In 1682, René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, claimed  Louisiana for France. Near the end of the 17th century, King Louis XIV considered another venture in the New World. In 1698, he commissioned Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, and Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville II, to implement La Salle’s original colonization plan for Louisiana. Iberville readied an expedition force and departed from Brest, France, on October 24, 1698. The expedition reached the vicinity of Dauphin Island on the Gulf of Mexico on January 31, 1699. Eventually, it settled near Biloxi, Mississippi, and later in New Orleans, Louisiana. Iberville resolved to erect several forts and trading posts along the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

The following year, to implement this decision, Bienville led an exploration of the Red River to open trade with local tribes. Accompanied by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, Bienville’s group reached the vicinity of Natchitoches and established friendly contacts with the Caddo tribes. In 1702, Iberville returned to France to recruit more settlers, obtain supplies, and secure military equipment for the colony.

Cadillac’s administration succeeded in attracting new settlers to the colony, prompting the need to develop a well-defined land-grant system. In 1716, the king adopted a series of colonial land regulations that stipulated that a land grant must be cleared within two years or revert to the crown. In addition, the land was to be cleared by two-thirds before the original grantee could sell it.

These land concessions were categorized as either general or special. A general concession designated any portion of the vacant lands for development, while a special concession provided fixed boundaries for land grants. Early grantees received between 50 and 100 arpents (approximately 190 feet to the arpent) facing the Red River. The decree of 1716 ordered unimproved land divided into sections of two to four arpents, each in front and extending back from the river a distance of 40 arpents. This system allowed each landholder to have some good natural levee land and a back swamp.

The river served as the focal point of settlement, providing a transportation route for commerce and communication to reach all parts of the colony. The presence of natural levees along the river led to the adoption of a linear settlement pattern, possibly based on European models, in which the plantations’ main structures were located nearest the river. At the same time, the rear portions of the grants contained fields, followed by swamps or woods. At river bends, this settlement pattern led to the formation of pie-shaped land holdings rather than the usual rectangular sections. These land patterns can still be seen in the Cane River area.

French Louisiana’s commercial activities centered around the Indian trade. Because of the proximity to Spanish Texas and the Indian nations, Natchitoches was ideally suited to a frontier market economy. Because a giant logjam called the Great Raft blocked Red River navigation above the settlement, Natchitoches was the northern terminus for traffic to and from downriver ports. In addition, the city’s location near the Spanish El Camino Real, a major east-west overland route, further enhanced its growth as a trade center.

The French expansion into the Red River Valley raised concern among Spanish authorities in East Texas, and in 1717 they countered the French settlement with one of their own: the mission post at Los Adaes. Located 14 miles southwest of Natchitoches, this outpost eventually became the capital of Spanish Texas. Proximity, necessity, and mutual profit led to a lively contraband trade relationship between the two communities despite the opposing mercantilist policies of both governments. The Spanish needed tobacco, medicine, liquor, firearms, salt, and other goods obtained through the Red River trade, while the French provided a ready market for Spanish silver and cattle.

The Seven Years’ War, known in America as the French and Indian War, concluded in 1763 with France’s expulsion from North America. In 1762, during the war, Spain was induced to enter on France’s side. The price for Spanish participation was the cession of Louisiana lands on the west bank of the Mississippi River, including Natchitoches, and those on the east bank below Bayou Manchac. This agreement was formalized by the Treaty of Fontainebleau in 1762. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 further clarified the war’s military and diplomatic outcomes.

Spanish Louisiana

The formal transfer of the colony from France to Spain did not occur until January 1767. During this period, resentment grew among the French settlers concerning the Spanish administration of Louisiana. This displeasure resulted in a revolt against Spanish rule and the expulsion of the Spanish governor on November 1, 1768. For the next 10 months, the colony pursued an independent course free from any European control. The period of rebellious self-rule abruptly ended in July 1769, when a Spanish fleet carrying General Alejandro O’Reilly and an army of more than 2,000 soldiers arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The rebellion quickly collapsed before this show of Spanish strength. Spanish authorities imposed Spanish law and government on the former French colony this time.

