Louisiana and the Gulf South Frontier, 1500–1821

F. Todd Smith

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780807157121
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

Bound together by social, demographic, and economic commonalities, the territory extending from East Texas to West Florida occupies a unique space in early American history. A masterful synthesis of two decades of scholarly work, F. Todd Smith's Louisiana and the Gulf South Frontier, 1500-1821 examines the region's history from the eve of European colonization to the final imposition of American hegemony.The agricultural richness of the Gulf Coast gave rise to an extraordinarily diverse society: development of food crops rendered local indigenous groups wealthier and more powerful than their counterparts in New England and the West, and white demand for plantation slave labor produced a disproportionately large black population compared to other parts of the country. European settlers were a heterogeneous mix as well, creating a multinational blend of cultures and religions that did not exist on the largely Anglo-Protestant Atlantic Coast.Because of this diversity, which allowed no single group to gain primacy over the rest, Smith's study characterizes the Gulf South as a frontier from the sixteenth century to the early years of the nineteenth. Only in the twenty years following the Louisiana Purchase did Americans manage to remove most of the Indian tribes, overwhelm Louisiana's French Creoles numerically and politically, and impose a racial system in accordance with the rest of the Deep South.Moving fluently across the boundaries of colonial possessions and state lines, Louisiana and the Gulf South Frontier, 1500-1821 is a comprehensive and highly readable overview of the Gulf Coast's distinctive and enthralling history.

1

Initial Encounters, 1500–1670

During the four centuries prior to the arrival of newcomers from the Eastern Hemisphere, the native inhabitants of the Gulf South—of various linguistic affiliations—had established powerful chiefdoms, led by a class of hereditary elites, throughout the region stretching from West Florida to East Texas. Although many chiefdoms had gone into decline and were abandoned around 1350, a number of impressive polities continued to exist in the Gulf South by the time Catholic Spaniards, along with a few Africans, arrived during the first half of the sixteenth century. These Spaniards ravaged and plundered many of the Indian states in their fruitless pursuit of the type of wealth that other Iberians had uncovered in Central and South America. Although the character of the Spanish effort in America transformed to the desire to spread Christianity among the natives by the beginning of the seventeenth century—resulting in the establishment of an evangelical colony in Florida—most of the chiefdoms collapsed and suffered huge population losses in the wake of the Spaniards’ brutality. Consequently, by 1670, when Europeans from Britain and France began to enter the Gulf South, most of the region’s Indians had reorganized themselves into smaller sedentary, agricultural communities that were more egalitarian in nature than the chiefdoms that had existed in the past.

The Native Inhabitants

Humans had lived in the Gulf South for fifteen thousand years or so before Europeans and Africans began arriving half a millennium ago. For the first ten thousand years, during which the climate was hot and humid, the residents were hunters who lived in small family groups. Around five thousand years ago the climate became cool and drier, resulting in the establishment of the plants and forests, and the animals that lived in them, that exist in the Gulf South today. Accordingly, over the course of the next three thousand years or so, the region’s indigenous residents developed horticulture, pottery, a sedentary lifestyle, and the long-distance exchange of goods. By the beginning of the current era the Gulf South people dramatically intensified these developments, creating what scholars have termed the Woodland tradition. Most people occupied villages year round, in part because of their increasing dependence on horticulture. In addition to squash, which had previously been grown domestically, the residents added corn to their list of garden crops during this period. As more food became available, hierarchies and social ranking emerged. People celebrated death and burial publicly, constructing small earthen mounds to inter the deceased elites, along with large quantities of valuable and rare imported goods.

Whereas some groups stopped participating in this elaborate mortuary cult and became a bit more egalitarian around 700, people living in the interior expanded on the trends characteristic of the Woodland tradition to create the most complex culture in North America prior to the European and African arrival. This tradition, known as Mississippian, began taking shape between 700 and 900 along the middle course of the Mississippi River, developing earliest and most spectacularly at Cahokia in the tremendously rich American Bottoms, near the mouths of the Illinois and Missouri Rivers. At its height, between 1050 and 1200, Cahokia covered six square miles, with a population of around twenty thousand and more than one hundred mounds of various sizes. From Cahokia, the Mississippian tradition spread southward, resulting in the development of a number of hierarchical chiefdoms located between East Texas and West Florida. Intensified corn cultivation was the key to the development of Mississippian culture, and the Gulf South people, despite lacking metal or domesticated animals other than dogs, made the transition from raising crops in small gardens to clearing forests in order to create extremely large fields of maize. Once the natives had made the shift, food production increased dramatically and the population rose accordingly. Agricultural innovation continued as beans were added to corn and squash staples around 1000. Gathering wild plants, nuts, and berries, as well as hunting and fishing, continued to be important sources of food, but they quickly assumed a secondary role to agriculture. Mississippians were matrilineal, meaning that they traced descent only through the female line. Women played the most important economic role, as they were in charge of the fields that formed the basis of their tribe’s wealth. Men spent most of their time hunting white-tailed deer and other game, in addition to acting as soldiers in the chronic warfare that existed among the Mississippians.

