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| 1724 |
Gilbert Antoine de Maxent is born in the French province of Lorraine. He is baptized on April 4. The presence of de in his name is an indication of gentry, if not aristocracy. |
| 1749 August 31 |
(Age 25) Gilbert is married in New Orleans to Elizabeth la Roche. When he arrives in Louisiana he is not well-to-do but he distinguishes himself as a soldier and Indian fighter. His new wife has money in a dowry and is already a Creole widow. A later inventory includes a mahogany billiard table worth 200 pesos and an inlaid table for chess and checkers worth 60 pesos. |
| 1750s |
St. Maxent purchases a building on Conti Street and enters the commercial life as a supply merchant for fur traders. He took in pelts of beaver, otter, bear, buffalo, raccoon, wildcat, fox, lynx and deer. and sent out rice, sugar, molasses, tafia, tobacco, manufactured goods from Europe and trinkets for Indian trade. From 1747 until 1851 fur trade had been impeded by Chicasaw tribes. France builds a line of forts along the Ohio River as England, by way of Virginia's Ohio Company begins to encroach on territory explored and claimed by France. Part of the attraction is the fur trade. The French and Indian War begins, along with the Seven Years War in Europe |
| 1753 |
Louis Billouart de Kerlerec is governor of Louisiana. He feels boxed in by British warships in the Gulf and hostile Chikasaw so he raises a Militia and appoints St. Maxent as its Colonel. |
| 1755 July |
Louis Billouart de Kerlerec has rewarded St. Maxent with exclusive rights
to trade with the Indians of the Missouri River as far north as Lake St.
Peter. St. Maxent is the first competent trader to get rights on this area. LaSalle, Iberville, Antoine Crozat, Marquis de Chatel and John Law had had the franchise as well as Canadians Morain and Outlas in 1729 and Sieur Deriesseau, who had the monopoly from 1746 to 1750. Pierre Lecléde is sent by St. Maxent to establish the trade west of the Mississippi River. Lecléde returns to New Orleans, having succeeded in mid July of 1755. |
| 1761 |
Now approaching 40, affluent and important to the colony,
he forms a committee of merchants who protest to Paris against the accusations
of the Intendent Commissary Rochemore, who is feuding with governor
Louis Billouart de Kerlerec. St. Maxent sides with the governor. Lecléde loses his small plantation due to difficulties during the war with England and offers services to the governors's troops. Eventually he gets 25% interest in the fur company for acting as an agent for the fur trade in Illinois. |
| 1763 |
After the hostilities, St. Maxent is a military figure of note and the leading merchant of New Orleans. The fur trade in the Illinois Country continues for St. Maxent and he profits from it for a while, but the Treaty of Paris in 1763 has brought the British to New Orleans' back yard and over the next few years the French along the Ohio migrate to the west. |
| 1763 March |
St. Maxent petitions the governor for a 50 square mile tract of land on Chef Menteur, east of New Orleans.
|
| 1763 June |
Jean Jacques Blaise D'Abbadie reaffirms St. Maxent's monopoly. St. Maxent wants to establish a trading post with a central warehouse for his peltry trade. This would separate business from the post commandants who tended to use the trade to their own advantage. Lecléde begins the trek back upstream, hugging the shores of the Mississippi. It takes three months of hard labor to reach Fort de Chartres at the mouth of the Ohio River. Monsieur de Noyen de Villiers is the commandant. |
| 1764 Feb 15 |
Lecléde begins building shelters at the future site of St. Louis. After three years it will be the largest settlement in the Mississippi Valley north of New Orleans. With the Treaty of Paris giving the land east of the river to the British many French settlers along the Ohio flee English rule, carrying along with them doors and windows from their houses. |
| 1764 September 10 |
A treaty was signed Nov. 3, 1762 at Fontainebleau in which
Louis XV gave Louisiana to his Bourbon cousin Carlos III. But Governor
Jean Jacques Blaise D'Abbadie receives no official confirmation of the
cession until this year. A committee is formed and sent to Paris to protest and attest to the colony's loyalty to France. Louis XV is not dissuaded by colonial entreaties including a tearful one from the aged Bienville. St. Maxent is an active member of the first resistance to Spanish Rule. Spain makes no move to take active control until 1766. St. Maxent takes a long realistic look at his own predicament and decides against open rebellion. |
| 1766 March 5 |
With only one ship, a frigate, El Volonte, 3 civil
officers and a force of only 90 soldiers the new Spanish governor Ulloa
arrives at the mouth of the river at La Belize. St. Maxent publicly shows support for the new regime. |
| 1766 March 19 |
Two weeks after the arrival of the Spanish St. Maxent names
Felix Martin Navarro, Ulloa's
treasurer, the godfather of his latest daughter Antoinette Marie Joseph. St. Maxent was out of step with his fellow colonists. St. Maxent openly visits Ulloa while others try to ridicule him. Ulloa alleges that self-interest, rather than patriotism to France, motivates his critics. |
| 1766 April 23 |
St. Maxent borrows money for Indian trade, buys merchandise from France, arranging payment by deerskins from Illinois. |
| 1767 July 28 |
Another daughter is born: Marie Anne Joseph de Notre Dame
de Mont Carmel de St. Maxent. The new child's godfather is M. Antoine Ulloa,
Chevalier Commandant of the order of St. James, Governor and Captain-General
of Louisiana.
