La Chute: A Waterfall on Bayou Teche?

I became aware of claims that a waterfall once emptied into Bayou Teche while examining one of the first extremely accurate maps of Louisiana — Barthélémy Lafon’s "Carte générale du territoire d’Orléans," printed in New Orleans in 1806. On the Teche above New Iberia, and a little upstream from the site of present-day Loreauville, Lafon printed in minuscule type the word "chûtte."

The "chûtte" as shown on Barthélémy Lafon’s

"Carte générale du territoire d’Orléans" (1806).

I've labeled the present-day sites of New Iberia,
Loreauville, and Spanish Lake.
(Source: Library of Congress)

In French chute means "waterfall."

A waterfall on the Teche?  In flat coastal south Louisiana?

Later I examined a report on Bayou Teche by former British soldier and spy (and, after switching sides during the American Revolution, official geographer to the fledgling United States) Thomas Hutchins. He had gathered intelligence on the bayou from circa 1772-1784, when Spain, a major rival to the British in nearby West Florida, held much of present-day Louisiana, including the Teche country.

Title page of Hutchins' 1784 book containing
his report on Bayou Teche.

As Hutchins guided his reader up the Teche, he observed:

About 3 leagues above la Nouvelle Iberia [New Iberia] is la Force Point [Fausse Pointe]. . . . Then to la Shute branch, which passes over a fall of about 10 feet, near to where it enters the Tage [Teche] river, it is 3 leagues. . . .

Moreover, Hutchins prepared a hand-drawn map of the Teche, which shows the approximate location of the fall or “shute” (or “shout” as he spells it on the map).

Detail of Hutchins' ca. 1780 map of Bayou Teche
showing the "Shout" (chute).  I've labeled New Iberia,
the present-day site of Loreauville, and the Teche itself.
(Source: Author's collection.)

That Lafon and Hutchins both mention the chute and show it at roughly the same location may not, however, be evidence of corroboration. I increasingly believe that Lafon used Hutchins’ report as a source in making his map. (Hutchins’ report and Lafon’s map share a few idiosyncrasies; moreover, Hutchins’ report had been published in 1784 and would have been available to Lafon.)

Enter fellow researcher Don Arceneaux, a native south Louisianian and trained biologist who works in the forests of the northwestern U.S. Don had been looking into the history of the Attakapas region and, as I had, noticed the one or two known references to the chute. But he also found another chute reference, namely, in an early-nineteenth-century land record mentioned in Glenn R. Conrad’s Land Records of the Attakapas District. That land record refers to the chute as sitting on the property of a specific landowner — which allowed Don to pin down more precisely the chute’s location.

In fact, Don believes that modern topographical maps and aerial photographs show the remnant of the chute. And that assumed remnant sits right in the area where the Hutchins, Lafon, and Conrad references said the chute had been located over two centuries ago. The feature in question is no longer a waterfall, its dirt or clay drop (no rock in south Louisiana!) having eroded away or having been removed by human activity. Rather, it is a coulee (our local word for creek) flowing into the Teche from two main branches, one coming from the direction of Spanish Lake to the west and another coming from the neck of land formed by a meander in the Teche near Loreauville.

Topographical map showing the assumed site
of the chute (coulee at middle flowing north into the Teche).  (Source: TopoZone.com)

Don theorizes that in the eighteenth century the Teche’s natural levee acted like a dam, turning this jutting neck of land into a bowl that flooded with rainwater during the region’s semitropical downpours. The water found its way through a narrow gap in the levee, and it was there that the chute poured into the Teche.

Interestingly, the word “chute” describes a particular kind of waterfall. According to James R. Penn’s Rivers of the World: A Social, Geographical, and Environmental Sourcebook (2001), a chute is "[a] ‘shortcut’ across a meander bend” or “any narrowing of a channel through which water velocity increases. In this way, water confined by protruding rocks in waterfalls or rapids produces chutes." While it is possible that the chute on the Teche was merely "[a] ‘shortcut’ across a meander bend" (since the assumed spot is indeed on a meander in the Teche), Hutchins, however, recorded that the chute had "a fall of about 10 feet," indicating clearly that it was a waterfall.

Penn is concerned with the modern definition of chute, but what did the word mean in the eighteenth-century?  Chute in French literally meant "fall" (as it still does today) and could be used in reference to any number of things. For example, "la chute de l’empire romain" — "the fall of the Roman Empire." But in a hydrographic sense, chute — used primarily in French at the time — did in fact denote a waterfall. In The Royal Dictionary (1773), for example, the English waterfall is translated into French as chute d’eau. Likewise, Le grand dictionnaire géographique, historique et critique (1768) observes, "Waterfall, dans la langue du pays, signifie chute d’eau." ("Waterfall, in the language of the land, signifies chute d’eau.")

Aerial photograph showing assumed site of the chute.
Click image to enlarge. (Source: Google Maps)

Hutchins, by original training a surveyor and cartographer, had explored the former French territories of Illinois and Ohio.  As such, he might have known the word chute before traveling to the Gulf Coast around 1772. Along with the word’s local use by francophone Acadians and French Creoles, Hutchins prior knowledge of the term would explain his use of “shute” in his report and on his bilingual (English and French) map of the Teche.

At this point Don and I cannot say for certain that the present-day coulee flowing into the Teche near Loreauville is the remnant of the eighteenth-century chute. But this modern geographic feature seems to us the only clear candidate for the chute.

Don has recently examined the area by kayak, and I plan to go there shortly by canoe.

Addendum (of 1 December 2011):

I think we just solved the puzzle!  While examining a digitized U.S. Geological Survey map, I noticed that the USGS provided a name for the present-day coulee that Don has suggested as the chute’s former location.  And what does the USGS call the present-day coulee?  "Bayou La Chute"!

Screen shot showing the identification of the assumed site
of the chute as "Bayou La Chute" (Source: TopoZone.com)

Can you imagine that?  The memory of an over two-hundred-year-old waterfall preserved in the name of a present-day waterway on the same spot!

I think this pretty much closes the case in Don's favor!

