French politician
Pierre-Clément de Laussat (; 23 November 1756 – 10 April 1835) was a French politician and the last French colonial governor of Louisiana, handing over the territory to the United States after the Sale of Louisiana. He later served as colonial official in Martinique and French Guiana, as well as an administrator in France and Antwerp.
Biography.
Laussat was born at his family's estate, Château de Bernadets, and baptised at Saint-Martin's Church in Pau. After serving as "receveur général des finances" in Pau and Bayonne from 1784 to 1789, he was imprisoned during the Terror, but was released and recruited in the "armée des Pyrénées". On April 17, 1797, he was elected to the Council of Ancients. After the coup of 18 Brumaire, he entered the Tribunat on December 25, 1798, having renounced his noble rank earlier that year.
Louisiana.
He was appointed by the soon-to-be Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to be colonial prefect (or governor) of Louisiana in August 1802 and arrived in the colony on March 26, 1803. In his procolomation introducing himself and his fellow Republican colonial administrators, Laussat described the transfer of Louisiana from France to Spain as "... one of the most shameful epochs of her [France's] glory, under an already weak and corrupt Government, after an ignominious war and following a withering peace." He praised Bonaparte's desire to regain Louisiana and to see the colony thrive. Laussat also provided an outline for how the colony would be governed with a captain general overseeing internal and external defense of the colony; a colonial prefect overseeing administration and finances; and a commissary of justice overseeing civil and criminal tribunals. Two weeks later, Bonaparte made his decision to sell Louisiana to the United States.
Laussat was initially only to be the interim head of Louisiana until arrival of the Governor General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte appointed by Bonaparte. However, when Bonaparte rejected Bernadotte's request for additional settlers and support for the posting, Bernadotte declined the governorship. Sailing from Île d'Aix, France, on the "Surveillant" in January 1803, Laussat and his family arrived in New Orleans on March 26, 1803. Under an agreement with Spain, Louisiana would not be formally handed over to France until French soldiers could arrive to manage the security of the territory. Despite this, Laussat assumed control of the colonial administration in the name of Bonaparte and the French Republic.
Laussat envisioned bringing forth a rebirth of a prosperous French . He saw in Creole courtesies and effusive welcomes a sense of French pride and identity ready to embrace Bonapartist rule; however, not all Louisianans were eager to see Republican France in control of the city. Fearful of anti-clerical sentiments in the French Republic, three-fifths of the Ursaline sisters in New Orleans, along with their mother-superior, decided to abandon the city and head to Havana when the Spanish handed over the city. Laussat and other French officials were contemptuous towards the Spanish officials in charge of the territory; he contrasted the "Spanish spirit" as senile, corrupt, racially weak and effeminately degenerate with the "austerity, efficiency, and virility" of Bonapartist republicanism. The city's Creole elite were concerned over how the French Republic would approach taxation and slavery, among other issues.
Within several months, while he waited for the promised troops to arrive, Laussat heard that Louisiana had been sold to the U.S.; however, he did not believe it. Letters sent to him in June had failed to arrive. On July 28, 1803, he wrote to the French government to inquire whether the rumor was true. On August 18, 1803, he received word from Bonaparte via the French ambassador to the United States, Louis-André Pichon, that France had declared war on Great Britain and that he was to transfer Louisiana to the United States.
On November 30, 1803, Laussat served as commissioner of the French government in the retrocession of Louisiana from Spain to France. Although the handover to the United States was expected to be happen quickly, during the 20 days of his administration, Laussat made several bold moves, including abolishing the local "cabildo" and publishing the Napoleonic Code in the colony. He also established a fire brigade and reorganized the militia. To replace the "cabildo", Laussat assembled a twelve-member municipal council, made up primarily of wealthy Creoles and two Americans (excluding any Spanish officials), and appointed sugar planter Étienne de Boré as mayor. The council moved swiftly to reinstate the restrictions on enslaved people originally enacted as part of the "Code Noir" of 1724.
A few weeks later, on December 20, 1803, Laussat transferred the colony to the U.S. representatives, William C.C. Claiborne and James Wilkinson. Though he completed his diplomatic duties as required, the sale of Louisiana and its short circuiting his dreams for a revival of French North America was a grave disappointment for Laussat. In his diary, writing about the transfer of Louisiana to the Americans, he stated: "I will say no more of the country; it is too painful to have known it and then to have been separated from it."
Laussat's time in Louisiana was marked by conflicts with the Spanish officials he was replacing, as well as machinations by American merchants resident in the territory. He also never gained the full confidence of the wealthy Creole elite, especially once it was clear the expected troops under General Claude Perrin Victor were not going to arrive. The situation worsened for Laussat as he engaged in an increasingly public feud with Victor's adjutant-general, André Burthe, who had accompanied Laussat on the "Surveillant". An additional cause for Spanish offense was Laussat's unilaterally freeing a man, Louis St. Julien, imprisoned for murdering his wife, claiming that St. Julien had been persecuted by Spanish officials for addressing people with the revolutionary title .
Martinique.
On April 21, 1804, Laussat left Louisiana to become colonial prefect of Martinique, serving until 1809 when he was captured and imprisoned by the British.
In Martinique, Laussat again found himself struggling to reconcile Bonapartist ideals with the interests of local elites. He clashed with Captain-General Villaret–Joyeuse, who had popular support on the island, over appointments and their respective spheres of authority. He antagonized planters and merchants by closing most of the island's ports to foreign trade and in the way he enforced taxes. Of particular importance to Laussat was ensuring the clergy on the island were loyal to the Bonapartist regime and would maintain civil records according to the civil code. This caused a conflict because the civil code called for only two banns to record a wedding instead of the three traditionally required in Catholicism.
France.
In 1810, Laussat returned to France and sought a new governmental posting. He was sent to the French Netherlands to oversee the port of occupied Antwerp (1810–1812) and then to serve as prefect of Jemmape (1812–1814) where public works like highways and canals occupied much of his attention. In 1814, he was made a baron and elected to the Chamber of Deputies. During the Hundred Days, he served as prefect of Pas-de-Calais until the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. In 1819, he was made a "chevalier" of the Order of Saint Louis.
French Guiana.
During the Bourbon Restoration, he served as commandant of French Guiana from 1819 to 1823, during which time he advanced efforts to attract American farmers and settlers to the colony. Laussat had been impressed during his short tenure in Louisiana by the way Americans had settled the trans-Appalachian region and he envisioned a similar settlement plan for a site in the Kourou watershed. Only two small groups arrived to found the short-lived settlement of Laussadelphie. As governor, he oversaw the completion of the Canal de Sartine in Cayenne, which had begun under Jean Samuel Guisan in 1777. Laussat inaugurated the completed canal, which now bears his name, on 12 December 1821.
In 1823, Laussat retired to his ancestral château in France where he died in 1835.
Personal life.
In September 1790, Laussat married Marie-Anne-Joséphine de Péborde de Pardiès (1768–1827), the daughter of Laussat's mentor, Jean-Nicolas de Péborde, seigneur de Cardesse. They had three daughters — Zoë (b. 1791), Sophie Fanny (b. 1793), and Camille (b. 1797) — and one son, Lysis Baure Pierre (b.1795). A fourth daughter, Marie-Clémentine, was born in New Orleans in 1804, but died before year-end.
The Laussat family held at least three people in slavery, including Marie's domestic servant, Solitude, who travelled with her from Louisiana to Martinique and eventually to France.
Bibliography.
References.
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