallel to the Americans. As a protection from possible American incursions, Governor Manuel Gayosa de Lemos, Carondelet’s successor, ordered the fort at Galveztown rebuilt. And so the village struggled on until 1801 when another hurricane damaged the barracks, a military kitchen, and many of the remaining houses. In 1802, Spain quietly returned the Isle of Orleans to France, which sold it and the Louisiana territory to the United States in 1803 as the Louisiana Purchase. This transaction placed Galveztown on American soil leaving only West Florida (above Bayou Manchac) still part of the Spanish crown. Dr. John Watkins, representing the new American government of Louisiana, arrived at Galveztown in 1804, noted the miserable conditions, and invited the remaining residents to stay, with the assurance that the new government would protect their rights and property. Not surprisingly, however, many Spaniards and Canary Islanders took the opportunity to leave. Some moved across Bayou Manchac to Baton Rouge, the largest remaining Spanish post on the Mississippi River, where lots were laid out for them. This area, now THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE It seemed something of a cosmic joke that Isleño immigrants from a place called the Fortunate Islands had struggled so much in an unfortunate place like Galveztown. 58 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Spring 2009
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