Notes on the Founding of Opelousas

History is, like science, a self-correcting discipline: professional historians make their careers in part by correcting or refining the research and assertions of other historians. This is a laudable practice and should be encouraged — even by historians whose own research is called into question and perhaps refuted. As I myself am fond of quoting, "No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar."

What does Shakespeare
 have to do with Louisiana history?

This quote comes from noted Shakespeare scholar Donald Foster, who in 2002 recanted his own claim that the Bard of Avon had authored an anonymous poem titled "A Funeral Elegy." As the New York Times reported, "Now, in a stunning development that has set the world of Shakespeare scholarship abuzz, Professor Foster has admitted he was wrong." To me, such an admission is nothing but praiseworthy. It's how scholarship should work.

This brings me to an issue far removed from the world of British poetry — to a seemingly minor issue that nonetheless has garnered regional media attention in south-central Louisiana: namely, was the town of Opelousas, Louisiana, founded in 1720 as sometimes asserted in tourism brochures, on city welcome signs, and on the Internet, among other places?(1) Or was it founded later, as claimed by several professional and avocational historians, including Dr. Claude F. Oubre of LSU Eunice, Dr. Carl A. Brasseaux of UL Lafayette, genealogist Winston De Ville, independent researchers John Harper and Donald J. Arceneaux (the latter four of whom I thank for proofing this essay), and myself?

In truth, I have never seen any evidence to indicate that Opelousas was founded in 1720 or, for that matter, any time before the mid- to late-eighteenth century. And by "evidence" I don't mean twentieth-century or early twenty-first-century published secondary-source material, such as a book of local history, an encyclopedia entry, a magazine article, or a city government website. I mean primary-source evidence from or around 1720, such as a handwritten colonial document in French or Spanish.

Random example of a primary-source
document from the colonial era.

By the time of Opelousas' alleged 1720 founding, New Orleans had existed for only two years, and the entire Louisiana colony, for a mere twenty-one years. The region surrounding and adjacent to present-day Opelousas (that is, modern south-central and southwestern Louisiana) was during the early to mid-1700s a sort of no-man's land claimed by both France and Spain. In fact, Spain located the capital of its Mexican province of Texas in what is today Louisiana (at Los Adaes near Natchitoches, Louisiana, some 110 miles to the northwest of present-day Opelousas).

Because France and Spain were allied Bourbon monarchies with a common perennial enemy — namely, Britain — the two Empires mutually refrained from settling the disputed region. In this way, reasoned French and Spanish administrators, they could avoid antagonizing each other.

Attakapas Indian,
by Alexandre de Batz (1735).
Source: Wikimedia.org

There was another reason France and Spain avoided incursions into the region: fear of the reputedly cannibalistic Attakapas Indian tribe (whose very name, given to them by other, rival tribes, means "Man-Eater").(2) It is uncertain if the Attakapas were actually cannibals, but it hardly mattered to colonial-age settlers: they believed the Attakapas were cannibals, and that was enough to curtail settlement in the region. In fact, the French in Louisiana rarely wandered from the protective banks of Louisiana's great river system. As a result, most French activity in colonial Louisiana occurred right along the shores of the Red and Mississippi rivers.

It thus would have been surprisingly early, and extremely incautious, for the French to have settled the town of Opelousas in 1720. And yet it nevertheless has been widely stated that the French did precisely that. The year even appears on the City of Opelousas' official seal.(3)

Seal of the City of Opelousas.

The claim also shows up — to cite only a few of a great many published examples — in Fodor's 2000 travel guide to the U.S. It states "Opelousas is the third-oldest town in the state" because it was "Founded by the French in 1720. . . ." Likewise, the New Encyclopedia Britannica observed in 1974 that Opelousas had been "Founded in 1720 as a French garrison and trading post. . . ." In 1954 the Louisiana Municipal Review magazine asserted "History shows that enterprising French adventurers operated a permanent trading post with the friendly Attakapas Indians on the site of present day Opelousas as early as 1720. . . ." 

Unfortunately, none of these sources cite a primary (original colonial-era) source. So what primary-source evidence is there for the 1720 date of origin?

As far as I know, there is no such evidence . . . except for one document that I believe might be the source of an erroneous 1720 date. That document is the French-language Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi by Guillaume de l'Isle, printed in 1718 and used shortly afterwards as the basis for John Senex's English-language Map of Louisiana and of the River Mississipi, printed in 1721. Both maps could be said, therefore, to have been printed "around 1720."(Mississipi, by the way, is an archaic, colonial-era spelling of the modern Mississippi.)