Along with the intensification of corn and bean agriculture in the Gulf South came the further development of chiefdom forms of government. Throughout the region, powerful states emerged with a small number of hereditary chiefs, nobles, and priests who ranked in an exalted status far above the more numerous commoners. Within each chiefdom there was a multiple-town political organization in which the elites lived on top of an earthen platform mound in a capital center. A cluster of secondary administrative centers, often containing smaller earthworks, were located nearby, with other towns spread throughout a river valley. A typical town contained from forty to sixty households, consisting of a total population of around five hundred people living in domiciles constructed of wooden frames covered with bark or cane mats. Generally, a simple chiefdom consisted of five to eight such towns. In some instances throughout the Gulf South during this period, one chiefdom conquered or formed alliances with others, resulting in a paramount chiefdom. Between 1100 and 1350 impressive variations of Mississippian paramount chiefdoms developed throughout the region, most dramatically at ceremonial sites similar to Cahokia, such as Etowah in northwestern Georgia, Moundville in northwestern Alabama, Bottle Creek in southern Alabama, Winterville in western Mississippi, and Spiro near the Arkansas-Oklahoma border.

Due to the wealth that had been developed within the paramount chiefdoms, warfare was a constant, and most Mississippian towns were fortified with palisade walls and ditches. In the capital town, the chief’s house and other public buildings were placed on large flat-topped mounds, which served as a symbol of power and as the center of the chiefdom. They also served as important symbols of a religious cult devoted to renewal rituals. One of the public buildings was usually employed as a mortuary temple where the physical remains of the chief’s ancestors were buried or stored in baskets. Next to these public buildings was a rectangular plaza that served as an outdoor public space. Surrounding it were the homes of the high-ranking people, with the commoners living in houses on the outskirts of the town. Among the elites was a man designated as a war chief and diplomat, who served as an advisor to the principal chief and as the leader of military endeavors. Chiefs were treated as divine, entitled to a special diet provided by the commoners, and often were carried on litters borne on the shoulders of the people so their feet never touched the ground. They displayed symbols of their elite status, including large plates of copper worn on the head, feather garments, and shell ornaments. The subsidiary towns paid tribute to the chief, who controlled food surpluses, luxury artisanal goods, and exotic trade materials obtained through exchanges with other chiefdoms.

MAP 1. THE GULF SOUTH, CA. 1500

Despite the power and influence of the complex chiefdoms, there was a constant pattern of rise and fall among the Mississippian groups. Certain stresses, such as soil exhaustion, drought, depletion of core resources, military defeats, and contested claims to leadership often caused the chiefdoms to collapse. The overall regional stability of the Mississippian world, however, allowed for the establishment of new chiefdoms following a period of adjustment after a fall, as people joined other existing polities or new areas opened for the settlement and development of new chiefdoms. In the middle of the fourteenth century the climate became colder and drier, causing the transformation of most of the major paramount chiefdoms. Around 1350 mound building began to decrease and there was an outmigration from many of the ceremonial centers. While many paramount chiefdoms had been abandoned by 1500, a few remained in the Gulf South at the beginning of the sixteenth century, often situated near a series of simple chiefdoms.

