The Quapaw The
Quapaw reached their historical territory, the area of the
confluence of the
Arkansas and
Mississippi rivers, at least by the mid-17th century. The Illinois (
Illinois Confederation) and other
Algonquian-speaking peoples to the northeast referred to these people as the '
or ', referring to geography and meaning "land of the downriver people". As French explorers
Jacques Marquette and
Louis Jolliet encountered and interacted with the Illinois before they did the Quapaw, they adopted this
exonym for the more westerly people. In their language, they referred to them as
Arcansas. English-speaking settlers who arrived later in the region adopted the name used by the French, and adapted it to English spelling conventions. In 1686, at the request of the Quapaw, the French commander
Henri de Tonti built a post near the mouth of the Arkansas River, which was later known as the
Arkansas Post. This was the very first European settlement along the Mississippi River. This settlement was established at the Quapaw's design and request, primarily because the Quapaw wanted European firearms to use against their enemies who had already received them from the British. Tonti arranged for a resident
Jesuit missionary to be assigned there, but apparently without result. About 1697, a
smallpox epidemic killed the greater part of the women and children of two villages. In 1727, the Jesuits, from their house in
New Orleans, again took up the missionary work. The Quapaw were staunch allies of the French and backed them in regional conflicts. In 1729, the Quapaw allied with French colonists against the
Natchez during the Natchez War, which was also referred to as the
Natchez Revolt. This conflict ultimately involved multiple tribes allying with the French against the Natchez, ultimately resulting in the practical extermination of the Natchez tribe. The Quapaw also allied with France during the
Chickasaw Wars, which spanned from 1721 to 1763. Many Quapaw women and French men cohabitated.
Pine Bluff, Arkansas, was founded by Joseph Bonne, a man of Quapaw-French ancestry. Shortly after the United States acquired the territory in 1803 by the
Louisiana Purchase, it recorded the Quapaw as living in three villages on the south side of the Arkansas River about above Arkansas Post. In 1818. as part of a treaty negotiation, the U.S. government acknowledged the Quapaw as rightful owners of approximately , which included all of present-day Arkansas south and west of the
Arkansas River, as well as portions of
Louisiana,
Mississippi, and
Oklahoma from the
Red River to beyond the Arkansas and east of the Mississippi. The treaty required the Quapaws to cede almost of this area to the U.S. government, giving the Quapaw title to between the Arkansas and the
Saline in
Southeast Arkansas. In exchange for the territory, the U.S. pledged $4,000 ($ in today's dollars) and an annual payment of $1,000 ($ in today's dollars). A transcription error in Congress later removed most of
Grant County, Arkansas and part of
Saline County, Arkansas from the Quapaw claim. Under continued U.S. pressure, in 1824 they ceded this also, excepting occupied by the chief
Saracen, a French Quapaw creole, below
Pine Bluff. They expected to incorporate with the
Caddo of
Louisiana, but were refused permission by the United States. Successive floods in the Caddo country near the Red River pushed many of the tribe toward starvation, and they wandered back to their old homes.
Sarrasin (alternate spelling Saracen), their last chief before the removal, was a
Roman Catholic and friend of the
Lazarist missionaries (Congregation of the Missions), who had arrived in 1818. He died about 1830 and is buried adjoining St. Joseph's Church, Pine Bluff. A a memorial window in the church preserves his name. Fr. John M. Odin was the pioneer Lazarist missionary among the Quapaw; he later served as the Catholic Archbishop of New Orleans. In 1834, under another treaty and the federal policy of
Indian Removal, the Quapaw were removed from the Mississippi valley areas to their present location in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, then
Indian Territory. In 1824, the Jesuits of
Maryland, under Father Charles Van Quickenborne, took up work among the local and migrant tribes of
Indian Territory (present-day
Kansas and Oklahoma). In 1846, the Mission of
St. Francis was established among the Osage, on
Neosho River, by Fathers John Shoenmakers and John Bax. They extended their services to the Quapaw for some years.
First French period (part of the international
Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763)). Through both the French and Spanish (late 18th century) regimes, parochial and colonial governments used the term Creole for ethnic French and Spanish people born in the
New World. Parisian French was the predominant language among colonists there. Their dialect evolved to contain local phrases and slang terms. French Creoles spoke what became known as
Louisiana French. It was spoken by ethnic religious French and Spanish and the French and Romantics of Creole descent. An estimated 7,000 European immigrants settled in Louisiana in the 18th century, one percent of the French population present at the founding of the United States. There is record of the signing of constitutional agreements in prominent French Creole Plantation Homes. Colonial la Basse-(Lower)
Louisiana attracted considerably more Frenchmen due to the presence of the Catholic Church. Most other regions were reached by Protestant missionaries instead. After enduring a journey of over two months across the Atlantic Ocean, French colonists faced challenges upon reaching the
Louisiana (New France) frontier. Living conditions were difficult: they had to face an often hostile environment, including a hot and humid climate and tropical diseases. Many died during the crossing or soon after arrival. The
Mississippi Delta suffered from periodic
yellow fever epidemics. Additionally, Europeans introduced diseases like
malaria and
cholera, which flourished due to mosquitoes and poor sanitation. These challenging conditions hindered the colonization efforts. Furthermore, French settlements and forts could not always provide adequate protection from enemy assaults. Isolated colonists were also at risk from attacks by
Indigenous peoples. In the colonial period, men tended to marry after becoming financially established.
