Designing the Bayous: The Control of Water in the Atchafalaya Basin, 1800-1995

Chapter 1. Early Flood Control Efforts, Louisiana Style

Chapter I Early Flood Control EffortsJ Louisiana Style THEATCHAFALAYABASINHASALWAYS BEEN a source of controversy. Nothing about it-not even its name-has led to easy agreement. Thomas Hutchins, the "Geographer to the United States" after the Revolutionary War, called the river the "Chafalaya" and thought the land through which it flowed "one of the most fertile countries in the world."1 In contrast, Henry Marie Brackenridge, a keen¥eyed lawyer and amateur archaeologist who journeyed around the eastern fringe of the Atchafalaya Basin early in the nineteenth century, concluded that the region was "low and uninhabitable," except for the lands bordering Bayou Lafourche.2 Major Amos Stoddard, who took possession of Upper Louisiana for the United States after the Louisiana Purchase, believed the climate at the mouth of the "Chafalia" was "much more healthful than in any other part of the low country.,,3 Moreover, he observed, in the lands to the west of the river, settlers grew cotton and sugar cane, raised cattle, and were blessed with an abundance of deer and wild turkey.4 Finally, the writer and surveyor William Darby described the "deep, dark and silent gloom of the inundated lands of the Atchafalaya."5 He wrote, "To have an idea of the dead silence, the awful lonesomeness, and the dreary aspect of this region, it is necessary to visit the spot. Animated nature is banished; scarce a bird flits along to enliven the scenery....The imagination fleets back toward the birth of nature, when a new creation started from the deep, with all the freshness of mundane youth."6 Darby's A Geographical Description of the State of Louisiana, published in 1816 to popular acclaim, may have persuaded a generation of armchair travelers that the Atchafalaya was something to be avoided by all but the most adventurous. But was Darby accurate? Was the Atchafalaya Basin a primordial swampland unfit for civilized life or the fertile land of promise? Was it a forbidding swamp or the sweetsmelling garden of Evangeline? 18 Designing the Bayous The Atchafalaya Basin as shown in William Darby's 181 6 map of Louisiana. Early Hood Control Effortst Louisiana Style Early Settlers and River Transportation 19 DURING THE FIRST PERIOD of French administration in Louisiana (1698-1762), only a few enterprising Frenchmen entered the Atchafalaya swamplands. They settled in the Attakapas region, roughly the same area that today consists of Lafayette, St. Martin, and St. Mary parishes, and secured large grants of land. In the 1760s, French Acadians, expelled from Nova Scotia by the British, arrived in Louisiana. Many settled in the Attakapas area, especially along the high ground bordering Bayou Teche. In 1763, they founded Poste des Attakapas, now known as St. Martinville. Relations were good between them and the Chitimacha Indians, the only indigenous inhabitants of the region. The Acadians devoted their energy to farming the rich alluvial soil. Later, they also settled farther to the south and east of the Atchafalaya, along Bayou Lafourche and the Mississippi River-the Acadian Coasts.7 How many Acadians finally settled in the Atchafalaya Basin-indeed, how many came to Louisiana-remains a matter of scholarly debate. Generally, however, estimates put the number between 2,500 and 3,000 Acadians in the Louisiana territory when the United States acquired it in 1803. Of that number, perhaps a third were in the Attakapas region.8 It was not only Louisiana's French culture that attracted the Acadians, but also generous grants of land. Spain ruled Louisiana from 1762 to 1800, when France reacquired it, and the Spanish administrators allowed heads of families to have 350 to 475 yards of stream frontage and as much as 40 arpents, about 1.5 miles, of land extending back from the water. If the Acadians hoped that all this land would be tillable, they were greatly disappointed. Generally, the best farmland was alongside the river bank, the highest and driest part of the property. Farther back the land was wetter, less well drained, and yielded fewer crops. Landowners often left the back section of land entirely to the bottomland hardwoods and cyprcss-tupelo swamps that dominated the basin. Each landowner built a levee to protcct his land. French and Spanish law stipulated that the landowner agree to this before obtaining legal possession, and the small river frontage eased the burden. Of course, landowners cooperated to link up their levees. No legal requirement specified the levee height. Probably...