THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA AND THE NEUTRAL TERRITORY by Sam H. Jones

THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA AND THE NEUTRAL TERRITORY

Sam H. Jones

(transcribed by Leora White, 2008)

Speech made to the Retired Teachers of

Calcasieu and Cameron Parishes

April 18, 1970

For lo, these many years, our children have been force fed the liberal view of history. And we have been more than ripe for a book by which we could learn the real story of our heritage. So, we have needed a work like The Legacy of Freedom, from whose pages we could walk across the centuries, and meet the “men and ideas that have shaped our beliefs.”

We have needed to know, in all its pristine force and beauty, “the glory that was Greece,” and to be there as that ancient land brought forth men whose souls were as rugged and beautiful as the soil from which they sprang. We have needed to be with Socrates as he drank the deadly hemlock rather than give in to the liberals of his day. We have needed to sense Aristotle’s awe as he applied his newly worked out rules of logic to discover that only a limited, constitutional government is moral. And to see Marx refuted more than two thousand years before his birth, as Plato insists upon the values beyond materialism.

We have needed to know “the grandeur that was Rome,” and to cheer as Cicero uncovers the left-wing plot of Catiline before the Roman Senate, a warning that came just in time. We have mourned as the old Roman virtues of honor, truth and dignity fell before the screechings of mobs degraded by welfare. But even in the night of Roman tyranny, there is light. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca formulate philosophies with more than a slight resemblance to Christianity, although Seneca may never have heard of Christ.

We have needed to know more vividly the story of the ancient Jews and the early Christians. We have needed to be spiritually there when Moses delivers the law from the mountaintop to his people. In our mind’s eye we have probed the origins of Christianity in Judaism. And we have watched the history of mankind as Constantine marked his epochal victory with the cross at the Milvian Bridge. We saw monasteries spring up, and with them the life of prayer, scholarship and community that preserved the great works of Greece and Rome, of Judaism and early Christianity, until, at long last, the light broke through the Dark Ages.

We saw the great Augustine, first as a libertine and then as great saint and thinker, who underscored the things that are not Caesar’s.

We saw the medieval world, with Thomas Aquinas and Richard the Lionhearted – the age of scholars – the flower of chivalry. We saw the people capture “the spirit of the age” in the story of the saint, Thomas Aquinas, who was called “the dumb ox” and became Christendom’s teacher.

We saw on the pages of history the “Renaissance and the Reformation.” The tumultuous struggles of Europe during her new birth. We saw Machiavelli spin his webs of lies and deceit. We witnessed the battles of Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII and St. Ignatius Loyola. What were their beliefs and motives? What did they win for freedoms cause? All these are lessons of history which some men declare as nothing.

We saw The Age of Reason – “The Age of Revolution,” sometimes ending at the guillotine. We saw the French and American revolutions. And some of us have not yet discerned the differences between the two, which the liberals have worked so hard to obscure.

We saw the rise of the grandiose American experiment - whence came “liberty at last.” “Equality and Democracy – two ideas alien to the American Republic.” We saw the creative forces of men, unleashed as never before - thanks to the word “capitalism” that is so hated in certain circles. We saw the advent of American federalism – one of man’s greatest political inventions.

A few of us, like myself, lived in the 19^th century - on the surface a time of peace and plenty. But we all know, in our hearts, that the “red vermin” are gnawing at the foundations. We saw the Communists open their war to destroy all that is decent in man and his world.

But there are those who fight back for freedom. There are those who witness the cancer eating at our vitals; in this twentieth Century there is Communism, Socialism, Nazism, Welfare State-ism, all of whom war against freedom and civilization, as we know it.

Most of what I have just outlined to you comes from the fertile mind and brilliant pen of George C. Roche, III (in his book called Legacy of Freedom), and it should be required reading for all Americans today who would perpetuate the way of life established for us by the pioneers of America.