French settlers often married Native American and African women, the latter as slaves were imported. Intermarriage created a large
multiracial Creole population.
Indentured servants and Casquette girls s, or
Filles du Roi were girls sent to
New France as wives for colonists. In Louisiana, they became known as
Pelican girls. Aside from French government representatives and soldiers, colonists included mostly young men. Some labored as
engagés (indentured servants); they were required to remain in French Louisiana for a contracted length of service, to pay back the cost of passage and board.
Engagés in French Louisiana generally worked for seven years, while their masters provided them housing, food, and clothing. Starting in 1698, French merchants were required to transport men to the colonies in proportion to the ships' cargo. Some were bound by three-year indenture contracts. Under
John Law and the
Compagnie du Mississippi, efforts to increase the use of
engagés in the colony were made, notably including German settlers whose contracts became defunct when the company went bankrupt in 1731. During this time, to increase the colonial population, the government recruited young Frenchwomen,
filles à la cassette (in English,
casket girls, referring to the casket or case of belongings they brought with them), also known as
Correction girls and Pelican girls, to travel to the colony and marry colonial soldiers. The king financed dowries for each girl. This practice was similar to events in 17th-century Quebec when about 800
filles du roi (daughters of the king) were recruited to immigrate to
New France under the financial sponsorship of
Louis XIV. The system of
plaçage that continued into the 19th century resulted in many young white men having women of color as partners and mothers to their children, often before or even after their marriages to white women. French Louisiana also included communities of Swiss and German settlers; however, royal authorities did not refer to "Louisianans" but described the colonial population as "French" citizens.
French Indians in Arkansas , 1834 , 1847) New France wished to make Native Americans subjects of the king and good Christians, but the distance from Metropolitan France and the sparseness of French settlement intervened. In official
rhetoric, the Native Americans were regarded as subjects of the
Viceroyalty of New France, but in reality, they were largely autonomous due to their numerical superiority. The colonial authorities (governors, officers) did not have the human resources to establish French law and customs, and instead often compromised with the locals. Indian tribes offered essential support for the French: they ensured the survival of New France's colonists, participated with them in the fur trade, and acted as expedition guides. The French/Indian alliance provided mutual protection from hostile
non-allied tribes and incursions on French and Indian land from enemy
European powers. The alliance proved invaluable during the later
French and Indian War against the
New England colonies in 1753. The
coureurs des bois and soldiers borrowed canoes and moccasins. Many ate native food, such as wild rice, bears, and dogs. The colonists were often dependent on Native Americans for food.
Creole cuisine is the heir of these mutual influences: thus,
sagamité, for example, is a mix of corn pulp, bear fat, and bacon. Gumbo consists primarily of a strongly flavored stock, meat or shellfish (or sometimes both), a thickener, and the Creole "holy trinity": celery, bell peppers, and onions. Today "
jambalaya" refers to a number of different of recipes calling for spicy meat and rice. Sometimes
medicine men succeeded in curing colonists thanks to traditional remedies, such as the application of fir tree gum on wounds and
Royal Fern on rattlesnake bites. By the 1750s in New France, the Native Americans came under the myth of the
Noble savage, holding that Indians were spiritually pure and played an important role in the New World's natural purity. Indian women were consistently considered to be good wives to foster trade and help create offspring. Their intermarriage created a large
métis (
mixed French Indian) population. In spite of disagreements (some Indians killed farmers' pigs, which devastated corn fields) and sometimes violent confrontations (
Fox Wars, the relationship with Native Americans was relatively good in colonial Arkansas. French imperialism was expressed through wars and the enslavement of some Native Americans. But most of the time, the relationship was based on dialogue and negotiation.
