[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 10 (Wednesday, February 11, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S660-S661]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE 299TH ANNIVERSARY OF FRENCH COLONIZATION

  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I rise today to recognize an important day 
in the history of this nation--a day that may intrigue some of you who 
are not familiar with Southern history. Tomorrow is the 299th 
anniversary of the landing of D'Iberville on the shores of present-day 
Mississippi, and the beginning of the French colonization of the 
American South.
  Madam President, my colleagues are familiar with the English landings 
in Jamestown and Plymouth, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Some may recall 
the Spanish settlements up the eastern seaboard or the missions in the 
far West. But I suspect few of you know of the French colonization of 
the deep South and the frontier of the future United States, and the 
deeds of men like Pierre Lemoyne Sieur D'Iberville, the French military 
officer who began that colonization.
  However, down home, all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we know and 
we remember. We remember how D'Iberville's band of French soldiers, 
hunters, farmers and adventurers began the exploration and occupation 
of the lower Mississippi valley. We remember that this landing 
eventually gave birth to towns as far-flung as Biloxi, Natchez, Mobile, 
New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Memphis, St. Joseph, Detroit, and Galveston.
  My native Mississippi Gulf Coast is a place of year-round beauty, 
romance, and charm. It is easy to understand why the French chose to 
found their first colony there.
  We are throwing a party today, in Biloxi, Mississippi, where 
D'Iberville landed, 299 years ago tomorrow, and in Ocean Springs, where 
he built Fort Maurepas. As I am sure you have heard, we know how to 
throw a party. But next year, on this very day, will be the 300th 
anniversary of D'Iberville's landing. And I especially want to invite 
every one of my colleagues and you, Madam President, to attend that 
celebration.
  All along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, from my native Pascagoula west 
to Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis, hundreds of volunteers are already 
planning and preparing a vast array of festivals, parties, national 
sporting events, educational activities, and cultural exchanges with 
French cities, working to make our 1699 Tricentennial a truly wonderful 
celebration.
  In conjunction with next year's festivities will be the Mardi Gras 
Celebration in all the coast towns, from Texas to Florida. I believe 
all of my colleagues are familiar with Mardi Gras.
  But the Tricentennial celebrations are more than just festivities. 
They are celebrations of how really diverse we are in the deep South, 
how wonderfully varied and multi-cultural our Southern heritage, our 
American heritage really is, and how much we've accomplished over the 
past 300 years!
  Come to the Gulf Coast next year with us, and help us celebrate that 
diverse culture, and our hard-won economic prosperity. You might be 
surprised. You'll find that whether we are of French, Scottish, Irish, 
Spanish, Yugoslavian, Vietnamese, English, African-American or Native 
American

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ancestry, or a little of everything, we are all fair, honest, 
hardworking, and friendly to a fault. And we can all cook!! And we all 
talk with this accent!!
  So come down and join us, if not this year, certainly for the big 
Tricentennial celebration. A lot of faces and names will be familiar to 
you: Brett Favre, the great NFL quarterback, astronauts Fred Haise of 
Apollo XIII and Stuart Roosa, and the works of great American painter 
Walter Anderson and potter George E. Ohr. And the places to see!--the 
beautiful home of Jefferson Davis, the beaches, the southern way of 
life, the unique nightlife, the Mardi Gras, the 1699 celebrations and 
re-enactments.
  Madam President, I invite all my colleagues to come down to the Gulf 
Coast next year and join us in the wonderful celebration of our 
Tricentennial.

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