And since I have mentioned the pioneers of America, it might be well at this point, for me to give you an outline of the remainder of my speech. In the first place I would like to discuss the things that differentiate America from all other nations on earth. Then, in the second place, I would like to talk for a few minutes about the unique position the State of Louisiana occupies in the American Union. Finally, I would like to talk a bit about the Neutral Territory - or the Rio Hondo Strip - or the Free State of Sabine - in which we live.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Let me, at the outset, discuss the governmental features which differentiate the United States from every other nation on the face of the earth. We should begin with the known fact that, prior to the 19^th century, the almost universal form of government was a monarchy, or monolithic, or dictatorial form of government. This, of course, is totally different from the government the United States employs.

Later on, there developed the parliamentary form of government, controlled largely by the legislative branch. Then, there have been a few instances where the judicial branch predominated. The principal example of this was the government of ancient Israel, where the Sanhedrin - a sort of council of judges - was the dominating force in the government.

But the founding fathers of this country did not want a dominating executive, or a dominating parliament, or a dominating judiciary. So they devised and confected something new under the sun; a system of government whereby there would be three entirely equal, independent and coordinate branches of government - namely, (1) the legislative, (2) the executive, and (3) the judicial, each of which would be a check and balance against the possible abuses of the other two.

But the wisdom of the founding fathers did not stop here. They provided a second system of checks and balances, in the form of three levels of government: namely (1) the national, (2) the state, and (3) the local, each of which was dominant in its own geographical area.

Then to carry the idea of checks and balances still further, they provided such a system in the field of education. We have almost gotten away from the dual system provided for public schools and colleges; but they also provided for private and church-supported schools and colleges to act as a check against political schools which would try to indoctrinate the minds of the youth of our land, and to warp and mold then after the corrupt thoughts and philosophy of the powers that be. Even President Nixon is now saying that should any single system - public or private - ever acquire a complete monopoly over the education of our children, the result would neither be good for that school system nor good for the country.

So they had set up bars against the establishment of a state religion; they had thus provided religious freedom. They had provided a duel system to insure educational freedom, as well as political freedom. But looking at their handiwork, they found that there was one thing missing - and that was absolute economic freedom. Thus, they set about to establish the right every individual to take the products of his own fields and to manufacture from these raw materials every manner of consumer product known to man.

And, over the years, they have enacted laws and statutes to guarantee this basic right. And we have placed upon a pedestal the symbol of “private enterprise,” so that this land and its people should never become the indentured slaves of an all-powerful government. But that Americans should forever be economically free to progress as far as their abilities and initiatives permit.

And thus thousands of Horatio Algers have been created by virtue of this “economic freedom,” and the American dream has been repeated, over and over again, from the most humble walks of life. And no man has been barred the right to progress from rags to riches, during his own lifetime, so long as he had the ability, the education and the determination to make his way to the top.

The cycle of man’s effort is to renounce the Caesars, the despots and the dictators, and to take government into his own hands - all after a process of evolution or revolution. This leads to some type of representative government. And as Benjamin Franklin said of America: We have a republic, if we can keep it. Then, after a period of deterioration this evolves, or deteriorates, according to each person’s idea, into a democracy.

Then the politicians take over and spend the substance of the nation, and the wealth that has been accumulated by the more industrious is spent to satisfy the whims of the shiftless. These latter, unfortunately, are not willing to abide by nature and nature’s God, and to use hard work and thrift to gain the material things of life. But they seek the benevolence of an all-powerful government that has lost its balance, and is willing to buy the people’s favor with bread and circuses.

The great historian, Toynbee, tells us that of the 26 genuine civilizations of all time, all but one - our own - are either dead and buried or are in various degrees of annihilation or assimilation. So no civilization is immune from extinction. Some of us date our knowledge of the rise and fall of civilization with those which rose and fell in ancient Asia Minor. But for purposes of this discussion we might confine ourselves to the Greeks, the Romans, and possibly the Britons.

Isocrates, writing 350 years before Christ, was describing the sad days upon which Greece had fallen, when he said: "The poorer citizens have captured the government, and have voted the property of the rich into the coffers of the state for distribution among the voters. Politicians (that strange breed who sometimes develop to be vultures) have strained their ingenuity to discover new sources of public revenue. They have doubled the indirect taxes: *** they continued the extraordinary taxes of war into time of peace. They have broadened perilously the field of the income tax, as well as the property tax.”

