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THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF |
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(Transcribed by Leora White, February 2007)
This work is being presented to the Southwest Louisiana
Historical Institute by the author in the fond hope that it
might serve to stimulate further research in the history of
Southwest Louisiana.
THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
1865-1900
A Dissertation
By
Donald J. Millet, Sr.
PREFACE
In this study, southwest Louisiana may be defined as that
general area from the Mississippi escarpment, which divides
the prairie from the Mississippi alluvial plain in the east
to the Sabine River in the west, and from approximately the
31st parallel of latitude in the north to the
Gulf of Mexico. It thus comprises the present-day parishes
of Acadia, Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron,
Evangeline, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Saint Landry, and
Vermilion. This area, largely prairie land, and referred to
by early settlers and travelers as the "cow country" because
of the vast herds of cattle found grazing there, contains
approximately 8,936 square miles or 5,459,040 acres of land
area, which is 18.4 percent of the area of Louisiana. These
parishes vary somewhat in certain characteristics; therefore
they do not constitute a homogeneous region. As will be seen
in this study, however, after 1880 they developed regional
characteristics.
In regional delineation, the writer has followed
nineteenth century geographers’ practice of using the term
"prairie" to include all of southwest Louisiana except in
cases where the true prairie is designated.
Several studies, mostly individual parishes and towns of
southwest Louisiana, have been made. Except for the work
edited and published in 1891 by William Henry Perrin titled
Southwest Louisiana: Biographical and Historical no
other study has been made to treat the area as a region.
Even Perrin’s work, however, gives more attention to parish
development than regional development.
Settlers who began to move into southwest Louisiana in
the latter half of the eighteenth century and most of the
nineteenth century avoided the true prairie area because
they looked upon it useful only for grazing. The result of
this consensus explains why the region was settled in the
eastern and western extremities, leaving the intervening
prairies almost devoid of inhabitants save along the streams
that penetrated the prairies. It was left to the
Midwesterners who in the middle 1880’s began to move into
the prairies to demonstrate to the natives the value of the
prairies as an ideal area for the growing of rice.
Thereafter, prairie land sold at a premium.
The eastern extremity developed earlier than the western.
The rich black and brown alluvial soil in eastern Saint
Landry, Lafayette, and portions of Vermilion dictated the
growing of sugar cane and cotton as staple agricultural
products. Economic development, therefore, hinged on these
two products. The poorly drained forested and prairie soils
in the western area that after 1840 came to be called
"Imperial Calcasieu" precluded any extensive agricultural
activity. Instead, a rather large sawmill industry developed
there after the Civil War. The eastern section had its
commercial activities oriented with the market of New
Orleans, while the trade in the western section was with
Galveston. The extension of the railroad through southwest
Louisiana in 1880 changed this trading pattern by uniting
both sections. There after, southwest Louisiana developed as
a region. Its greatest economic advances were made after
1880.
The lumbering activities of Calcasieu modestly developing
after the Civil War were greatly boosted after 1880. The
almost non-existent rice industry similarly developed after
that date. Sugar and cotton production greatly affected by
the Civil War and its aftermath did not full recover until
the 1890’s. Even then, cotton production was faced with low
market prices that persisted to the end of the century.
Sugar production recovered very slowly in the 1870’s, and
1880’s, but the 1890’s saw favorable tariffs, advanced
technology, and central refineries that brought prosperity
to the growers.
Other developments that contributed to the economic
development of southwest Louisiana after 1880 were:
scientific breeding of cattle stimulated largely by
Midwesterners; the birth of the rice industry revolutionized
in the last dozen or more years of the century; the
introduction of banks, both State and Federal, after 1889;
and the growing interest in sheep, hog, and poultry raising.
In the preparation of this manuscript the writer is
indebted to scores of persons who rendered him genuine
service. Traveling the length and breadth of southwest
Louisiana, he found the people always generous with their
time in discussing the various phases of the early economy
of the area. It was possible only to document a relatively
small number of those persons who made contributions to his
understanding of the developments within the various
parishes. He would, however, like to acknowledge the
professional help given him by Professors Burl Noggle and
Edwin A. Davis of the Department of History, without whose
aid this work would have been made immeasurably more
difficult. The author’s former colleague, Dr. Louis M.
O’Quinn, now associated with the Bureau of Business and
Economic Research at Mississippi State University, gave
advice on preparing the chapter on Money, Banking, and
General Business. Dr. Lauren C. Post of San Diego State
College was more than generous in making available reprints
of his articles on southwest Louisiana. His colleague,
Professor Dorothy F. Roberts of the McNeese State College
English Department, edited the entire manuscript and made
suggestions for the organization of material.
The author is also deeply indebted to the clerks of court
of all the parishes embraced in this study and the Clerk of
Court of Saint Mary Parish. Letters to them were at all
times answered promptly. The library staff of Louisiana
State University, Tulane University, University of
Southwestern Louisiana, and McNeese State College who went
far beyond the call of duty to be helpful. Particularly is
an expression of gratitude due to Mrs. Ruth C. Murray of the
Government Documents Department of the Library of Louisiana
State University; to Miss Pearl Mary Segura, Librarian,
Louisiana Room, Dupré Library, University of Southwestern
University; and to Mrs. Mary Ory, Reference Librarian,
Frazar Memorial Library, McNeese State College.
Held deeply in the author’s debt are a number of
distinguished citizens of southwest Louisiana, notably Harry
G. Chalkley, E. R. Kaufman, Edward Sweeney, and Miss Maude
Reid, all of Lake Charles, and Congressman T. Ashton
Thompson of the Seventh Congressional District of Louisiana
who made available documents from the Library of Congress
that were unobtainable elsewhere.
Finally, to his wife, he extends his deepest gratitude.
For without her understanding and unfailing encouragement
the task would have been harder, and the finished product
less worthy.
No one mentioned in these acknowledgments is responsible
for the conclusions reached, the nature of organization, or
the conception of the work. He alone bears the
responsibility for the text.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF MAPS
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER:
I. PHYSICAL SETTING
II. THE INHABITANTS
III. TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION
IV. CATTLE AND OTHER LIVESTOCK
V. THE RICE INDUSTRY
VI. THE LUMBER INDUSTRY
VII. MONEY, BANKING, AND GENERAL BUSINESS
VIII. COTTON, CORN, SUGAR CANE, AND OTHER
AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS
IX. TOWN DEVELOPMENT
X. LOCAL AND REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
XI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
VITA
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
I. Population Statistics from the United States Census,
1860-1900
MAP
I. Boundaries of Southwest Louisiana
II. General Soil Areas and Associated
Soil Series Groups of Louisiana
III. Lake Charles As A Prospective Railroad Center
ABSTRACT
This study is an inquiry into the economic development of
southwest Louisiana from the termination of the Civil War to
the end of the century. The area embraced by the study
includes the present-day parishes of Acadia, Allen,
Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, Evangeline, Jefferson Davis,
Lafayette, Saint Landry, and Vermilion which cover
approximately 18.4 per cent of the land area of the State.
Long designated as the prairies of Louisiana from the
time of the earliest settlers, the region was thought
valuable only as a grazing area for livestock - principally
cattle. Settlement, therefore, proceeded slowly partly for
this reason and partly because of the difficulty of access.
The eastern alluvial fringe developed earlier and at a more
rapid pace than did the sparsely populated western section
along the Calcasieu River. The intervening area, the true
prairies, was generally avoided by settlers because
agricultural pursuits were thought to be impractical, if not
impossible here. Settlements, however, were made along
streams penetrating into the prairies where the Acadians and
Creoles developed a typical French-Spanish landownership
pattern.
Although the region possessed the natural advantages of a
mild climate, adequate rainfall for most purposes, and a
variety of soils making possible a diversified agriculture
consisting of such staples as sugar cane, cotton, and at a
later time rice, the Civil War and Reconstruction delayed
continued development. The lumber industry of Calcasieu was
the only significant industry prior to 1880.
In 1880, however, the railroad was extended through the
region, giving it access to markets hitherto not within its
trading orbit. Stimulus was given to the sawmill industry of
Calcasieu; new prairies once thought undesirable for
agriculture. They brought with them advanced techniques in
animal husbandry, horticulture, and most important for the
region, machinery used in the wheat fields of the Midwest.
Adapted to rice technology, these machines along with the
solution of irrigation problems revolutionized the industry
by the end of the century. The railroad also stimulated the
development of towns in southwest Louisiana.
By 1890 the cotton and sugar industry had recovered.
Although the prices of cotton remained low through the
decade, such ameliorative developments as cottonseed mills
eased somewhat the farmer’s burden. Sugar producers were
aided by favorable tariffs and advanced techniques in the
growing, processing, and marketing of the product. Banks
provided ready credit for those who needed it.
Economic development in southwest Louisiana owes much to
several inspired men. Principally among these are Jabez B.
