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 and the Mississippi for reaching the best market for all they
could produce--yet, with all these natural advantages, promising to
labor and enterprise the most ample rewards, they could not be
stimulated to industry or made to understand them.
They had established their homes on the margin of the stream, and
cleared a few acres of the land donated by the Government, upon which
to grow a little corn and a few vegetables.
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