Ulloa formulates a strict fur-trading policy regarding Indians. He maintains experienced French Commandants at the frontier posts with gifts to the Indians to maintain peace and licensed traders to keep tribes under control. The most important trading center is St. Louis. Which is trading with Great Osages. Little Osages, the Kansas Otoes, Pawnees, the Sacs, the Foxe, the Iowas, the Missouri, the Sioux and the Ottawas. |
| 1768 August 4 |
In a letter to the Marquez de Grimaldi, the King's chief minister, Ulloa reports licensing traders in return for maintenance of peace. Ulloa may have given St. Maxent an exclusive trade deal. |
| 1768 August 10 |
Ulloa writes that the financial affairs of the colony are in desperate condition.The maintenance of the Royal frigate of war is supplied and fed by St. Maxent who believes it is a sound investment. |
| 1768 October 25 |
On the eve of the revolution Ulloa and Aubry dispatch St. Maxent to the German Coast with funds to satisfy the Germans. But Lafreniere and Marquis send Villere and Verret to arrest St. Maxent at the plantation of Cantrelle, Commandant of the Acadians. |
| 1768 October 29 |
400 Germans march to New Orleans under Villere to the Plaza
de Armas, meeting planters from below the city. This combined militia demands
through Lafreniere that Ulloa
leave the colony. Ulloa and his wife board
|
| 1769 January |
The plotters try to align Indians against Spain. St. Maxent prevails by maintaining friendship with the Indians. |
| 1769 May 8 |
The partnership between St. Maxent and Lecléde is dissolved. Lecléde purchases all of the buildings, merchandise on hand and the land for 80,000 livres in four equal payments, first payable in June of 1771. Lecléde's affairs decline and he is never able to pay St. Maxent. The population of St. Louis is 891, not including slaves. |
| 1769 June 7 |
Complaints are made about St. Maxent's monopoly, which is cancelled, but the change does not go into effect until several years later. |
| 1769 August |
After the arrival of O'Reilly,
St. Maxent is asked to negotiate terms of the cession as Spain's official
representative. A letter from Carlos III to Bernardo Galvez written in 1781 refers to this appointment of St. Maxent as distinguishing himself with loyalty to the Spanish crown by risking his life and sacrificing his wealth for the welfare of the said crown. |
| 1769 |
O'Reilly gains control and begins a military organization based on a strong colonial militia rather than regular Spanish troops. He turns to St. Maxent again, appointing him Captain of the Militia and Commissioner of Indian Affairs. O'Reilly also orders that all goods to be distributed to the Indians anywhere in the providence were to be purchased and delivered through the firm of St. Maxent and Ranson. |
| 1771 March |
The firm of Maxent and Ranson submits to Martin Navarro, the treasurer of the city, a detailed report of merchandise delivered to Indians including bread, blankets, 2 rifles, powder, birdshot and bullets, mirrors, hoes, axes, knives, cinnabar, hot sauce, chain, combs, shirts, trinkets, copper pans, salt, 16 bottles of fire water, a tent, needles, thread, scissors. This was given to each indian nation in the colony (over 40). The report included transportation, packing and insurance. |
| 1770 March |
O'Reilly
leaves New Orleans. Unzaga, his replacement will marry a daughter of St. Maxent. The next 15 years will be his brightest. By 1770 Elizabeth La Roche and Gilberto St. Maxent have had nine promising children and he is the richest man in the colony. St. Maxent and his family move to a new home outside the French Gate at the down-river corner of the city. This would put it at the electrical generating plant at the foot of Elysian Fields. His home is much like Madame John's Legacy, built of morticed cypress planks and beams set high off the marshy ground. It is an imposing 2 story mansion with upper galleries on all four sides, seven columns per side, rounded upstairs and square down. Two dormers, two chimneys, a lightning rod, a tall double-sloping hipped roof, two flights of stairs 28 feet long and 16 feet wide. The riverfront is one arpent or slightly less than 200 feet wide. |
| 1777 |