How strangely familiar this sounds to what has happened in this country since the days of the New Deal. Perhaps there are some of you who have read the more recent “Edict of Diocletian,” Emperor of Rome, issued some 650 years later, when, to save a falling empire, he tried strong government. He destroyed local autonomy and home rule. He fixed wages and regulated prices. All this sounds strangely like some things that have happened in our own lifetime, except that Diocletian decreed death as the penalty for those who defied his edict. But even the threat of death did not make the system work in Rome.

Many of you remember that clause in President Kennedy’s inaugural address when he said: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country.” Well, you may be surprised to know that this was first uttered in different words concerning the glory of Greece, when later one of the world’s commentators, Edward Gibbon, prior to 1800*, wrote these words:

When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them; when the freedom the wished most was

freedom from responsibility; then Athens ceased to be free, and was never free again.

Are we, my friends, following the same road of falling empires? And will our fate be that of Greece and Rome and possibly Briton? Are we saying what Gibbon said, in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, that:

In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security; they wanted a comfortable life; and they lost it all - security, comfort and freedom.

It seems to me that we are dangerously close to that moment in history. But we must take the optimistic view and not the pessimistic.

*1787

THE STATE OF LOUISIANA

Let me now talk to you for a while about the part Louisiana has played in the greater sage of America.

We have made a contribution to the American nation not equaled by any state of the Union. To use the words of James Street, this state of ours, culturally speaking, is not just one state, but:

This dominion of pine and palm, of red hills and black bottoms is a dozen. Culturally, Louisiana is a potpourri, a mosaic of Europe, Britain, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Far East, Africa, and traditional English America.

Street sums up Louisiana’s legacy best when he says: “She’s the strange sister of the family, this state of Louisiana - the Gallic one, never quite accepted in the South, and yet never denied, because she is so rich, and so different, and so much fun.”

She draws from the wit and humor of the Latin, the drive of the Anglo-Saxon, the plodding fatalism of the Slav, the sturdiness of the Teuton, and the primitive contributions of the African jungle. Her land has been conquered or traversed by the swashbuckling Spanish conquistador, the intrepid French explorer, the tough and determined Scotch-Irish pioneer, and the wayward Portuguese seafarer. All these met here the American Indian - whose home, thousands of years ago, was the mainland of Asia.

Our developers came from the Iberian Peninsula, from the Canary Islands, from France and her Canadian Provinces, from Britain and her far-flung empire, from the islands of the Caribbean, and from the early American Colonials from Great Britain, and her tough sons and daughters of two centuries of hardships and experience in the conquest and colonization of the Atlantic seaboard of North America.

We are a happy and lighthearted people. Yet we are a serious and determined people. Our Carnival season and our fairs and festivals remind us of the former, of the gaiety and happiness which are two of our greatest legacies. Still we are, strangely, the best churchgoers of the nation.

I shall later on hit a few of the highlights of our tremendous accomplishments. These will demonstrate the intelligence, the talent and the outstanding leadership of Louisiana in all walks of life, which have been demonstrated in Louisiana’s generations of the past.

A land which has experienced the devastation of plague and pestilence, of flood and storm, of war and the heel of the conqueror, of unbelievable power politics and rotten corruption, has something burned and etched into its character and soul from which it will never completely escape. An example of the

byproducts of such a history is the romantic, glamorous, oft-times brutal life of Jim Bowie. But remember he died a hero’s death. And he, and a little band of gallants at the Alamo, brought Texas as a new nation into being - and eventually into the American Union.

Then there were some less admirable characters who walked our lands, and across the pages of our history. There was Estabanico, the Black Moor of Azimur. There was “Bloody O’Reilly,” who with iron hand and mailed fist left a shameful page on the history books of our state. There was Lafitte, the controversial pirate of Barataria.

