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Introduction
- Louisiana State University Press
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Introduction I FIRST NOTICED THE BRASS MARKER canted out of the grassy base of the broad Mississippi River levee about six years ago as I drove slowly along the River Road south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana ’s capital city. The narrow, winding asphalt ribbon follows the river, which flows unseen behind the hulking form of the levee. The historical marker read: Bayou Manchac. (Iberville River). Iberville returned from the Mississippi River to his fleet at Ship Island via this bayou in 699. Boundary: Spanish Isle of Orleans and British West Florida, 763–783, and Territory of Orleans and Spanish District of Baton Rouge, 803–80. Intrigued, I stopped to investigate this place of sketchy description that seemed to have disappeared. Instead of a bayou or a river, there was only a small lagoon on the side of the road, a pool of black water ringed by a stand of cypress trees, barely visible and hardly navigable. I knew of Bayou Manchac only vaguely—that it was once a distributary* of the Mississippi and had been cut off from the river * A distributary is a natural outlet from the river that carries off spring floodwaters into the low backlands. WINDING THROUGH TIME 2 when the Corps of Engineers erected the monumental levee all along its banks following the great flood of 927. The levee might have explained the lack of water in the channel except that I was familiar with two other distributaries located nearby, Bayous Plaquemine and Lafourche, that wind from the west bank of the Mississippi and had also been leveed at the river. They seemed to have remained much more viable waterways. In 200, Manchac had flooded exceedingly in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Allison and had been the subject of dramatic local news that showed fine brick homes, identified as“near Bayou Manchac.” They were isolated in a lake of swirling water, their partly submerged windows looking like wide-eyed, panicky swimmers . But I couldn’t identify where these houses might be because I didn’t know where the bayou went. Bayou Manchac was, in short, a mystery. So I harbored minimal knowledge and little curiosity about Interstate 0 and Airline Highway, major highways between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, traverse Bayou Manchac. [34.205.246.61] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:23 GMT) Introduction 3 the waterway until the celebration of the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase loomed in 2003, when an interesting but esoteric fact struck me: the bayou had been a boundary of that magnificent land deal. It had been one of the waterways that defined the Isle of Orleans, Thomas Jefferson’s original, and primary, target when he initiated negotiations with France. The national celebration of the Purchase, however, focused on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the great and unknown western territory gained in 803 rather than on the familiar city of New Orleans and its environs. But I convinced a regional magazine that this small, now-forgotten bayou might make a timely and relevant subject for an article. AsIresearchedBayouManchac,Ibecamefascinatedandincreasingly convinced that its story was much better than I’d suspected— more colorful, richer, and much more interesting. And I also realized that the evolution of this little waterway, though unique, is a cautionary tale for other small historic American streams. So I followed the thread, enticed by people like Pam Caillouet. Pam, an intelligent, energetic, no-nonsense woman, and her husband , C.R., a nationally recognized high-definition video technologist , have lived on the bayou since 993. Their A-frame log cottage, raised high on timbers as sturdy as telephone poles, overlooks the stream. The tall posts were added, she told me, by the previous owner after the piers of his original house proved inadequate: the house flooded shortly after he moved in. A broad deck spans the Caillouets’living area under a canopy of trees. It is festooned with bird feeders that have attracted bluebirds, painted buntings, and goldfinch, as well as a myriad of more common birds.From this aerie,they delight in the parade of animals that WINDING THROUGH TIME 4 cross their property—rabbits, raccoons, possums, the occasional red fox. They watch wood ducks and turkey landing nearby, otters scrambling near their bank, and alligators gliding slowly past in the bayou. The Caillouets and many of their neighbors live within their landscape, in tune with the changing stream that borders their property. They observe the seasons, heralded by...