Chiefdoms located along the Tombigbee and Alabama river systems that flow into Mobile Bay were among the most impressive that existed in the 1500s. Coosa, located in present Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, was perhaps the largest paramount chiefdom in the Gulf South. Coosa’s antecedents emerged around 1000 along the Coosawattee and Etowah Rivers, upper tributaries of the Coosa River, on the ecotone boundary where the streams poured forth from the Appalachian Mountains and entered a valley rich in alluvial soils. Many Gulf South chiefdoms were established on ecotone boundaries, thus allowing the people to raise crops in the valley’s fertile soils while also being able to hunt and collect nuts and berries in the nearby hills. Often shoals were present in the streams at the fall line near the ecotone boundary, providing good fishing sources and an easy place to cross the rivers. By 1200 the main center of power was located on the Etowah River, and six large mounds were constructed at the capital site, with eleven other dependent towns located along the stream. Around 1350, however, Etowah began to lose power, allowing the people in the nearby Coosawattee Valley to establish dominance. By 1475 a capital had been established about fifteen miles upstream from the Coosa River at the Little Egypt site, consisting of two or three mounds arranged around a plaza area, with eight dependent settlements in the Coosawattee Valley. Like many people in the Gulf South east of the Mississippi River, the Coosas spoke Muskogean, in particular the subgroup known as Eastern Muskogean. This subgroup is further divided into Alabama, its similar variant Koasati, Muskogee, and Mikasuki (with two dialects—Hitchiti and Mikasuki). These Eastern Muskogean languages are mutually intelligible, except for Hitchiti. Linguistic diversity throughout the Gulf South, however, led the indigenous people to use a pidgin language known as Mobilian to communicate with one another. During its rise to prominence in the fifteenth century Coosa became a paramount chiefdom by extending its dominance over various groups of Eastern Muskogean speakers, including the Chiaha, Coste, and Tali—as they were called by intruding Spaniards at the time—chiefdoms in the Tennessee River Valley over one hundred miles to the north, as well as the Ulibahali and Abihka chiefdoms along the Coosa River and the Talisi chiefdom in the nearby Tallapoosa Valley.

Another paramount chiefdom, Tascalusa, was located near where the Coosa and Tallapoosa meet to form the Alabama River. Tascalusa emerged from the Moundville chiefdom—one of the grandest of all the Mississippian societies—which peaked during the thirteenth century in the Black Warrior Valley of northwestern Alabama. During the 1400s the once-thriving center of Moundville was radically transformed to a largely vacant and unpalisaded ceremonial site, as many people abandoned the Black Warrior Valley to establish independent chiefdoms elsewhere. Tascalusa formed around 1450 on the Lower Tallapoosa and Alabama Rivers, with its capital situated at Atahachi, on the Alabama, just three miles below present Montgomery. Like the people of Tascalusa, the founders of the nearby province of Mabila were also descendants of Moundville, having moved down the Black Warrior River to settle near Mobile Bay around 1100. In the fifteenth century, however, Mabila relocated farther up the Alabama River and established several towns near the mouth of the Cahaba River, about fifty miles downstream from Atahachi. Soon thereafter, the Tascalusa and Mabila chiefdoms, both consisting of Eastern Muskogean speakers, formed an alliance.

During the twelfth century, at about the same time the Mabilas moved to Mobile Bay, other groups of people migrated west from Moundville to establish a series of simple chiefdoms in the Black Prairie region located along the Tombigbee River. In the 1400s, during the decline of Moundville, the paramount chiefdom of Chicaza emerged along the middle reaches of the Tombigbee within the triangle formed in Mississippi near the present Starkville-Columbus-West Point area. Whereas the Chicazas spoke Western Muskogean, two Alabama-speaking chiefdoms, the Alibamu and Micalusa, resided just upstream and were considered subordinate to the Chicazas. Other Alabama-speakers, the Taliepacanas, Moculixas, and the Apafalayas, resided near the confluence of the Black Warrior and the Tombigbee in simple chiefdoms.

Although the chiefdoms located along the waterways that emptied into Mobile Bay were perhaps the most impressive in the Gulf South at the beginning of the sixteenth century, many others existed throughout the region. Relatives of the same people who were in the process of constructing Moundville in the twelfth century also established chiefdoms on the Lower Chattahoochee River. During the 1200s one group of Hitchiti-speakers moved south from the Chattahoochee to the Tallahassee hill region of the Florida panhandle, where they established the Apalache paramount chiefdom between the Aucilla and Ochlockonee Rivers. Instead of the population being concentrated in compact towns, as was the case with many Mississippian societies, the Apalaches developed a hierarchical system of principal villages dispersed throughout the territory, with the common people being spread across the hilltops between the region’s coastal plain rivers. Prior to 1500 the principal Apalache chief lived at the multimound ceremonial center located along Lake Jackson, just north of present Tallahassee. Early in the sixteenth century, however, the Apalaches abandoned the Lake Jackson site and moved the seat of power southwestward to the moundless town of Anhayca. The Apalache country was very fruitful, and the inhabitants used the surrounding forests and swamp-like rivers to supplement the corn, beans, and squash staples that provided the foundation of their society. The Apalaches’ wealth allowed them to develop a strong military tradition and, like many Mississippian chiefdoms, they created buffer zones on all sides of their territory.