Watkins, entrepreneur in the age of enterprise; Seaman A.
Knapp, educator who taught the farmers the value of
experimentation and demonstration; and Sylvester L. Cary,
land agent for the Southern Railroad Company, who induced
thousands of Midwesterners to seek their fortunes in the
prairies of Louisiana.
Relative lack of documentary material has made research
into the economic development of southwest Louisiana a
difficult task. Few diaries, letters, journals, account
books, scrapbooks, and memoirs have been preserved. The
occurrence of several disastrous courthouse fires in Saint
Landry and Vermilion in the 1880’s and Calcasieu in 1910
greatly added to the writer’s difficulty. The Watkins papers
were unintentionally destroyed in the 1930’s. Heavy
reliance, therefore, was made perforce on other sources.
Principally among these were contemporary newspapers, which,
fortunately, have been preserved in relatively complete
files; government documents, both State and Federal; and
several books and scrapbooks written and kept in the latter
part of the nineteenth century. Other materials relied upon
were booklets, pamphlets, periodicals, and several private
collections of letters and account books.
Prepared by Department of Public Works,
Baton Rouge, LA, n.d.
CHAPTER I
PHYSICAL SETTING
I. GEOGRAPHY
Geographer William Darby, one of the first to make a
systemic study of the physical features of Louisiana in the
early part of the nineteenth century, believed that "few
spots on the globe of an equal extent, exhibit more
diversity of surface, or a greater variety of soil and
vegetable production, than does Opelousas," for "every
forest tree found in southern Louisiana, except a few
species," exists in this area. "Here are beheld all the
changes of soil, from the deep fertile loam of Bayou Boeuf,
to the sterile pine woods" in the upper part what is now
Calcasieu, Beauregard, and Allen parishes; "from the broken
hills of Bayou Crocodile, Calcasieu, and Sabine, to the
Marsh Prairies of the gulph / sic / of Mexico; and
from the deep and almost impervious woods along the
Atchafalaya, to the widely extended plains that open their
vast area, upon the banks of the Mermentau and Calcasieu
rivers." (1)
Lying within the physiographic region known as the West
Coastal Plain, southwest Louisiana comprises parts of three
physiographic belts paralleling the margin of the Gulf of
Mexico in eastern Texas and Louisiana with a fourth belt
transverse to them, the western margin of the Mississippi
Valley. (2) The characteristic features of these belts that
distinguish them are the degree of dissection by streams and
the regional slope of the surface. (3) The general slope of
the region is gulfward with the shore line trending east
west. (4) Recognized as terraces, the origin of these belts
has been a subject of controversy. Some authors consider
them of marine origin while others believe that they were
formed by stream deposition. (5)
The oldest and most dissected of the three physiographic
belts is the upland-plains section comprising all of
Beauregard, approximately the northern two-thirds of Allen,
and the northwestern one-fourth of Evangeline parishes. (6)
Here the plains between the principal streams are gently
rolling with a relief of not more than twenty feet where
erosion has not been pronounced. Slope of the surface is a
few degrees east of south. (7) A second belt within the
upland plains is not more than six to twenty miles in width
and ranges north-south through southern Beauregard and
northern Calcasieu and continues northeastward. It includes
most of the upland area east of the Calcasieu River in Allen
and Evangeline parishes. (8) The slope of these plains is
gulfward and ranges from about one and one-half to two feet
per mile making for a flat and relatively poor drainage
pattern. Here swamps are prevalent. Areas of this belt of
plains are called "flatwoods." (9) The upland-plains area
was heavily forested with a pine growth before the sawmills
stripped the land. Pimple mounds and bagols are surface
characteristics of the upland plains. Ranging from about
thirty to fifty feet in diameter and about a foot to five
feet in height, pimple mounds are circular mounds of earth,
probably erosional in origin, aligned parallel to the
drainage pattern. (10) Bagols on the other hand are found in
low, swampy areas shaped either round or elliptical, and are
usually not more than one-fourth mile in greatest width.
Since pine trees do not grow in these areas, the pine oaks
and bay trees which do were left standing after the
surrounding pine forests were cut, leaving "small island of
woods in a sea of grassland and stumps." (11) Streams of the
upland-plains are all transverse to the east west trend of
the plains and have relatively shallow gradients. The floods
plains of the streams support a dense, jungle-like thicket
of tangled vines and palmetto with growths of cypress and
gum trees. (12)
The second of the physiographic belts of southwest
Louisiana is the prairie. Comprising abut half of the
region, the prairie area is not entirely treeless since
dense woods are found on the flood plains of streams that
cut across the prairie. Between the streams where the land
is not under cultivation is a thick growth of grass. (13)
Extending almost without a break from the Sabine River on
the west to the Bayou Teche-Bayou Cocodrie drainage systems
on the east, the prairie area forms a triangle with the apex
in northern Evangeline Parish and the base parallel to the
gulf shore line. The width west-east is about 130 miles,
while the north-south dimension is about seventy miles. (14)
Where untouched by erosion, the relief of the prairie ranges
from ten to twenty feet and slopes gently gulfward at the
rate of one and one-half to two feet per mile. The greatest
altitude is in Evangeline Parish where it is about one
hundred feet above sea level. (15)
The eastern edge of the prairie, which extends from the
northern-most point of Evangeline Parish to the
south-eastern boundary of Iberia Parish, is an eastward
facing escarpment having an elevation of eighty feet at its
lowest in the area of Franklin. (16)
The principal streams of the prairie are the only visible
relief. Natural levees formed by ancient streams which
crossed and re-crossed the prairie are better drained than
the back-swamp areas. These levees are the principal
locations of railroad, roads, buildings, and cultivation
areas. (17) Streams that cross the prairie - such as the
Mermentau River and Bayou Nezpique - are generally shallow,
since they do not cut through the clay that forms the land
surface. Their dry-weather flow, therefore, is very small -
a factor in their role as sources of irrigation water. (18)
The third of the physiographic belts characterizing
southwest Louisiana is the coastal marshland. If it were not
for the cheniers, which are old beach ridges in the marsh,
there would be no observable relief west of the Vermilion
River. (19) In few places does the land rise more then five
feet above sea level. (20) Of the 2,771 square miles
comprising the total area of Cameron and Vermilion parishes,
it has been estimated that 2,321 square miles are
marshlands. (21) Along the northern borders of the marsh the
land is quite firm, having silt and hard clay at its base.
However, in the central and southern parts, the high organic
content of the mud makes the surface quite boggy and
incapable of bearing the weight of these who attempt to
cross it on foot. (22)
The cheniers are the most conspicuous features of the
coastal marshland. They are beach ridges, composed mostly of
sand and shells thrown up by the waves during a storm and
comprise about seventy square miles in the area. The
cheniers are the principal area of habitation. They arise as
much as twenty-five feet above the level of the sea and
extend for many miles paralleling the coast line. Seldom
more than a hundred feet wide, they are steep on the
gulfward side caused by their wave origin. (23)
An abundance of lakes is a characteristic feature of the
marshland. Where some owe their origin to peat "burnouts"
such as that of Lake Arthur, most of them are estuaries
formed by wave erosion along the margin of watercourses. The
best example of this is Grand Lake, White Lake, and
Vermilion Bay. (24) Merging with the coastal marshland along
an indefinable line trending southeast from Franklin in
Saint Mary Parish is the Mississippi flood plain has been
identified as the deltaic plain. That part of the deltaic
plain lying west of the Atchafalaya River is composed of
poorly drained swamp lands with a heavy growth of forests.
(25) These characteristics differentiate the area west of
the escarpment.
A significant topographical feature of southwest
Louisiana that led to early land ownership patterns and
agricultural development of the region is the frontlands and
backlands. (26) (The cultural aspect of these land features
will be discussed later.) The front lands are natural levees
made by the overflow of rivers to which they are adjacent.
They are higher near the streams and slope gently towards
the swamp or backlands. The building-up process of these
levees which occurs with the annual floods deposits coarser
material near the channel while the finer material is
carried to backlands. (27) Because these lands are higher,
better drained, and more accessible, they were chosen by the
early inhabitants for settlement. Thereby began the unique
pattern of land ownership found in the areas of French and
Spanish land grants in colonial Louisiana.