Addendum (of 4 December 2011):

Yesterday I canoed to the site of the chute with Keith Guidry and Don Arceneaux.  Don had already been to the site six days earlier, but Keith and I had never been there.  Actually, Keith had canoed passed it previously, but didn't know its significance at the time.

The entrance to Bayou La Chute and the location
(or approximate location) of the eighteenth-century
waterfall known as "the chute."
(Photo by the author)

What we saw at the site of the chute was the entrance to a small bayou [30.03667, -91.786284], about thirty-five feet wide at its mouth, running through a deep cut in the natural ridge that follows the Teche.  The banks at this spot are higher than any others I've seen along the Teche, rising about eight to ten feet above the water on the left side of the cut and about three to five feet on the right.  A prominent grassy hill or ridge tops the bluff on the right, rising perhaps another twenty-five to thirty feet above the surface of the Teche.  One can imagine a chute here two hundred years ago, spilling into the Teche over a drop that at the time connected the high lands to either side of the waterfall.

Heading upstream on Bayou La Chute.
Note the cypress trees and cypress knees
(and someone's fishing chair) on the left bank.
(Photo by the author)

As mentioned, there is no waterfall at the site today, the drop having eroded away or having been cleared by human activity.  As such, one can now canoe directly into the chute's remnant, a waterway called Bayou La Chute, and navigate a fair distance up it and its tributaries.  Kevin, Don, and I followed Bayou La Chute for about a quarter mile upstream from the Teche, stopping — though the depth of the water would have permitted us to go farther — only when we reached the fork where the bayou's tributaries turned east onto the neck of the Teche meander and west toward Spanish Lake.

Fork in Bayou La Chute, one heading east (left) onto the neck
of the Teche meander and one heading right (west) toward Spanish Lake.
(Photo by the author)

Although there is a small amount of garbage, an occasional drainage pipe, and some non-indigenous ornamental bamboo along its banks, Bayou La Chute is otherwise wild in appearance, very beautiful, and well worth diverting from the Teche for a side trip up its narrow, winding course.

Addendum (of 7 December 2011):

As lagniappe here is a detail of an 1846 plat map for the area T12S R7E (just below the Teche) showing the bayou in question as "Bayou La Chute."  Its intersection with the Teche does not appear because that feature lies slightly to the north in the next township (T11S R7E).

(Source: Office Of Public Works Plat Map
for District Southwestern T12S R7E [1846],
Louisiana Office of State Lands)

Even better: below is an 1850 copy of a 1795 French-language map of the same area, showing "la chute" as lying on the property of Monsieur Claire Dauterive Dubuclé (Dubuclet) — something Don Arceneaux pointed out to me a couple weeks ago in Conrad's land records book.  I only found the below map today, however, in the Louisiana Office of State Lands.  (Thanks to Michael Marie for telling me how to search the office's records!)  Interestingly, the surveyor who made the original 1795 map was none other than François Gonsoulin, whom I mention in a couple of previous blog articles.  By the way, the below map is oriented so that north is to the lower left.  (In other words, the map is more or less upside down.)

Map showing "la chute" near the "Rivière Thex" (Teche). Click to enlarge.
 (Source: Claim Papers S.W.D. T12S R3-7E, Vol. 24,
Louisiana Office of State Lands [1850 copy of 1795 original])

On That Word "Gumbo": Okra, Sassafras, and Baudry's Reports from 1802-1803

As I mentioned in an earlier blog article, some maintain that the word gumbo derives from the African term guingombo, meaning "okra"; while others maintain gumbo comes from the Native American (Choctaw) word kombo ashish, meaning "sassafras."*

Recently I examined some evidence that in my opinion — for whatever that is worth . . . I am not a linguist — adds weight to the alleged African origin of gumbo. This evidence appears in Louis Narcisse Baudry des Lozières' late-colonial-era travelogue Second voyage à la Louisiane (Paris: Chez Charles, 1803).

Title page from Baudry's 1803 book.

In one passage Baudry recorded:

Il n'est point de substances adoucissantes employées dans les affections de poitrine, qui, dans les Colonies, soient plus multipliées que celle du Gombeau. C'est une espèce de ketmia; ses fleurs, ses fruits et ses feuilles sont très-adoucissans. Ils sont souvent employés en tisanes et en cataplasmes. Toutes les parties du gombeau entrent dans les ragoûts des naturels des Colonies, et les européens comme les créoles, trouvent dans le fruit de ce petit arbuste, un aliment excellent. M. Dazille le recommande beaucoup aux arrivans d'Europe. C'est le moyen d'éviter les maladies inflammatoires qu'il leur est si difficile d'éviter (page 308).

Which translates as:

There are no soothing substances used in diseases of the chest that in the Colonies are more numerous than the Gombeau. It's a kind of ketmia: Its flowers, fruits and leaves are very soothing. They are often used in teas and poultices. All parts of gombeau are used in the stews of natives of the Colonies, and Europeans as well as Creoles find the fruit of this small shrub an excellent food. Mr. Dazille recommends it very much to arrivals from Europe. This is the way to avoid inflammatory diseases that are so difficult to avoid.

Note that Baudry says that this "Gombeau" is "a kind of ketmia." Ketmia is a name given by some to okra.

Ketmia as a synonym for okra.
Source: Philip Miller, The Gardeners Dictionary
(London: Self-published by Miller, 1754)

What is interesting about Baudry, therefore, is his reference not to a soup or stew called gombeau, but his reference to a plant, evidently okra, called gombeau — though intriguingly he did mention that this plant was used "dans les ragoûts des naturels des Colonies" . . . in the stews of natives of the Colonies.

This early association of the word gombeau with okra, in my opinion, lends weight to the assertion that gumbo traces its origin to an African term meaning "okra," as opposed to the Native American term for "sassafras."

Filé (powdered sassafras)
purchased from a modern supermarket.
(Photo by the author)

This etymological issue aside: It's interesting to note that Baudry mentioned in a previous book, Voyage à la Louisiane, et sur le continent de l'Amérique (Paris: Dentu, 1802), the use of filé (powdered sassafras leaves) in gumbo — still a common practice in present-day south Louisiana. Although he did not actually use the term filé, he referred in that book to:

le sassafras, dont les feuilles séchées et réduites en poudre fournissent une espèce de gombeau aromatique vraiment délicieux (page 169).

