Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

J EAN B APTISTE L E M OYNE DE B IENVILLE
(1680-1767)
Canadian-born Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, founder of New Orleans, spent twenty years
working to establish the city at its present site. He first arrived in Louisiana in 1699 as a naval second
lieutenant of the French Marine under his elder brother Pierre d’Iberville. With his brother, Bienville
explored Louisiana and much of Mississippi and Alabama. By 1718 he knew more about Louisiana
than had anyone before his time.
Bienville located New Orleans based on his strategic understanding of its geography. Three
considerations—situation, security, and fertility—shaped his decision. In the first case, it sat cozily
between the Mississippi River and Bayou St. Jean, which emptied into Lake Pontchartrain and thence
into the Gulf of Mexico. This situation between river and bayou was good for convenience and
transportation. From the equally important point of security, the site occupied the first high ground
that could better protect its settlers from the elements. For military security, it was positioned well to
thwart an enemy just enough above English Turn, that great obstacle to upriver sailing vessels before
the age of steam. Finally, the less discussed, but really most important, consideration was the fertility
of the alluvial soils in and around New Orleans. Bienville and his company had learned the bitter
lesson that they could not provide for themselves on the sandy soils of the Biloxi area.
In 1917, the Louisiana Historical Society launched its Louisiana Historical Quarterly with an
issue devoted to Bienville to coincide with the Bicentennial of New Orleans. In one essay, writer
Grace King concluded that the founder settled fifty men on the spot that came to be New Orleans
in February 1718. This was essentially a three-year encampment until Royal Engineer Adrien de
Pauger arrived in 1721 to draw a plan for the city and oversee its construction. Bienville sent the
drawing to France, where it arrived just in time to be approved by the Company of the Indies—
technically the proprietors of the colony—and the French Crown. Although Pauger lasted only five
years after 1721 before succumbing to a fever, his city layout survives.
Bienville was one of the few Frenchmen who took the trouble to learn the Native American
languages, a skill that greatly facilitated cooperation and friendship. Serving as Louisiana governor from
1718 to 1724, he ably met the challenge of diplomacy with them. On the personal side, he claimed
several extensive tracts of east and west river bank land, which did not endear him with Company
agents. Less able to navigate the perils of Metropolitan versus frontier politics, he lost favor with the
Crown in 1724 and was recalled to France. While in Paris in 1726 Bienville sold the Society of Jesus his
East Bank tract, establishing the Jesuits in the city for the first time. After disastrous handling of Native
American relations forced the sacking of Bienville’s successor Étienne Périer, the founder was called back
into service as Louisiana governor from 1734 to 1744 1 during which time Bienville himself became
enmeshed in a protracted war with the Chickasaws, leading to his final removal.
Despite his pioneering and extended service, historians have given Bienville relatively little
credit for leadership. Grace King (q.v.) and Charles Gayarré (q.v.) looked at Bienville in the light
of romantic narrative adventure, in keeping with their times. Catholic Church historian Roger
Baudier found that “his conduct in so far as religious affairs are concerned cannot but be admired,”
redounding “distinctly to his credit.” 2 Baudier noted Bienville had strongly supported religiouslybased
education, initiating Jesuit and Capuchin schools for boys, while making the parish church
(now St. Louis Cathedral) the centerpiece of the foundation. Recently, historian Lawrence Powell
saw Bienville’s choice of the site for New Orleans between swamp and river as forcing a compact
city, where the various ethnicities were compelled to shape a distinct culture that “may be America’s
only original contribution to world culture.” 3 It is fairly safe to say, however, that Bienville had little
thought about ethnicities shaping an American culture.
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.
LOUISIANA IMAGE COLLECTION, LOUISIANA RESEARCH
COLLECTION, TULANE UNIVERSITY.
1 Lawrence N. Powell, The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans (London: Harvard University Press, 2012), 53-55.
2 Roger Baudier, The Catholic Church in Louisiana (New Orleans: 1939), 142.
3 Powell, The Accidental City, 163.
BIOGRAPHIES
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