James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 4

by Edwin James; Stephen H. Long; Thomas Say

Above the confluence of Black river the bed of Red river immediately contracts to one hundred and twenty yards, which is its average width from this point to the rapids seventy-two miles above: the current becomes in a corresponding degree more rapid, running with a velocity of from two and a half to three miles per hour, at a moderate stage of water, in the early part of summer. The average depth in this section is stated at from eighteen to twenty feet, at a time when the water is twenty-one feet below its maximum of elevation. The banks are generally bold and steep on one side or the other, and often on both. The bottom lands are level and exceedingly fertile, but bear the marks of periodical inundation. The forests of the lower section of Red river differ little from those of the Mississippi and the Arkansa. White gum, cotton-wood, pecan, locusts, white oak, mulberry, sycamore, hackberry, and cypress occupy the low grounds, while the low and scattered hills are covered with pine, intermixed with a small proportion of oak and hickory. The only portion of the low lands in any sort fit for cultivation is a narrow strip immediately on each bank, commencing a little above the mouth of Black river, and enlarging upwards; but even here the settler is not secure, as uncommon swellings of the river sometimes lay the whole under water. Aside from this, the extreme insalubrity of the air, occasioned by the vicinity of extensive swamps, stagnant ponds, and lagoons, tends to retard the progress of settlements in this quarter.

At the rapids the river spreads to three hundred yards in width. The banks are thirty feet high, and never overflowed. Here has for many years been a settlement. The soil of the neighbouring country is extremely fertile.[52] A bed of soft sandstone, or indurated clay, crosses the river, causing a fall of ten feet {165} in fifty yards. "This stone, when exposed to the air, becomes as hard as freestone; but under water it is found as soft as chalk. A channel could, with very little labour or expense, be cut through any part of the bed of the river, and need not be extended more than two hundred yards. It appears to me that twenty men, in ten days, with mattocks only, could at low water open a channel sufficiently wide and deep for all the barges that trade in this river to pass with safety and ease."[53] Three quarters of a mile above this rapid is another, very similar in extent and magnitude.

Thirty miles above the rapids we find the river divided into two beds, each having a high bold bank. The right-hand channel contains about one third of the volume of water of the whole river. They separate from each other four or five miles below Natchitoches, and unite again here, forming an island sixty miles long and five wide.

The right-hand branch is called by the French Rigolet Bon Dieu, and the other Old river. Another island, commencing one-fourth of a mile below Natchitoches, extends parallel to that above mentioned, thirty-four miles and a half; this is about four miles wide. The current, in all the branches which lie between these islands and the main-shore, is rapid, but not equally so. The description already given of the valley of the river is applicable to this portion; on each side the surface descends from the river, terminating in a line of pools and cypress swamps, which extend along the base of the bluff. Settlements were here somewhat numerous in 1806. The small cottages are placed near the bank of the river, and the cultivated lands extend back but a little distance. "The inhabitants," says Freeman "are a mixture of French, Spanish, Indian, and Negro blood, the latter often predominating."[54]

{166} The separation of the water of the river into three distinct branches, each confined within high and steep banks, raised twenty and even thirty feet above the medium elevation of the water, and their reunion, after traversing severally an extent of sixty and thirty miles, might at first view appear a matter of curious inquiry; but upon the slightest investigation it will be discovered that this whole country adjacent to the river has been made or raised to its present elevated position by frequent inundation and depositions from the water. This evidently appears from the great quantities of timber frequently seen as you ascend the river, deposited as low as low-water mark, under steep banks of different heights from twelve to thirty feet.

Red river takes its name from the colour of its water, which is in time of floods of a bright red, and partakes more or less of this colour throughout the year. There can be no doubt the colouring matter on which this tinge depends is derived from the red sandstone of the salt formation already described when speaking of the sources of the Canadian river of Arkansa, although no person qualified to give a satisfactory account of the country has hitherto traced Red river to that formation. We propose to add some brief notices of this important river, derived from the unpublished materials of the exploring party sent out by the government of the United States in 1806; also from the notes of Major Long, who visited the upper settlements in 1817; not neglecting such additional information from the works of Darby, Nuttall, and others who have written of Louisiana, as may appear deserving of confidence.