Or in translation:

sassafras, whose dried and powdered leaves furnish a type of truly delicious aromatic gombeau.

In this instance it appears that gombeau does refer to a soup or stew, into which sassafras would be placed to season and thicken the dish.

My personal gumbo recipe.
If you can read it, you can steal it.

Addendum:

Here is yet another, more detailed early reference to gumbo, this one from Observations sur la physique, sur l'histoire naturelle et sur les arts (1788, but which also appeared in a 1784 edition). This book quotes a certain Monsieur P. de la Coudrenière, author of a short tract titled (in translation) "Observations on the Sassafras, Tree of America":

The sassafras [tree] or Iroquois laurel is well-known for its aggreable smell & its medicinal properties. . . . [I]n Louisiana, they . . . use its leaves, gathered in July, which are dried until dark & in the open air, and then they pulverize it roughly. 

These leaves are used in sauces . . . and give them a pleasant taste. . . . The gummy principal is so sticky that a pinch of this powder is enough to make a viscous broth. This dish is known as American gombo. But we must distinguish this American stew from the one called gombo févi.** The latter is made with the pods of a species of large mauve, known to botanists under the name of sabdariffa [okra]. All parts of this plant contain a viscous juice; and the pods, when they are green, make the water even more sticky than do the leaves of sassafras.

Title page of Observations (1788). 

The first time that one eats gombo, one feels a strong repugnance because of this viscosity; but when one tastes it two or three times, the repugnance passes & then one would then wish to eat it everyday, principly with sassafras, which is much tastier than the févi. The Creoles of Louisiana love it so passionately, that they cannot eat any other soup than this one made with broth, pepper, sassafras, & corn or rice cooked in water. Admittedly, this soup is much healthier & better tasting than our soups of bread. They make gombo with all kinds of meat, poultry & fish. They also make it with shrimp & crawfish. That of cabbage is less esteemed; it is eaten, as is that of shrimp, in the evening, and is often served instead of dinner. 

We [in France] still do not make use of sassafras; but it is very aromatic, and I think it must have other good qualities, which are perhaps greater than those of the wood and root of this tree. We might also draw oil or wax from its berries, for they are similar to those of the laurel, and contain like them a fatty substance. It is surprising that no attempt has been made to introduce the sassafras on the isle of Corsica & in the southern provinces of France, where it would succeed just as well in Virginia, Florida & Illinois. It is a beautiful tree, and which is always green: indeed, this would free the nation of a tribute it pays annually to the foreigner, to procure this wood, especially since we no longer have Louisiana.

Here is the original French text:

Le sassafras ou laurier des Iroquois est très-connu par son odeur agréable & ses propriétés médicinales. . . . [À] la Louisiane, on se sert . . . de ses feuilles, que l'on cueille en Juillet, que l'on fait sécher à sombre & au grand air, & que l'on pulvérise grossièrement. 

Ces feuilles employées dans les sauces . . . & leur donnent un goût agréable. . . . Le principe gommeux qu'elles contiennent est tel, qu'une pincée de cette poudre suffit pour rendre un bouillon visqueux. C'est ce mets que l'on nomme en Amérique gombo. Cependant il faut distinguer ce ragoût américain, de celui qu'on nomme gombo févi. Celui-ci est fait avec les gousses d'une espèce de grande mauve, connue des Botanistes fous le nom des sabdariffa. Toutes les parties de cette plante contiennent un suc visqueux; & les gousses, lorsqu'elles font vertes, rendent l'eau plus gluante encore que ne le font les feuilles de sassafras. 

While Coudrenière may have erred in his use of the word sabdariffa,
he was not far off the mark: Okra and sabdariffa are both
members of the hibiscus family. Source: David Hosack,
Hortus Elgimensis (New York: T & J. Swords, 1811).

La première fois que l'on mange de ces gombos, on sent une forte de répugnance, à cause de cette viscosité; mais quand on en a goûté deux ou trois fois, la répugnance passe & l'on voudroit ensuite en manger tous les jours, principalement du sassafras, qui est beaucoup plus savoureux que le févi. Les Créoles de la Louisiane l'aiment si passionnément, qu'ils ne peuvent manger d'autre potage que celui qu'ils font avec du bouillon, du piment, du sassafras, & du maïs ou du riz cuit à l'eau. Il faut avouer que ce potage est bien plus sain & bien meilleur au goût que toutes nos soupes de pain. On fait du gombo avec toutes sortes de viandes, de volailles & de poisson. On en fait aussi avec des chevrettes & des écrevisses. Celui de choux est le moins estimé; il se mange, ainsi que celui de chevrette, le soir, & tient souvent lieu de souper.

Coudrenière's report, from an earlier edition of his work. 
Source: Observations (1784).

 

On ne fait aucun usage de l'encore de sassafras; cependant elle est très aromatique, & je crois qu'elle doit avoir d'autres bonnes qualités, qui peut-être font supérieures à celles du bois & de la racine de cet arbre. On pourroit aussì tirer de l'huile ou de la cire de ses baies; car elles sont semblables à celles du laurier, & contiennent comme elles une substance grasse. Il est surprenant qu'on ne cherche point à naturaliser le sassafras dans l'Isle de Corse & dans les Provinces méridionales de la France, où il réussiroit tout aussi bien qu'en Virginie, à la Floride & aux Illinois. C'est un bel arbre, & qui est toujours vert: d'ailleurs, ce seroit affranchir la Nation d'un tribut qu'elle paie annuellement à l'étranger, pour se procurer ce bois, sur-tout depuis que nous n'avons plus la Louisiane.

________

*See Barry Jean Ancelet, Cajun Country (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991), p. 141; Peter H. Wood, Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 55.

**The Dictionary of Louisiana French (2010) defines gombo févi as both "okra" and "okra gumbo" (févi in itself meaning "okra").

Addendum of 30 October 2020

Seen below in a 1724 book (a memoir of a ca. 1694 voyage to the New World), this word guingambo, also spelled guingumbo, is said to be the source of our word gumbo. As used here, guingambo is what we call okra, itself also known (as I point out elsewhere in these blog essays) by the names gumbo or févi or even gombo févi. 

