Arkansas Post
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/media-detail.aspx?mediaID=27
Location
Regions
Place
Geography
Themes
Movement
Human
Environment
Interaction
Human Environment Interaction
Human-environment interaction looks at the relationships
between people and their environment.
1) How do people depend on the environment?
2) How to people adapt to the environment?
3) How do people modify the environment?
What kind of example can you come up with for each
question?
1686
Arkansas
Post
From The
Encyclopedia
of Arkansas:
“Arkansas Post was the first and most significant European
establishment in Arkansas. In the colonial and early national periods,
from 1686 to 1821, it served as the local governmental, military, and
trade headquarters for the French, the Spanish, and finally the
United States.”
In 1686,
where
would you
build the
first
settlement
in
Arkansas?
What
would be
the pros
and cons?
http://www.encyclopediaofarka
nsas.net/encyclopedia/mediadetail.aspx?mediaID=6336
Arkansas Post #1
Henri de Tonti
From The Encyclopedia of Arkansas:
“In return for serving in RenéRobert Cavelier, Sieur de La
Salle’s 1682 expedition, Henri de
Tonti, a French officer born of Italian
parents, received land and a trading
concession at the juncture of the
Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. In
the summer of 1686, he arranged
with the local Quapaw for Jean
Couture, Jacques Cardinal, and four
other Frenchmen to establish a
trading post, where they would
exchange French goods for beaver
furs. They founded this first Arkansas
Post near the Quapaw town of
Osotouy in present-day Arkansas
County.”
Portrait by Ben Brantly (1935), courtesy of the Arkansas History Commission:
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/media-detail.aspx?mediaID=386
From The Encyclopedia of Arkansas:
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/ency
clopedia/media-detail.aspx?mediaID=6726
“The Frenchmen built a wooden
house and fence, the first French
establishment west of the
Mississippi. The settlement,
consisting of six men and a hut
with no priest, was referred to it
as “aux Arcs,” meaning "at the
home of the Arkansas," one of
the names for the Quapaw
Indians. Eager for French trade
and alliance, the Quapaw
welcomed the Post and
supported it throughout most of
its history. Without Quapaw
supplies and military assistance,
the Post would not have
survived.”
Depend?
Adapt?
Modify?
From The Encyclopedia of Arkansas:
“On July 24, 1687, La Salle’s brother and Henri Joutel arrived at Arkansas Post, having
fled across Texas after a mutiny killed La Salle. They were relieved to find that Couture
and Cardinal were getting along well with their Quapaw hosts. However, the fur trade
was not going well. The Quapaw were not traditionally beaver hunters and showed little
interest in changing, and French colonial policies failed to encourage the western
trading ventures. Therefore, there was little trade on the Arkansas River in the Post’s
early years.
Beginning in 1699, with the support of Louis XIV, the French began to invest resources
in Louisiana. The Arkansas Post’s location near the Mississippi River meant it would play
an important role in commerce and Indian diplomacy. In 1717, John Law’s Company of
the West received the charter for Louisiana trade, and Law himself acquired a personal
concession on the lower Arkansas River in 1720. His plan was to establish a military
post and create an agricultural colony that would sell crops to the soldiers at Arkansas
Post, as well as New Orleans and French Illinois. To work the land, his company
recruited European settlers and indentured servants and bought African slaves. In the
summer of 1721, nearly 100 slaves and indentured servants whom Law had sent arrived
at the mouth of the Arkansas River to prepare the way for the mostly German settlers
to whom Law had granted land. By 1723, Lieutenant Avignon Guérin de La Boulaye, with
thirteen soldiers, took command of Arkansas Post.”
From The Encyclopedia of Arkansas:
Before the settlers could arrive, however, investors’ hopes for easy riches in Louisiana
began to wane, and Law’s company went under. The slaves and most of the servants
were moved to plantations closer to New Orleans, and in 1724, the Company of the
West withdrew the garrison from Arkansas Post. Still, some of the former indentured
servants, freed by Law’s bankruptcy, stayed to hunt, trade, and farm fields given to
them by the Quapaw, so the French presence continued in the Arkansas region.