Maximum elevation of the region (not counting the hills
of Evangeline Parish) is found near the city of Opelousas,
on the escarpment. Here the elevation is about seventy feet
above sea level. (28) The slope is southwestward toward the
mouth of the Mermentau, where the elevation is only five
feet above the level of the sea. The drainage pattern of the
Mermentau and it tributaries is, therefore, in a
southwesterly direction. (29)
Many of the geographical features of the region were
given names - French always - by the Acadians who settled
there:
Where a clearing was made by burning
away the underbrush and the prairie grass to develop
farm land, this was called a "brule" to which was added
a specific name. Where gullies developed from rain water
running down to some nearby stream, the name of "coulee"
was given. A bit of highland was a "coteau." Any open
tract of land was a "prairie." Where oaks grew in
clusters, it was "cheniere." Where a bayou or a "coulee"
made a sharp turn or two streams joined, there was "la
pointe." If a swamp or shallow body of water pushed its
way into the prairie, it was "l’anse" or bay. The spot
where a bridge spanned a bayou was inevitably called "le
pont," with some specific name added. These Acadian
geographical terms and others are found all through
Southwest Louisiana, together with those for the
ever-present bayou. (30)
Guided by a compass, Samuel H. Lockett, professor of
engineering at Louisiana State University, crossed the
prairies on horseback in the early 1870’s. He described the
region this way:
All of this extensive area thus
broadly defined (the Great Prairies) is not one of
treeless expanse. Coulees and bayous course through it,
generally in a north and south direction, on the borders
of which grows fine forests of timber. From the
principal belts of timber spurs run into the open
prairies like headlands into the sea, thus dividing the
whole region in to separate tracts each having its own
name. Faquetaique, Mamou, Calcasieu, Sabine, Vermilion,
Mermentau, Plaquemines, Opelousas, and Grand prairies
are the largest. There are many others with local names
that it is needless to mention. The surface of the
Prairies, though generally level, is yet not perfectly
so. It is gently rolling like the billows of a deep sea.
In fact, one cannot ride through the Prairies without
having this resemblance to large bodies of water
constantly recurring to his mind, and looks like capes
and promontories, the "coves" like bays and bluffs, and
the occasional clumps of trees like islands of the sea.
(31)
II. WATERCOURSES
The waterways of a region must always be considered when
estimating the area’s value for human habitation and
cultivation. A map of southwest Louisiana will show that the
region is well supplied with waterways for navigation and
irrigation. This was especially significant for the period
of the study. Navigable streams, with their affluents,
penetrate the region in every direction, supplying it with
water communication. These streams all find their way to the
Gulf of Mexico by five independent mouths. The Sabine River,
which forms the western boundary of the region under study,
was of a little importance in the economic development of
the area. Only one tributary stream - Anacoco Bayou - is
within southwest Louisiana, and it receives its flow from
out side the region. (32) About thirty miles eastward is the
Calcasieu River with its principal tributaries: Bundick,
Whiskey Chitto, Six Mile, and Ten Mile creeks. (33)
Originating in the parish of Natchitoches, the Calcasieu
River meanders through Rapides Parish from whence it pursues
a southwesterly course through Calcasieu Parish and Lake
Charles and empties into Calcasieu Lake which in turn
overflows into the Gulf of Mexico. (34) In the period of
this study the Calcasieu River was navigable for
light-drafted vessels to Lake Charles, but sand bars and
other obstructions were constant hazards. (35) The Mermentau
River formed from the united streams of the Nezpique, Cane,
Plaquemine Brulé bayous and other smaller streams, flows
into Grand Lake before discharging into the Gulf of Mexico.
The stream was navigable for about seventy miles from its
mouth. Thereafter, only small vessels could ascend the river
and its tributaries. (36) Bayou Vermilion originates in
Saint Landry Parish and empties into Vermilion Bay. William
Darby, in 1816, considered the stream of river dimensions
when it widened out south of Carencro. (37) (Natives made
little distinction between river and bayou when describing
the stream.) After the Civil War, an extensive trade
developed on this body of water from Vermilion (Lafayette)
for about seventy miles downstream through Vermilion Parish
to the Bay. (38)
The Teche River, according to Darby, "claims more notice
from the political economist and geographer, than either its
length or quantity of water would seem to justify…." (39)
Although not strictly within the area under observation, the
Teche River played a role in the development of southwest
Louisiana as a means of transportation to the area. This is
also true of the Atchafalaya which forms the eastern
boundary of Saint Landry. Serving as a distributary of the
Red and Mississippi rivers, the Atchafalaya drains a portion
of the eastern part of southwest Louisiana through the
navigable bayous Boeuf, Cocodrie, Courtableau, Fordoche,
Teche, and other tributary streams as it passes on into
Berwick’s Bay. (40) It was one of the main arteries of water
transportation to the prairies during most of its early
history preceding the advent of the railroads in 1880’s.
III. TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION
Quantitatively, the climate of the prairies is meso-thermal.
The maximum mean temperature for August, the warmest month
of the year, is 82 degrees F., which almost equals the mean
for July. The coldest month is January which has an average
temperature of 53 degrees F. The mean annual temperature of
seven representative stations in southwest Louisiana is 68
degrees F. (41)
Precipitation comes normally during all months of the
year with a year-round average of fifty-six inches for the
same seven representative stations mentioned above. The
wettest month is July with approximately 6.30 inches, while
October is the driest with about 3.50 inches. (42) Because
of the high rate of evaporation, even daily rains may not be
excessive. Favorable also is the pattern of drainage which
takes care of unusual rainy weather. (43)
Generally, cold spells have long been most feared by the
inhabitants of the prairies. Although of short duration,
they cause much loss of livestock on the open ranges where
cattle have no means of protection against the chilly blasts
of winter. During these spells cattle parish by the
thousands. (44) Orange groves and shrubbery were badly
damaged during several freezes in the period under study.
(45) Between cold spells, the warm winds from the Gulf blow
inland, causing rain. Lauren C. Post, a native and
geographer who has written extensively on southwest
Louisiana, remarks: "The winter is thus a succession of
changes between north winds and warm south winds, the one
bringing clear cool days, and the other, warm, mild
conditions with considerable precipitation." (46)
Intermediate between these extremes is clear weather with
little wind, during which daily sunshine causes the
temperature to rise resulting in balmy days in the late
winter and early spring. It is during this time that the
prairie farmer begins to cultivate his lands. (47)
Spring is a season of full activity when such crops as
corn and cotton are laid out with sugar cane coming somewhat
later, usually in the month of June. (48) Summertime finds
the prairies drenched with rain. The high relative humidity
brings discomfort to the inhabitants, moderated somewhat by
Gulf breezes which bring some comfort. (49) In the early
fall cotton picking precedes the gathering of corn; the
cutting of cane follows in the middle of October. A cool
October increases the sucrose content of the sugar cane.
(50) Late summer and early fall is the hurricane season,
which, at times, has caused extensive damage to the
prairies. (51)
Timothy Flint, who during the 1820’s crossed the prairie
region, contrasted the Mississippi and Atchafalaya river
bottoms with the prairies:
Being open to the Gulf, it (the
prairie region), is generally fanned by the refreshing
breezes of the sea. Its aspect of general fertility, its
boundless plain of grass, its cheering views, its dim
verdant outline, mingling with the blue of the sky,
white houses seen in the distance, innumerable cattle
and horses grazing on the plain or reposing here and
there under the shade of its wooded points have an
indescribable pleasantness to the traveler who has been
toiling his way through the tangle, the swamps and along
the stagnant lakes, and the dark deep forest of the
Mississippi bottom. All at once he leaves the stifling
air, the mosquitoes, the rank crane, and annoying
nettles, and the dark brown shade, and emerges in this
noble and cheerful plain, and feels the cool and
salubrious breeze of the gulf. At first he finds it
almost painful to dilate that vision, which has been so
long confined to the forest, to the contemplation of the
boundless prospect before him. (52)
Samuel Lockett thought that the prairie region was "the
most pleasing part of the State." (53)
IV. FLORA AND FAUNA
Wooded areas are found mostly along the banks of the many
streams winding their ways to the Gulf. (54) The belt of
trees extends variously from a half mile to a mile along the
banks of the streams, and partly on the natural levees. The
demarcation line between wooded areas and grasslands is
sharp. (55) From a distance this line creates the illusion
of a shoreline bordering the sea. Grassy areas between the
wooded areas along the streams are called "coves" and early
became the centers for settlement.
The woodlands produce a fine variety of timber. Cypress
forests abounded along such bayous and rivers as the
Calcasieu, Mermentau, Vermilion, Plaquemine Brule, and Queue
de Tortue. To the north and northwest, in the pine hills and
pine flats, the pine forests projected as spurs. (56) Most
of the woods of southwest Louisiana, however, are mixed,
with hardwoods predominating: hickories, oaks, magnolias,
and gum. (57) The hardwoods are deciduous, shedding their
leaves during the winter months.
West of the Red River valley, spreading westward to the
Sabine, is the great pine region forming part of the pine
forest which extends into eastern Texas. Increasing in width
southward, its length from north to south (where it verges
upon the lower maritime prairies of the Calcasieu) is not
less than one hundred miles. It includes all of the parish
of Vernon, the lower part of Calcasieu, and portions of the
parishes of Allen, Saint Landry, Natchitoches, and Rapides,
covering an estimated area of 4,500 square miles. (58) Lake
Charles, on the southern border of this pine forest, as will
be seen later in this study, became the principal center of
lumber milling in the three decades following the Civil War.
