From its inception Louisiana faced an inauspicious existence. Its fate was bound to the French economy during the last years of the reign of Louis XIV. Already a vast empire, the French government and its highly centralized bureaucracy disfavored policies that would have nurtured the economic independence of its colonies. Further, the French treasury, depleted by wars in Europe, was unable to finance adequately the Department of the Marine, which oversaw colonial operations.
Although all French colonies were subject to the same desperate circumstances, the Mississippi colony, as the newest in the French imperial system, fared the worst. This 1701 mapby Nicholas de Fer depicts the colony in its infant stages, a period when Louisiana's settlers were neglected by the government and left entirely to their own resources. Lured by promises of mines and gold, most of the early settlers made little effort to hunt or plant crops. Few farms developed along the banks of the Mississippi or along the sandy coast. Since the earliest settlers were never furnished with adequate food supplies, they frequently resorted to scavenging for crabs, crayfish, and seeds of wild grasses. Whenever possible they traded blankets and utensils for corn and game with the surrounding Native American tribes. Disease, particularly yellow fever, diminished the community. Floods, storms, humidity, mosquitoes, and poisonous snakes added to the misery. Although few settlers escaped the hardships, by far the sturdiest members were those who had accompanied Iberville from Canada.
