re, and, in the admiration of the genius
and the soul, forget the foibles and frailties of the body.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ACADIAN FRENCH SETTLERS.

SUGAR _vs._ COTTON--ACADIA--A SPECIMEN OF MISSISSIPPI FRENCH LIFE--BAYOU
LA FOURCHE--THE GREAT FLOOD--THEOLOGICAL ARBITRATION--A RUSTIC BALL
--OLD-FASHIONED WEDDINGS--CREOLES AND QUADROONS--THE PLANTER--NEGRO
SERVANTS--GAULS AND ANGLO-NORMANS--ANTAGONISM OF RACES.

Forty years ago, there was quite an excitement among the
cotton-planters, in the neighborhood of Natchez, upon the subject of
sugar-planting in the southern portion of Louisiana. At that time it
was thought the duty (two and a half cents per pound) on imported
sugars would be continued as a revenue tax, and that it would afford
sufficient protection to make the business of sugar-planting much more
profitable than that of cotton. The section of country attracting the
largest share of attention for this purpose was the Teche, or Attakapas
country, the Bayous La Fourche, Terre Bonne, and Black. The Teche and
La Fourche had long been settled by a population, known in Louisiana as
the Acadian French. These people, thus named, had once resided in Nova
Scotia and Lower Canada, or Canada East as now known. When peopled by
the French, Nova Scotia was called Acadia. Upon the conquest by the
English, these people were expelled the country, and in a most inhuman
and unchristian manner. They were permitted to choose the countries to
which they would go, and were there sent by the British Government.
Many went to Canada, some to Vincennes in Indiana, some to St. Louis,
Cape Girardeau, Viedepouche, and Kaskaskia in Mississippi, and many
returned to France.

Upon the cession, or rather donation to Spain of Louisiana by France,
these, with many others of a population similar to these, from the
different arrondissements of France, were sent to Louisiana, and were
located in Opelousas, Attakapas, La Fourche, and in the parishes of St.
John the Baptist, St. Charles, and St. James (parishes constituting the
Acadian coast on the Mississippi). On the La Fourche they constituted,
forty years ago, almost the entire population. They were illiterate and
poor. Possessing the richest lands on earth, which they had reclaimed
from the annual inundations of the Mississippi River by levees
constructed along the margins of the stream--with a climate congenial
and healthful, and with every facility afforded by the navigation of
the bayou a