I will try to write here what I know of the Chitimacha Indians as I know
it and what I heard from the old people.
The tribe once lived on Grand Lake from Bayou Portage, as that is where
the Sacred tree now stands, to the shell beach here in Charenton. That
is where they were living when one day a large boat came up from where
the sun rises. It stopped out in the lake a distance from shore. The
Indians were amazed at its size and stood on shore looking when some men
came ashore to see about coming ashore. Since they did not speak the
same language, they were chased back to their ship. (They were Spanish.)
Next day they decided to come ashore by force, but the night before the
chief consulted the medicine man to find out what should he do. The
medicine man took some kind of herbs and burnt them and gathered the
ashes and told the chief if he would spread the ashes on the shore line,
not one would put the foot on land. So it was done by the chief. They
tried, but the warriors held them off as the chief stood on the shell
knolls with the ashes in hand throwing bits in the air. They Spaniards
were so badly defeated, they went off in their ship. The Chitimacha,
thinking they had chased them off for good, forgot about them and again
were enjoying life like it was.
Not too many moons later, the Spaniards came back to the Indians on
Bayou de Chittamach (known now as Bayou Lafourche) and gathered the
Houma Indian which they had defeated and enslaved to fight the
Chitimachas. Somehow they came up Bayou Teche and attacked from that
side. While they were fighting the Houma Indians, the Spaniards came and
landed on the lake side, which is known now as the Shell Beach and
attacked from that side. The Chitimacha did not have a chance. Thousands
were killed and wounded and nothing to eat. We had to give up.
The enemy told the few remaining Chitimachas, “This is what we will give
you. You may remain here on this bayou and live. No harm will come to
you, but any Indian caught in the woods or lakeshore will be shot on
sight.”
This parcel of land we now hold is the very same place that they were
talking about.
We have no record of what happened to the Houmas that survived the war.
Perhaps the Spaniards took them home or they remained here and
intermixed with us. I do not know.
Hunting along the Bayou Teche was not so very good, so the Indians had
to eat whatever they could find such as acorns, wild fruit, and some
grass was edible until they could grow some vegetables. Then life became
more bearable.
Now that is the way I heard, true or not.
I do know that the Houma Indians were hated by all the old Indians as
late as the twenties. Few Houma Indians came over and were not received
by the old Indians with the exception of two women. I will cover them
later.
After the Spaniards settled, they had their first governor by the name
of Galvez. The year 1763, Galvez signed a treaty with the Chitimachas
for living so peaceful. He granted them 1100 acres of land on both sides
of Bayou Teche.
There is no record I can find how they built the town of Charenton in
the middle of the grant. The older Indians did not say what happened
from then to the time when Spain sold out to France.
When the Frenchmen came over, they started to take over the land that
was donated to the Chitimachas which they claimed the French had bought
it all from Spain. The treaty was no more good.
Then the French started killing Indians. The Indians tried to fight
back, but were no match for Frenchmen who nearly wiped out the Indians.
They killed them like animals, slaughtered, murdered until a few that
remained gave up. So the French took them and made slaves out of them,
those able to work in the fields. The women were made servants, the
young ones taken by the French as concubines. They were forced to lay
with the men, as young as ten years old. There were more men than there
were Indian women, so one Indian woman would satisfy the lust of five or
six Frenchmen.
Then half breeds were born to the Indian women. Some of us still have
French names.
There were only about fifty Indians escaped to Plaquemine, Weeks Island,
and all about. Some of them came back here and lived pretty peaceful
with the French. They populated well.
By that time the Frenchmen decided that the Indian worship of the Great
Spirit was wrong. They must forget their way of living and live like the
Frenchmen. So they sent a missionary among the Indians to teach them
their invisible God. The Indians, ready to believe anything to help
their plight, believed what this man was saying. His name was St.
Cosmos. He was so pleased with his work, he talked the Chief into
letting him take some Indians to meet the General to show him how they
had accepted the white God. So the Chief consented to let them go. He
took six of the Indian braves and left. It was not known where the
French army was located. Anyhow, when they got there the soldiers killed
all the Indians. The priest was outdone, so to speak, so he returned to
the reservation. When the Chief asked where were his men, the priest
told him they were all dead, shot by the French army. The chief was so
very angry, he ordered the priest killed and brought back to the French.
So be it. When the French woke up the next morning, there was the dead
priest. That is when all hell broke loose. The French hunted the
Chitimachas down and killed everyone in sight. Some Chitimachas ran and
hid all over the woods. Some went to what is now Weeks Island, some got
to Plaquemine. There were about fifty Chitimachas remaining on the same
land that is now the reservation.
At that time, O’Reilly was governor of Louisiana. He issued a
proclamation that the Indians could live there as long as they remained
peaceful and that they were on their own and that parcel of land would
show as a body of water on the map of Louisiana. This map can be found
in the archive of the state Capitol today.