There was John Murrell, “The Preacher Robber,” who had his chief headquarters in the “Neutral Territory,” or “Sabine Free State,” just to the north of us, but a few miles. It was he who traded in stolen slaves, preached fiery sermons to his victims shortly before taking their goods and chattels, and then their lives. And there was “the beast Ben Butler,” whose infamy during Reconstruction sank to a new low in military annals.

There are the stories of voodoo, bayou ghosts, plantation romances, bloody battles, and equally fiery fiestas; all wrapped in Spanish moss and magnolia blossoms.

As Hamilton Basso once wrote, Louisiana “could hardly live down her past, even if she wanted to. And its legend, rank and luxuriant as one of its gardens in June, has been woven into the larger legend of America.

But it is not so much the Louisiana of the past of which I would speak. It is the Louisiana of the future. Ours is a fabulous state, with even more fabulous potentials. One of my contemporaries painted the word picture admirably when he wrote:

Out of the river God's cornucopia pours as diverse a wealth as can be found anywhere in all the world. It comes from the tropical sea, and flowing rivers; from sun-blessed farmlands and forests, from the bowels of the earth; from the ingenious minds and skillful hands of a new industrial surging. The Louisiana cornucopia in which men once believed, and then despaired of, and now with good reason, believe in again.

This is the Louisiana of which I would speak.

I firmly believe that our state holds greater promise then any other commonwealth of the Union. A little more than a century ago - that is, in 1850 - it was the richest state in both per capita income and per capita wealth, including slaves. Its commerce was the most extensive. Its banking facilities were the greatest. Its agricultural success was a matter of amazement throughout the world. There had been established here, both from our Anglo-Saxon and Gallic forebears, a culture and civilization seldom, if ever, equaled in a new land.

Today our basic wealth, what with our increasing mineral reserves and our growing forests, is infinitely greater then it was in 1850 - the year of our greatest economic development. In that year Louisiana’s per capita exceeded the national figure by 74%. Our educational facilities and technical training are today the best we have ever known. Our economic horizon shines far brighter than it did in the antebellum days.

Out 32 million acres constitute the richest piece of real estate in the world. Our advantages and potentials approach the unbelievable in both versatility and quantity. We have in our hands the means, the tools, and the resources to bring to full fruition the magnificent destiny nature intended for this land.

I had hoped to tell you about our famous engineers, our antebellum agriculturists and scientists like Etienne DeBore and Valcour Aime; our world traders, our financiers, who for a period of seven years outstripped the financiers of Wall Street; our statesmen, who walked arm in arm with the great rulers of this land, and of the world; our religious leaders; and our educators.

I wanted to discuss with you our world renowned architects; our medical leaders, who gave to the world the cures for tropical diseases; our military leaders, among the greatest in the nation; our historians; our philanthropists; men and women of the literary world; and lastly our attorneys who gave to the world an entirely new system of laws. This system was based on broad codes of principles - instead of specific acts and statutes. It is recognized by fair-minded scholars as far superior to the common law of England used by other states, and is deeply based and ingrained as a part of Louisiana’s codal system of civil laws.

THE FREE STATE OF SABINE

Let us now talk about the Neutral Territory, variously called “No Man’s Land,” “The Rio Hondo Strip.” And “The Free State of Sabine.”

The boundary between the ancient governments of Louisiana and Texas is one of the bitterest and longest disputed controversies in the long history of the Western Hemisphere - if not in the world. France was the apparent original owner on the east; and Spain was the apparent original owner on the west. And - since Spain acquired from France the French claim on the east in 1762, and continued to own and occupy the same until the retrocession by Spain to France in 1803, a period of 41 years - it would seem that this had the effect of settling any boundary dispute. But such was not the case.

With the reacquisition by France of the area to the east, the old boundary dispute was simply reinstated. And while France retained title for but a brief interval, and then conveyed her rights to the United States in the same year she reacquired, this only had the effect of substituting the United States as Spain’s adversary in the boundary dispute, in the same year - that is, 1803.