Guillaume de l'Isle, Carte de la Louisiane
et du Cours du Mississipi (1718).
Source: Library of Congress

Those two very similar maps depict the entire eastern half of North America, from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Atlantic Coast in east. De l'Isle and Senex's maps also encompass parts of Spanish Mexico, French Louisiana (when the name "Louisiana" denoted about one-third of the entire North American continent), and the British colonies from the Carolinas to New York.

A close look at the section of de l'Isle's map covering littoral south-central and southwestern Louisiana reveals the caption "Indiens errans et Antropophages" — in English, "Wandering Man-Eating Indians." And there, right above the word "Antropophages," is the intriguing word "Loupeloussa".

"Wandering Man-Eating Indians,"
detail of the 1718 de l'Isle map.

I believe it is this word "Loupeloussa" that some unknown or forgotten historical researcher, perhaps decades ago, misinterpreted as referring to the town of Opelousas. But it is not a reference to the town. Rather, it is a reference to the Indian tribe after whom the town was eventually named.

We can be certain of this for two reasons:

First, the intriguing map label in question reads "Loupeloussa" – that is, "L'Oupeloussa", or in English translation "The Oupeloussa". This combination of the French article "L'" with the tribal name "Oupeloussa" indicates that de l'Isle applied the term not to a settlement, but to a group of people: the Oupeloussa tribe. De l'Isle did likewise on the map for many other (though not all) Indian tribes, as when he labeled "Les Cheraqui" (The Cherokee) and "Les Chicachas" (The Chickasaw), to name only two of many such instances.

Other tribes identified
on de l'Isle's map.

Second, just below the "L" in "Loupeloussa" appears a diminutive symbol that looks like a house or other dwelling. De l'Isle expressly states in the key to his map that this symbol denotes "Habitations des Indiens" — Indian habitations. Not colonial settlements founded by Europeans and Africans, but Native American villages.

Key to de l'Isle's map.

One might assert that the Native American village labeled "Loupeloussa" could have evolved into the modern-day town of Opelousas. This, however, is clearly not the case: both the word "Loupeloussa" and its accompanying symbol appear on de l'Isle's map next to a bayou flowing a short distance, and directly, into the Gulf of Mexico. The modern-day town of Opelousas, however, is not located a short distance from the Gulf of Mexico (St. Landry Parish, in which the town sits, being landlocked); nor does the town sit on a notable bayou (local bayous Yarbor and Tesson, for example, being little more than cement-lined coulées [ravines] inside the city limits); nor does the town sit on a bayou flowing directly into the Gulf of Mexico. (The two most notable bayous near but not in Opelousas — namely, the Teche and the Courtableau — likewise do not flow directly into the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, they run more or less southeasterly into the Atchafalaya River and its distributary, the Lower Atchafalaya River.)

"Loupeloussa" label and its dwelling symbol
on the "Rio Mexicano,"
detail of the 1718 de l'Isle map. 

On even closer inspection of de l'Isle's map, we see that the waterway on which the cartographer placed "Loupeloussa" and its dwelling symbol is labeled "R. Mexicano" — that is, Rio Mexicano (or in English, the Mexican River). As I note in my 2016 book, Teche: A History of Louisiana's Most Famous Bayou (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), "[A]t one time or another the [colonial] Spanish referred to the present-day Sabine and Mermentau rivers . . . as the Rio Mexicano (Mexican River)." Thus, it appears de l'Isle placed the "Loupeloussa" tribe and its village on the Mermentau (the Sabine being too far west in this instance to consider). And the Mermentau, interestingly, does indeed flow directly into the Gulf.

John Senex's English-language map,
based on de l'Isle's earlier one (1721).
(Source: Library of Congress)

To summarize my analysis thus far: de l'Isle's circa 1720 map does not refer to the town of Opelousas, but to a village occupied by the Indian tribe called the "Loupeloussa," from whom the modern-day town — eventually founded some forty miles to the northeast — acquired its name.

The tribe similarly gave its name to the Poste des Opelousas, a term referring not, as often believed, to a single village or outpost or garrison, but to the entire southwestern corner of Louisiana now embracing St. Landry, Calcasieu, Cameron, Beauregard, Allen, Jefferson Davis, Evangeline, and Acadia parishes.