Several large and impressive chiefdoms also existed along the central Mississippi River at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Between 700 and 1000 the native people living just downstream from the mouth of the Ohio River made the transition to intensive corn cultivation by establishing settlements and planting crops on the natural levees—which are particularly rich in fertile soil—created by the meandering Mississippi. In addition to the food raised in their meander zone soils, the settlers hunted in the nearby floodplain forest as well as in the prairies and hills located throughout the area. Between 1000 and 1350 the Mississippian way of life was consolidated and elaborated upon, as large ceremonial centers appeared along with palisaded towns and small dispersed farmsteads. Due to climate change and constant warfare, however, the region was abandoned in the late fourteenth century, and most of the people relocated southward to establish dense population centers in the fertile bottomlands located near present Memphis, Tennessee. Pacaha became the dominant paramount chiefdom in the area, with a principal town consisting of four mounds surrounded by a palisade and a ditch located on the west bank of the Mississippi about twenty miles north of Memphis. By 1500 the powerful people of Pacaha had brought the downstream chiefdoms of Quizquiz and Aquijo, located on opposite sides of the Mississippi, into their dominion. The Casqui chiefdom—enemies of the Pacahans and their allies—was located about twenty miles west of Pacaha, with its capital town on the east bank of the St. Francis River. Quiguate, one of the largest towns in the entire Gulf South, stood about fifty miles down the St. Francis from Pacaha. Other spectacular Mississippian polities, such as Anilco, Guachoya, and Aminoya, were located farther south near the mouth of the Arkansas River. Although the culture of the central Mississippi was similar to that of the Tombigbee-Alabama region, the residents spoke Tunican instead of Muskogean.

Quigualtam, one of the largest and most powerful paramount chiefdoms that existed in the early sixteenth century, was centered on the east bank of the Mississippi in the Lower Yazoo River basin. It was heir to yet another regional Mississippian development that emerged about 700 on both sides of the river, from just below the mouth of the Arkansas down to the mouth of the Homochitto River in southwestern Mississippi. Known as Coles Creek culture, these people constructed ceremonial centers between 1000 and 1200 despite not raising corn until the very end of the period. Between 1200 and 1350 the culture of the central Mississippi was introduced into the Yazoo basin, creating a hybrid called Plaquemine culture. Corn cultivation became well established during this time, and the Plaquemine people—mainly Natchezan-speakers—constructed many impressive ceremonial centers on both sides of the Mississippi River, including the Winterville site in northwestern Mississippi, the Emerald and Anna sites east of Natchez, and the Transylvania and Fitzhugh sites in the Tensas River basin in Louisiana. The Lake George site, consisting of thirty large and small mounds located on the lower reaches of the Yazoo River, was the most impressive ceremonial center in the region. Although the Lake George complex was in decline by 1500, it seems to have remained one of the principal Quigualtam towns.

Less powerful chiefdoms, heavily influenced by the Mississippian world, also existed on the margins of the culture’s core. Western Muskogean speakers, who resided on the lower reaches of the Mississippi River and along the Gulf of Mexico eastward to the Florida panhandle, relied on agriculture and marine resources and were organized into simple chiefdoms located near single mounds. Many of the groups, including the Quinipissas, Houmas, and Bayogoulas along the Mississippi River, as well as the Pascagoulas and Tohomes on the Gulf Coast, had contact with the great interior chiefdoms through trade in salt. Outlying, marginally Mississippian polities also existed west of the great river on the boundary between the eastern woodlands and the Great Plains. Due to the drier conditions in the region, these Tunican-speakers were only able to establish simple chiefdoms, including the Cayas and Untiangue, in central Arkansas near present Little Rock. Although these people raised corn and hunted white-tailed deer in the surrounding hills like the Mississippians of the Southeast, buffalo hunting and salt extraction and trading were also important to their economy.