This same 1724 reference notes farther down the page in question that "our Creole girls and women [apparently in the French Caribbean, not necessarily Louisiana] . . . put [guingambo] in a stew that is unique to them and that we call Callarou. . . ." (Here is the original quote: "nos filles & femmes creolles . . . mettent dans un ragoût qui leur est particulier & qu'on appele Callarou. . . .") I wonder if this "Callarou" is a forerunner of our gumbo? On first reading a description of it (found elsewhere in this same book), it does not sound much like gumbo to me, except insofar as it's a sort of stew made with meat and okra — but who knows.

Source: GoogleBooks.com

Quoted material and the scanned page shown here are from: Jean Baptiste Labat, Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amerique (La Haye [the Hague, Netherlands]: Husson, Johnson, Gosse, Van Duren, Alberts, & Le Vier, 1724), p. 374-75.

Gumbo in 1764?

The below find is in no way my discovery.  The credit goes to Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. . . . 

A few weeks ago a friend of mine who is pursuing his Ph.D. at Louisiana State University, and who is writing his dissertation about Cajun foodways, told me that a professor had commented to him, "You probably won't find any historical references to gumbo before 1803 — others have already tried and failed."

I replied to my friend, "Now that sounds like a challenge."

Shortly after my friend left, I opened a DVD that I had received in the mail.  This DVD contained a videotaped lecture by noted Louisiana colonial historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, author of, among other books, Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Louisiana State University Press, 1992). 

Cover of Dr. Hall's book.

As I scanned the DVD, listening to scattered segments of Dr. Hall’s lecture, I caught the words (and I paraphrase Dr. Hall), "And that’s when I found a reference to gumbo from 1764."

What?

I reversed the video and listened to it again.  Yes, that’s what Dr. Hall said.  I told my friend about the reference and I e-mailed Dr. Hall herself, asking if she might send me the citation for this reference.  She kindly did so, telling me that the original document could be found in the Louisiana Historical Center, headquartered in the old U.S. Mint in New Orleans.

I contacted the Louisiana Historical Center, which is affiliated with the Louisiana State Museum, and asked for a copy of the document.  The Center soon sent me a scan of the original handwritten manuscript, the section of which mentioning gumbo I show here (with the phrase "un gombeau" highlighted):

Source: Interrogation of Julia (Comba), 4 September 1764,
Records of the French Superior Council,
Louisiana Historical Center, New Orleans, La.
(Click to enlarge image)

Here is a transcript of the passage:

[Interrogator:] Si elle ne luÿ [lui] avoir pas donné un gombeau avec Cezar et une autre negresse.

[Comba:] A dit qu'ouÿ [qu'oui] cela etait vraÿ [vrai] qu'ils étaient quatre [scratched out] que Cezar méme [même] donne à Loüis cinquante sols pour aller chercher le filer qu'il ÿ fut et buveur tout ensembles.

This passage translates as follows:

[Interrogator:] [I asked] If she hadn't given him [Louis] a gombeau [sic] with Cezar and another black woman?

[Comba:] [She] Said yes it was true that there were four [people].  That Cezar himself gave Louis 50 sols [French monetary units or coins] to find the liquor and that there was drinking all together.

About the word "filer":  Dr. Hall told me she thinks this word is actually "filet".  At first I thought Dr. Hall meant "filé" (powdered sassafras leaves used for seasoning and thickening gumbo).  However, she actually did mean "filet" — not in the sense of "meat," but rather "drink" (liquor), which is indeed a meaning of "filet" in Louisiana French.*  It thus appears to me that the colonial-era writer meant "filet" but spelled it phonetically as "filer".

Now some context:  This September 4, 1764, document is part of an interrogation of a fifty-year-old female slave named Julia, also known as Comba, whose owner was a certain "Sr. [Sieur] Cantrelle."  Comba was being questioned regarding her knowledge of a runaway slave named Louis, also known as Foy, allegedly involved with other slaves, including one named Cezar, in thefts of clothing and a pig.

The significance of this passage is that it pushes back the earliest known reference to gumbo to 1764 — indicating that the dish was known in Louisiana even before the arrival of the Acadian exiles, whose Cajun descendants (unjustly or not) are the ethnic group most often associated with gumbo by the general public.  Of course, this finding is perhaps not so surprising to those who maintain that the word "gumbo" came from the African term for "okra," or, as others maintain, from a Native American word for "sassafras."  (I have no dog in that fight.)

A bowl of gumbo as prepared in New Orleans.
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

How this 1764 gumbo was made, however, and what ingredients went into it, is an open question.  Did it contain a roux?  If so, was it light or dark?  Was it seafood gumbo, or chicken and sausage, or something altogether different and unexpected?

Regardless, thanks to Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall for making and sharing this discovery; and thanks to the Louisiana Historical Center for providing scans of the original documents.

Pods of okra.  (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Addendum:  Playing devil's advocate, a friend suggested that perhaps the interrogator used the word "gombeau" to mean not "gumbo" but "okra." Assuming for the moment that "gumbo" does derive from the African word for "okra" (as opposed to the Indian word for "sassafras" or some other source), it would nonetheless make little sense for the interrogator to ask, "If she hadn't given him an okra [un gombeau] with Cezar and another black woman?"  After all, this interpretation would suggest that Comba gave Louis, Cezar, and the other black woman a single pod of okra — an odd thing to do, since a decent-sized okra pod is about the size of an adult finger and as such would not have lent itself to being shared by four people.  Moreover, this interpretation would require the interrogator to have known and intended the original African meaning of "gumbo."  While possible, I think it more likely that the interrogator meant some kind of soup dish.  Again, however, I don't think we can know how closely this dish would have resembled what we today call gumbo.

Part II of this article can be found here.
________

*"Filet [filε, file] n.m. drink, shot (of liquor). . . ."  Source: Dictionary of Louisiana French (University Press of Mississippi, 2010).

La Pointe de Repos — Early Acadian Settlement Site along the Teche

For my own understanding as much as anything else, I post the following information regarding the location of La Pointe de Repos.  Situated along Bayou Teche, this place served as an early settlement site for Acadian exiles who arrived in the Spanish colony of Louisiana in 1765.