St. Maxent sells his house to Don Lorenzo Sigur, a Captain of the Militia. It is later purchased from Sigur by the fabulously wealthy Pierre Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, whose ancestors sailed with Iberville. His son Bernard is a swordsman, lover, gambler and one of Americas's earliest and richest playboys. St. Maxent has built a grander home on the Gentilly Ridge. A 1784 inventory includes the mahogany billiard table; 2 inlaid chess tables; a clavicord; full length mirrors framed in gold; two globes, one terrestrial, one celestial of the latest London make; a clock with sounds on the hour of a bird singing an aria; a library of 4700 books; two large coaches and two gigs. His plantation of 8 arpents adjoins that of Santilli and has a sawmill, 50 cabins for slaves, 12 horses, 4 mules, 80 pigs and a rum distillery. He also had another plantation across the river of 14 arpents and more land on Bayou St. John. He has slaves from Mira, Senegal, Guinea and Mandinga. Others are crillo, born in colony. He still owns the 33,000 acres tract on Chef Menteur and the trading post at St. Louis as well as ships and warehouses filled with merchandise. |
| 1778 |
Not yet governor, young Benardo
Galvez is charged with driving the English out of Louisiana and settling
in more Spanish colonists. His is assisted by Gilbert St. Maxent and his
oldest son Gilbert Antonio.
Canary islanders (Islenos) are brought in at the king's expense, their houses and churches built with royal aid. St. Maxent is assigned to supply two settlements in Galveztown and Valenzuela while the younger St. Maxent is military commander of Valenzuela, and then Galveztown. Valenzuela is located on Bayou Lafourche, which meets the Mississippi River on the West Bank approx 80 miles above New Orleans. Galveztown is on the Manchac River (Bayou Iberville) near British Fort Bute on the east bank. |
| 1779 August |
After given orders to begin hostilities against British
settlements in West Florida, Galvez
turns to the old Colonel for help.
Now 55 years old Don Gilberto St. Maxent still seeks excitement. He spends 42 days at Ft. Bute to spy on the English garrison. He returns with the necessary information and is given a command under Galvez to attack the three forts on the western border of British West Florida: Fort Bute on the Manchac, Baton Rouge and Natchez. He commands a militia of 650 but no Spanish regulars. |
| 1779 September |
The forces at Fort Bute had been withdrawn to Baton Rouge, so the Manchac is taken first. Fort New Richmond at Baton Rouge is next in line and finally Fort Panmure at Natchez. |
| 1780 January |
Galvez and St. Maxent leave New Orleans for Mobile with 500 regulars and St. Maxent's 250 militia. However their ships run aground in Mobile Bay and the weather is stormy. The men are evacuated after two days and nights with St. Maxent risking his life to save the men. A siege begins. |
| 1780 March 14 |
Mobile surrenders and Pensacola is next. St. Maxent advances 76,000 pesos to the royal treasury to pay the troops and cover expenses. |
| 1781 May 10 |
Pensacola falls and West Florida is once again Spanish territory. Gilberto St. Maxent is awarded the titles of Commandant of the Militia of Louisiana, Lt. Governor of the Providence of Louisiana and West Florida, Captain-General of the new Bureau of Indian Affairs of Louisiana and West Florida as well as many other perks short of compensation for his investment. He declares that the victory has hampered the commerce of Louisiana which had been kept alive by trade with the British. Commerce had virtually ceased during the war and supplies are depleted in Louisiana. The nobles in Spain were less aggressive or industrious than other Europeans at this time, particularly in respect to the Louisiana colony. |
| 1781 October 19 |
Cornwallis is defeated at Yorktown and St. Maxent is enroute to the Court of Carlos III to insure prosperity in Louisiana (and for himself) through aggressive fur trade with the Native Americans. He is consorting with ministers and diplomats and negotiating with kings. During the mid and late 1780s St. Maxent holds the future of Louisiana and Florida in his hands. |
| 1781 June |
