HISTORY OF THE GERMAN COAST AND THE PEST SHIPS Submitted by Gladys Stovall-Armstrong Typed by Darnell Marie Brunner Beck Published in "The Deep Delta Gen Society Quarterly" ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** In the first months of the year 1721, five ships set sail from the French port L'Orient with a great number of German and Swiss passengers. They were bound for the Province of Louisiana to work for the Company of the Indies. The company was owned by the Scotsman, John LAW, who knew from experience that the French were not adapted to agricultural work. He decided that for his own concession he would hire Germans and Swiss who were known at the time to be the best farm workers. To hire these people, he had pamphlets printed and distributed giving a brilliant description of the country and enticing these people into leaving their homes and country. It is understandable that these Germans, suffering from war and the terrible period when their lands were forcibly taken from them, should decide to create a new life for themselves and their families. Ten thousand Germans and Swiss left their homelands for the new country. But not all ten thousand reached their destinations. Many suffered hardships along the way and were forced to settle in route to the French ports of L'Orient, La Rochelle and Brest. Six thousand Germans left the French ports headed for Louisiana, but actually only two thousand survived to settle on the Louisiana coastal settlements. The five ships which set sail from the port of L'Orient 1721 have been called ' ~ est Ships" because of all the hardships, diseases, and deaths that befell the passengers in route. The ships included La Garonne, La Charante, La Durance St. Andre. The district to which the Germans from the LAW's Concession were sent began about 25 miles by river above New Orleans and extended about 40 miles up the Mississippi River on both banks. The banks of the Mississippi were called the "coast" hence the name of the settlement was the "German Coast." After 1802 the upper portion of the coast became St. John's Parish and the lower portion St. Charles Parish. From Preface of "The German Pcst Ships" by Hewitt Laurie Forsyth, The Settlement of the German Coast, by John Hanno DEILER