Did you know? Early voyagers recognized the fourth, or lower, Chickasaw Bluff, where the City of Memphis is now located, as an ideal place for a settlement. The country around it was very beautiful, and the high bluff commanded the river and showed great promise as a point that might well have military significance for any power desiring to hold the Lower Mississippi Valley. French interest in the area waned with LaSalle’s death in 1687, but rumors of British interest in the valley awakened France’s determination to keep a foothold in the interior of the North American continent. For a time, it was all the French could do to maintain a feeble settlement on the river near the Gulf of Mexico, but when English traders incited the Chickasaw Indians in the valley to hostile acts against French traders and voyagers on the river, Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur de Bienville, governor of the Louisiana Colony, decided that the Chickasaws must be punished. He began preparing for an expedition against the Native Americans and by 1736 his campaign was underway. The plan went like this: M. Diron d’Artaguette, commandant of the French settlements in Illinois, would bring all the Indian allies he could gather and land at the fourth Chickasaw Bluff. D’Artaguette’s party would march eastward from the Bluff into the Chickasaw Territory and the two French armies would crush the hostile Chickasaws between them. Bienville’s elaborate plans did not work out, and the campaign was a disaster for the French. The Chickasaws repulsed Bienville and his forces before they reached the rendezvous, and the Chickasaws also defeated the party from the Illinois and killed M. d’Artaguette. Bienville retired to New Orleans to brood about the humiliating failure.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:34:43 +0000