First, I display a ca. 1771 hand-drawn map by Attakapas District surveyor François Gonsoulin showing La Pointe de Repos (literally The Point of Rest) and the names of exiles who settled there.



La Pointe de Repos, from a ca. 1771 map by
surveyor François Gonsoulin. (Source: Library of Congress)

Note the map reads "Riviere Thex" (now called Bayou Teche) and "Quartier de La Pointe du Repos" (Area of La Pointe du Repos). Gonsoulin, however, did not place this stretch of the Teche in context — in other words, for all we know it could lie anywhere along the one-hundred-thirty-mile bayou.

The names of the settlers shown on Gonsoulin's map are (from left to right) Aman Thibodeau, Paul Thibodeau, François Guilbeau, Michel Bernard, Simon LeBlanc, Charles Guilbeau, Mary Guilbeau veuve (widow) Babineau, Sylvain Broussard, and the Widow Ducrest (née Wils [Wiltz]).

I now post a detail from Gertrude Taylor's 1979 reconstruction titled "Land Grants along the Teche" (issued by the Attakapas Historical Association in cooperation with the Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette).

Detail of Gertrude Taylor's "Land Grants along the Teche"
(Lafayette, La.: Attakapas Historical Association/
Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1979).

Importantly, Taylor did not use Gonsoulin’s map as a source when compiling her reconstructed map, but relied on other documents.

Note that Taylor's reconstruction shows the same setters (with one exception) that appear on Gonsoulin’s map and that she places them near a bend in Bayou Teche just above present-day Parks, Louisiana. The settlers are, from north to south, Aman Thibodeau, Paul Thibodeaux, François Guilbeau, Michael (Michel) Bernard, Simon Leblanc, Francois Guilbeau, Charles Babineau, and Armand Ducrest.  Only Sylvain Broussard is missing. 

Regardless, the evidence (that is, the corresponding names and matching contours on both maps) is sufficient to show that La Pointe de Repos sat on the Teche just above Parks.

In actuality, my research digs up nothing new. As Carl Brasseaux wrote in Founding of New Acadia (1987), "Ascending the Teche to the large westward bend above present-day Parks, these . . . [Acadian exiles] founded a settlement they christened La Pointe de Repos."

It's helpful for me, however, to see Brasseaux’s findings reflected in these two maps created about two-hundred years apart.

A 1795 Journey up the Teche: Fact, Fiction, or Literary Hoax?

In 1889 famed Louisiana author George Washington Cable published his book Strange True Stories of Louisiana.

Among its pages Cable included two letters, translated from their original French, which documented a 1795 journey by boat from New Orleans to St. Martinville, Louisiana, via the Mississippi River, Bayou Plaquemine, the Atchafalaya swamp, and Bayou Teche.

Title page from Cable's book.

As I read the two letters, however, I grew increasingly suspicious about their authenticity. I suspected that they were fakes — that is, that they were works of fiction probably written by Cable himself.

The letters bothered me as a historian.  I wanted to use them as primary-source material, but I could not so long as I suspected their authenticity.

Cable professed his own suspicions about the letters. In particular, he noted the presence of anachronisms (objects out of place in time). Yet he explained them away like so:

Whoever made this copy [of the original letters] it remains still so simple and compact that he or she cannot be charged with many embellishments. And yet it is easy to believe that some one, with that looseness of family tradition and largeness of ancestral pride so common among the Creoles, in half-knowledge and half-ignorance should have ventured aside for an instant to attribute in pure parenthesis to an ancestral de La Houssaye the premature honor of a San Domingan war; or, incited by some tradition of the old Minister's intimate friendship with Madelaine's family, should have imputed a gracious attention to the wrong Count de Maurepas, or to the wrong count altogether. . . . I find no other theory tenable. To reject the whole matter as a forgery flies into the face of more incontestable facts than the anachronisms do.

So Cable himself acknowledged the anachronisms, but dismissed them as minor, innocent embellishments by a later copyist.

George Washington Cable.

I believe there may be other anachronisms — that is, ones unidentified by Cable — which I will discuss some other time.  (See addendum below.)

Besides these anachronisms, I suspected the letters' authenticity because of their romantic literary style, so typical of nineteenth-century literature. And the letters included dialogue rendered in a literary format, such as found in novels or short stories. Take, for example, this passage from the letters:

While Suzanne admired herself in the mirror I took her place. My headdress differed from hers in the ends of my feathers being blue, and in the rose being white, surrounded by pale blue violets and a few silver leaves. And now a temptation came to all of us. Alix spoke first:

"Now put on your ball-dresses and I will send for our friends. What do you think?"

"Oh, that would be charming!" cried Suzanne. "Let us hurry!" And while we dressed, Pat, always prowling about the cottage, was sent to the flatboat to get his parents and the Carlos, and to M. Gerbeau's to ask my father and M. and Mme. Gerbeau to come at once to the cottage. . . . No, I cannot tell the cries of joy that greeted us. The children did not know us, and Maggie had to tell Pat over and over that these were Miss Souzie and Miss Francise. My father's eyes filled with tears as he thanked Alix for her goodness and generosity to us.

Alas! the happiest days, like the saddest, have an end. On the morrow the people in the flatboat came to say good-bye. Mario cried like a child. Celeste carried Alix's hands to her lips and said in the midst of her tears:

"O Madame! I had got so used to you — I hoped never to leave you."

This flowery sentimentalism struck me as hardly the sort of thing one would find in a letter written on the south Louisiana frontier.

An illustration of one of the letters, from Cable's book.

In addition, my suspicion stemmed from Cable's own elaborate efforts, both in his introduction and footnotes, to convince readers that the documents in question were authentic. Why would he assume, I wondered, that readers would not believe him?  Indeed, as purely historical documents the letters, although possibly useful to my own research, are hardly remarkable. They aren't the Dead Sea Scrolls, after all, or some newly discovered medieval translation of an otherwise lost Greek manuscript — they are merely an account of a journey from New Orleans to St. Martinville, of which many (albeit not from so early a time) were published in mid- to late 19th century newspapers and magazines. So it seems to me a case of Cable "protesting too much."

A typical page from Cable's book,
showing a passage from the old letters.

