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    Natchitoches Parish
    Natchitoches Parish
    Natchitoches Parish
    Ebook176 pages51 minutes

    Natchitoches Parish

    By Rolonda D. Teal

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    About this ebook

    From 1722 to the present, thousands of people of African descent have occupied the region that today encompasses Natchitoches Parish. For almost 300 years, African Americans have made significant contributions to the area s economic and social
    development. In Natchitoches Parish, the lives of some of those individuals are documented as they share their views on work, religion, education, socialization, and community leadership.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 19, 2007
    ISBN9781439635285
    Natchitoches Parish
    Author

    Rolonda D. Teal

    Author Rolonda D. Teal is an anthropologist who currently resides in Sabine Parish. She received her bachelor of arts from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches and her master�s degree from the University of Houston. She has worked for several cultural organizations in Natchitoches Parish, including Cane River National Heritage Area, Cane River Creole National Historical Park, and Louisiana Regional Folklife Center. Teal is the cofounder of Cultural Lore, an anthropological and archaeological consulting agency.

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      Book preview

      Natchitoches Parish - Rolonda D. Teal

      Petravage.

      INTRODUCTION

      Natchitoches is one of the longest-settled areas in Louisiana. Founded in 1713 by French Canadian Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, Natchitoches served as a French military site and trading post and also provided a way to block Spain’s eastward expansion. Red River, later known as the Cane River, passed through Natchitoches, providing a water route for trade. Fort St. Jean Baptiste des Natchitoches was established here in 1716 to secure trade with the Natchitoches tribe, a branch of the Caddo Nation. It is at this Colonial fort that we find the earliest records of enslaved Africans in the parish.

      The 1722 census of the fort clearly illustrates the diversity of the colony in its formative years. The census lists 20 black slaves and 8 Native American slaves among a total population of 54 people. By 1766, about 40 percent of the non–Native American population of Natchitoches was African or Franco-African slaves, making almost half of the adult population in Natchitoches African in origin.

      Following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, when the Colonial territory was acquired by the United States, the Cane River region became even more ethnically diverse. During the period 1815–1835, the region experienced an influx of thousands of Americans from the poorly developed lands of the lower South. They moved into the Mississippi and Red River Valleys in search of new lands for cotton production, often bringing their slaves with them. These migrant slaves had been raised in an English environment, which was quite different from the French and Spanish cultures common in Louisiana. It is with this influx that the local enslaved population became exposed to the religious concepts of Protestantism and the Baptist Church. Several of the regional plantations had brush arbors where the enslaved population could worship. Later, church structures were built on-site so that laborers would not have to leave the plantation to attend services.

      The early 18th century brought changes in plantation living with the invention of mechanized spinning and weaving machinery in England. This new equipment led to an increase in demand for cotton, which was primarily grown and exported to Europe from the southern United States. Plantations increased their slave holdings, and African Americans flooded the state of Louisiana from places like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina. By the onset of the Civil War, cotton produced with slave labor comprised 60 percent of all goods exported from America. This period of mass production is commonly called the era of King Cotton.

      During the post-emancipation era, there was no redistribution of land or wealth to former slaves. New labor regulations were enacted before the end of the Civil War requiring free blacks to work. They were free to choose their employers but had to complete one-year contracts. While the labor contracts were initially negotiated by the Freedmen’s Bureau, by 1867, two-thirds of freedmen did not want assistance from the bureau in negotiating contracts. Under the contract system, overseers closely supervised freedmen, and the plantation continued to be the basic unit of production. Many freedmen found themselves working for their prior owners and living in the quarters they had lived in while enslaved.

      African Americans took this time in the late 19th century to build churches and educational institutions that were often placed on or near the plantations on which they had worked while enslaved. In the early 20th century, schools and churches were located on plantations throughout the parish. For example, St. Savior Baptist Church was both a school and church from the 1920s to the 1950s and was connected with Future Plantation. St. Andrew and St. Mary Baptist Churches were associated with Melrose Plantation, and St. Paul and Morning Star Baptist Churches were connected to Oakland Plantation.

      During and after the Reconstruction era (1865–1877), black churches were often used to house schools for African Americans until separate buildings could be constructed, usually on donated church land. St. Matthew Baptist Church offered classes to students in the early 1900s, while St. Andrew Church opened its doors for the education of local children in the 1940s.

      The Natchitoches Parish School Board collaborated with several churches and private landowners who donated or sold land, at a small fee, for the development of public schools. In 1939, according to Natchitoches Parish School Board records, St. Matthew Baptist Church donated land for the construction of St. Matthew Public School. Eight years later, the three-room schoolhouse became St. Matthew Senior High. After the 1964 Civil Rights Act and court-ordered school integration in 1968, educational systems in the parish were gradually culturally diversified. According to Lawrence Vaughn, Some plantation community schools closed because of integration.

      The civil rights movement of the 1960s produced local African American community

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