Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans

Antoine Barraque

Antoine Barraque Among the rugged immigrants to earlyArkansas wasAntoine Barraque, a soldier,fur trader,Indian agent,and planter who lived an outsized life and died the patriarch of a large family. Born in  in the French department of Gascoigne,near the Pyrenees Mountains,Barraque must have come from a prosperous family, for he was educated in Paris and surviving examples of his writing show that he had a good command of formal French. Barraque served in Napoleon’s army, fighting at the battles of Marengo, Austerliz, Jena, Lodi, and in the Moscow campaign, where he lost his only brother. The late James Leslie of Pine Bluff, a fine local historian, wrote that Barraque migrated to the United States after the Battle of Waterloo, “fearing imprisonment.” After spending a short time in Philadelphia for reasons unknown, the forty-three-year-old Frenchman relocated toArkansas—which was then a part of Missouri Territory. Settling in Arkansas Post in , Barraque lived with the family of Joseph Dardenne,a wealthy merchant. Almost immediately Barraque began trading with the Quapaws, which indicates that he probably came to Arkansas with some financial means. Within a year of his arrival, he married Marie Therese, Dardenne’s daughter. This marriage probably bolstered his economic and social ties to the Quapaws. With Dardenne’s assistance, Barraque began buying land and established a plantation on the north side of the Arkansas River. Named “New Gascony” after his former home in France, Barraque’s plantation became an early center for cotton cultivation and ginning. Barraque also became a business partner of Frederic Notrebe, another French immigrant and veteran of Napoleon’s army, who was a prosperous merchant and plantation owner. In the autumn of  Barraque came close to losing his life while on a commercial hunting expedition to the Red River country of southwest Arkansas. His hunting group, which included a slave as well as a  mixture of whites and Quapaws, was attacked by as many as  Osage warriors. Seven of Barraque’s party were killed, including his slave, and hides, provisions, and horses were stolen. The fact that Barraque was out hunting at the time of the attack probably saved his life. Though Barraque was highly regarded by the Quapaws and had done business with them since his arrival in the area, he was a party to their removal from their ancestral homeland in Arkansas. The fact that the Quapaws had always maintained friendly relations with the French and later the Americans did nothing to prevent the taking of their lands. In  the Quapaws signed a treaty at St. Louis that took all their lands north of the Arkansas River, though they retained a large reservation that stretched from the edge of Little Rock (hence the “Quapaw Quarter”) all the way to Arkansas Post.Within a few months residents of the new Territory of Arkansas were clamoring for the complete removal of the Quapaws. Finally, in  the Quapaws signed another treaty, this one requiring their removal to the Red River area, where they were expected to share lands traditionally held by the Caddo Indians. Barraque signed the treaty as a witness. Barraque,at the request of Quapaw chief Heckatoo,was appointed a “subagent” to escort the tribe, which now numbered only  individuals , to the Red River. Jim Leslie has estimated that as many as onethird of the Quapaws died during and immediately after the trek to the Caddo lands in –. Barraque, who wrote a detailed account of the removal in French, unsuccessfully tried to intercede with state authorities on behalf of the Quapaws. Barraque next appears in the public record in , when he took possession of the records of the newly created Jefferson County and moved them from the new town of Pine Bluff to his own New Gascony farm. This action resulted in an election, in which the voters selected Pine Bluff as the county seat. Barraque henceforth devoted his considerable energy to business. He sold his New Gascony plantation and bought about , acres where White Bluff is today. George W. Featherstonhaugh, an English traveler who found little aboutArkansas to his liking,visited Barraque’s plantation in  and was impressed with both the family and the farm. He later wrote that the Barraque farm “is one of the best cotton Antoine Barraque  plantations on the river,” and “Mons.Barraque’s family were all French, and occupied a house containing two large and very comfortable rooms, neatly and...