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Cane River Cachet - March 16, 2002
By Ada D. Jarred
South African Roger Whittaker became an international star in 1969 with his ?New World In The Morning:?
Ev?rybody talks about a New World In The Morning,
New World In The Morning, so they say.
I myself don?t talk about a New World In The Morning,
New World In The Morning, that?s today.
One of the interesting aspects of working at Northwestern State University was the way the University kept re-inventing itself. Downsizing of administrative structure, recruiting more gifted and talented students, digitizing various educational activities?all were responses to a changing world, a changing state, a changing region, and even a changing locale. Given the recent rate of change, Whittaker?s ?New World In The Morning, that?s today....? seems self-evident.
One can?t help wondering if Northwestern has been such a flexible, responsive institution (tradition says that institutions of high learning are neither) because of its setting in Natchitoches, a community that always seems to be in transition.
Richard Seale, in his Northwestern master?s thesis of 1995, ?From French Village to American Town: The Development of Natchitoches, Louisiana, 1788-1818,? captures Natchitoches in such a period of change. Most of the information in this column is drawn from his work.
Seale recognizes three major impulses in this thirty-year period of transition: the relocation of the Church of St. Francis in 1788; American influence on Natchitoches from 1803 to 1813; and the development of streets in Natchitoches during the period of 1813 to 1816.
Juchereau de St. Denis, on a mission to establish trade connections between the French and Mexico, established Fort St. Jean Baptiste, the post that became Natchitoches near the mouth of Bayou Amulet. This was a fortuitous location at the foot of the Red River raft, which prevented boat traffic upriver. Natchitoches, then, became a transportation location, the point at which goods and people had to be shifted from river to land movement. Natchitoches also was the meeting point of significant overland trails, the Natchez Trace to the east, the El Camino Real to the west, and another south to Opelousas. The little French town was a major location for trade and an access point to settlement in Texas.
?Early Natchitoches consisted of a fort, church, and a line of dwellings atop the natural levees that ran along the braided channels that formed ?Les Isles des Natchitoches,?? writes Seale. Two streets, Bayou a Mulee now known as Amulet Street and DeMeziere Street, along with the structures mentioned, formed the town center for the French and Spanish periods.
Early Natchitoches was typical of colonial French towns in trailing along streams with one or more winding streets. It also followed the pattern of a cluster of structures around a church and a few mercantile entities. In 1735 St. Denis moved Fort St. Jean Baptiste to the hill of the present American Cemetery, building a church within the fort. Athanase de Mezieres, Spanish commandant of the fort, had a second church built near the old fort but outside its walls in 1771. This ?stone? church deteriorated rapidly, so Natchitoches broke the pattern in 1788 by relocating the Catholic Church to a present-day Front Street location, a major step in transition for the town.
The physical layout of Natchitoches continued to change after the arrival of the Americans in 1803. The Americans created a new business district, near the corner of present-day Front and Washington streets. A grid of straight streets with regular blocks soon followed. Natchitoches was no longer a French village in appearance; it was becoming ?a Spanish-inspired, American style town.?
Shifting the church upriver spurred the relocation of the town center from near Bayou Amulet to the west bank of Cane River between Touline and Lafayette streets of today. Riverboats began to be unloaded north of the old landing on Bayou Amulet, and the town began to grow. Americans influenced the location of the business district with the founding of Fort Claiborne. Captain Edward D. Turner chose a hill west of the river, about 100 yards north of the town and near the road to Texas, for the site of the fort. This location, on the hill west of present-day Second Street and between St. Denis and Pavie streets, encouraged Natchitoches merchants to locate nearby to trade with soldiers.
Residents of Natchitoches did not welcome the Americans with open arms. Despite the obvious language differences, the population of Natchitoches also thought of land, especially public land, in a Spanish manner. Nor did they appreciate the separation of church and state. The business district continued to develop according to a specific town plan, based on a Spanish model. Regardless of American dominance, the community had its way. Sentiment for the new location of Natchitoches west of the river prevailed.
All would not go smoothly for the newly emerging town. From 1825 to 1850, the main channel of the Red River shifted to Rigolet de Bon Dieu, leaving Natchitoches five miles west of the main channel. During the same period of time, the logjam in the Red River was removed. Both events drew river traffic from Natchitoches to Shreveport. Natchitoches was forced to move from a trading- to a plantation-based economy.
So Natchitoches has quite a history of transition. It has survived political, economic, and cultural challenges. Yet the French/Spanish town remains in the downtown business district. As Seale writes:
As community members work today to preserve the cultural uniqueness of the area,
they mirror the efforts of the community leaders of two centuries past who guided
the town through a significant period of transition as Natchitoches grew from a
French village based on trade into a one-of-a-kind Spanish inspired American town.
Is today a ?New World In The Morning?? Certainly since September 11, 2001 we have been told repeatedly that everything has changed, that nothing will be the same again. Whittaker ends his song with ?New World In The Morning never comes.? Perhaps is it a ?New World In The Morning,? just not the one we envisioned.
We can take heart, I believe, from the resilient history of Natchitoches. Events, trends, and influences may come and go, but Natchitoches will still be here.
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