(59)
The heavy impervious soils of the prairies combined with
the occasional droughty condition prevented forest growth.
Instead, a vigorous stand of tall grass, including big and
little bluestem, pine hill bluestem, switch grass, Indian
grass, eastern gama, Paspalum (called gazon by the
natives) and a host of associated herbs, once grew in
profusion. The heavy clayey subsoil that prevented tree
growth provides a solid bottom to retain water during the
rice season. (60) William H. Perrin, who visited the area in
the 1880’s, was surprised to find that "there was no attempt
made to put any of this hay on the market." Instead, he
found the "grass lying and rotting on the ground." (61)
Sylvester L. Cary, in one of his articles written to induce
Midwesterners to migrate to southwest Louisiana, mentioned
that some twenty varieties of native grasses were exhibited
at the Southern Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. (62) He had
great hopes that hay shipping would become an industry in
the prairies. (63) Lauren C. Post believes that white clover
was introduced in the 1880’s, and that some time after the
Civil War, cattlemen who came through the area on horseback
in Bermuda grass from the banks of the Mississippi River.
(64) Johnson and coco grass, both exotic, were probably
brought by trains going through southwest Louisiana, since
it is thought that the seed was distributed away from the
railroad tracks where it first grew. (65)
From contemporary writings mentioning the abundance of
wildlife in southwest Louisiana, it can be assumed that the
area was hunter’s paradise in its earlier history. Certain
species still abound. The Meridional, an Abbeville
newspaper, reported in 1886 that "deer and bear as well as
turkeys and prairie chickens have been well nigh
exterminated. But there are plenty of partridges, squirrels
and hares. In winter geese and ducks by the million flock to
the marshes. Great numbers of woodcock resort to this region
in winter, and remain throughout the winter season; from
twenty to forty brace may be bagged per day by a good
gunner." Also mentioned were the "Wilson snipe and three or
four other varieties of plovers and curlews and sandpipers"
found in abundance. (66) Daniel Dennett, writer on Louisiana
economic subjects in the 1870’s added wild hogs, otters, and
muskrats to the list of fauna. (67)
The many streams and lakes in southwest Louisiana contain
a variety of fish. Among them are the freshwater drum,
called gaspergou by the natives; the sunfish, better known
as the perch; the catfish; the buffalo; the bowfin, referred
to locally as the Choupique; the trout; the crappie, or
sacalait to the natives; white and yellow bass; and the gar.
As to sea foods, one contemporary newspaper mentioned fish
and oysters as being abundant along the seacoast and in the
bays and saltwater bayous along with mullet, redfish,
sheepshead, turtles, and crabs. (68)
V. SOILS
The 5,459,040 acres of land in the southwest Louisiana
area defined in this study include soils differing in
physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics which
determined their suitability for agricultural use. Soil
scientists have categorized these differences into six
General Soil Areas for the State. These areas are the
Coastal Plain, the Loessial Hills and Mississippi Terraces,
the Flatwoods, the Coastal Prairies, the Recent Alluvial,
and the Coastal Marsh soils. The soil areas, in turn, are
subdivided into sixteen groups of associated soil series
(see accompanying map.) (69)
All six soils of the General Soil Areas and eight of the
sixteen groups of associated soil series are to found in the
region. Three of the General Soil Areas predominate. These
are the Flatwoods, the Coastal Prairies, and the Coastal
March. Almost all of Beauregard and Allen parishes are found
within the Flatwoods area along with contiguous portions of
Evangeline, Calcasieu, and Jefferson Davis. Soils of this
area are medium to strongly acid and low in organic matter
and mineral plant nutrients. Drainage is usually poor owing
to the presence of silt pans or clay pans and relatively
high water tables. A dense growth of longleaf pine forests
characterized the area before it was denuded by the timber
man’s ax beginning after the Civil War. Grazing of cattle
and sheep has been carried on here since the earliest
settlement.
Within the Coastal Prairies are almost all of Jefferson
Davis and Acadia parishes, the lower two-thirds of
Calcasieu, and small adjacent portions of Evangeline,
Lafayette, and Vermilion. This soil area, found exclusively
in southwest Louisiana, was, as will be seen later in this
study, a marked characteristic of the region. The plains are
broad and level to undulating, and were originally covered
with tall prairie grasses that supported an immense cattle
industry in the antebellum and postbellum periods. As
elevations range from only three to forty feet, the
underlying sediments are of clay and back swamp deposits
from ancient channels and distributaries. Because of the
differences in coloration and degrees of acidity and
alkalinity, scientists have divided the area into four
groups of associated soils. In addition to grazing, the
Coastal Prairies developed into one of the largest
rice-producing areas in the United States.
Almost all of Cameron and Vermilion parishes are within
the Coastal Marsh Area. In this area are two associated
groups of soil varying from dark clays which are slightly
acid to alkaline, to brown fine sands or sandy loams
containing shells and organic matter. These soil groups are
found on the beach ridges or cheniers in the western part of
the marsh area. Trapping, hunting, fishing and recreation
have long engaged the interests of the inhabitants. The
beach ridges or cheniers have for many years grown rice,
sugar cane, and varieties of grasses which have been used to
graze cattle since the Civil War.
The Mississippi Terrace and Loessial Hills and the Recent
Alluvium areas are much smaller in southwest Louisiana than
those already described, but they played a distinctive role
in the period under study. Soils of the former area
(omitting Loessial Hills not found in the region) exist
principally in western Saint Landry, almost all of
Lafayette, and the approximate eastern half of Evangeline.
The four groups of associated soils vary from brown to
grayish and yellowish-brown to gray soils, generally low in
organic matter and plant nutrients, and are medium to strong
acid. Grazing and forestry have long been the major uses to
which this land area has been employed, but cotton, sweet
potatoes, and sugar cane have also been grown.
The Recent Alluvium in southwest Louisiana embraces about
three-fourths of Saint Landry and a very small portion of
eastern Lafayette. The associated soil, containing moderate
amounts of organic matter and well supplied with mineral
plant nutrients, were developed from Mississippi River
alluvium. The land has for many years yielded bountiful
crops of sugar cane, corn, and rice.
A small portion in the upper part of Beauregard Parish is
within the Coastal Plain Area. The groups of associated
soils made up of grayish-brown sandy loams, are nearly level
to gently sloping. Luxuriant longleaf pine forests at one
time covered the soils of this area. This part of Beauregard
Parish was long used to graze cattle and sheep.
From the end of the Civil War to 1900, southwest
Louisiana possessed many advantages appealing to settlers.
The diversity of surficial characteristics, watercourses,
soils natural resources, with the added advantage of equable
yearly climate and adequate rainfall made possible the
development of agriculture, livestock raising, and
industrial growth.
CHAPTER II
THE INHABITANTS
Sparse population, few and poor roads, primitive means of
transportation and communication, isolation, and mostly a
self-sufficient household economy, characterized life in
southwest Louisiana in the year 1865. The Civil War had
wrought havoc in the once populous and wealthy eastern
fringe of the area including the parishes of Saint Landry,
Lafayette, and Vermilion. In an official report to Governor
Henry Watkins Allen in 1865 recounting the effects of the
war in southwest Louisiana, it was claimed that General
Nathaniel P. Banks had found the region a garden and left it
a desert. (1) The burned-out remains of plows, harrows,
cultivators, hoes, shovels, and the tools of artisans, along
with wagons and other rolling stock could be seen on
plantations visited by Federal troops. Machinery from
destroyed corn, cotton, and sugar mills was thrown in
neighboring bayous. (2) Thousands of bales of cotton, large
quantities of sugar and molasses, and droves of horses,
mules, and cattle were shipped to New Orleans, along with
large numbers of frightened Negroes. (3) Money, never
plentiful, was further reduced by the war, making necessary
a barter system of exchange.
