The Petticoat Rebellion by Laiche Jon

Author:Laiche, Jon [Laiche, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Technical Support Services, Inc.
Published: 2015-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

A HISTORICAL ADDENDUM:

About 50 miles upriver from New Orleans, the Mississippi opens one of its largest distributaries in SE Louisiana. On its western bank a large bayou drains some of its mighty waters through a rich and fertile plain down into the Gulf. So large, in fact, that its name defines it, not as a bayou, but as a fork in the great river. Later usage has demoted it to a bayou, but Bayou LaFourche still remains the fork in the river at present day Donaldsonville. Even in the earliest French records, this river fork, and the land around it was occupied.

Figuring out which Native group lived where in Lower Louisiana is an on-going puzzle. Between 1699 and 1803, the Louisiana Indians grew and shrunk in numbers, moved around, merged together, broke apart, fought with each other, lived with each other in the same villages and towns, battled the French settlers, traded with them, intermarried (or interbred) with Frenchmen, Spaniards, each other, and even some British wanderers. It is safe to say that basically they were rovers of the swamps and rivers of SE Louisiana. Comparing and analyzing the colonial sources along with modern studies of archaeology, tribal histories, and Native Louisiana folklore, a picture emerges of nomadic groups who survived along the edges of the marsh and the various rivers and bayous that is the Gulf coast of south Louisiana. It may be useful to compare their wanderings to the semi-nomadic lifestyle of the buffalo hunters of the same era on the North American Plains. In simple terms, all of these family groups and clan/tribes followed the game migrations. Seasonal villages were built along the group’s migratory cycle. People came and went with the seasons or with the flux in population. Different groups merged together and broke apart as climate conditions, landscapes, game populations, and human politics demanded. Unlike our neat Euro-American farmsteads, settlements, ranges, and ranches, which we claim and call our private property, Native Louisianians lived in the best places they could find, and the distributary at Bayou LaFourche remained a “best place” for this entire period and beyond.

Here in 1699, Iberville found the Chitimachas. Upriver he met the Bayougoulas and the Houmas. Further on were the Tunica. Later the Tunica joined the Houmas, then fought with them. The Tunicas eventually moved north to the Red River confluence and the Houmas south to Bayou LaFourche. By then, the Chitimachas and Bayougoulas had merged, and had been absorbed by the Houmas.* In any event, the now consolidated Houmas spread out down LaFourche and over the marshlands on either bank. It was here that Frére Gerard finds them in the 1730’s.

Today, Native Houma Indians may be found all over Louisiana. Our readers need to be aware that although the evidence is overwhelming, the Federal government still does not recognize the Houmas as a Native nation ! Typical of the injustice caused by the silly action or non-action of the US bureaucracy, we should do all we can to right this wrong.

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