The common time necessary to make a voyage from Natchitoches to and from New Orleans is from thirty to forty days. The settlements on the alluvion are upon the banks of the streams, but in the pine woods, are scattered over the country. Here is the seat of the Indian agency for the N.W. Fort Claiborne occupies a pine hill behind the town. The town of Natchitoches stands upon the right bank of Red River…a very thriving village, consisting of about one hundred and fifty houses. A description of the town published in 1816 observed: In early 1804, the Americans established Fort Claiborne to replace Fort Saint Jean Baptiste. The Indians exchanged animal pelts for guns, gunpowder, vermilion, taffia (rum) and jewelry.Ī map of Louisiana in 1763, showing the location of Natchitoches A very thriving village (2)Īccording to Alliot, residents traded with the Caddo, Cocinthés and Panis Indian tribes. But…inhabitants who work in the fields are not susceptible to any innovation. If those inhabitants were industrious, they could make excellent eating oils from the fruit of the nuts and the pecans. The hills there are seen to be filled with walnut trees of huge growth, with magnificent chestnuts, whose fruit is indeed, very small, but of an excellent taste, with beautiful pecan trees which produce a kind of acorn whose fruit is good, sweet, and delicate. The forests are filled with excellent vines, which yield muscats and other delicious grapes of various colors, wild fruits, wax plants, honey bees, mulberry trees (on the leaves of which are found cocoons in which are enclosed the eggs of the silkworm), wild olives, and a number of other fruit trees. The other products raised there by these inhabitants prove equally well by their abundant yield the richness of its soil. The inhabitants in the country engage especially in the culture of the tobacco so famed for its good taste…. That man has an equal share with the others in the skins of the animals. When those hunters depart, fifteen of them form a party and choose one of their number to look after their eating. The flesh of all those animals remains where they have been skinned and becomes food for birds of prey and other carnivorous beasts. Numbers of bears, roe deer, red deer and other fallow deer which live in the woods and in those vast and beautiful prairies, form a powerful attraction for these hunters, who gather all told more than twenty thousand skins in three or four months – which gives each one net fifteen or sixteen hundred francs. The trade of a portion of the inhabitants of the city consists in pelts, cattle, hogs, and cheese while the other portion is engaged in the chase. It is the residence of a priest and a district commander who renders zealous and paternal justice to all persons claiming it. It is the abode of five hundred inhabitants, while a thousand others others dwell in the country. It is the principal place of an excellent and delightful province.
(1) In 1804, French physician Paul Alliot described Natchitoches as follows: When the United States purchased Louisiana in 1803, Natchitoches had 1,848 inhabitants, of which over half (948) were slaves. Spanish officials encouraged the cultivation of tobacco, which had already become the main commercial crop around Natchitoches. Spain continued to administer the territory even after it was secretly transferred back to France in 1800. In 1762, Spain acquired Louisiana from France.
Natchitoches supplied the rest of Louisiana with horses and cattle, most of which had been stolen from Spanish ranches by Comanches or other Indians. Trade with Indian tribes, particularly the Caddos, dominated the local economy. Other settlers followed.įrom the beginning, relations between the residents of Natchitoches and those of nearby Texas (then part of New Spain) were close. French settlers initially established themselves on the east bank of the river. The following year Saint-Denis founded the trading post of Fort Saint Jean Baptiste de Natchitoches on an island in the Red River. In 1713, Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denis, a French-Canadian soldier and explorer, was commissioned by the governor of Louisiana (then part of New France) to open a trading route to New Spain (Mexico). Jean Baptiste Historic Site in Natchitoches, Louisiana Principal place of an excellent and delightful province
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