Now about that time, Negro slaves were brought into the South. The white
plantation owners brought black slaves and began to let the Indians go
as they were not too good at work. So the free Indians had no place to
go but back to the Indian reserve with their half breed French and
Indian. It was assumed that is how the Chitimachas got their names until
today. Some of the ones that had escaped started to come back and some
did not. Some remained in Plaquemine where some of them still show the
Indian trace. Of course, they are whites today. And that is how we of
today are descendants of that bunch of Indians. There is no record of
how many there were. We are a small tribe today.
Now there is not much said about the Chief. It seems like they lived
without a chief until the late 1700’s when one Chief, Soulier Rouge,
seems like he acquired a pair of red shoes. Somehow the French started
calling him Soulier Rouge. His first name was Eugene. Nothing was said
about his reign. Only when he died, his squaw took over (Euginie) and
that is when the land started to disappear. She seems to be one of those
Indians that lick white man’s boots just to be with them. It is recorded
that she sold Rose Pecot 610 acres for $9.00 per acre and a man by the
name of Alex Frere 640 acres of land. The record shows that some of the
money was divided among some Indians at $40.00. That is the way it was
recorded in the Court House. The names on the record do not jive with
any name of the now Chitimachas. Somebody gave her an old Mexican silver
crown for a large acreage, but we cannot find out where, but we have the
crown. And it is recorded that in 1817 they leased 610 acres of 99
years. That was 168 years ago. It is also recorded that land was sold
the same year it was leased—which the sale is no good. Now my lawyer
told me that after the lease expires it cannot be re-leased by the same
party.
But we Chitimachas are a nation of people that are afraid to venture as
we may make the whites mad, and we seem as we do not want that. We have
the money to regain that property, but we do not trust lawyers in this
vicinity as we think they would work for the white instead of the
Indians, which was proven in the period of 1903 to 1910. One white
lawyer named George Demerest and one civil engineer named Fusilier
contacted the Indians stating that (the agreement with) Soulier Rouge
and Alex Dardenne was illegal as they could not read or write, that they
could gain all that land back for the Chitimachas. (I think John Paul
might have been Chief then.) The Indians had no money, so it was agreed
that Demerest would work for part of the land. It would not cost the
Indians one penny. So I guess the tribe, thinking that the land was lost
anyhow, so whatever they got back would be okay. So it was agreed that
Demerest would get 4/9 of the land for the Indians. The legal papers
were drawn and signed by both parties. So Demerest took to court in
Franklin. As to be expected, he lost the case. So the Indians must have
been a little outdone, but they figured the case was closed. But they
had signed to give George Demerest 4/9 of the land, win or lose. So
Demerest took all of Georgetown.
Fusilier surveyed the land and found that it was three acres short of
4/9, so he came over and started to measure three acres on Uncle Regis’
land. He was stopped by a shotgun pointing at his head and ordered to
get off. So he did, and they thought that was the end of it. I can
remember that incident. They would laugh when they said Regis was going
to shoot Fusilier. But what they did not know was that Demerest took out
a lien on the land. The Indians ignored the judgement until 1916, when
Demerest foreclosed on the land, which by now included all of the
Chitimacha’s land. The lien was to be sold on the courthouse steps. Now
Tante MiMi was Chief Ben Paul’s wife. She was in cahoots with one Sarah
McIlhenny at Avery Island in a basket trade. Miss Sarah would buy all
the baskets the Chitimacha women would make. The basket makers gathered
at Tante MiMi’s and decided to write to Miss Sarah and ask her help.
Being a very rich woman, they were sure that she would help. She did not
say she would or would not. She sent her lawyer to Franklin to pay off
the mortgage, and there was no sale. The land belonged to Avery Island.
Miss Sarah then made arrangements with Chief Ben Paul to rent the land
to some farmers and pay her back, as she did not want the land. She only
wanted her money back. So this was done. The chief let some Negro
farmers work on share as they had no money to pay rental. Come harvest
time, the Chief had a barn full of corn and sweet potatoes and no
market. The stuff just stayed there and rotted. He sold some. Up to
1918, he had sold and paid back $600.00, more or less.
In the meantime, McIlhenny lawyers were checking the title of the
property and found that the sale was illegal as some of the people had
title to the land, and the best thing for her to do was to petition the
B.I.A. (Bureau of Indian Affairs) to pay her back and take the land in
trust for the Indians. The B.I.A. hired a lawyer in Franklin named C.J.
Boatner to transact the deal in which he had all the Indians sign the
land over to the government, except some were not available at the time.
What the ignorant Indians did not know was that this property was not a
reserve any more. They were giving title to the land, and were paying
taxes on their property. The then Chief who made the deal with Demerest
did not have the authority to sign any deal with anyone. So the
government took over some private land which is not lawful. This
statement is recorded in the courthouse and can be made available
anytime. These records are not in Franklin, as Franklin is twenty miles
from here.