Detail of Senex's English-language map (1721),
based on de l'Isle's earlier one.

It would be several more decades, I believe, before settlers of European and African heritage founded a town called Opelousas. That event must have occurred some time after the mid-1700s. (When precisely the town came into existence I might explore in another essay.) I say this because, as far as anyone knows, the earliest permanent settlers in all south-central and southwestern Louisiana (that is, excluding wandering traders like Joseph Blanpain, who passed through but did not remain in the region) were the French pioneer Andre Massé and his enslaved Africans. And according to Massé's own correspondence, he arrived in the region in or before 1746. Indeed, an 1809 document now in the Louisiana State Land Office, signed by planters Joseph Sorrel and Claire Dauterive Dubuclet, testifies that "André Massé was the first person who settled in this part of the country. . . ."

"André Massé was the first person. . . .":
the Sorrel-Dubuclet document (1809).
Source: Louisiana State Land Office

If that is the case, no non-indigenous peoples settled in the region adjacent to and including modern-day Opelousas until Massé appeared on the Teche around 1746. For this reason — along with French and Spanish political concerns, widespread fear of the Attakapas tribe, and the apparent misinterpretation of de l'Isle's map — it seems to me incredibly doubtful that the town of Opelousas was founded any time before the region passed uncontested to Spanish control in 1762. 

A serious question remains: is there some other colonial-era, primary-source evidence — evidence I might not know about and so have not considered — proving that Opelousas was founded in 1720? If so, I would very much like to see it and, if conclusive, adjust my view accordingly. 

"It is vital, however (and I cannot stress this enough), that researchers distinguish between historical references to the Opelousas tribe, the Poste des Opelousas political district, and the later town of Opelousas. I say this because they are not the same thing, but could be confused with one another."

It is vital, however (and I cannot stress this enough), that researchers distinguish between historical references to the Opelousas tribe, the Poste des Opelousas political district, and the later town of Opelousas. I say this because they are not the same thing, but could be confused with one another. It would be easy, for example, to mistake a reference to the Poste des Opelousas district for a reference to a village or outpost or garrison called Opelousas. As I mentioned, however, the Poste was not a single small point on a map, but rather the entire southwestern part of the present-day state of Louisiana.

The old Poste des Opelousas region.

(Click to enlarge)

Source: William Darby, A Map of the State of Louisiana

with Part of the Mississippi Territory (1816).

Ultimately, if there is no indisputable primary-source evidence for the 1720 date, I suggest the claim, in the best tradition of scholarship, be acknowledged as incorrect and discarded. There would be no shame in this, only merit.

❧

Notes


(1) The media broached this issue, for example, twenty years ago in Henri LeJeune, "Date Set on City's Seal May Not Match History," (Opelousas, La.) Daily World, Special Millennium Edition, 1 January 2000, pp. 1A, 3A; see also Bobby Ardoin, "Opelousas Planning 300th Birthday Celebration, Despite Dispute over City's Founding," (Opelousas, La.) Daily World, 4 January 2020, www.dailyworld.com/story/news/2020/01/04/opelousas-officials-schedule-300th-birthday-celebration-despite-dispute-over-citys-founding/2807156001/, accessed 14 January 2020.

(2) Tribal members today sometimes go by the name "Atakapa Ishak," the latter term being their traditional name for their own tribe (as opposed to "Attakapas," the name given them by other tribes).

(3) J. A. Allen, who designed the city seal in 1961, told the Daily World newspaper in 2000 "that originally he had placed the date of the founding of the city at 1764," but at others' urging he changed the date to 1720 even though, explained the newspaper, "there was no specific document that could be found to place the date . . . [of the founding] of the city. . . ." LeJeune, "Date Set on City's Seal May Not Match History," p. 3A.


Quoted Sources


Shane K. Bernard, Teche: A History of Louisiana's Most Famous Bayou (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2016), 11.

Declaration of Joseph Sorrel and Clair Dauterive Dubuclet, [19 January (unclear, could read "February")] 1809, in Claim Papers S.W.D. [Southwestern District], T.14S. R.6-8E. & T.14S. R.9E. 58, Louisiana State Land Office, document no. 510.00174, Baton Rouge, La., https://wwwslodms.doa.la.gov/, accessed 4 September 2018. 