John Law's Concession Labor shortages were a pressing issue in French Louisiana. The
Royal Indies Company held a monopoly over the
slave trade in the area. Law's Company was formally known, first, as the '''''Compagnie d'Occident
() from August 1717 to May 1719, then as the Compagnie des Indes
(). It was also popularly referred to as the Compagnie du Mississippi''''' (). In 1717,
John Law, the French Comptroller General of Finances, and his
company decided to import African slaves there. His objective was to develop the
plantation economy of Lower Louisiana. '''John Law's Company
, founded in 1717 by Scottish economist and financier John Law, was a joint-stock company that occupies a unique place in French and European monetary history, as it was for a brief moment granted the entire revenue-raising capacity of the French state. It also absorbed all previous French chartered colonial companies and was popularly known as the Compagnie du Mississippi''' (Mississippi Company), even though under Law's leadership its overseas operations remained secondary to its domestic financial activity. In February 1720, the company acquired
John Law's Bank, which had been France's first
central bank. The experiment was short-lived, and after a
stock market collapse of the company's shares in the second half of 1720 (the
Mississippi Bubble), the company was placed under government
receivership in April 1721. It emerged from that process in 1723 as the
French Indies Company, focused on what had been the overseas operations of Law's Company. The Mississippi Company arranged ships to bring in 800 more settlers, who landed in Louisiana in 1718, doubling the European population. Law encouraged some German-speaking people, including
Alsatians and
Swiss, to emigrate. Prisoners were deported from Paris to Mississippi beginning in September 1719, and encouraged by Law to marry young women recruited in hospitals. In May 1720, after complaints from the Mississippi Company and the concessioners about this class of French immigrants, the French government prohibited such deportations. However, there was a third shipment of prisoners in 1721. The company was involved in the
Atlantic slave trade, importing African slaves along the Mississippi River to points as far North as modern Illinois. The company was at the center of the broader monetary and fiscal scheme known as '''Law's System''' (). Initially the System's main entity was
Law's Bank, but the System and the Company became practically synonymous after the Bank was merged into the Company in February 1720. The company was involved in the
Atlantic slave trade, importing African slaves along the Mississippi River to points as far North as modern Illinois. By September 1720 the price of shares in the company had fallen to 2,000 livres and to 1,000 by December. By September 1721 share prices had dropped to 500 livres, where they had been at the beginning. By the end of 1720, Philippe d'Orléans had dismissed Law from his positions. Law then fled France for Brussels, eventually moving on to Venice, where his livelihood was gambling. He was buried in the church
San Moisè in Venice. The company, together with the bank it owned and managed, was placed in
receivership in April 1721. It emerged from that process in March 1723, by which time all its operations were in Overseas trading and colonial development. As part of the restructuring, the French state paid the company an indemnity of 514 million livres to make it whole, and it kept its prior shareholders; its trading and navigation privileges were confirmed by a series of royal edicts in June 1725 which closed the restructuring. It kept operating as the
French Indies Company until eventual liquidation in 1770.
Africans in French Louisiana , a Kongo kingdom, 1686 During the
French period about two-thirds of the enslaved Africans brought to Louisiana came from the area that is now
Senegambia (which are the modern states of
Senegal,
Gambia,
Mali, and
Guinea,
Guinea Bissau and
Mauritania) . This original population creolized, mixing their African cultures with elements of the French and Spanish colonial society and quickly establishing a Creole culture that influenced every aspect of the new colony. Most enslaved Africans imported to Louisiana were from modern day
Angola,
Congo,
Mali, and
Senegal. The highest number were of
Bakongo and
Mbundu descent from
Angola, They were followed by the
Mandinka people and Mina (believed to represent the
Ewe and
Akan peoples of
Ghana). Other ethnic groups imported during this period included members of the
Bambara,
Wolof,
Igbo people,
Chamba people,
Bamileke,
Tikar, and
Nago people, a
Yoruba subgroup.
Code Noir and Affranchis The French slavery law,
Code Noir, required that slaves receive baptism and Christian education, although many continued to practice
animism and often combined the two faiths. The
Code Noir conferred
affranchis (ex-slaves) full citizenship and complete civil equality with other French subjects. French Louisiana slave society generated its own Afro-Creole culture that affected religious beliefs. The slaves brought with them their cultural practices, languages, and religious beliefs rooted in spirit and
ancestor worship, as well as Catholic Christianity. In the early 1800s, many Creoles from Saint-Domingue also settled in Louisiana and Arkansas, both free people of color and slaves, following the
Haitian Revolution on
Saint-Domingue, contributing to the two states' creolization.