Red river was explored at a very early period by the French, but their examinations appear to have extended no farther than to the country of the Natchitoches and the Cadoes;[55] and although subsequent {167} examinations have a little enlarged our acquaintance with its upper branches, we are still unfortunately ignorant of the position of its sources. Three years after the cession of Louisiana to the United States, a small party, known by the name of the "Exploring Expedition of Red river," and consisting of Captain Sparks, Mr. Freeman, Lieut. Humphrey, and Dr. Custis, with seventeen private soldiers, two non-commissioned officers, and a black servant, embarked from St. Catherine's landing, near Natchez, on board several barges and small boats, with instructions to ascend Red river to its sources.[56] On the 3d of May 1806 they entered Red river, expecting to be able to ascend with their boats to the country of the Pawnee Piqua Indians. Here it was their intention to leave their boats, and packing their provision on horses which they should purchase of the Pawnees, they were to "proceed to the top of the mountains," the distance being, as they believed, about three hundred miles.

On the 19th of May they arrived at Natchitoches, distant from the Mississippi 184 miles 266 perches, measured by log-line and time. At this place they delayed some days; and having received information that their progress would be opposed by the Spaniards, they resolved to increase the strength of their party by retaining a detachment which had been ordered by the secretary at war to join them at Natchitoches, "for the purpose of assisting the exploring party to ascend the river to the upper end of the Great Raft, and to continue as far afterwards as might appear necessary to repel by force any opposition they might meet with." Accordingly, twenty men were selected from the garrison at Natchitoches, and, under the command of Lieutenant Duforest,[57] joined the exploring {168} party. They were now thirty-seven in number aside from the officers, and were furnished with a supply of flour sufficient for nine months' provision. On the 2d of June they left Natchitoches, and proceeded towards their destination. The journal of their tour by Mr. Freeman, which has been obligingly put into our hands by General D. Parker,[58] is extremely circumstantial, and embraces much valuable information. We make use of it, without particular reference, whenever we have occasion to speak of that part of Red river visited by the expedition. On the 7th of June the party were overtaken, near a small village of Natchitoches and Paskagoulas,[59] by an Indian guide and interpreter, whom they had hired at Natchitoches. He brought a letter from Dr. Sibley,[60] the Indian agent, giving information that a detachment of Spanish troops were already on their march from Nacogdoches,[61] with a design to intercept the exploring party. At the distance of one hundred and two miles above Natchitoches they left the bed of the river, turning out through one of those numerous communications called Bayous, which connect the principal channel with those lateral chains of lakes, pools, swamps, and marshes, which extend along the sides of the valley. Their design in leaving the river was to avoid that singular obstruction to the navigation called the Great Raft, having been informed by Mr. Toolan, an old and respectable French inhabitant, that it would be impossible for them to pass through it. They had already encountered three similar obstructions, through which they had made their way with extreme toil, by loosening and floating out the logs and trunks of trees, that had been piled upon each other in such numbers as to fill the bed of the river from the bottom, usually at the depth of thirty feet, and rising three or four feet above the surface of the water.

The Bayou Datche, as the part of the river is called into which they entered, conducted them to a {169} beautiful lake called Big Broth.[62] It is thus described by Mr. Freeman. "This beautiful sheet of water extends, from the place we first entered it, seventy miles in a north-westerly direction; and, as far as we saw it, is beautifully variegated with handsome clumps of cypress trees thinly scattered in it; on the right-hand side it is bounded by high land, which ascends from the surface of the water, and at the distance of one hundred yards is elevated about forty feet, and covered with forests of black oak, hickory, dogwood, &c.; soil good second-rate. It is bounded on the left by a low plain covered with cypress trees and bushes. The depth of water is from two to six feet. High-water mark ten feet above the present surface. It is called by the Indians Big Broth, from the vast quantities of froth seen floating on its surface at high water. The passage out of this lake is by a very difficult communication, through bayous, into another very handsome lake of about one mile wide called Swan lake, and so on, through long crooked bayous, lakes, and swamps, full of dead standing timber." Having made their way for many days along this chain of lakes, they were at length anxious to return to the river. After searching several days for a passage, and finding their pilot incapable to direct them, they resolved to wait while they could send messengers by land to the Coashatay village,[63] and procure a guide. The return of this messenger brought them some information calculated to aid in extricating themselves from the labyrinth of lakes in which they were bewildered, also the promise of the Coashatay chief, that he would join the party himself, and conduct them to the river. This promise, however, it was not his intention to fulfil. The party therefore, on the 20th of June, resumed their search for a passage, returning some distance on their route. {170} On the 25th they discovered a narrow and obstructed channel, through which, after removing several rafts, trees, &c. they found their way into the river. "Thus," says the journal of the expedition, "after fourteen days of incessant fatigue, toil and danger, doubt and uncertainty, we at length gained the river above the Great Raft, contrary to the decided opinion of every person who had any knowledge of the difficulties we had to encounter."[64]