Vine and Olive Colony

Other prominent settlers included Lieutenant-General Baron Henri-Dominique Lallemand, brother of Charles, Count Bertrand Clausel, Joseph Lakanal, Simon Chaudron, Benoît Chassériau, Pasqual Luciani, Colonel Jean-Jerome Cluis, Jean-Marie Chapron, Colonel Nicholas Raoul, and Frederic Ravesies.

[7] After settling into their new surroundings, the colonists soon discovered that their land was not suited to fulfill the condition placed by Congress on their grants, the cultivation of grapes or olives.

[8] The colony sent a representative, Charles Villar, to Washington to plead their case and Congress complied with a supplementary act on 26 April 1822 that allowed the settlers to retain their land in the event that growing grapes and olives proved fruitless.

[8] In addition, the colony had few laborers, faced a constant encroachment on their territory by American squatters, and experienced floods and droughts in these first few years.

After 1825, most of the settlers left the colony to return to France or settle in Mobile or New Orleans, Louisiana, although a few did stay on their grants permanently.

[9] Demopolis continues as a town into the present day; Aigleville and Arcola were largely gone by the eve of the American Civil War.