By Kathleen M. Byrd
Kathleen M. Byrd describes the transformation of the sleepy agricultural and fur-trading community of Natchitoches, Louisiana, into a prominent regional center soon after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
Loading steamboat. Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Watson Memorial Library, Cammie G. Henry Research Center, Dellmon Collection.
This is the Christmas season, and Natchitoches, Louisiana, is decked out in lights to welcome visitors from all over. It’s a busy time of year in this historic town, which first became a bustling center of activity during the early 1800s with the arrival of the Americans in this predominantly French settlement. American officials quickly introduced a military fort, an Indian trading post, and an Indian agency. These three institutions were to have an immense impact on the French Creole residents of the town and neighboring areas. Not all would welcome the Americans with their strange laws, new customs, and brash ways.
The purpose of the newly established Fort Claiborne was to protect the area from the encroachment of the Spanish to the west, but many in Natchitoches had commercial ties with those in Spanish Texas. Disagreements over the boundary between the United States and Spain would bring the two countries to the brink of war. The government-sponsored Indian trading post would have a detrimental effect on local merchants as it attempted to buy the allegiance of Native tribes by selling goods at reduced prices. American officials knew that the manpower provided by Native men would be critical in any conflict between the United States and Spain or England. The Indian agency attempted with varying degrees of success to resolve conflicts between the tribal peoples and the ever-increasing number of Americans flooding into the area. In 1807 Natchitoches became the site of a Grand Council of tribes from Spanish Texas, attended by more than three hundred members of various tribes. All three of these government institutions were to have a profound effect on Natchitoches over the next twenty years.
Even after the removal of the fort, the trading post, and the Indian agency, the town’s prominence continued. It became a jumping-off point for pioneers heading west to settle in Texas. Indeed, Natchitoches seemed destined to become a great commercial center. The Red River, however, which in the past had flowed by the settlement, began in 1828 to change its course, with the result that Natchitoches no longer functioned as a year-round port. Yet Natchitoches continued as a regional center, a role it still performs today.
Excerpt from Natchitoches, Louisiana, 1803–1840: A Creole Community on the American Frontier:
The village of Natchitoches in 1803 was anything but imposing—at least to northern eyes. John Sibley, a New Englander and a recent arrival to the area, describes the town as a “small, irregular and meanly built village, half a dozen houses excepted,” of “about forty families of which twelve or fifteen are merchants, or traders, nearly all French.” Forty years earlier the village of Natchitoches had been much larger, but the decrease in the Indian trade and the increase in the importance of agriculture resulted in many of the families moving from the town to outlying plantations. The area downriver from the village had become thickly settled with “a number of wealthy inhabitants” who grew cotton, corn, and tobacco. In 1802 the Natchitoches planters had shipped almost three thousand bales of cotton and a large amount of high-quality tobacco to New Orleans. But, as Sibley noted, there was not a single water-driven mill in the area. Horses powered the cotton gins, and it had only been in the last twelve or fifteen years that an Irishman from Pennsylvania had introduced a ferry to cross the river and the plow for agriculture. Sibley also observed that there was not a “single mechanic, in the district, who is a native to it, one tailor excepted; every thing of the kind is done by strangers, and mostly Americans.” . . .
Toward the end of April 1804, Captain Edward D. Turner with soldiers of the Second Infantry Regiment and artillerists arrived in Natchitoches. Undoubtedly, the arrival of the American force created quite a stir. The flotilla of boats had passed numerous farms and plantations, and news of the Americans’ pending appearance undoubtedly spread rapidly. Unquestionably, the Spanish post commandant Felix Trudeau would have been there to meet the Americans upon their landing. It is easy to imagine the merchants and traders with their families, town slaves, and visiting Indians lining the riverbank to watch the soldiers disembark and then set up camp. The insignificant Spanish force of seven or eight men readily yielded the area to the Americans. How welcoming the local French and Spanish people were is uncertain, but it is likely that Americans living in the area were pleased to see the United States troops. The American military force was to have a commanding presence in the area for the next fifteen years.
The official transfer ceremony occurred on April 26. At 11:00 in the morning, Captain José Joaquín de Ugarte, the commandant at Nacogdoches, Texas, and the Spanish representative at the transfer, officially turned the settlement over to the French designee Felix Trudeau, and the Spanish flag was lowered and the French flag raised. Then at noon, Captain Turner accepted the outpost from Trudeau, and the American flag flew over what was now the farthest western outpost of the United States.
The Spanish, who had been suffering for years from inroads into Texas by first the French and more recently the Americans, wanted the frontier closed. José Joaquín de Ugarte was heard to utter, “It is now finished, and the door is shut forever.” This was wishful thinking on the part of the commandant. The frontier settlement of Natchitoches was to become the American gateway to Texas and Spain’s Interior Provinces. In the early 1800s Natchitoches’s strategic location made it third in importance only after New Orleans and St. Louis, and activities in the Natchitoches area and along the Red River would bring Imperial Spain and the brash, young United States of America to the brink of war.
Until her retirement, Kathleen M. Byrd was the director of the School of Social Sciences at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. She has also served as the state archaeologist for Louisiana.
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Natchitoches, Louisiana, 1803–1840 is an examination of one French Creole community as it transitioned from a fur-trading and agricultural settlement under the control of Spain to a critical American outpost on the Spanish/American frontier and finally to a commercial hub and jumping-off point for those heading west. Byrd focuses on historic events in the area and the long-term French Creole residents as they adapted to the American presence. She also examines the effect of the arrival of the Americans, with their Indian trading house and Indian agency, on Native groups and considers how members of the enslaved population took advantage of opportunities for escape presented by a new international border. Byrd shows how the arrival of Americans forever changed Natchitoches, transforming it from a sleepy frontier settlement into a regional commercial center and staging point for pioneers heading into Texas.