Colonial Natchitoches: A Creole Community on the Louisiana-Texas Frontier (review)

The Gulf South region, what would later become Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, is often neglected when it comes to the colonial history of the United States. However, this region and its cotton-producing population would come to play a decisive role in the maturation of the United States and so deserves much more scholarly attention. Authors H. Sophie Burton and F. Todd Smith use the remote settlement of Natchitoches as a case study of colonial community development in the Louisiana-Texas backcountry before the region was incorporated into the United States. Following in the footsteps of Daniel Usner's Indians, Settlers & Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783 and Kimberly Hanger's and Shannon Lee Dawdy's books on New Orleans, Colonial Natchitoches further advances our understanding of how the lower Mississippi Valley was settled and how these areas were later incorporated into the expanding United States.¹

Colonial Natchitoches, then, is an important addition to the growing (albeit slowly) literature on the history of the colonial Gulf South. The French founded Natchitoches in 1714 and although colonial overlords changed, argue the authors, the original French settler families always dominated the town. These "first" families represented the white, free majority of the population, whereas African bondspeople represented the majority of enslaved. Interestingly, however, both white and black communities were not predominantly formed through immigration after the initial settlement in the 1710s and 1720s. Economically, the town depended on plantation slavery and cattle herding, and not the trade with the Native Americans of the area.

The seven chapters of the book are arranged chronologically, and the authors masterfully dissect the different social structures in the complex world of the backcountry settlement. They follow the people of European descent, African slaves, and Free People of Color through a century of constant change. In addition, the authors engage in an enlightening discussion of the economic basis of Natchitoches in the first century of its existence. The author's approach is thematic and offers a good example of colonial social history methodology. They successfully incorporate French, Spanish, and Anglo-American sources into their findings, creating a complex, subtle picture of the village. Their evidence makes it clear that the French inhabitants continued to dominate society even after Natchitoches became Spanish in 1766 and that the original settlers were determined to uphold their French values and culture even in this remote region of North America. In this stratified society, African Americans and Indians played subordinate, but important, roles—especially when the village shifted its economic base from Indian trading to plantation agriculture after Spain took possession of the region. Spain also replaced the French Code Noir with Spanish law to govern the growing body of enslaved Africans, yet, according to the authors, the descendants of the first French settlers held on to their status and defended French social norms.

Slavery became an integral part of the village with the advent of a fully developed plantation economy in the 1780s. Indian slaves, the authors conclude, were held in a system of bondage that resembled the system of Indian slavery itself: adoption into white families. Therefore, slaves of Indian descent were overwhelmingly house servants, whereas African slaves remained in the fields. The town's growing population of Free People of Color also began to carve out a place in society, often soliciting white patronage. Their numbers increased during the period of Spanish rule, but since the French elites were intent on intermarrying only with descendants of French families, and since the gender ratio was very balanced, the number of Free People of Color remained comparatively low. In a society that consisted of multiple ethnicities, the settlers of French descent were challenged to retain their dominant position. Through marriages arranged among the elites and political alliances with each other, these "first" families kept slaves, Indians, Free People of Color, and poor whites under control.

The book contains a wealth of information, yet...