Before the war, most of the white people engaged in
farming pursuits and owned small tracts of land. Census
figures for 1860 showed a population of 42,359 in the four
parishes then comprising southwest Louisiana with
concentration in Saint Landry and Lafayette and scattered
centers mainly along the Calcasieu River. (4) An occasional
house could be seen on the almost uninhabited prairies where
large herds of cattle and droves of horses grazed on the
open range. Little is known of settlements made in the first
half of the eighteenth century; but, from William Perrin’s
account in his book Southwest Louisiana…., by the end
of this century and the beginning of the nineteenth, the
population included "French, Creoles, Acadians, Spaniards,
Swiss, etc.," and "representatives from half the States of
the Union." At first they came from the south Atlantic
seaboard and Tennessee and Kentucky, and then, beginning in
the 1880’s, "from Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and
other States of the Northwest." (5) The total population in
1900 was 154,024 - an increase of 263 per cent in forty
years. (6)
Table I
POPULATION STATISTICS FROM THE UNITED
STATES CENSUS, 1860-1900 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 --- --- --- --- --- --- 11,602 1,629 18,662 4,820 4,452 1,476 5,171 1,457 9,919 2,407 16,804 3,194 24,267 5,966 --- --- 1,249 342 2,087 324 2,402 426 3,375 577 4,309 4,694 5,631 4,755 7,694 5,541 9,080 6,884 13,309 9,516 10,703 12,401 13,776 11,694 20,473 19,339 17,856 22,274 26,170 26,658 3,001 1,323 3,480 1,047 6,771 1,957 11,335 2,899 16,957 3,747 22,465 19,894 29,307 19,295 46,944 29,628 69,079 37,306 102,740 51,284 42,359 48,602 76,572 106,385 154,024
CREATING CIVIL DIVISIONS
The vast province of French Louisiana in 1721, according
to historian Alceé Fortier, was divided into nine districts
or quarters. (7) Southwest Louisiana was included in the
undefined district of New Orleans. (8) From this time to the
beginning of Spanish occupation, few trappers, traders, and
ranchmen were found scattered in the area that came to be
known as the "Attakapas district," named after the Attakapas
Indians, a tribe which once held possession of the area. (9)
Within a decade following Spain’s occupation, grants were
made in the district to the exiled Acadians, who took their
families in the wilderness and founded homes. (10) Having no
faith in colonizing companies, and believing that the new
colony depended upon the development of agriculture and the
raising of cattle on the prairies, the Spanish authority
created two posts in southwest Louisiana: one in Opelousas,
and the other on the present site of the town of Saint
Martinville. The Poste des Opelousas was located near
Bayou Courtableau, while Poste des Attakapas was on
the Teche. (11) All civil and military authority in the two
posts was vested in officials sent out from the governing
center in New Orleans.
In 1769, Alejandro Don O’Reilly sent by the Spanish
government to take charge of the province acquired from
France, divided Louisiana into eleven districts, each under
the supervision of commandants; (12) the two posts were
included in the undefined area called the district of
Opelousas. The districts, according to John Kyser who made a
study of the origin of Louisiana parishes, are not to be
confused with the same time. (13) Saint Martin was the
ecclesiastical parish of the Attakapas region; Saint Landry
was its counterpart in Opelousas. (14)
In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana
Territory retroceded by Spain to France; in 1804, the
American authority created two territories: the Territory of
Orleans, embracing approximately the present area of
Louisiana excluding the Florida parishes, and the District
of Louisiana. (15) The legislature of the Territory of
Orleans proceeded to divide the area into twelve counties -
one of which was the County of Attakapas comprising the
ecclesiastical parish of Saint Martin, and commonly called
the parish of Attakapas; and the other, the County of
Opelousas comprising the ecclesiastical parish of Saint
Landry and called the parish of Opelousas. (16)
Domestic disturbances prompted Governor Claiborne to
visit the area in 1805. While there he considered defenses
against a possible Spanish attack from that quarter. (17)
Again, in 1807, the territorial legislature subdivided
the region. Instead of the twelve counties created in 1805,
there were now to be nineteen parishes. The ecclesiastical
parish of Saint Landry and the County of Opelousas were
hence forth to be known as the civil parish of Saint Landry,
and the ecclesiastical parish of Saint Martin was now to be
known as Attakapas parish. (18)
Several years later, in 1811, Attakapas Parish was
subdivided into two parishes: Saint Martin and Saint Mary.
(19) Saint Landry and Attakapas "were essentially the vast
prairies of southwest Louisiana….including what were once
the magnificent longleaf forests of modern Calcasieu,
Beauregard and parts of Allen and Vernon parishes." (20)
This area, for the most part, was uninhabited and little
known except for the coastal section. (21) It was not until
1817 that the boundary between the areas of the Opelousas
and Attakapas "countries" began to be settled. (22)
A little over a decade after Saint Martin and Saint Mary
were created from Attakapas parishes, the former parish had
Lafayette Parish carved from it. (23) "Imperial Saint
Landry" lost her empire status when, it 1840, Calcasieu
Parish was created. (24) Now larger than the mother parish,
Calcasieu was in time dubbed "Imperial Calcasieu" until it
lost that status in 1912, when the parishes of Allen,
Beauregard, and Jefferson Davis were created from its area.
Lafayette Parish in its original extent lasted for only
twenty-three years. Out of this area Vermilion Parish was
created in 1844. (25) No more divisions were made in the
parishes of southwest Louisiana until 1870. It was in this
year, however, that the southern portion of Calcasieu Parish
and the western portion of Vermilion Parish were combined to
form the parish of Cameron. (26) A large portion of the new
parish contained the sea marsh - a geographical
characteristic of the area. The last parish to be created in
southwest Louisiana within the compass of this study was
Acadia, which was carved out of the southwestern portion of
Saint Landry in 1886. (27)
THE ABORIGENSES (sic) (Aborigines?)
Apart from the names they gave to rivers, bayous, towns,
land areas, and a parish, the Indians made no lasting
contribution to the development of southwest Louisiana. This
fact is amply confirmed by such writers as John Sibley. (28)
John R. Swanton, (29) Lauren C. Post, (30) and the present
authority on Louisiana Indians, Fred Kniffen. (31) Volume
III of American State Papers, Public Lands (32) gives
clues to their dwelling places in its scattered references
to land transactions between the whites and the Indians. The
unpublished Brand Book for the District of Opelousas and
Attakapas, 1760-1888, in the Dupré Library, University of
Southwestern Louisiana, which contains brands under Indian
names, indicate that some of the Indians were cattle
herders.
The first written account of the southwest Louisiana
Indians were made by the French. Fragmentary references by
French writers tell something of their number, culture,
distribution, and nature. Contacts with the whites,
according to Kniffen, brought "an acceleration of cultural
changes to a rate without precedent during two thousand
years." (33) The Indians of the area belonged to the
Attakapas linguistic stock, "separated politically in four
sovereign bands oriented to the four streams, and a fifth,
the Opelousas, centered near the modern town that was named
for them." (34) Culturally, the Attakapas had much more in
common with the lowly tribes of the Texas coast than with
the more advanced people to the north and east. (35)
The Attakapas and Opelousas were modest agriculturists.
They grew crops of corn, beans, sweet potatoes, pumpkins,
squashes, and tobacco; but they were more interested in food
gathering, fishing, and hunting. (36) Occasionally, these
people were hired at low wages to do menial tasks about the
house and fields of a white settler, but in time they were
replaced by Negroes and whites. (37) Frederick Law Olmsted
observed Indian labor in the late 1850’s when he journeyed
through the region:
At a rude corn mill belonging to Mr.
Beguin, we noticed among the negroes an Indian boy, in
negro clothing, and about the house were two other
Indians - an old man and a young man; the first poorly
clad and the other gaily dressed in a showy calico
frock, and worked buckskin leggings, with beads and
tinsel ornaments, a great turban of Scotch shawl stuff
on his head. The two men were hired at farm labor at
three bits (37 ½ cents) per day. It appeared that they
were Choctaws of whom a good many lived in the
neighborhood. The old man had a field of his own in
which stood handsome corn. Some of them were industrious
but none of them steady at work - often refusing to go
on, or absenting themselves….Our host knew of but one
case in which a Negro had an Indian wife. (38)
Although the Attakapas seemed to be well fed, their
standards fell far below those maintained by other Louisiana
tribes. (39) Kniffen describes them as living in an
"ethnological sink," for they "built no mounds and had no
temples. They did not practice head deformation. They made
little or no pottery. Clothing and housing appear to have
met only minimum needs. Habitat and cultural deficiencies in
supplying material requirements were in part satisfied
through trading a surplus of dried and smoked fish, moss,
feathers, and sharks’ teeth and other marine curios." (40)
From the north, the Attakapas received through the middlemen
Opelousas "flint, pottery, skins, and bow wood, and the
latter the Osage orange bois d’ arc. Even the
unaccomplished people to the west provided pottery in trade
for fish." (41)
According to Swanton, in the year 1698, the total
population of the Attakapas and their allies in southwest
Louisiana and southeast Texas did not exceed 3,500. Of this
number, 1,750 lived in Louisiana. In 1805 this total had
been reduced to 175, and by 1908 to nine. (42)
The Coushatta, or more properly, Koasati, not related to
the Louisiana tribes, were another group of Indians who
migrated to Louisiana in the vicinity of Elton in about
1800. (43) They are dwellers of the inland woods, and as
such gives the student little notion of how the southwest
Louisiana marsh and prairie Indians labored and lived. (44)
They, too, have played a very minor role in the economic
development of the area.