Caddoan speakers resided in the westernmost chiefdoms, located in the hilly, forested region just east of the Great Plains. Between 700 and 1350 these people constructed large numbers of ceremonial sites in the various river valleys located between the Trinity and the Arkansas Rivers. The most impressive site, consisting of twelve mounds, emerged between 1100 and 1250 at Spiro, on the Arkansas River just west of Fort Smith. Although similar to other Mississippians, Caddoan societies were characteristically composed of dispersed farmsteads, more closely settled at places where there was good farming along the larger rivers, and less so on the smaller tributaries. The population was a bit less dense than the societies to the east, and no Caddoan communities were surrounded by fortifications. Although they built houses comparable to those in the Mississippian Gulf South, the Caddoans covered them with grass rather than barks and cane. Climate change and drought in the fourteenth century forced the people to stop building mounds, and by 1450 the chiefdom at Spiro had collapsed. Although a small chiefdom called Tula remained in the area, many of the Caddoan-speakers moved farther up the Arkansas to concentrate more on buffalo hunting than agricultural production. Others migrated southward to join their brethren in the Ouachita, Red, Sabine, and Neches Valleys. As a result, impressive Caddoan chiefdoms, such as the Naguatex at the bend of the Red River and the Guasco on the Neches, continued to function well into the sixteenth century and beyond.

The Spanish Invaders

Spaniards along with a few African slaves violently entered the Gulf South Mississippian world in the early 1500s. Although the peoples of the Iberian peninsula, like most of Western Europe’s original inhabitants, were Celtic-speakers, six centuries of Roman rule—which came to an end in the 400s—resulted in the Latinization of the language and the culture. In the fifth century Germanic-speaking Vandals conquered Iberia and established several independent kingdoms while maintaining many of the institutions and laws of the late Roman Empire, including Christianity. In the 700s Arab Muslims from North Africa conquered nearly all of the Iberian peninsula, creating the province of Al-Andalus. While some Latinized inhabitants converted to Islam, the Muslim rulers of Al-Andalus tolerated their subjects who remained Catholic and Jewish, resulting in the development of a dynamic and highly educated state that became one of the leading cultural and economic centers of the Mediterranean world. Nonetheless, for much of its history Muslim Al-Andalus existed in conflict with the Latin Catholic kingdoms of northern Iberia that were determined to reconquer the entire peninsula. At once a military and religious enterprise, most of the reconquista had been completed by the mid-thirteenth century, with the Emirate of Granada being the only remaining Iberian Muslim state, coexisting with the independent Christian kingdoms of Portugal, Castile, and Aragon. In 1479, following the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castile, two of these crowns were joined together, laying the foundations for the modern Spanish state. The reconquista was finally completed in January 1492 when the final Muslim ruler of Granada surrendered his kingdom to the royal couple, known as the Catholic Monarchs.

Flush with victory after more than seven centuries of war with Muslims, eight months later Ferdinand and Isabella backed Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor, in the endeavor that resulted in the Spanish conquest of much of the Western Hemisphere. Because of the timing of Columbus’s “discovery,” the Spanish effort to control the so-called New World and its peoples became, in effect, an extension of the reconquista. Much of the legal apparatus employed by Spain in the exploration and conquest of the Americas was based on medieval Iberian institutions that had been modified to meet the new circumstances. For instance, most military actions against the Iberian Muslims had been privately financed with Crown authorization through a contract awarding a military leader the title of adelantado. Similar arrangements were made with the conquerors of the New World, as the Crown licensed wealthy men to recruit the soldiers and pay for the supplies that would be used to overwhelm Native American societies. In return, the adelantado expected to share in wealth procured through conquest and in rights to conquered land, as well as receiving a noble title. As with the situation in feudal Spain, the soldiers were given a share in the conquest, w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1: Initial Encounters, 1500–1670
• 2: Initial European Settlements, 1670–1712
• 3: Establishing Louisiana, 1713–1731
• 4: Stability and Maturation of the Gulf South, 1732–1763
• 5: Transformation of the Gulf South 1763–1783
• 6: The Anglo Protestant Influx and the Consequences of the French Revolution 1783–1803
• 7: The Establishment of Anglo Protestant Hegemony, 1804–1821
• Epilogue: The Extension of Anglo Protestant Hegemony 1821–1845
• Further Reading
• Index