Photographs (left to right): Alligator, Bracket Fungus, Alligator, Florida

Wampum Belt Archive

French Post and Natchitoches Alliance

 

 

Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site 156 Jefferson Street, Natchitoches, LA 71467

 

 

Original Size:	Rows: 19. Length not given. Beads: glass?
Reproduction:	Beaded length: 56.5 inches. Width: 9.5 inches. Length w/fringe: 80.5 inches.
Beads:	Columns: 356. Rows: 19. Total Beads: 6,764 beads.
Materials:	Warp: Deer leather. Weft: Artificial sinew. Beads: Polymer.

Description:

Polymer or Glass belt?

Park Manager, Justin French, just finished this wampum belt depicting an alliance between the French Post and Natchitoches Indians during the Natchez Attack of 1731. 

Justin French, Park Manager, made this wampum belt depicting an alliance between the French Post and Natchitoches Indians during the Natchez Attack of 1731.

Natchitoches was founded by a French Canadian, Louis Antoine Juchereau de St. Denis, in 1714 while he was en route to Mexico from Mobile, Alabama, on a trade mission. When he reached the village of the Natchitoches Indians on the Red River, he had two huts constructed within the village and left a small detachment there to guard the stores and trade with the inhabitants. This became the first permanent European settlement in the territory later known as the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1716, Sieur Charles Claude Dutisné was sent to Natchitoches with a small company of colonial troops to build and garrison an outpost that would prevent the Spanish forces in the province of Texas from advancing across the border of French Louisiane. This strategic outpost was named Fort St. Jean Baptiste des Natchitoches. Economically, Natchitoches evolved into a primary French trade center in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Native American tribes of the three Caddo Confederacies played a vital role in establishing trade and communication links among the French, the Spanish and the Native Americans of the region. The trade that developed with the Caddos forever changed the material culture of the tribes, and by the mid-18th century they were almost completely dependent upon French trade goods. The diplomatic success of the fort was assured when St. Denis was named commandant in 1722. His influence would thrive in the colony until his death in 1744.

The fort continued to serve as a military outpost and commercial trade center until 1762, when France's defeat by England in the French and Indian War forced her to cede the Louisiana colony to Spain. Under Spanish authority, the fort served as a trade center and a link in Spain's intracolonial communications network. But since its original purpose of protecting a territorial boundary no longer applied, the Spanish eventually abandoned the fort. The fort was in such ruins by the time the United States acquired the area in the Louisiana Purchase (1803) that the Americans could no longer use it, so they built Fort Claiborne nearby

 

Reference:

Fort St Jean Baptiste website:

Fort St Jean Baptiste website: https://www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-parks/historic-sites/fort-st-jean-baptiste-state-historic-site/index?fbclid=IwAR1FPTCz5Z322tnnjFtqA5ABXwpsDlRqM0fZFiVti0IErV6It9Z25aEcXTU

Fort St Jean Baptiste website: https://www.lastateparks.com/historic-sites/fort-st-jean-baptiste-state-historic-site