THE FRENCH
The French settlers and their descendents have far
out-numbered any of the other ethnic groups that made their
homes in southwest Louisiana. One writer distinguished three
separate categories: Acadian, Creole, and Cadet. The
Acadians, the exiles from Nova Scotia along with their
children born elsewhere, began to make their appearance in
the region sometimes after 1765, while the Creoles were the
offspring of Europeans born in the colonies. The Acadians
were often referred to as Creoles. Then, there were the
Cadets of aristocratic lineage who were refugees from the
French Revolution and from the uprising in the West Indies
in the late years of the eighteenth century. (45)
The process of settling the prairies was very slow.
Already mentioned were the trappers, traders, and ranchmen
who infiltrated the region a decade or two before the coming
of the Acadians. (46) After 1765, the Acadians began to make
their appearance in fairly large numbers. Few people in the
annuals of American history experienced such tragedy and
suffering as did these people. By the Treaty of Utrecht in
1713, France lost her Canadian province of Acadia to the
British, who renamed it, Nova Scotia. Fearing disloyalty
from her new colonists in the event of renewed hostilities
with France, the British harassed and persecuted these
simple people and forbade them to leave the colony. (47)
Finally, with the coming of the French and Indian War, the
English demanded of their French subjects that they take the
oath of allegiance to the British king. They refused. (48)
In reprisal the Acadians were stripped of their worldly
possessions, separated from their families, loaded aboard
ships and dispersed along the Atlantic coastal colonies.
From thence many found their way to Louisiana, a French
possession recently ceded to Spain in 1762. (49) V. L. Hair,
who made a study of the town of Crowley in Acadia Parish,
has found documents that purport to show that some
settlements were made in the area a few years earlier. (50)
Francois-Xavier Martin, first historian to write a general
history of Louisiana, gave 409 as the number of Acadians in
Attakapas in 1769. It might be assumed that gradual
penetration continued after that date. (51) Martin told of a
later influx of the exiles between 1785 and 1788 and
estimated the number after the three-year period at 3,500,
distributed in Attakapas and Opelousas, as well as in the
other areas of Louisiana. (52)
Natural increase was high. Lauren Post believes that the
Acadians were the most fecund of the French groups and were
of the greatest importance in the peopling of the prairies.
(53) It is his belief, too, that "their natural increase
from the fairly well unified group can scarcely be
overestimated in its importance in the establishment of a
homogenous culture of the Prairies." (54)
Appraising the character of the Acadians, J. D. B. DeBow,
editor of the well-known DeBow’s Review, said: "They
are honest in their dealings, friendly and hospitable to
strangers; they preserve a social intercourse among their
neighbors of their contracts. They are, however, oppressive
to their slaves, and this forms the only bad trait in their
general character." (55) Sergeant S. Prentiss, famous
Mississippi orator and statesman who visited the prairie
region before the Civil War, had a somewhat different
opinion of the Acadians. They were "the poorest, most
ignorant, set of being you ever saw," said Prentiss. "They
raise only a little corn and a few sweet potatoes merely
sufficient to support life; yet they seem perfectly
contented and happy, and have balls every day."(56)
Daniel Dennett, who had a firsthand acquaintance with the
Acadians, wrote in the 1870’s that, although lands had been
allocated to these people by the Spanish authority, "many of
them (were) mere squatters on the prairies between the
Vermilion river and the Sabine. Their houses, often half
formed and half built of mud, are located sometimes on the
open prairie, sometime in the skirts of a belt of timber,
and often without even a yard or garden enclosed. A
neighboring marais will be surrounded by a rude
‘pieux’ fence, and a small crop of rice raised. Their horses
and cattle run at all times on the common prairie." (57)
Dennett noted, too, that "with thousands of cows roaming on
the prairies, you seldom see butter or milk in their houses.
With the means around them of living well, they fare no
better than the people who live on poor lands. Their
educational advantages are poor, but they all learn to ride
and use a shotgun expertly as soon as they learn to walk."
(58) Olmsted, who accepted lodging and hospitality with
Acadian families during his trip through southwest
Louisiana, found their fields well cultivated and showing
"the best corn we had seen east of the Brazos." Negro
laborers - both men and women - worked for fifty cents a
day. (59) He found the house interiors almost devoid of
furniture, some with rooms of board floors, while others on
bare earth. "The mud-walls had no other relief than the
mantel, on which stood a Connecticut clock, two small
mirrors, three or four cheap cups and saucers, and a paste
brooch in the form of a cross, pinned upon paper, as in a
jeweler’s shop." From the deer skin covered chairs "sprang
an atrocious number of fresh fleas." (60)
Olmsted observed that the exterior of the house had low
walls made of timber and mud with a high roof "sloping from
a short ridge in all directions." The chimney was made of
sticks and mud. The house was "divided into one long
living-room, having a kitchen at one end and a bed room at
the other." (61) This type of house, Olmsted concluded, "has
grown to be common along our road." (62)
Within five miles from Opelousas, the Yankee visitor
found "plantations on an extensive scale, upon better soil,"
where large groups of Negroes were hoeing cotton. (63) This
was not typical of the region, however. These lands were
owned by the more intelligent upper class Acadians. The
lower class, Olmsted observed, "lived much from hand to
mouth, and are often in extreme destitution." (64) Most of
this class lived on rivers, as "those who resided on the
prairies were seldom so much reduced." The land along the
rivers where the back swamp is adjacent was of little value
and produced a meager subsistence. (65) The upper class
usually eschewed these areas and moved to the more
productive soils.
Where the people lived in close proximity and in fairly
large number, community characteristics developed. Cabins
were usually built close together. Olmsted noticed that
where this feature existed "there is always found, among the
cluster of their cabins, a church, and a billiard and a
gambling room - and the latter is always occupied, and play
going on." (66) Too, he found these people "excessively
apathetic, sleepy, and stupid, if you see them at home; and
they are always longing and waiting for some excitement, and
will not labor, unless it is violently, for a short time, to
gratify some passion." (67) In much the same vein was a
speech delivered by William H. Harris of Calcasieu Parish
before the State Agricultural Society in 1892. He told of a
trip he had made in 1871 through the area, driving a herd of
cattle from the northwestern part of Calcasieu Parish to the
Mississippi River. "…at that time," he said, "the
description of the prairie region given in Darby’s ancient
history of Louisiana still held good of this section. There
had been no change. Many of the cabins had dirt floors -
everything was primitive - every home had its loom and
spinning wheel, but I did not see a milch cow, or a plow in
the parish." (68) Perrin found that the "people of Acadian
descent have progressed little since their ancestors left
their homes in Nova Scotia." (69)
Plentiful supplies of meat from cattle, hogs, chickens,
and wild game supplied the Acadian table. Lauren Post, born
in Acadia Parish of non-Acadian stock, tells of other foods
that made up the Acadian diet: cornbread, roasting ears,
gros gru (big grits) and a breakfast food made from
cornmeal called couche-couche were essential foods,
as wheat flour was hardly known, much less used, in the
prairies. (70) Most of the corn the Acadians grew they
consumed themselves. Usually the owner of a corn mill
charged from a fourth or a fifth of the corn as a toll for
his service. (71)
Nearly all clothing worn by the Acadian was homespun.
This task generally was performed by the women of the
family. In an article in a New Orleans newspaper, a visitor
to the region in the 1880’s reported on the life of the
people. She told of seeing women picking and ginning cotton
and learned that they also had seeded the fields that
produced the lint. Of the wife in the family she said: "It
is she who spins it into cloth, which she dyes with peach
tree leaves and indigo, and of this she makes clothing for
her family, blankets for her beds, curtains for her windows,
and covering for her floor." (72) Post tells of the
durability of these received from the battoir, a
contrivance mounted a few inches above the level of the
water in the bayou. (73)
Infiltration to all parts of southwest Louisiana was a
gradual process. Such a pioneer as Martin LeBleu, who it is
said came directly from France, settled in Calcasieu Parish
in 1770. Others bearing French names followed him at about
the same time and later. Among these was Charles Sallier,
after whom the city of Lake Charles was named, who achieved
some distinction among his patriots who continued to settle
in the area along the Calcasieu River and around the lake
named after him. In every respect an agrarian people, these
early settlers established rural communities similar to
those they had been forced to abandon in Canada. (74) Their
"closely knit family groups were an important factor in the
ultimate survival of their civilization. Above all, they
were bound together by the common language."(75)
Refugees from the French Revolution and from the West
Indian uprisings in the latter part of the eighteenth
century claiming descent from aristocracy settled in the
eastern part of the area under study. Some of them became
owners of the largest plantations in Saint Landry and
neighboring areas. Prominent among them, according to
Perrin, were the Lastrapes, Louailliers, Martel, and St.
Julien. (76) They took a conspicuous part in the economic
and social development of the region, occupying the highest
positions in society. (77) Gilbert L. Dupré, although not of
the aristocracy, gave an insight into the life of these
people in Saint Landry. "Our home," he said, "was feudal in
its magnificence. The mansion, with an immense gallery, with
rooms eighteen by twenty, and a dining room easily converted
into a dance hall. We had room for company, and for our
friends the latch-string was on the outside."(78)
SPANIARDS, AMERICANS, AND GERMANS.