Fodor's 2000 USA (2000), 483.

Louisiana Municipal Review, Vols. 22-23 (1958), 15.

The New Encyclopedia Britannica Volume 7 (1974), 545.

William S. Niederkorn, "A Scholar Recants on His 'Shakespeare' Discovery," The New York Times, 20 June 2002, www.nytimes.com, accessed 12 January 2020.


Thanks to UL Lafayette public history intern Stephanie Simon for proofing this essay.

Now Available: My New Book about Bayou Teche

Teche: A History of Louisiana's Most Famous Bayou

My newest book, Teche: A History of Louisiana's Most Famous Bayou, has been released by my publisher, University Press of Mississippi. (To order the book from Amazon.com, click here. It's also available from all other booksellers, including local independent booksellers.)

Cover art for my new book.
The painting is by noted south Louisiana
artist Melissa Bonin.

As the book's description reads: 

Shane K. Bernard’s Teche examines this legendary waterway of the American Deep South. Bernard delves into the bayou’s geologic formation as a vestige of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, its prehistoric Native American occupation, and its colonial settlement by French, Spanish, and, eventually, Anglo-American pioneers. He surveys the coming of indigo, cotton, and sugar; steam-powered sugar mills and riverboats; and the brutal institution of slavery. He also examines the impact of the Civil War on the Teche, depicting the running battles up and down the bayou and the sporadic gunboat duels, when ironclads clashed in the narrow confines of the dark, sluggish river.

Image from the (New York) Weekly Graphic (18 April 1874).
Author's Collection.

Describing the misery of the postbellum era, Bernard reveals how epic floods, yellow fever, racial violence, and widespread poverty disrupted the lives of those who resided under the sprawling, moss-draped live oaks lining the Teche’s banks. Further, he chronicles the slow decline of the bayou, as the coming of the railroad, automobiles, and highways reduced its value as a means of travel. Finally, he considers modern efforts to redesign the Teche using dams, locks, levees, and other water-control measures. He examines the recent push to clean and revitalize the bayou after years of desecration by litter, pollutants, and invasive species. Illustrated with historic images and numerous maps, this book will be required reading for anyone seeking the colorful history of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.

The author (right) canoeing on Bayou Teche.
(Click to enlarge.)

As a bonus, the second part of the book describes Bernard’s own canoe journey down the Teche’s 125-mile course. This modern personal account from the field reveals the current state of the bayou and the remarkable people who still live along its banks.

More on the Elusive Andre Massé, Early Settler of the Attakapas District

In his books Athanase de Mézières and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1768-1780 (1914, as editor) and Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century: Studies in Spanish Colonial History and Administration (1915, as author), historian Herbert Eugene Bolton provided valuable information about Andre Massé, the earliest known European settler in the Attakapas District of south Louisiana.

One of Bolton’s sources about Massé was a 1756 petition that Massé wrote to the Viceroy of New Spain in Mexico City, per the governor of the province of Texas at Los Adaes (near Natchitoches in present-day Louisiana), to ask permission to move from the Attakapas to the presidio of San Agustín de Ahumada in southeast Texas.

No images of Andre Massé are known to exist,
but I like to think he looked something like this.
(Source: Frederic Remington, 1880 [public domain])

What was Massé's reason for wanting to move from French to Spanish territory?

Intriguingly, he wanted to free his slaves (more difficult to do in French territory than Spanish) and to leave them part of his estate.

Massé did eventually free his slaves, not in Texas, but in Louisiana, because the Viceroy of Mexico — no doubt suspicious of a Frenchman wanting to reside in the Spanish Empire — rejected his petition.

Last year I decided to track down Massé’s original petition to see if it contained historical information not mentioned by Bolton.  According to Bolton, the original document sat in the Archivo General de la Nación, the Mexican national archives in Mexico City. Bolton even gave very specific locations for this document, noting that it lay in the Correspondencia de los Virreyes, vol. 1, Amarillas, 1, 1755-1756, or, more specifically, in Correspondencia de los Virreyes II, serie i, folio 264.

I know one person in all of Mexico and she happens to be a professor of history in Mexico City, fluent in Spanish and well familiar with the Archivo General. At my request she went to the Archivo to search for Massé’s petition — and could not find it! The collection, she stated, was a terrible mess.  Nothing was where it was supposed to be.