It is generally considered that there were a total of three treaties, and one boundary agreement, involved in settling the boundary dispute. These treaties were ratified as follows: (1) by Spain and the United States in 1819; (2) by Mexico and the United States in 1828; and (3) by the Republic of Texas and the United States in 1838; and then the boundary agreement between the Republic of Texas and the United States extending over the period from 1838 to 1841.

What is generally overlooked is a fourth agreement entered into by Spain and the United States in the year 1806. Ross Phares, in his book Reverend Devil, a biography of John A. Murrell, narrates the history of the fourth treaty, as follows:

The two opposite generals (Spain and the United States) got together and temporarily settled the matter by agreeing that the territory between the Sabine and the Arroyo Hondo should be neutral ground. Their respective governments ratified the treaty. And in this manner both nations saved faces without going to war.

So, it may be said that this treaty of 1806 had the effect of legalizing the illegal “Free State of Sabine.” It was described as being about 50 miles wide and extended from the Gulf of Mexico on the south to an uncertain line above Many on the north. One document shows a straight line running just west of the Rio Roxo (Red River) fairly paralleling the river, starting from the northeast corner of the strip to a point intersecting the Mermentau, or Rio Mexicano, near its mouth. But there is no certainty that this was the true boundary line. And certainly this line nowhere near coincides with the Calcasieu.

Both the north and the southeast boundaries as actually used were indefinite. But the treaties between the United States on the one side, and Spain, Mexico and the Republic of Texas, on the other, finally had the effect of ending all claims of the ancient governments of Texas and Louisiana beyond the Sabine River, and of fixing the west bank of the Sabine Pass, Lake and River as the boundary between the contending parties.

That is, it had the effect of fixing the boundary with finality until a few weeks ago, when the United States Supreme Court opened up the old wound again, and held that Texas had the right to sue Louisiana to fix the boundary line anew. Maybe that was because Texas has Republican representatives in Congress and Louisiana has none. But the United States Supreme Court has been wrong so many times than it has been right, in recent years, that we may consider that the mere fact that is decided with Texas in this preliminary matter is good proof that Louisiana is right and Texas is wrong.

The fact that the strip, according to Ross Phares, was not more than 50 miles wide, one traveling from the Sabine east through Lake Charles would carry him within 5 miles of Welsh, or 25 miles beyond the Calcasieu - or far beyond the 50 mile strip. And one traveling from the Sabine northeast through Leesville would carry him within 9 or 10 miles northeast of Leesville, and only 25 or 30 miles from the Sabine; so it is impossible for the Calcasieu to be the Rio Hondo. As a matter of fact, the Rio Hondo is a short and small creek which empties into the Red River.

A fact little recited, or dwelt upon by historians and researchers, is that the Mermentau is labeled on ancient maps as the “Rio Mexicano.” This seems indicative of some claim either by Spain’s Province of Mexico, or by Mexico in its own sovereign capacity, after it gained its independence from Spain in the early 1820’s. It is as fairly certain as a fact can be that while there was a “Rio Hondo” marking the boundary in the north portion of “The Sabine Free State,” it was but a short and small creek - near Provencal - and only a creek a few miles long.

The best authority, it seems to me, is Thomas Jefferson. He describes “the unquestioned bounds” of the Louisiana Purchase on the west as “beginning on the Gulf and the west bank of the Rio Mexicano, or the high land to the east thereof, thence running north along the meanders of said stream until it gains the high ground” - at which point it turns northwest and ultimately intersects the Red River, separating Texas from Oklahoma.

An ancient Spanish coin was found a few years ago near Oakdale, Louisiana. And the American State Papers show that Spanish land Grants were made east of the Sabine long after the Louisiana Purchase, penetrating deep into the Sabine Free State. All this indicates that there was no question of the claims, legitimate or not, of Spain and Mexico, far to the east of the Sabine River.

The Sabine Free State, to quote Ross Phares, “was a bastard state that owed no nation homage, and held the respect of none. It was ruled entirely by outlaws, and there was no law except the law of might.” To quote Phares further:

No flag waved over this ‘No Man’s Land;’ no law was binding. Soon the riffraff of the earth came pouring in, outcasts of all countries, fugitives from justice, thieves, robbers, desperadoes of all varieties. It was an outlaw’s Utopia; for once within the bounds of the neutral zone he was free of pursuit. No law could touch him here; he might laugh at all laws.

