1991 Chapter 5 Historic Setting

Antebellum Period

Settlement Along Bayou Teche

During the colonial period, the project area was part of the sparsely settled Attakapas district, a name purportedly derived from the Choctaw word for man-eater. As the name suggests, the region was inhabited by not always friendly Native American tribes; few Louisiana colonists ventured into the area until Acadian migration began during the late French colonial regime. Further settlement occurred under Spanish rule, but at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the region remained largely unoccupied.

The acquisition of Louisiana opened up the Attakapas district, and settlement within the region proceeded rapidly. Cheap land encouraged settlement; for example, one arpent of land sold for approximately $4.00 to $5.00 (Sitterson 1953:16). Furthermore, the soil was rich, and Bayou Teche provided a convenient means of transportation.

Describing the region to Americans unfamiliar with Louisiana, William Darby wrote:

Nature has been more than usually beneficent to the Attacapas , the fertility of the land is excessive, and the facility of navigation is seldom exceeded. It demands comparatively but little from the hand of art, to complete the benefits of this favored spot (Darby 1816:73).

Since lands were not difficult to clear, farms could be transformed easily into plantations, and cotton farming soon gave way to sugar cane cultivation.

This transformation was facilitated by falling cotton prices (the Panic of 1819), and by domestic sugar tariffs (Tariff of 1816). In the Attakapas district, the shift to sugar cane cultivation advanced briskly. For example, in 1828, there were 99 sugar producers in Lafayette, St. Martin, and St. Mary parishes; by 1829, 162 were recorded in the three parishes (Degelos 1892:65-68). In St. Mary Parish, sugar production emerged as the predominant enterprise.

Before 1850, the majority of sugar planters in Louisiana were busy expanding and developing their holdings; using borrowed capital, they took up new lands and acquired plantations, slaves and equipment (Sitterson 1953:70). By the 1850s, however, the developmental phase was over. The sugar plantation regime had become firmly established and dominated the economy of Louisiana’s lower parishes. Below the Red River, the cultivation of cotton was, for the most part, replaced by the planting of cane.

Large plantations exercised significant economic influence on the sugar industry; they had an economic advantage over their smaller competitors because of the prohibitive cost of machinery. For example, during the antebellum period, there was no trend towards centrally located mills or refineries. Consequently, every sugar cane plantation had its own sugar house. Regardless of size, each sugar plantation had to be both factory and farm (Roland 1957:3). The capital outlay required for machinery made sugar production far more expensive than the production of cotton, and this situation gave the large planter with available capital an advantage over his less affluent competitors.

The recurring theme noted throughout the project area and for sugar culture in Louisiana, in general, was consolidation. Sugar cane cultivation required not only expensive machinery but also substantial cane planting. Large producers had an advantage, and consolidation almost inevitably occurred. The trend toward consolidation was temporarily halted by the Civil War, but afterwards it continued well into the twentieth century.

This trend can be seen throughout the project area. In 1837, when the land claim map was prepared, only Section 18 and Sections 45 through 48 were uncla-med. Confirmation for Sections 45 through 47 occurred in 1846; confirmation for Section 48 occurred in 1860. In the meantime, consolidation within the project vicinity began. For example, by 1860, Pinckney C. Bethel combined several small tracts into his upper and lower plantations. A portion of the project area is encompassed by Bethel’s merger of Sections 51, 52, 54, and 55.

The decade of the 1850s was a period of prosperity in St. Mary Parish. For all but two years (1853 and 1856), St. Mary Parish produced more sugar than any parish in the state. In 1853, crops in St. Mary were affected adversely by repercussions of the severe freeze and snowfall of January 1852; a hurricane in August 1856 also disrupted sugar production in the parish (Broussard and Broussard 1955:11; De Grummond 1949:37, 43; Champomier 1857:v-vii).

Riverine Transportation

Throughout the antebellum period, riverine transportation formed the primary means of travel throughout the Attakapas district, including within the study area. Development of overland routes between the district and the Mississippi River was impeded by the numerous lakes and bayous which separated the two. While local traffic utilized a public road which aligned the west bank of Bayou Teche (Conrad 1979), travel and commerce over long distances was dependent on successful navigation of Bayou Teche.

During the early nineteenth century, Attakapas district commerce was focused on the production of beer, vegetable, and agricultural products, and on the distribution of these goods to New Orleans. Many of these goods required rapid transportation to prevent spoilage during shipment. In response to this transportation need, commercial vessel routes between the district, and the Mississippi River and New Orleans, were established beginning in the late 181 Os. These routes, plied by steamers such as the Louisianais, the Valcano, and the Louisville, initially extended from the Teche, through the Atchafalaya Basin and Bayou Plaquemine, to the Mississippi River. However, low water levels generally made them impassible during the summer and fail months. A few vessels, such as the Teche, transported goods to New Orleans via the Gulf of Mexico. However, numerous snags along lower Bayou Teche hindered navigation, resulting in high operational costs. The early nineteenth commercial vessels typically transported cattle to market (Brasseaux 1979).

During the 1830s through 1860, numerous sugar plantations thrived along Bayou Teche. As stated previously, St. Mary Parish led the state in sugar production during most of the 1850s. Until late in the antebellum period, the bulk of commercial cargo, predominantly sugar, was transported to New Orleans via the Bayou Plaquemine route. This route was navigable during winter and spring, when the majority of sugar was processed and sent to market. However, the inland routes remained impassible during the low water months in summer and fall, so passengers and cargo continued to travel to New Orleans via the Gulf of Mexico during those months (Brasseaux 1979).

Riverine commerce and travel along Bayou Teche was spurred in 1857, with the completion of the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western Railroad Company between Algiers, which is situated across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, and Brashear City, now Morgan City. This 80 mi (129 km) long rail link with New Orleans permitted rapid, reliable transportation of passengers and cargo from the plantations along the Teche to New Orleans on a year-round basis. This resulted in a considerable increase in the volume of cargo carried by steamers along the Teche, through the project area, to Brashear City. The rail link proved so successful, that during the same year, 1857, 45 prominent St. Mary Parish planters and merchants petitioned the general assembly to erect a dam across Bayou Plaquemine to inhibit floodinq (Brasseaux 1979: Millet 1983).

Extracted 24 Jun 2020 by Norma Hass from "Historical and Archeological Investigations of Fort Bisland and Lower Bayou Teche, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana" by Defense Technical Information Center, published 02 Jun 1991, pages 45-105.