Finally, the very source of the letters heightened my suspicion. Cable eventually identified this source, noting in his book:

The manuscript seemed genuine. Maybe the name De Morainville is not, but was a convenient fiction of Alix herself, well understood as such by Francoise and Suzanne. Everything points that way, as was suggested at once by Madame Sidonie de La Houssaye — There! I have let slip the name of my Creole friend, and can only pray her to forgive me! [My italics.]

Cable further explained how de La Houssaye came into possession of the letters:

So a correspondence sprang up with a gentle and refined old Creole lady [de La Houssaye] with whom I later had the honor to become acquainted and now count among my esteemed friends — grand-daughter of the grandmother who, after innumerable recountings by word of mouth to mother, sisters, brothers, friends, husband, children, and children's children through twenty-seven years of advancing life, sat down at last and wrote the oft-told tale for her little grand-children, one of whom, inheriting her literary instinct and herself become an aged grandmother, discovers the manuscript among some old family papers and recognizes its value.

Another illustration of the letters, from Cable's book.

It is important to note, however, that Sidonie de La Houssaye was herself a writer, composing short stories and novellas in Louisiana French. Among her published works are Contes d'une grand-mère louisianaise (Stories of a Louisiana Grandmother) Pouponne et Balthazar (Pouponne and Balthazar), and Les Quarteronnes de La Nouvelle Orléans (The Quadroons of New Orleans).

Significantly, de La Houssaye often made use in her works of the "found manuscript" literary device.  As de La Houssaye scholar Robin White of Nicholls State University informed me by e-mail, "SdLH makes things up . . . that's what she does . . . her special line is, 'I found these old papers in a trunk.'"

Sidonie de La Houssaye (digitally enhanced).

Moreover, de La Houssaye, born and reared in south Louisiana, possessed both the French literary skills and local historical knowledge required to create the letters — which in fact mention de La Houssaye's ancestors, as well as other "real-life" persons, in addition to those who seem to be imaginary.

All of the above, however, proves nothing.  It's mere circumstantial evidence.

Recently, however, I learned that Louisiana State University had digitized de La Houssaye's papers and made them available online. Thinking some of the documents might pertain to the letters, or even be the letters themselves, I examined the collection over the Internet. While the collection did not contain the letters — nor did the Cable collection at Tulane, incidentally — it did possess an unpublished manuscript by de La Houssaye titled "Georges Gérard," which in some respects bears a resemblance to the "old letters" in Cable's Strange True Stories of Louisiana. Like the letters, this unpublished novella concerns a voyage by boat from New Orleans to St. Martinville. Likewise, it features a character named "Captain Patterson," just as do the letters. 

Again, this proves nothing, but further examination of "Georges Gérard" may yield additional clues that could determine the authenticity of the letters.

Importantly, however, if de La Houssaye did write the letters that appear in Cable's book, I think crucial questions would be "Did Cable know she wrote them?  And if he did not, would this constitute a literary hoax (albeit a harmless one) on de La Houssaye's part?"

I share the above as a work-in-progress, since this is after all a blog and not a peer-review academic journal or university press. As such, I reserve the right to recant my assertions! I plan to include additional findings here as I become aware of them.

An addendum concerning anachronisms:  One anachronism I have identified in the letters is a reference to the voyagers stopping at the bayou-side home of prominent real-life planter Agricole Fuslier.  Choosing for unknown reasons to paraphrase that passage of the letter, Cable notes, "The travelers found, of course, a charmante cordialite at the home of M. Agricole Fuselier. . . ."

This event presumably occurred somewhere just up the bayou from the future site of Franklin, Louisiana, for the letters' author had just mentioned the boat reaching a point "about two miles from where Franklin was to be."  This would be geographically accurate, for although Agricole Fuselier's home stands today along the Teche near Jeanerette, prior to around 1960 it stood farther down the Teche near Baldwin, not too far from Franklin.

However, it should be remembered that the letters claim to document events that took place in 1795 — but Agricole Fuselier did not build his home on the Teche until 1816.

Agricole Fuselier's house as it appears today, near Jeanerette, La.
(Photo by the author, 2011)

As historian Glenn R. Conrad noted, "A few months after his marriage, Agricole acquired . . . his first piece of property, a farm facing Bayou Tortue and backing on Bayou Cypress . . . [located] between St. Martinville and Broussard. . . . It was here, on the fertile lands of St. Martin Parish that Agricole and his wife established their first home. . . ."

This home stood a few miles southeast of the Lafayette Regional Airport, and thus nowhere near the site along the Teche mentioned in the letters.

Professor Conrad adds, "Fuselier [later] decided to move his family from Bayou Tortue to St. Mary Parish [i.e, to the site on Bayou Teche].  That move took place sometime in the sixteen-month period between August 1815 and January 1817.  It is fair to say, then, that Fuselier's new home . . . was constructed during 1816." [My italics.]

In other words, Agricole owned no land and had no house on Bayou Teche in 1795, and indeed would not until 1815 or afterwards, at least twenty years later.  Thus the author of the letters would not have been able to experience "a charmante cordialite at the home of M. Agricole Fuselier" as she went up the Teche near the future site of Franklin.

[Source: Glenn R. Conrad, "A Lady Called Alice," Attakapas Gazette XIII (Fall 1978): pp. 125-28.]

Addendum of 20 November 2018

In his 1966 dissertation at Louisiana State University, Joseph John Perret wrote of this alleged account of eighteenth-century travel on the Teche, "Errors . . . are numerous. Anachronisms abound and verisimilitude is almost totally absent from the descriptions. . . . Her [de La Houssaye's] use, or rather abuse, of history definitely disqualifies her as a serious commentator on the history or moeurs of a period." Source: Joseph John Perret, "A Critical Study of the Life and Writings of Sidonie De La Houssaye with Special Emphasis on the Unpublished Works," LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses (#1164), 1966, pp. 106, 109,  digitalcommons.lsu.edu, accessed 20 November 2018.

All the Same Place: Isla Cuarin, Côte de Coiron, Île Petite Anse, Petite Anse Island & Avery Island

I recently stumbled on a historical mystery while examining the online inventory of the Historic New Orleans Collection.   Going through its list of documents concerning the Attakapas region (south-central Louisiana), I noticed a reference to a 1799 survey map of an otherwise unidentified place called Isla Cuarin.