It was a desperate, reckless crew that flocked here for protection, and to live upon the commerce that passed through their state. They robbed and pillaged and murdered to their heart’s content, and preyed upon one another as wild beasts that know no law. They made capital of the jealous dispute between Spain and the United States, and dared anyone to molest them.

There are two observations I would like to make for the benefit of those of you who, like myself, take pride in your homeland, and your forebears.

(1) The first is that, although we became a part of the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and a state of the Union in 1812, we did not come under the reign of terror I have described until about 1820 - or one year after the treaty with Spain in 1819. It was about that time that Sugartown and Big Woods were established and commenced their civilizing influence of the lower part of the territory.

(2) The second is that the southern part of the Sabine Free State - the part in which we live - was never to any considerable extent really and factually a de facto part of the Sabine Free State. And the outposts of civilization at Sugartown and Big Woods commenced their civilizing influence in 1820, as I said, just one year after the signing of the treaty with Spain in 1819.

We were protected by the military outpost from Fort Jessup, a few miles east of Many, which established Cantonment Atkinson, at the northeast corner of Lake Charles. This outpost remained at Lake Charles until 1831. Then the two companies detailed from Fort Jessup were withdrawn from Lake Charles and reassigned to Fort Jessup, never to return.

If we consider history as “what has happened” during the existence of a nation, or a state, or a community, then these were the things that happened to the Neutral Territory of the Sabine Free State during its existence. First let us remind you that “The Story of Louisiana” is one of the most fascinating and fabulous sagas in the history of the Americas.

Many flags- I figure eleven - have flown over the land and under each have occurred courageous movements, tragic and joyous events and commonplace but interesting incidents to everyday living. Here is no everyday state story. And if we limit these happenings to the Neutral Territory, of which we are a part, then these are some of the highlights of this legal, yet illegal, territory called The Sabine Free State.

1) In the first place Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda first set eyes upon which is now the State of Louisiana when he found the mouth of the Mississippi in 1519, a century before Plymouth Rock.

2) Then Narvaez came in 1528, landing on the west coast of Florida, to be supplanted by Cabeza de Vaca, a few of whose followers traversed our fabulous Neutral Territory 442 years ago.

3) Of de Vaca’s survivors two were the most fabulous characters in Louisiana - namely: (1) de Vaca himself and (2) Estabanico, the Black Moor of Azimur, who was probably the slave of Cabeza de Vaca.

4) Narvaez, with his lieutenants de Vaca, Castillo, Dorantes, and their slave Estabanico, with 300 others, set sail from Cuba with adequate ships, horses, arms and supplies, but they lost everything by the time they had reached the Mississippi; and from that point they were forced to travel by foot.

If I read correctly the man which is a suggestion of the “line of travel of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions” I must conclude that he crossed the Sabine at about the boundary line between the present-day parishes of Calcasieu and Beauregard.

This journey by ship, barge, horse and foot from Florida to the Pacific Ocean started out with 300 men ended with four. It lasted for a period of eight years.

5) Incredibly, de Vaca and his companions were able to survive disease, storm, brutality, calamity, disaster and hunger. Nothing like the journey of de Vaca has ever been accomplished before or since in the history of mankind. It still lives as one of the most impelling narratives that enriches the pages of history.

6) Inspired, no doubt, by the exploits of de Vaca, DeSoto, following de Vaca’s example, set sail about ten years later from Cuba, under the sponsorship of King Charles V of Spain. His entourage consisted of ten vessels, which embarked from Cuba in 1583. His expedition was a gallant company of Portuguese hidalgos, or lesser noblemen, Spanish cavaliers, and Catholic priests.

He had a thousand men, 350 horses, twice as many swine, a pack of vicious war dogs, and substantial armament for the conduct of war.

De Soto married Isabel, the daughter of his patron, Pedrarias, who also joined the crusade with a retinue of maids. All this De Soto financed out of a personal fortune of a billion dollars, derived from his Peruvian spoils. It crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas and on into Louisiana along the northern part of the Rio Hondo Strip.