The Spanish governing authority in New Orleans made
several attempts in the latter part of the eighteenth
century to colonize Louisiana with "Islenos," who were
immigrants from the Canary Islands. (79) Later, immigrants
from Malaga, along with the Islenos, settled in the Teche
country in New Iberia. Their effort to raise hemp and flax
providing a failure, they moved some miles westward to the
vicinity of Spanish Lake, where many of their descendents
live to this day. Among these are the Romeros, the Lopezes,
the Sequras, and the Viators, who occupy land given to their
ancestors. From the account of Perrin, they "are now classed
among the richest in the land." (80) The cattle brand
registry books already referred to, contain names of Spanish
origin which indicate an infiltration of these people to
various parts of the Attakapas country. (81) Because of
their numerical inferiority to the Acadians, however, they
were finally absorbed through intermarriage, leaving but
their names to attest their Spanish origin. As Dudley J.
LeBlanc, of Acadian stock, has indicated, the descendants
speak English or French or both, but not Spanish. (82) Post
believes that these immigrants "contributed more in numbers
to the settlement of the Prairies than did the French
Creoles," despite the fact that they were a less important
group. (83)
Americans of Anglo-Saxon descent began to move into
southwest Louisiana from the time of the American
Revolution. Such names are found in sources as the
American State Papers, Public Lands; the Slave Census
for 1808; and the Opelousas Marriage list. In the Carencro
area in Lafayette Parish are such as Peck, Cruther,
Williams, and Linx, while farther west on Bayou Queue de
Tortue, the names of Foreman and Spell are exceptions among
French names. Perrin found Perkins, Ryan, Cornow, Smith,
Blount, Clark, and Henderson among the names of settlers in
the Calcasieu River area prior to 1824. These people,
according to Perrin, settled there "in order that they might
get the benefit of the Rio Hondo claims." (84) In the upper
part of Calcasieu Parish, in what is now the parish of
Beauregard, the first settlement was made in the community
of Sugartown about 1825. Among the names found there, mostly
American, were Iles, Lyons, Moore, Shirley, Simmons, Welborn,
Young, and Corkron. (85) The decade of the 1840’s saw an
influx of settlers from many parts of the South. Such
families as the McGees, the Crafts, the Eaves, the Hickmans,
the Whiddons, and the Burks made their way to the North
Calcasieu country. (86) These people were for the most part
either small planters or farm laborers. (87) In the period
from 1848 to 1851, a colony from Hancock County, Mississippi
settled in the Sabine River country in what is now
Beauregard Parish. Among these were the Wingates, the
Frazars, the Spikes, the Mitchells, and the Slaydons. (88) A
Lake Charles newspaper, in 1895, expressed belief that many
Union soldiers in the army of occupation after the Civil
War, seeing possibilities in Calcasieu Parish, decided to
settle there. (89) Cameron Parish to the south was settled
by people who came from many parts of the Union and directly
from Europe. From Mississippi came the Phillipses, the
Armstrongs, the Sweeneys, the Doxeys, the Pattersons, and
the Reads; from Massachusetts, the Joneses and the Carrs;
from New York, the Roots; from Pennsylvania, the Wetherells;
from Ohio, the Gilletts and the Wakefields. (90) Sailors
directly from Europe attracted by the various landings along
the Calcasieu River decided to abandon the sea and take up
cheap land available in Cameron. Some entered the coastwise
trade to ports along the Gulf. Such names as Hanson, Olsen,
Jensen, Halverson, Drost, and Thompson are among those whose
original Louisiana bearers were seamen. (91) According to
Lauren Post, Americans living in the Teche region were for
some reason reluctant to migrate into the prairies. (92) The
last great influx of Americans to southwest Louisiana came
in the 1880’s and the 1890’s, partly as a result of the
completion of the first railroad through the area and partly
through the enterprising activities of such men as Sylvester
L. Cary, who advertised its advantages to the people of the
Midwest, and J. B. Watkins, who promoted a land-development
enterprise. More will be said of this phase of the
population movement in another section.
German settlers, virtually unknown to southwest Louisiana
prior to 1870 except in the sawmills in the area of Lake
Charles, made two settlements within a dozen years: one in
1870-1871 at Faquetaique, about thirty-five miles southwest
of Opelousas; and the other, some ten years later, at
Robert’s Cove, a village near the town of Rayne. Need for
labor on the rich lands of the region served as an
inducement for getting the Germans to settle in the area.
Through the efforts of an old German resident of New
Orleans, Joseph Fabacher, who made a fortune in the
distillery business before the Civil War, the first German
colony was established. (93) With an eye to the future
development of southwest Louisiana, Fabacher purchased a
large tract of land in the Faquetaique prairie as a
speculative enterprise. Soon he had a sawmill in operation.
To his disappointment the railroad by-passed his land.
Undaunted, Fabacher decided to plant a German colony on his
property and undertake the cultivation of rice. (94) The
Opelousas Journal reported somewhat later: "the first
arrival of Germans took place in January last (1871); and up
to this time there have been ninety entries of land under
the Homestead Act, comprising upwards of 14,000 acres." (95)
The colony was a success from the beginning. A letter
written by one of the settlers to the Commissioner of
Agriculture in New Orleans, William H. Harris, gives some
idea of the prosperity existing in this German colony:
About nine years ago myself and Mr.
Joseph Fabacher started the German settlement. We are
from New Orleans, but were born in Germany. I am from
Baden and Jos. Fabacher from Bavaria. Mr. Peter Klein,
Chris Rupert, John Frey followed the year following.
They had nothing when they came here and today each of
them have about 40 head of cattle and horses; they
homesteaded some land and they are doing well. Messrs.
John Linden and The. Flesh arrived here about eight
years ago. They are all doing well. They homesteaded
some land. Fred Zenter from Prussia arrived here also
about six years ago; he also homesteaded a piece of land
and is doing well. Each and every one of the parties
mentioned today have plenty of cattle and horses to do
their work with; they have planted about 40 acres of
rice, and never buy anything on credit; pay cash for
everything they need. They all raise plenty of corn,
Irish and sweet potatoes, sugar cane and oats. (96)
The other settlement, at Robert’s Cove, was made in 1882
through the inspiration of Father Peter L. Thevis, a German
Catholic priest from New Orleans, in co-operation with the
German Society of the city. (97) Ten families agreed to
emigrate from the Fatherland to the prairies of southwest
Louisiana. These were the Reiners, the Gossens, the
Zaunbrechers, the Thevises, the Hensgens, the Schlichers,
the Writs, the Tellers, and the Leonards. (98) These
immigrants procured some six hundred acres of land on Bayou
Plaquemine and proceeded to build homes from timber cut and
sawed on the land they had acquired. (99) The large families
characteristic of these immigrants meant large homes. They
constructed sturdy houses, usually two stories, and painted
them white. The architecture is not unlike the contemporary
type found in parts of Wisconsin where Germans settled.
(100)
In 1872 a Lake Charles newspaper reported that "the
little steamer Cassie, belonging to Capt. Daniel
Goos, (a German who had come to Calcasieu Parish sometime
before), arrived here from Galveston, with about fifty or
sixty German emigrants, direct from Germany," (101) It was
the belief of this newspaper that these Germans "are an
honest and industrious class of people (who) will develop
the resources of this lovely, healthy and beautiful portion
of Louisiana," and that there was ample territory to locate
at least thirty thousand families from their country. (102)
A Mr. Bal, representing the immigration society,
according to the New Orleans Times-Democrat,
purchased from the state 10,000 acres of land in the eastern
portion of Calcasieu bordering Bayou Nez Pique, and
appointed agents in Europe to encourage emigration. Five
Alsatian families were sent over. The society provided
houses "and all the necessary arrangements … for their care
and comfort." (103) These families were only the first to be
helped by the society. Bal’s plan was to have about fifty
families for his colony, each to be given 160 acres of land,
a house, two mules, and necessary agricultural implements,
with a check of $100 "as a further aid in their
undertaking." (104) The products to be grown were cotton,
rice, potatoes, and Indian corn. It was hoped that each
family could realize about $200 a year; and at the end of
six years, those who had remained were to receive title to
the land and improvements. Bal and the society he
represented were to get in compensation one-half of all the
products grown within the allotted six years. (105) Since no
more was heard of the society, it can be concluded that it
failed - or maybe never even got started.
