[10] French naval power at the time was invested primarily in a fleet of coursairs,[11] and Perier served on several ships escorting convoys in the English Channel and the North Sea until August 1704, when he joined a company of gardes-marine.

[10][12] During the War of Spanish Succession, he participated in the capture of several British ships while serving under René Duguay-Trouin and Claude de Forbin,[12] including sailing to Scotland as part of the failed French invasion of Britain.

[10] After the Wars of the Spanish Succession wound down in 1714, Perier returned to sea to combat pirates off the coast of Senegal for the Compagnie du Sénégal,[10][13] which held a monopoly on the trade of enslaved people from West Africa.

[17] In August 1726, after then-governor of French Louisiana Pierre Dugué de Boisbriant was recalled to France,[18] Perier was appointed commandant general of the territory, overseeing military matters and relations with the Native Americans.

[21] Also in October, Louis XV ennobled Perier, his father, and his brother Antoine-Alexis by letters patent in recognition of the family's decades of service to the king.

[22] To ensure this, the Company granted him an annual salary of 10,000 French livres,[16][b] 10 arpents (8.4 acres; 3.4 hectares) of riverfront land,[23] and eight enslaved people a year so long as he remained in office.

[36] With this steady supply of new captives, Perier tended to put enslaved people to work on public projects until they were auctioned off to local slaveholders.

[38] Perier instituted an apprenticeship program where enslaved people were loaned to craftsmen for three years to train them as brickmakers, joiners, masons, carpenters, and other skilled trades necessary to the growth and development of the colony.

[44] Perier's taking office marked the end of the indigenous policy established by former governor Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.

Perier alongside his counterpart in Canada, the Marquis de Beauharnois, and the local commanders pursued a policy of complete destruction against the Meskwaki, despite the ill will it generated with other Native American tribes in the region.

[56][c] Chépart was described as "rapacious, haughty, and tyrannical,"[59] abusing soldiers, settlers, and the Natchez alike,[60] including throwing Dumont de Montigny, who had overseen the fort under the previous commandant, into chains.

[61] With the help of some Illiniwek traders, Dumont escaped to New Orleans and reported on Chépart's actions,[62] and the commandant was called before the Superior Council, which found him guilty of "acts of injustice".

[72] He began by authorizing an attack in December 1729 by enslaved Africans on the unaligned Chaouacha tribe south of New Orleans,[69] rewarding the men by freeing them from slavery.

[73] He also proposed attacks against other tribes along the Mississippi, regardless of their involvement in the revolt, earning a rebuke from Controller-General of Finances Philibert Orry, who described the plan as "acting against all the rules of good government and against those of humanity".

[69] Throughout 1730, Perier sought to make examples of captured Natchez men and women, including torturing them and burning them alive in public executions.

[68] This fit the analysis of historian Michael James Forêt, who found that the roots of the Natchez revolt "lay in a larger pattern of Franco–Natchez conflict and the greed of Perier and the commandant of Fort Rosalie".

[82] In the aftermath of the revolt, Perier attempted to punish the Chickasaw for taking in Natchez refugees and continued his harsh approach toward even allied Native Americans, which raised the concern of other military and civil officials in the colony.

[85] In June 1731, Perier faced an attempted slave uprising, the Samba rebellion, involving enslaved Bambara peoples inspired by the Natchez revolt.

As he had done with Natchez prisoners, Perier ordered torture and public executions using a breaking wheel for the men and women who planned the attempted uprising.

[86] In the end, Perier was criticized for his support of Chépart and his policies towards Native Americans, which failed to provide security and stability for the colony.

[88][89][90] Despite questions about his management of the Natchez revolt, Perier remained in place as governor of the colony, although the king's advisors, particularly the Count of Maupaus, sought to replace him.

[91] Working with the newly arrived commissaire-ordonnateur, Edmé Gatien Salmon, Perier reorganized the governing council to remove the Company's representatives.