7) Many things indicate that De Soto traversed Northwest Louisiana and into the Neutral Territory. And, for whatever it is worth, we have the fact that a northwest Louisiana parish is named “De Soto.”

8) We have also the story of La Salle, but he cannot be considered a discoverer or founder of Louisiana, although he “was one of the most remarkable men that history presents to us.” Moreover, he came, not out of France or Spain, but out of Canada. And notwithstanding his endeavors, France itself appears to have relied on the discoveries and foundings of the brothers Iberville and Bienville, whose family name was LeMoyne.

France did nothing from the date of the expedition of De Soto, after his death in 1542, for a period of 157 years. There was no activity by either France or Spain toward the subjugation and colonization of the Territory of Louisiana for this period.

9) Then Iberville, of France, appeared upon the scene and founded “New France.” After several efforts toward the selection of a “capital” at Fort Maurepas, New Orleans, and Biloxi, Mobile was finally selected. And France was finally in possession of its “New France,” known to us as “The Louisiana Territory.” The year of its birth was 1699.

10) It was left to Bienville to establish the City of New Orleans on the Mississippi River, a settlement which is now the Vieux Carre or “Old Square” of the present modern city of New Orleans.

11) In 1714 the French governor, Cadillac, called upon Louis Antoine Juchereau de St. Denis to establish a post on the Red River in Northwest Louisiana. This he did at the site of present-day Natchitoches, which lasted for 158 years.

12) In the meantime a Spanish presidio was constructed near what is no the Town of Robeline. Further to the west, Fort Jessup was constructed to protect the U. S. interests against the ever-increasing number of outlaws coming to and going from the Neutral Territory; and likewise to make safe the western portion of the United States’ holdings.

13) For a period of 50 years - that is, from 1722 to 1772 - the Presidio de los Adaes at Robeline became the capital city of the Spanish province of Tejas, or Texas, supplanting San Antonio. It was during part of this time that disturbances and crime began to mount. This was due to the unsettled conditions.

The purchase of Louisiana by the United States renewed the boundary dispute, and the brawls, fights, quarrels, treachery, and open warfare.

14) Since John A. Murrell, one of the most dastardly who ever lived in the Neutral Territory was not born until 1800, his life of crime did not begin until the 1820’s, but it lasted - in deep, dark crime - until 1834. He led a fast and furious life; and he did in 14 years what it would have taken a man of lesser audacity, ability, corruption, venality, and ingenuity twice that number of years to accomplish. He came close to becoming “The King of the Outlaws.” He set up headquarters in a huge cave near the foot of the highest hill in the region. It was a natural marvel. It is now long since destroyed by some freak of nature, but its memory of crime and corruption lingers on.

15) Then there was a man of far greater stature than Murrell who sought to use this territory as a base of operations. I refer to Aaron Burr, some of whose collateral descendants still live in the Neutral Territory - and who sought to build out of the Louisiana Purchase and the Spanish Southwest a great empire, but his life came to an ignoble end.

16) The wonder is that the evil men who played one great country against another could not see the natural advantages the Neutral Territory legitimately offered, for honest men to engage in honest endeavors. There was a solid forest of magnificent pines stretching all the way from Lake Charles to Shreveport. There were the salt domes, visible to the human eye. There were the huge deposits of sulphur, buried deep in the bowels of the earth.

        One tract of 50 acres of land 15 miles from Lake Charles became the second most profitable investment ever made in America - exceeded only by the original stock of the Ford Motor Company. In it was sulphur, salt, oil and natural gas. The sulphur, alone, paid a 100% dividend per month for 20 years, with special dividends in between. Then it started producing petroleum and natural gas, and with the advent of chemical industries, it commenced to produce salt brine, which will continue into the future as far as man can envision.

        All told, that 50 acres of land has produced and will produce a total of 300 million dollars in returns. And it is only one of several along the Gulf Coast.