This is actually the second of two 1799 maps
of "Isla Cuarin" in the Historic New Orleans Collection.  
(Source: Historic New Orleans Collection)

The name "Isla Cuarin" struck me as similar to "Côte de Coiron," which a former professor and mentor of mine, the late historian Glenn R. Conrad, once claimed — unconvincingly, it seemed to me at the time — was synonymous with Île Petite Anse or Petite Anse Island, known from the late nineteenth century onward as Avery Island, Louisiana.  (See Conrad, Land Records of the Attakapas District, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 86.) 

Avery Island is a rolling, verdant salt dome located in lower Iberia Parish, Louisiana.  It is home to a massive working salt mine, the sprawling semitropical estate known as Jungle Gardens, the private wildfowl refuge known as Bird City, and world-famous Tabasco brand pepper sauce (for whom I work as historian and curator).


A photograph I took of Avery Island in 2006
for Wikipedia's article about the geographic oddity. 
(Source: Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons.)

Intrigued, I asked the Historic New Orleans Collection for a copy of the Isla Cuarin survey map.  When the map arrived in the mail, I examined it immediately, but did not recognize the amorphous hand-drawn landmark in the survey. 

I realized, however, that the surveyor had not oriented the map in the modern way, with north facing toward the top of the page; rather, he oriented the map with east facing toward the top.

Adjusting the orientation, I saw that the landmark in question did indeed look very much like Avery Island.

A comparison of the 1799 map of "Isla Cuarin" (left)
with an 1810 map of Avery Island (formerly Petite Anse Island). 
(Sources: Historic New Orleans Collection; Avery Island, Inc., Archives.)

The more I examined the document, the more evidence I found to confirm this impression.  For example, the map showed not an "isla" (island) in the traditional sense (a land mass surrounded by open water), but, rather, a landlocked geographical feature — just as Avery Island is landlocked, sitting about three miles inland from the nearest body of open water.

In addition, the course of the waterway called "Bayou des Petite Cote" on the 1799 map corresponded to the course of Bayou Petite Anse, the name of the bayou that encircles Avery Island.  Likewise, the courses of other, lesser bayous on the map corresponded to those that meander around the perimeter of Avery Island.

The 1799 map identified a "cipriera" off the east side of the island, just as there has been a cypress swamp on the east side of Avery Island for as long as anyone can remember.

Moreover, the 1799 map identified a "praderia temblenta" (trembling prairie — that is, waterlogged prairie that trembles when disturbed) north of the island.  Such a prairie did exist near Avery Island, having been written about by explorers as early as 1779 and later by the interrelated Avery/McIlhenny family that owns the Island. 

The 1799 map gave the area of Isla Cuarin as 2,050 arpents (an arpent being an ancient French unit of measurement that is still sometimes used in Louisiana).  This is approximately the same size as Avery Island.  Indeed, an 1810 map of Avery Island gave the landmark's area as 2,074.75 arpents — a figure not terribly different for a period using inexact measuring tools to estimate the size of a land mass with fluctuating borders (according to the rise and fall of adjacent bayous, swamps, and marsh waters).

Most convincingly, however, the 1799 survey referred to an early land claimant named "Santyago Fontenet," which is the Spanish name of Jacques Fontenette ("Santyago" and "Jacques" both being forms of Jacob), an actual early owner of Avery Island.  The other claimant listed in the survey, Carlos Olivier Deverin, is no doubt Charles Olivier Devezin, who founded Olivier Plantation about seven miles from Avery Island — in fact, what I read as an "r" on the 1799 map may well be a "z".



Satellite image of Avery Island, ca. 2010.  (Source: Google Maps.)

For these reasons I believe the survey map of Isla Cuarin shows what was known for most of the nineteenth century as Île Petite Anse or Petite Anse Island and what is now known as Avery Island — making this 1799 map the earliest known map of Avery Island, and the only known map of the Island from the colonial period.

So it turns out Professor Conrad was right! 

But why was Avery Island called "Isla Cuarin" and "Côte de Coiron" in the first place?  Conrad suggested that the French word "Coiron" (spelled "Cuarin" by the Spanish) was a surname.  A companion document in the Historic New Orleans Collection bears out Conrad's suggestion, referring to Isla Cuarin's owner as "Dn. Cuarin" (i.e., Don Cuarin, Don being the equivalent of "Mr.")  While I have found no other references to Cuarin in colonial papers, there was an Antoine Coiron who owned land elsewhere in Attakapas during the same period.  Is he the same person as "Dn. Cuarin"?  Who knows, but I hope to find out.

Addendum of 10 April 2013

While examining historical papers in the Avery Island, Inc., Archives I noted a circa 1796 land document in which Spanish colonial governor Carondelet revoked the concession of "Antonio Coiron" in favor of a settler named "Lovelace" (Thomas Lovelace, a known early part-owner of what is now called Avery Island).

Detail of a 1796 Spanish land grant document
referring to "Antonio Courin"
(Antoine Courin) as a former claimant
of what is now Avery Island.
(Source: Avery Island, Inc., Archives,
Avery Island, La.)

The document does not actually mention the Island, but it clearly concerns this subject, given its references to four early owners of the Island (besides Coiron and Lovelace, it also mentions "Fontenet y Devezin," who are the aforementioned Jacques Fontenette and Charles Olivier Devezin) — not to mention the fact that the original document resides today in the Avery Island, Inc., Archives, in a collection concerning the Island's chain of ownership.

In short, it seems clear to me that "Isla Cuarin" and "Côte de Coiron" do indeed stem from the surname of Antoine Coiron.

The Grevembergs, Early Cattle Ranchers of the Attakapas

Eighteenth-century colonists in south Louisiana’s Attakapas region commonly raised cattle, not only to feed themselves, but to feed the lower Louisiana colony in general and New Orleans in particular. An important source of information about this early cattle industry is the historical document known as The Brand Book for the Opelousas and Attakapas Districts. The original is located in the Jefferson Caffery Louisiana Room of Dupré Library at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 


Nineteenth-century engraving of a south Louisiana cattle rancher.
(Source: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline
[NY:  John B. Alden, 1892].)

