Captain W. W. Withenbury's 1838–1842 "Red River Reminiscences"

Introduction

1 Introduction M ost of Withenbury’s letters, and all that have been selected, are concerned with trips to the Upper Red River. The term referred to the portion of the Red River above the raft in which boats operated (first keelboats and flatboats and then steamboats) and also to the region serviced by those boats (Figure 1). The term did not encompass the entire river above the raft, whose headwaters extend into eastern New Mexico. The theoretical limits of navigation reached as far as Preston (north of Dallas and across from the mouth of the Washita River in the Indian Territory), but boats seldom went that far. The practical limits for commercially successful boat operations extended only up to Pine Hills in the northwestern corner of Red River County, Texas; however, most freight contracts did not extend above Wright’s Landing (usually called Kiomatia), which served Paris, Bonham, and Sherman and was also in the northwestern corner of Red River County, but about 25 miles by river below Pine Hills. The Upper Red River region was the area serviced by those boats, primarily through import freights of farm and plantation supplies and export freights of cotton. The region included large portions of southwest Arkansas, northeast Texas, and southeast Oklahoma (then the Indian Territory) and a small portion of northwest Louisiana. The size of the trade area was enhanced in southwest Arkansas through its penetration by Little River (a major tributary of the Red that entered immediately above Fulton) 2  Red River Reminiscences and in northeast Texas through its penetration by Sulphur Fork (a major tributary below Fulton that extended far to the west). The Red River is an alluvial river that meanders across a broad floodplain of fine soils of its own making between distant bluffs. The alluvial soils provided ideal conditions for cotton agriculture and the bluffs a location out of the floodplain for plantation homes. The river usually stayed within its banks, which were high, but sometimes broke out, always replenishing the soils and sometimes destroying crops and facilities. The river is shallow and convoluted, with numerous sandbars and shoals; and it cuts into its own banks and forms numerous bends that are eventually cut off. It contained a great deal of debris from bank cutting into forested areas that lodged downstream, causing the raft to grow upward; and it was festered with snags and stumps, many of which were produced by steamboatmen clearing obstacles or securing fuel. It was usually not navigable during the summer, and there were times of drought when it was not navigable for long periods. When it was navigable, boats were often able to get only as far as Fulton. The river was subject to rapid and dramatic rises and falls. The primary danger was getting stuck above, because steamboats were commercial operations that lost money through delays. Fulton became the place at which captains “read” the river to determine whether they should proceed upward. The Upper Red River region did not begin to be developed1 until after the United States purchased the Territory of Louisiana from France in 1803. The purchase included most of the region. The exception was the portion in Texas, which remained under Spanish or Mexican jurisdiction until the formation of the Republic of Texas in 1836. The boundary between the United States and Spanish possessions (and later the Republic of Texas) was uncertain until 1841. In any case, the land assumed to be Introduction  3 within the jurisdiction of the United States was occupied by the Caddo Indians, whose claims were enforced to some degree by the government, which established an Indian agency (or factory, at a time when factor meant agent) at the mouth of Sulphur Fork in 1818. The Caddo sold these lands to the United States in 1835, and Texas entered the Union in 1845. Settlers began arriving in Arkansas shortly after the Louisiana Purchase, and it had sufficient population to achieve territorial status in 1819. Some of the settlers went overland to the southwest corner along the Southwest Trail, an old Indian trail that ran through the Little Rock area on the Arkansas River to the Fulton area on the Red River. Many of these persons were slaveholding cotton planters from older southern states who were seeking new opportunities in the fertile valleys of the Red River and its tributaries . Settlements were established prior to 1819 at Mount Prairie on the...