NEGROES
A study of the Census of 1860 (see Table I) shows a
population of 42,359 for the four parishes then making up
southwest Louisiana. Of this number, 19,894, or almost half,
were Negroes. Their largest concentration was in the sugar
and cotton lands of Saint Landry and Lafayette, while to the
west in Calcasieu, only 1,476 out of a population of 5,928
were Negroes. This difference of ratio in Calcasieu can be
accounted for by the economic activity there. Most of the
people engaged in subsistence farming and cattle-raising,
which required very little outside labor. A. A. Taylor, who
made a study of Negro movements in the South in the
thirty-year period before the Civil War, indicated that the
main source of slaves in southwest Louisiana came from the
exhausted cotton lands of the southeastern states. Many of
the slaves were moved by their owners, while others were
sold to sugar and cotton planters of the area. (106)
After 1769, when there were only thirty-three slaves in
Attakapas and 116 in Opelousas (107) (and perhaps some Free
Negroes), the colored population grew steadily as the
demands for labor on the sugar and cotton plantations
increased. The Census of 1870 shows a decline in the
Negro population in the decade of the 1860’s, while the
Census of 1880 registered an increase in the 1870’s.
(108) The decline in the 1860’s can be accounted for by the
exigencies of the Civil War, when large numbers of Negroes
"were forced in the Federal ranks," and others, frightened
by propaganda that the Confederates were slaying Negroes as
they advanced, fled with Federal troops toward Berwick’s Bay
where "two thousand perished in six weeks." (109) The
increase in the 1870’s came in Calcasieu, where, presumably,
the demand for laborers in the sawmills attracted Negro
hands from other areas. The greatest increase came in the
decade of the 1880’s and the 1890’s, when the prairies were
opened to rice cultivation on a large scale. This increase
can readily be seen in the newly created parish of Acadia
(1866), which was rapidly forgoing ahead to become a rice
capital, where the population growth was from 1,629 in 1890
to 4,820 by 1900. Lafayette, Saint Landry, and Vermilion
also experienced substantial increases, caused, apparently,
by the sugar prosperity in the early 1890’s. Although the
period is marked by increases in both white and Negro
population, the white ratio was greater. A comparison of
census figures for 1860 with those of 1900 will clearly
demonstrate this fact. In 1860 the Negro population
accounted for nearly half of the total, while in 1900 it was
only about a third (see Table I).
The assertiveness of the Negro during the Reconstruction
period, combined with his unwillingness to abide by the
terms of work contracts, led the planters of the area to
advocate the immigration of white people from the North and
from Europe and Chinese Coolies. (110) The editor of an
Opelousas newspaper, in 1867, recommended joint action of
the land owners of Saint Landry to fix "a price at which
they would sell or rent land unemployed." He believed that
land prices were so exorbitant as to preclude purchases by
would-be settlers. (111)
By 1900, somewhat less than a third of all farmers in the
region were Negroes. The Census of that year
showed a farming population of 18,926, of which 5,750 or
21.6 per cent were Negroes. The same Census showed
that 8,251 farmers were share tenants. (112) Although the
Census does not indicate it, it might be assumed that
the greater number of these farmers were Negroes.
MIGRATIONS IN THE 1880’S AND 1890’S
Three factors stand out in the last great population
movement experienced by southwest Louisiana in the last
twenty years of the century: the extension of the railroad
through the area, the generous land laws enacted by the
State and Federal governments, and the foresight of several
men, specifically Sylvester L. Cary of Iowa, and Jabez B.
Watkins of Kansas. By 1900 the population had more than
doubled from 76,572 to 154,024.
As early as 1873, Samuel H. Lockett, who made a
geographical study of the area, made recommendations
regarding immigration and land utilization. He suggested
advertising to the world the great potential wealth of the
state with the idea of encouraging white immigrants
to settle there; and using the alluvial bluff lands for the
growing of grapes and the prairies for the grazing of
improved breeds of horses and cattle. (113) Lockett’s
recommendation bore fruit, but his land utilization ideas
did not follow the pattern he suggested; instead, the
prairies were used for rice production, while the sea marsh
never succeeded in growing grain.
The interest of the State in fostering immigration in the
period following the Civil War was early manifested in a
legislative act in 1866 providing for a bureau of
immigration with the purpose of encouraging Europeans to
come to Louisiana. The bureau was authorized to send agents
to foreign countries to advertise the merits and resources
of the State and to aid immigrants in all ways possible.
Agents were to keep the bureau informed on the immigrants
planning to sail. (114) Subsequent legislation increased the
scope of the bureau by combining with it the bureau of
agriculture with the stipulation that all salable
agricultural lands, whether public or private, be described
and the records kept in the principal office in New Orleans
for immigrants to examine. (115) The legislature, in 1884,
separated the two departments and provided that the bureau
of immigration be composed of a commissioner appointed by
the governor with the approval of the senate. (116) The
Opelousas Courier enthusiastically called upon every
landowner in the State to send descriptions of available
lands to the central office. (117)
As early as 1868, an immigration society had been formed
in Opelousas, but "died a short time after its organization
from neglect." (118) Later, in 1881, another effort was made
by a group of Opelousas citizens. The purpose of the new
organization was to "collect and compile statistics of
health, population, lands," and "whatever may be of interest
to immigrants or capitalists." (119) Similarly, Vermilion
Parish organized an immigration association in 1878. (120)
Governor Murphy J. Foster issued a proclamation in1893,
inviting the parishes of the State to send delegates to an
immigration convention, "to impress upon our people the
advantages of inducing intelligent settlers to take up the
vast areas of magnificent lands now lying fallow and
abounding in undeveloped riches, and of the importance of
developing the material and agricultural possibilities of
our State." The governor trusted "that all will actively
interest themselves in this undertaking." (121)
By 1870 the population of the area was showing a steady
increase, but the greatest advance came after 1879 when the
Louisiana Western Railroad began to lay a road bed in
southwest Louisiana. Hitherto, the company’s tracks went as
far as Morgan City; the rest of the journey to Texas had to
be covered by stagecoach overland or by schooner around the
Gulf of Mexico. The gap between Morgan City and Houston was
closed in 1880, and the first excursion went through on
April 7, 1880. (122) A New Orleans newspaper reported
sometime before this event that the completion of this
railroad "shows very plainly the direction in which the tide
of immigration is setting. The parishes along the
line….(which) have hitherto been without adequate
communication with the outside world will soon have fine
transportation facilities, and will, therefore, possess
every feature likely to attract the immigrant. (123)
Considerable land was opened to the settler under the
various land acts passed by the Federal government. Two acts
passed March 2, 1849 (124) and September 28, 1850 (125)
donated to The State of Louisiana all lands subject to tidal
or alluvial overflow and mounting to 9,195,675 acres. (126)
This acreage, constituting a large area in the parishes of
Vermilion, Calcasieu, and Cameron, was adapted to the
culture of rice and subject to a fixed price of twenty-five
cents an acre as provided by State law. (127) Later, in
1861, the Homestead Act made it possible for a settler to
get a grant of 160 acres of land, while a similar acreage
was made available under the Timber Culture Act passed in
1873.
Despite the liberal land laws, however, it is
inconceivable that southwestern Louisiana could have
developed so rapidly after 1880 without the enterprising
initiative of several farsighted men. One of these, Jabez B.
Watkins, from Lawrence, Kansas, backed by English capital in
1883, "purchased most of the prairie and marsh land
available from the Sabine River east to the Vermilion Parish
line, and from the Gulf up to the timberline. The purchase
contained nearly one and one-half million acres." (128)
Originally intended as a timber-buying enterprise, the
company reclaimed as much of the marshes as was feasible for
the growing of rice. (129) In 1884 Watkins’ brother-in-law,
Alexander Thomson, professor of mechanical engineering at
Iowa State College, joined in the enterprise, along with
Seaman A. Knapp, former president of Iowa State College and
a former resident of Vinton, Iowa, "to investigate the
agricultural resources of Southwest Louisiana…and help bring
in settlers." (130) As it turned out Knapp’s greatest
contribution to the enterprise, to be discussed later, was
in the development of the rice industry in southwest
Louisiana.
Among the settlers who were induced to leave their
Midwestern homes were a number of families from Vinton,
Iowa, who purchased land and laid out the towns of Vinton
and Iowa, Louisiana. Many who had been merchants built
stores in Lake Charles. "Thus, the families of Horridge,
Loree, Eddy, Rock, Kinney, and others were known as the
Vinton colony." (131) Kansas followed the Iowans – the
Kings, the Webers, the Clines, and the Silings. (132) These
Midwesterners were in the vanguard of thousands who were to
follow within the next few years.
As a promotional devise to induce migration, Watkins made
the following offer:
To the ten first acceptable
applicants that meet our conditions, we make the
following offer: He may select 100 or 230 acres of
the southern half of any section of land owned by
this company, not less than two nor more than five
miles from a railroad station, we will designate, at
$5.00 per acre, and eleven years’ time in which to
pay for the land.
As soon as he has settled upon
and improved the same we will furnish the material
to fence the remainder of that section, and furnish
him 25 mares, 20 cows, 10 brood sows and 50 ewes,
and will provide for the breeding to improved males
for one-half the increase. The mares will be (bred)
to the best jacks and stallions on our Stud Farm.
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