Lecléde has not run a lucrative operation on his end and he owns little. He cannot pay as agreed and leaves St. Louis. The buildings in Saint Louis are the company warehouses that are also rented out as the Spanish Commandant's headquarters. Although Lecléde had ascended the river and developed the fur trade that was the basis of St. Maxent's fortune, the Colonel has provided the capital and the political influence. |
| 1781 |
Gilberto St. Maxent presents his case to the crown: The merchandise he needs suffers a 15% duty, municipal taxes, freight charges, commissions for receiving, forwarding and storage of goods not experienced by English. Any exports still have to go to Spanish ports on Spanish ships. Spain does not have enough factories to handle all of the skins that St. Maxent and Louisiana provide. St. Maxent asks the king to grant a 10 year period of commercial expeditions using Spanish ships, French ports and other friendly powers. Specie could not be exported, the impost is fixed at 6% with a moderate evaluation of goods imported and exported. He also asks for the ability to export from New Orleans and Pensacola to American colonies (soon to be states) any Spanish goods that have no market in Louisiana. Africans to be imported without duty. A period of two years to purchase foreign vessels without duty. Staves for barrels and casks brought to Spain exempt from duty. The last three requests would directly enrich St. Maxent. The king approves a private fur trading venture. |
| 1781 November 30 |
380,000 pesos worth of goods will be sent to Louisiana and West Florida, 200,000 with the purpose to maintain harmony with the natives. Spain did not have these goods, but St. Maxent gains the approval to buy them in France and elsewhere. |
| 1782 January |
A Royal cedula grants everything at this time. Early in the year St. Maxent returns to Louisiana. Gilbert St. Maxent is 58 years old and his future is set in royal gold. |
| 1782 |
On the return trip to Lousiana two of St. Maxent's ships La Margarita and La Felicidad are met by an English frigate of war and are escorted to Jamaica. His men are thrown into prison and his ships and cargo are condemned and sold as bounty. Don Gilberto is allowed to provide his own sustenance but is confined to Kingston. He gets a loan from an Englishman to help the other Spanish officers survive the ordeal. Event |
| 1783 |
Galvez
obtains the release of all Spanish prisoners early in the year. St. Maxent is deep in arrears now because of his deal with Carlos III. He had arranged the congress of Indian nations, now scheduled for the Spring of 1784. However the goods he had worked so hard to get were now in British hands. He was able to get more loans in Jamaica to repurchase his ships and part of the cargo. |
| 1783 September |
St. Maxent's English benefactor is arrested in Havana, charged with smuggling specie. He implicates St. Maxent. |
| 1783 December |
A Spanish royal order is issued for his arrest and an embargo is placed on his assets and property. |
| 1784 |
Governor Miro grants permission for English merchants to remain in Florida to placate the Indians since St. Maxent had failed. James Mather supplies the Indians with merchandise from London to keep the Americans out of the deal. |
| 1784 March |
At formal court proceedings in New Orleans Don Gilberto answers charges he paid the Englishman by sending gold bars and silver pesos to Jamaica. An inventory is taken of his goods and properties, which shows his wealth to be by far the greatest in the colony. Don Andres Almonester is named custodian of the St. Maxent property. Don Joseph Adrian and Don Andres Waukarmy are the appraisers. The Tribunal consists of Don Narcisco de Alba, Don Santiago Meder, Don Juan Bautiste Poeyfarré. St. Maxent is relieved of his duties as Captain General of Indian Affairs and Lt. Governor. |
| 1785 April 30 |
The criminal charges are dropped, but his possessions remained under embargo pending settlement of his affairs. Among other debts he owes 66,000 pesos to Monsieur Lafitte of Bordeaux. St. Maxent asks for back salary from Morales, a friend and the Royal Intendent in New Orleans. Morales has to pay through a third party to avoid the embargo. |
| 1788 |
St. Maxent's offices on Conti Street are destroyed in the great New Orleans fire of 1788. St. Maxent helps Almonester rebuild the city, Architect Guilberto Guilemard is his nephew. |
| 1789 December 31 |