        The southern part of the strip was destined to be the proving ground of the most highly mechanized farming operation known to man. Here was the home and headquarters of the American rice industry. The middle and northern portion of the strip has already produced two crops of pine trees; and we are witnessing the growth of the third to feed our paper mills and plywood plants. And when we consider that we can grow a pine tree in this strip in 40% the time that it required in Scandinavia or Canada, we have a land that is nothing short of fantastic and fabulous.

        And speaking of trees (and I am still planting them);

“What do we do when plant a tree?

We plant the ship which crosses the sea.

What do we do when we plant the tree?

We plant the houses for you and me.

What do we so when we plant the tree?

A thousand things for you and me.”

And these include paper, pulp, liner board, and cardboard containers; yes, and more than a thousand chemicals.

One great scientist said: That country is rich which has the hydrocarbons of the pine tree; and the natural gas from which, in combination with water and air, more than 25 thousand commercial products can be made.

Throughout the Neutral Territory can be grown the soybean- after rice, the most valuable Asiatic crop know to man. And this country, percentage-wise, is already the greatest exporter of both rice and soybeans in the world.

And when you consider the soil-improving qualities of the soybean, it does take a mental wizard to predict that that part of this land not planted to pine trees will become, with its newly improved grazing lands, one of the greatest cattle countries in America. And in this connection it will require one-tenth, or less, of the land to graze a cow that is required in the so-called cattle lands of the Southwest.

There are places in “The Sabine Free State” where there are underground water supplies that, at their present rates of consumption, will not be exhausted in a hundred years, even if no additional supplies are added by nature. Not to mention the surface water supplies, now being imposed in areas like Toledo Lake. There are magnificent water transportation facilities. There are both commercial and sports fishing of mammoth proportions. In many respects we have the greatest hunting grounds in the Western Hemisphere. This is, indeed, the sportsmen’s paradise.

The early days of this country, commencing about 1820, were rough, indeed. Our forebears had no cook stoves, so they cooked in the fireplace. They had no cloth for clothing, so they wove their own by the spinning wheel. They had no salt, so they traveled, by wagon or house back, once a year, to Bienville Parish, then the nearest known salt deposit, for their year’s supply.

I had wanted to tell you of the life of the early pioneers, if for no other reason because I have a sentimentality about these pioneers because I was descended from them, and it know the story of their trials and tribulations. I know what they went through. But time does not permit.

An finally, I say, with as much modesty as I am capable of, that I happen to be the only Governor of Louisiana elected from “The Neutral Territory,” or “The Sabine Free State,” in the 158 years of American statehood. I know the values of adversity, because I have experienced the benefits there from.

Before the white man came the Indians were a proud and resourceful people. They lived by hunting and each village had thousands of acres of hunting grounds from which to kill their game, and thus keep body and soul together. When the white man came, the prolific hunting grounds began to disappear. By the early 1830’s the Indians of this area were a miserable lot: most of them belonged to the Caddo Confederacy.

Beauregard Parish had five known villages: (1) one on Indian Branch near Sugartown; (2) one at the old Welborn Place on the road to Dry Creek; (3) one at the mouth of the Anacoco; (4) one on my grandfather’s farm at Merryville; and (5) the fifth were probably Quachata Indians, who transferred to the Creek or Muskogean, on or near the old Mims Place in Southwest Beauregard Parish. Bear in mind that there were six main divisions of the Creek Indians, and about five minor divisions. Remember also, that in the Calcasieu, the Attakapas were found.

It is interesting to note at this point that, contrary to their customs, the Creeks intermarried with both the whites and the blacks. This could account for some of the mixed breeds in Southwest Beauregard and Northwest Calcasieu parishes.

With the treaty between the Caddo and Confederacy and the United States, in 1835, the Indians began to disappear beyond the Sabine River, and before long they were nearly all gone.

I have talked to you of the past. Let me now say in conclusion that the best is still ahead. And quoting Shakespeare, the greatest poet of them all:

“Sweet are the uses of adversity

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

Materials in Archives and Special Collections Department do not circulate.

Library Home Page | Archives Home Page | Archives Collection Page