French fears of Spanish domination soon proved unfounded. The new regime caused little visible change in daily life. At Natchitoches, the Spanish retained the services of the French commandant, Anthanase De Mezieres, son-in-law of St. Denis and brother-in-law of the Duc d’Orleans. An able administrator and an expert in Indian affairs, De Mezieres played an essential role in developing the Louisiana-Texas border region during the following decade. De Mezieres’s Indian expertise was especially valuable as Spain had difficulty bringing the Louisiana tribes under their influence without starting a protracted and debilitating conflict.

To attract Indian commerce, De Mezieres persuaded the government to abandon the system of Indian control through missionary work and adopt the French method of trade and presence. By doing so, he maintained relative stability in the Red River Valley throughout Spanish dominion.

Commercial agriculture based on tobacco and indigo production replaced earlier frontier economies, although animal skins and products remained a staple of the Natchitoches economy. During this time, farmers adopted the plantation system and formed large agricultural units worked by enslaved people. By 1776, Natchitoches Parish had a slave population of nearly 4,000.

The United States Purchases Louisiana

In the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, the king of Spain ceded Louisiana back to France, an action reconfirmed in 1801 in the Treaty of Madrid. The actual transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France was delayed until November 1803. In light of these developments, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson instructed his minister to France, Robert R. Livingston, to negotiate with French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to purchase Louisiana. This led to the Louisiana Purchase, in which France turned over the Louisiana Territory to the United States in December 1803.

President Thomas Jefferson dispatched two exploration parties under Zebulon Pike and Thomas Freeman to reconnoiter the Red River. Both groups were particularly interested in the area between Natchitoches and the Sabine River, which had been a disputed area between the French and Spanish. The border question was raised again with the U.S. purchase of Louisiana. In 1806, American forces established themselves east of Arroyo Hondo (a small stream just west of Natchitoches), with Spanish forces on the west bank of the Sabine River. This created a “neutral strip,” which became a haven for outlaws, bandits, fugitive slaves, and filibusters gathering for the invasion of Texas. In 1821, a series of treaties fixed the boundary between the two countries at the Sabine River. Soon, the U.S. government established several new forts on the Louisiana frontier. Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Taylor commanded the Seventh Infantry to construct Fort Seldon, which was occupied for four months between 1821 and 1822 until a more strategic site was selected. The new site, 14 miles to the southwest, was named Fort Jesup. Fort Jesup remained a significant American frontier post until the Mexican-American War.

After the area became part of the United States, plantation society, including the institution of slavery, flourished along the Red River for several reasons. In 1810, cotton was introduced into the Red River Valley, but prosperity came to the area with the twin technological developments of the steamboat and the cotton gin.

A series of events resulted in the decline of Natchitoches, including the removal of the log raft above the city by Henry Shreve and the subsequent establishment of Shreveport, which eventually superseded Natchitoches as a major port and trade center; the Red River’s gradual abandonment of the channel, which ran by the city and plantations in Natchitoches Parish; the westward expansion of the United States; and the American Civil War and its consequences.

Control of Shreveport and the cotton supplies of the Red River Valley were the primary motivations for the Red River campaign, one of Louisiana’s most famous Civil War engagements. The campaign began in the spring of 1864 with a military force under Union General Nathanial Banks pushing Confederate forces under General Richard Taylor slowly north along the Red River. A series of skirmishes and battles was fought, including in areas near Cloutierville and Magnolia Plantation. This fighting culminated with the battle at Pleasant Hill. The Union forces retreated, and the Confederates remained in control of the area until the end of the Civil War.

Over a century of dominion, the French and Spanish left a lasting imprint on Louisiana: they introduced Catholicism and shaped land-use patterns. They initiated an economic system that superseded that of Native Americans. To develop the colonial economy, the white settlers required territorial control and the cooperation of the Indian populations. The French distributed gifts through Indian traders and agents to court local tribes; the Spanish used mission outposts. And for both nations, a small display of military force did much to ensure the security of their New World investments. Eventually, the increasing pressure of  European settlement and the European and American policies towards Indians destroyed Indian lifeways and eventually led to their removal from the Cane River area.