Free People of Color in New France daughter. Late 18th-century collage painting,
New Orleans. Free people of color played an important role in the history of
New Orleans and the southern area of New France, both when the area was controlled by the French and Spanish, and after its acquisition by the United States as part of the
Louisiana Purchase. When French
settlers and traders first arrived in these colonies, the men frequently took
Native American women
as their concubines or common-law wives (see
Marriage 'à la façon du pays'). When African slaves were
imported to the colony, many colonists took African women as concubines or wives. In the colonial period of French and Spanish rule, men tended to marry later after becoming financially established. Later, when more white families had settled or developed here, some young French men or ethnic French
Creoles still took mixed-race women as mistresses, often known as
placées. Popular
stereotypes portray such unions as formal, financial transactions arranged between a white man and the mother of the mixed-race mistress. Supposedly, the young woman of
mixed European and African ancestry would attend dances known as "quadroon balls" to meet white gentlemen willing to provide for her and any children she bears from their union. The relationship would end as soon as the man married properly. According to legend, free girls of color were raised by their mothers to become concubines for white men, as they themselves once were. However, evidence suggests that on account of the community's
piety by the late 18th century, free women of color usually preferred the legitimacy of marriage with other free men of color. In cases where free women of color did enter extramarital relationships with white men, such unions were overwhelmingly lifelong and exclusive. Many of these white men remained legal bachelors for life. This form of interracial
cohabitation was often viewed as no different from the modern conception of a
common-law marriage. As in Saint-Domingue, the free people of color developed as a separate class between the colonial French and Spanish and the mass of black slaves. They often achieved education, practiced artisan trades, and gained some measure of wealth; they spoke French and practiced
Catholicism. Many also developed a
syncretic Christianity. Many were artisans who owned property and their own businesses. They formed a social category distinct from both whites and slaves, and maintained their own society into the period after United States annexation. Some historians suggest that free people of color made New Orleans the cradle of the civil rights movement in the United States. They achieved more rights than did free people of color or free blacks in the
Thirteen Colonies, including serving in the armed militia. After the United States acquired the
Louisiana Territory,
Creoles in New Orleans and the region worked to integrate the military
en masse.
Spanish period , c. 1795, wealthy Creole from
Spanish Louisiana. In the final stages of the global
Seven Years' War, and North American
French and Indian War with the British colonies,
New France ceded Louisiana to Spain in the secret
Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762), and then formally with the
Treaty of Paris (1763). The Spanish were reluctant to occupy the colony, however, and did not do so until 1769. That year, Spain abolished Native American slavery in
New Spain. In addition, Spanish liberal manumission policies contributed to the population growth of Creoles of color. Spanish Louisiana's Creole descendants, who included
Affranchis (ex-slaves), free-born blacks, and mixed-race people, known as
Creoles of color (
gens de couleur libres), were influenced by French Catholic culture. By the end of the 18th century, many Creoles of color were educated and worked in artisanal or skilled trades; many were property owners. Many Creoles of color were free-born, and their descendants enjoyed many of the same privileges as whites while under Spanish rule, including property ownership, formal education, and service in the militia. Indeed, Creoles of color had been members of the militia for decades under both French and Spanish control. For example, around 80 Creoles of color were recruited into the militia that participated in the
Battle of Baton Rouge in 1779.
Acadians in Spanish Louisiana In 1765, during Spanish rule, several thousand
Acadians from the French colony of
Acadia (now
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and
Prince Edward Island) made their way to French Louisiana after they were
expelled from Acadia by the British government after the French and Indian War. They settled chiefly in the southwestern Louisiana region now called
Acadiana. The governor
Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga, eager to gain more settlers, welcomed the Acadians, who became the ancestors of Louisiana's
Cajuns. Handfuls of the refugees made their way to Southwestern Arkansas.
2nd French period, the Sale of Louisiana after the
Louisiana Purchase.|upright=0.8 Spain ceded Louisiana back to France in 1800 through the
Third Treaty of San Ildefonso and the
Treaty of Aranjuez (1801), although it remained under nominal Spanish control until 1803. Weeks after reasserting control over the territory,
Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in the wake of the defeat of his forces in
Saint-Domingue. Napoleon had been trying to regain control of
Saint-Domingue following its rebellion and subsequent
Haitian Revolution. After the sale, Anglo-Americans migrated to Arkansas. Later European immigrants included Irish, Germans, and Italians.
Refugees from Saint-Domingue in the Louisiana Territory with her granddaughter. Vincent fled to
New Orleans, Louisiana with her parents as a child. In the early 19th century, floods of Creole refugees fled
Saint-Domingue and poured into the Mississippi Basin. Thousands of refugees, both white and Creole of color, arrived in French Louisiana, sometimes bringing slaves with them. As more refugees entered, those who had first gone to Cuba also arrived. Officials in Cuba deported many of these refugees in retaliation for
Bonapartist schemes in Spain. In the summer of 1809, a fleet of ships from the Spanish colony of Cuba landed in New Orleans with more than 9,000 refugees from Saint-Domingue aboard, having been expelled by the island's governor,
Marqués de Someruelos. Small numbers of these refugees made their way into the
Arkansas Delta, settling as far up the river as La Petite Roche (now
Little Rock) and
Cadron (now
Conway). == Ark-La-Tex Creoles ==