It had been a hundred years since Bolton had examined Massé’s petition in the Archivo General. Who knows what could have happened to the document in the meantime?

Instead of giving up the search, I checked to see if Bolton did not leave behind his research notes. As it turned out, he left his notes to UC-Berkeley, which had compiled an extremely detailed finding aid for the collection. After studying the finding aid, I hired a graduate student at Berkeley to go to Bancroft Library and look in one particular box.

Title page of one of Bolton's books (1914).

According to the finding aid, that box contained documents pertaining to the incursion of Frenchmen onto Spanish soil.

Sure enough, there was Bolton’s typewritten transcript of Massé’s 1756 petition to the Viceroy of New Spain.

Below I post a translation of Massé’s original document, or, rather, of Bolton’s transcript of Massé’s original document.  The original was written to the Spanish in French, and not by Massé, but by his friend, the troubled French cleric Abbé Didier. (I’ll explain later why I say “troubled.”) The translation is by my acquaintance, Dr. Judith Rygiel of Carelton University in Ottawa, and myself.  (That is, I tweaked her translation.)

I might eventually post a transcript (per Bolton) of the original French document and, for comparison, a transcript (again per Bolton) of the official Spanish translation prepared in 1756. Indeed, in a couple of instances Bolton’s transcript of the original French document appears to contain typographical errors, and the only way I could figure out a misspelled or missing word was to consult the Spanish translation.

Here is the translation (which I consider a work in progress):

Monsieur Massé, settler, distinguished and by his birth and merit, presently on his cattle ranch in the Attakapas, a dependent of New Orleans, arriving finally at an advanced age without having effected the intention of giving liberty to his slaves, and at the same time to leave them his goods after his death, is forced and obliged to turn to his Excellency, the Illustrious Monseigneur, Viceroy of Mexico, to put him and his dependents under his strong protection. This is directed, by the intervention of Monsieur the Abbé Didier, secular priest, his partner in his cattle, to Monsieur le Gouverneur of the post of Adays, to take the action most suitable to the matter so that the affair does not transpire until after its entire execution. The said Sieur Massé reserving the right to deduce from His Excellency the legitimate reasons that commit him to this change. 

The said Monsieur le Gouverneur of Adays, to whom the said Sieur Massé is not unknown, knows well the advantages which will result from the retreat of the said Sieur Massé and of the establishment, which he can form, by himself, in the St. Augustin post, without it being necessary of the said Sieur Didier to actually describe them. That which he can truly assure is that His Majesty will find in one and the other as much and affection as in his most loyal subjects. 

1st. The said Massé possesses in common with the said Abbé Didier a considerable number of cattle, cows and horses, which can be easily transported to the citadel of St. Augustin, which will be a great benefit for the inhabitants of the post.  

2nd. The large and the small Attakapas, entirely devoted to the said M. Massé and who have their village on the other side of the River, are sure to follow him, by means of which no one will have to fear any enemy of that side. 

3rd. His male Negroes, which are for the most part already married to his female Negroes, and who have children, are one seed, these same all transported to the place, having [no] need to take them further. 

4th. The said M. Massé knows the strength and the foibles of the [Indian] Nations of the North, such as the Tavayages, the Laitas, Patoca, Icara, and Panis, because he has visited them. He is able to give a most faithful account and also the means to secure them. 

5th. The said M. Massé does not demand any recompense except the protection of his Excellency, Monsieur le Viceroy, and to be able to enjoy, he and his dependents, the same advantages as the other subjects of his Majesty, the King of Spain. 

Le Sieur Abbé Didier, who asks for the same grace for himself, is able to prove his perfect submission and indefatigable zeal for the growth of God’s domain and of the State of Spain. He will offer every day vows to God all-powerful for the prosperity of his most serene Monseigneur le Viceroy of Mexico, for whom he has the most profound respect. 

At Adayes 19th July

1756 

The most faithful, the most humble

and the most obedient servant, 

Didier, Secular Priest

Note: It is interesting to note that Didier — if Bolton’s transcript is true to the original — renders Massé’s name as I do here with an accent aigu over the “e”.  A friend of Massé, Didier presumably would have known how Massé pronounced his name and how to properly render that name in French. In short, Massé apparently did not pronounce his name as MASS or (as I’ve been pronouncing it) MAS-SUH, but MAS-SAY.

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])