Another Royal order relieves him of his duties and assigns him to the General Staff in Madrid, but settlements of his financial affairs prevent this move. He receives much aid from his daughter Felicite (wife of Bernardo Galvez). |
| 1790 November 5 |
St. Maxent retires with a pension as a Lt. Colonel of the Infantry. |
| 1791 |
He travels to Havana to settle the last of his debts. On his return he insults Miro who has him arrested again, but the arrest of anyone of his rank had to be made by the Captain-General of Cuba. |
| 1791 December 30 |
Miro
retires and the new governor Carondelet,
a Belgian nobleman in the Spanish service, becomes a friend of St. Maxent. Don Gilberto is recalled to duty to help rebuild fortifications of Fort San Felipe down river from New Orleans. Sixty of St. Maxent's slaves build the brick and mortar fort designed by Guilemard. |
| 1794 April 15 |
Fort San Felipe is completed. |
| 1794 June |
Carondelet sends a letter to Carlos IV recommending his promotion to Brigadier General |
| 1794 July |
St. Maxent takes ill, and is taken to the house of old friend Lorenzo Sigur which is outside the old French gate. The house is later the home of Laussat, Napoleon's prefect for Louisiana. He writes his will August 5. |
| 1794 August 8 |
Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent dies at age 70. |
| 1862 |
Captain David Glasgow Farragut and David Dixon Porter bombard Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip for five days before they fall, allowing the taking of New Orleans in the Civil War. |
| 1. | February 3, 1752 | Marie Elizabeth ; marries Don Luis de Unzaga who moves to Caracas as Captain General of Venezuela. |
| 2. | December 27, 1755 | Marie Felicite; 1st husband is Jean Baptiste Honoré d'Estrehan who dies October 20, 1773. Her second marriage is to Colonel Bernardo de Galvez at that time the Commander of the Louisiana Regiment and second only to Unzaga. Galvez is the son of Don Mathias, Viceroy of New Spain and nephew to Don Jose who is President of the Counsel of the Indies, one of the most powerful officials in Spain. Colonel Galvez will name an administrative district in West Florida after his wife: Feliciana. In 1785 they move to Havana, he becomes conde (count) and Captain-General of Cuba, Louisiana and the two Floridas. Later he is Viceroy of Mexico bringing brothers-in-law Rianno and Flon. Galvez resigns October 15 1786 and dies a month later at Tacubaza. He had been accused of being sympathetic to Mexican Independence. He is highly regarded by the Mexicans but his brothers-in-law later give their lives in the cause of the royalists Marie Felicite moves away from Louisiana with her husband. |
| 3. | November 1, 1758 | Gilbert Antoine III, Captain in the Louisiana Regiment, commander of Galveztown (appointed by Carondelet and later commandant of Fort San Felipe in the Plaquemines downriver from New Orleans. |
| 4. | April 22, 1761 | Maximillion Francois; on May 28, 1794 he is the commander of the 3rd Battalion of the Fixed Infantry of Louisiana, Captain of the 2nd Light (Infantry) Company, province of Santander in New Spain. Later he is the Spanish Governor of West Florida and causes much annoyance to Governor Claiborne when Louisiana becomes a U. S. territory. |
| 5. | May 30 1763 | Victore de St. Maxent; marries Don Juan Antonio de Riaño, May 24, 1781 a Lt. of the Spanish Navy. Riaño serves as Intendent of Valladolid from 1787 to 1792 Intendent of Santa Fe de Guanajuanto. He built Alhondiga de Granaditas and dies defending it in 1810. Victore moves to Mexico with her husband. |
| 6. | July 28, 1765 | Antoinette Marie Anne Joseph de Notre Dame de Mont Carmel de St. Maxent, marries February 1782 to Captain Manuel de Flon, Governor of New Mexico, Intendent of Pueblo. Flon recaptures Guanajuanto in January 1811 and captures Hidalgo, Allende, Aldana and Jimenez, revolutionary leaders whose heads hung in iron cages until 1821. He is killed July 17, 1811 at the Battle of Puente de Calderon. Antoinette moves to Mexico with her husband. |
| 7. | July 28, 1767 | Josefa marries Don Joaquin de Osorno Captain of the fixed Spanish Regiment in Louisiana. They reside in the French Quarter. |
| 8. | Pupon marries a d'Estrehan. | |
| 9. | Celestino, Captain of the 3rd Louisiana Regiment, one of the Spanish defenders of the fort at Baton Rouge in 1810. |