For the next few decades, the Post was occupied sporadically by soldiers and priests.
Father Paul du Poisson became the Post’s resident priest in July 1727, but in 1729, he
died in a Natchez Indian attack on the French post at Natchez, where he was visiting.
In 1731, the colonial Louisiana government again assigned a dozen soldiers to
Arkansas Post. Their commandant, First Ensign Pierre Louis Petit de Coulange, built
the first substantial Post structures—a house for the commandant, soldiers barracks,
a powder magazine, and a prison. All were built with vertical posts and probably bark
roofs. From 1731 on, Arkansas Post was a center of colonial trade and diplomacy with
the Quapaw and other Indians, including Osage, Caddo, Chickasaw, and other bands
that came to hunt and trade in the region.
Arkansas Post #2
From The Encyclopedia of Arkansas:
“The Post suffered its first military assault on May 10, 1749, in the middle of a French-Chickasaw
war. Chickasaw Chief Payamataha and 150 warriors attacked the settlers who lived outside the
Post. The Chickasaw killed several French men and captured eight French women and children.
Once the other settlers had escaped into the fort, the Chickasaw retreated with their captives.
In response to the attack, Commandant Ensign Louis Xavier Martin de Lino moved the Post a
few miles up the Arkansas River to be farther from the Chickasaw and closer to the Quapaw,
who had moved their towns closer together upstream just before the attack. (The new location,
at the bluffs called Écores Rouges, is the site of the Arkansas Post National Memorial.) The next
commandant, Captain Paul Augustin Le Pelletier de La Houssaye, built an elaborate Post in the
new location. It consisted of a barracks, a powder magazine, a prison, a storehouse and hospital,
a bake house, a latrine, and an imposing building that housed the commandant, the priest, and a
chapel, all protected by an eleven-foot-high stockade.”
Now on bluffs, ~45 miles upstream from the Mississippi
River.
Depend?
Adapt?
Modify?
From The Encyclopedia of Arkansas:
In 1756, just five years after La Houssaye completed the new Post, the
next commandant, Captain Francois de Reggio, evacuated the elaborate
construction. In order to protect the fort, La Houssaye had placed it
too far from the Mississippi River for it to see and respond to British
and Indian attacks on French convoys once the Seven Years’ War began.
Arkansas Post #3
From The Encyclopedia of Arkansas:
“The French moved the Post back down the Arkansas River about ten miles
from the Mississippi River, in what is now Desha County. In this latest
configuration, a stockade surrounded the commandant’s house, barracks, powder
magazine, commissary, and a building to house visiting Indian delegations.
In 1763, after the French lost the Seven Years’ War, they surrendered the half of
Louisiana that lay east of the Mississippi to the British and gave the western half,
including Arkansas Post, to their ally Spain. The resident French traders and
settlers remained, but Spanish troops occupied the Post in de Reggio’s site. The
Spanish had difficulty adjusting to the diplomatic requirements of this frontier
Post, where Indians and French far outnumbered the handful of Spanish soldiers.
In 1772, Spanish Commandant Fernando de Leyba tried to enforce his superiors’
orders to reduce expenses on gifts and feasts for the Quapaw and to gain power
over the Frenchman who interpreted between him and the Quapaws. In
response, Quapaw Chief Cazenonpoint threatened to “put the knife to the post.”
Leyba agreed to most of the Quapaw’s demands for goods, and the Post was
saved.”
What do you think happened?
Arkansas Post #4
From The Encyclopedia of Arkansas:
In 1778, Spanish King Carlos III decided to take advantage of the
American Revolution to declare war against his British rival. In
1779, to avoid flooding, Spanish Commandant Balthazár de
Villiers moved the Post back to Écores Rouges. At first, his new
Post did not even have a real fort, but fighting among the British,
Spanish, and various Indian groups resulting from the American
Revolution made local French settlers fear a Chickasaw attack. The
settlers insisted on building a fort where they could seek
protection.Villiers named it Fort Carlos III for his king.