Researchers are fond of citing The Brand Book’s earliest entry as proof that cattle ranching in Louisiana extended back as early as the 1730s. The entry in question is the brand registration for Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg, colonists of Flemish ancestry who settled around present-day New Iberia. 



As Maurine Bergerie writes in They Tasted Bayou Water: A Brief History of Iberia Parish (1962), “Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg registered their brand in 1739. . . .” Likewise, William Faulkner Rushton observes in The Cajuns: From Acadia to Louisiana (1979), “Louisiana’s cattle industry goes back at least to 1739, the date the first cattle brand was recorded in the state’s French ‘brand book.’”

However, I think 1739 is incorrect. 



I have no doubt that The Brand Book reads “1739,” but I think this date is a mistake — perhaps a simple careless error made by an anonymous scribe in the course of copying and recopying The Brand Book.

Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg's cattle brand entries
in The Brand Book, dated "1739." (Click to enlarge.) 
(Source: Jefferson Caffery Louisiana Room, Dupré Library,
University of Louisiana at Lafayette.)

I am not the first to suspect an error. As folklorist Lauren C. Post noted in The McNeese Review academic journal (1958):

As might be expected, with a long succession of brand recorders working over a period of sixty-four years and for a period which extended over 128 years, the work had many inconsistencies. At least, there appear to be inconsistencies. One page . . . shows that Louis Grevemberg registered his 5F brand in 1737. In another place the same book shows that he registered the same brand in 1739. The book for 1760-1888 listed Louis Grevemberg as registering the 5F brand on October 14, 1793. 

Besides these inconsistencies noted by Post, I believe the 1739 (and 1737) date to be incorrect for the following reasons:

First, a glance at other early entries in The Brand Book reveals no others from the 1730s. Indeed, except for a couple of entries from the late 1740s (which I also find suspect), the mass of registered brands date from the 1760s and later, when settlement of the Attakapas District finally began in earnest.

Detail of a sample page from The Brand Book. (Source: Photo of
facsimile in The African American Museum, St. Martinville, La.)

Second, there is no evidence that the brothers Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg were in the Attakapas District before 1770, when Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg (presumably their father) received a Spanish land grant in the region. (France gave Louisiana to Spain in 1762, explaining why Jean-Baptiste received not a French but a Spanish land grant in 1770.) Indeed, Louis and Barthélémy only received land grants for themselves in the region in 1774 and 1781, respectively. (Correction: In 1765 Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg wrote the French caretaker government of Spanish Louisiana that he had been in possession of his Attakapas land "for fourteen years past" and noted that he purchased this land "to form a vacherie. . . ." In short, Grevemberg established a cattle ranch in the Attakapas District in 1751. Regardless, the founding of this vacherie still post-dates the 1737 and 1739 dates so often cited and does not preclude Grevemberg from first registering his brand decades later, when the region's increasing population demanded the creation of cattle brands. Note that Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg still did not receive a formal Spanish land grant until 1770. [Source: Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg memorial, Pintado Papers, typewritten translation on microfilm, St. Martin Parish Library, St. Martinville, La. — thanks to Don Arceneaux for informing me of this document.])

Finally (and most convincingly), Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg were born, respectively, in 1731 and 1753 — which means that Louis would have been only six to eight years old when his brands were allegedly registered; and that Barthélémy’s brands would have been registered fourteen to sixteen years before his own birth!

For these reasons I do not believe that Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg registered cattle brands in the Attakapas District in 1737 and 1739. Rather, I think it most likely that Louis and Barthélémy registered their brands some time after their father received his Attakapas land grant in 1770, or after they received their own land grants in the region a few years later. Indeed, as Post observed, The Brand Book does refer to Louis Grevemberg registering a brand in 1793, even while it also refers to him doing so allegedly in 1737 and 1739.

Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg's cattle brand entries
in The Brand Book, dated "1793" (Click to enlarge.)
(Source: Jefferson Caffery Louisiana Room, Dupré Library, University of Louisiana at Lafayette)

However, there is one (I think minor) flaw in my assertion — that is, Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg had a grandfather named Barthélémy (born ca. 1685 in Flanders, Belgium). One could therefore argue that it was this earlier Barthélémy Grevemberg who registered his brand in the 1730s. This seems unlikely, however, because, again, there is no other evidence that the Grevembergs — or any other colonists, not even the intrepid André Masse — had settled in the Attakapas region so early. Moreover, such a counterargument would still not account for the alleged registering of Louis Grevemberg's brand in 1737/1739.

An addendum concerning the identity of Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg: In 1779 a colonist by this name rendered enormous assistance to the founders of Nueva Iberia (present-day New Iberia). I believe that this Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg was a brother of Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg, but have yet to prove this link. He clearly was not Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg, father of Louis and Barthélémy Grevemberg, for colonial records indicate that their father had died by 19 June 1772.

Signature of Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg,
who assisted the Nueva Iberia colony, 1779.
(Source: Center for Louisiana Studies, 
University of Louisiana at Lafayette.)

A related note: In his book Changing Tides: Twilight and Dawn in the Spanish Sea, 1763-1803 (1995), historian Robert S. Weddle identifies this same Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg as “Jean Baptiste Grevemberg dit Gonsoulin” — that is, Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg nicknamed Gonsoulin. But this is incorrect: Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg actually bore the same nickname as the other males of his family, which was “dit Flammand,” a reference to the family’s Flemish roots.

Gonsoulin, on the other hand, was an entirely different colonist. His full name was François Gonsoulin and he often worked as a surveyor in the Attakapas region.

Signature of François Gonsoulin, 1779. (Source: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana at Lafayette.)

Sources:

Maurine Bergerie, They Tasted Bayou Water: A Brief History of Iberia Parish (New Orleans, La.: Pelican, 1962).

Rev. Donald J. Hebert, Southwest Lousiana Records, Vols. 1 and 2, s.v. "Grevemberg."

Lauren C. Post, "Cattle Branding in Southwest Louisiana," The McNeese Review X (1958): 101-117.

William Faulkner Rushton, The Cajuns: From Acadia to Louisiana (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1979).