Footprints left 327 years ago challenge Mississippi Coast history

The equivalent of Neil Armstrong’s footprints were imprinted on the sands of the Mississippi Gulf Coast 327 years ago. The anniversary of this momentous footfall fell on Tuesday, with the actual date being Feb. 10, 1699.

The location of those first footprints will never be known. Historians with an understanding of the Mississippi Sound, islands and mainland believe the site to be the beach in front of the Edgewater Mall in present-day Biloxi. Or thereabout.

In my lifetime local debates over the location abound, although the pointing fingers have become less aggressive as modern folk agree to share their founding history. For sure, five ships anchored at Ship Island on February 10 because the water was too shallow to anchor near the mainland.

These Frenchmen were in search of the mouth of the Mississippi River. They also wanted to cement France’s ownership, keep the Spanish and English at bay and build a warmer-weather port on the Gulf as a great trade center, especially for furs.

Historians know they first anchored off Ship Island on Feb. 10 because of French-to-English translations of two journals. The one from frigate Le Marin was written by an unknown yeoman. The journal from the 30-gun frigate La Badine belonged to expedition leader, Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville.

The expedition was commissioned by King Louis XIV, who wanted to expand his New World holdings. Louis sent them to locate the Mississippi, first explored in the 1500s by DeSoto of rival Spain and later claimed for France by LaSalle in 1682.

The ships carried an assortment of French-Canadian woodsmen, Caribbean pirates and seasoned French Marines. All were adventurers. Iberville himself was from New France, today’s Canada.

The day after anchoring off Ship Island, some of the men set up camp on the island, though many remained aboard. On their third day at the island, they noticed campfires on the mainland shore and fired three cannon shot to alert the Native Americans, whom the Marin yeoman called “savages.”

On the fourth day, which was February 13, Iberville, the expedition’s priest, a Native interpreter and 13 men took a biscayenne (longboat with a sail) and a bark-canoe to the mainland “four leagues north” of their anchored ships. Soon their footprints mixed with those of the Natives.

They set up camp after following “two trails of Indians,” eastward by two leagues, according to Iberville who did not call them “savages.” They ate oysters and saw turkey tracks.

On the fifth day, after seeing more footprints, the Marin journal reports “Monsieur d’Iberville came back to our fire and placed some glass beads, vermilion and two pipes full of tobacco as presents to show them that we meant peace.”

Iberville writes of following elusive Natives and finding an old man too sick to walk by the canoes they’d left behind as they rest fled. He made a fire and shelter for him and gave him presents and tobacco before returning to his own camp.

That fifth day they also communicated with a frightened old woman who had likely come to help the man left behind. She, too, was given gifts and food, and then “went to her people that same evening and gave them a complete account of what had just passed,” according to the Marin diary.

The sixth day, February 15, is today 327 years later. Iberville went to see the old man and witnessed his death. The day was spent trying to coax other reluctant Natives to interact with them. Food and gifts were exchanged, including freshly pounded dried corn.

Iberville recorded that the Natives “came along to sing the calumet of peace to me.” The gifts he gave were “axes, knives, shirts, tobacco, pipes, tinderboxes and glass beads.”

The mention of glass beads is humorous because of Mardi Gras. Think about it: The men on these five ships were mostly Catholic and would have observed Mardi Gras in 1699, aboard their ships at Ship Island or in spin-off searches for the Mississippi River. Mobile and New Orleans – cities that like to claim the birth of the American Mardi Gras carnival – did not exist.

In 1699 what would become the vast Louisiana Territory was in its infancy, not yet enclosing the 15 present-day states that would become part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

The main characters of this 1699 story are two LeMoyne brothers, the 37-year-old expedition leader Iberville and his 19-year-old bro, Jean Baptiste LeMoyne de Bienville, who would take over when Iberville died of suspected yellow fever in 1706. Bienville would also establish New Orleans.

But first came Fort Maurepas on this Coast. By April 1699 the French were busy building a fort as their homeport in an area Iberville named “Biloxi” after a local tribe. Today we know that first Biloxi as Ocean Springs.

The French deserted Fort Maurepas to move eastward to Mobile, which they also deserted after a bad hurricane and headed back to the original Biloxi. The French decided the original Fort Maurepas site wasn’t suitable so they left their renamed “Old Biloxi,” moved across the bay and built a new Fort Louis in an area they designated as “New Biloxi.” The location is thought to be on higher ground near the large waterfront cemetery in present-day Biloxi.

Old Biloxi and New Biloxi were left to fend for themselves when the French next permanently moved the capital of the colony to a new site they named New Orleans in 1722.

Confusing? These historic hopscotch maneuvers no doubt led to the history wrangles between present-day Biloxi, present-day Ocean Springs, a town named D’Iberville sandwiched between them, and, of course, New Orleans and Mobile. Everyone loves to tout their so-called “firsts.”

Interestingly, Ocean Springs holds an annual pageant they call the Landing of D’Iberville, plus the city maintained a Fort Maurepas replica before Hurricane Katrina destroyed it. Biloxi, on the other hand, took center stage in planning numerous Tricentennial celebrations in 1999.

For that 300th birthday of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the editors of this newspaper handed me the history reins, expecting me to write a lot of articles and columns. Happy to oblige, was I.

One “Coast Sense of Place” I wrote in February 1999 is titled “Iberville’s Influence flavors Coast.” I quote most of it here:

“If you think all this hoopla over Iberville and the Tricentennial is much ado about nothing, think again. Pierre Le Moyne Sieur d’Iberville is our Neil Armstrong.

“Just as Astronaut Neil stepped into the unknown, so did our man Pierre. This duo of adventurers represents different times, but the missions were the same – to explore the unknown, to look danger square in the eyes and conquer it.

“When Iberville stepped on the mainland Feb. 13, 1699, he made one small step for France, one giant step for Coastkind. His first footsteps on the sand of Biloxi signaled a vast French colony and all that followed – the Louisiana Purchase that included the present-day states of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana and a national expansion that is vital to our growth.

“Iberville did something else that we seldom credit: he gave this region a unique flavor.

“Try to imagine what we would be like if the English, who already colonized much of the East, had made it this far.

“If our man Pierre had not come, we’d likely have been settled by British Protestants. I’m not saying that’s bad, mind you, but we’d definitely be different. The mannerisms, attitude and joie de vivre that those early Catholic French left behind are very much a part of the Mississippi Coast and Louisiana psyche. In fact, I’ve noticed that this mentalité français has tentacled to other neighboring Southern states.

“Imagine no Mardi Gras parade – or for that matter no parades where beaded necklaces and all manner of other trinkets are thrown to spectators. Imagine no gumbo, no jambalaya, no crusty French bread for po-boys. Akkk, we’d be eating potatoes instead of rice at every meal. Imagine us void of our colorful Cajun and Creole heritage.

“The French, for the most part, mingled nicely with the Native Americans, Spanish, African-Americans, Irish, Italians, later-day Cajuns, Slavonians and all those other immigrant groups. Like a good gumbo, this ethnic pot today has distinct flavors but remains highly seasoned with a French filé.”

Merci beaucoup, Iberville!

Kat Bergeron, an award-winning veteran reporter and feature writer who specializes in Gulf Coast history and sense of place, is retired from the Sun Herald. She writes this Gulf Coast Chronicles column as a freelance correspondent. Reach her at:

BergeronKat@gmail.com

Or, at Southern Possum Tales, P.O. Box 33, Barboursville, VA 22923