A New Look at the Initial Acadian Settlement Location in the Attakapas

Donald J. Arceneaux

(last revised 6.10.15) NOTE: This article is subject to additional revision should a “new” primary-source document (or documents) surface which would be relevant to the theory presented here.

In 1987, Carl A Brasseaux, a foremost scholar of Louisiana Acadian history, published The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765-1803. Dr. Brasseaux noted that “the oldest of the pioneer communities, called first le dernier camp d’en bas and later Fausse Pointe, was established near present-day Loreauville by late June 1765.” He then suggested some Acadians soon moved and in 1766 the new colonists in the Attakapas were settled there and in three other locations. Two of these locations may have been adjacent to each other. The theorized locations were determined primarily upon examination of the 25 April 1766 Spanish Census and available land records.[1]

I began my interest in early Attakapas Post history about 1995. Over time, as additional primary-source documents have been located, the exact sites of ancient place-name locations have often been reconsidered in geo-historical studies. I studied and restudied the Spanish census and land records. Since 1987 different, previously unknown documents have surfaced. When I came across a reference to a deposition of Jean-Baptiste Broussard and then read a complete translation of it, I realized that one ancient Acadian himself told us where he and his extended family first settled in the Attakapas. Dr. Brasseaux said Broussard’s declaration was “a smoking gun.” I became more and more convinced that from 1765 to 1770 the Acadians were all settled in three adjacent neighborhoods/communities, in essence one location, along a section of Bayou Teche in the Fausse Pointe. Presented here are my answers to long-asked questions: “What were the initial Acadian settlement sites (or site) in the nascent Attakapas Post? What evidence implies their locations?” By piecing together the very early, relevant primary-source documents and the genealogical records for selected families noted in those documents – like constructing a jig-saw puzzle with missing pieces and then interpreting an incomplete picture – a new theory is here put forth regarding the initial Acadian settlement location.[2]

In late February 1765, French colonial officials, awaiting the appearance of their Spanish replacements, reported the arrival by sea of a large group of about 200 Acadians in New Orleans. These Acadians, former prisoners of the British at Halifax, Nova Scotia, had been set free in accord with provisions of the Treaty of Paris.[3] After a brief stop in Saint- Domingue (present-day Haiti), these new immigrants appeared without prior notice in Louisiana’s colonial capitol. Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil[4] was the chief leader of the group, comprised of about fifty-eight to sixty families, many of whom were related by blood or marriage.[5]

The Beausoleil group remained in New Orleans for about seven weeks. Nine baptisms and three marriages were performed in the city’s Catholic Church.[6] An attempt was made to redeem outdated French Canadian card-monies, a type of promissory notes that was held by thirty-two destitute Acadians.[7] Discussions and agreements concerning a settlement location took place between officials, established colonists, and the newcomers. Supplies were issued to the impoverished recent immigrants.[8] Preparations were completed for a move to a new, southern Acadian homeland.

The Acadians had experience raising crops and cattle in their old, north-temperate-climate homeland. A contingent of the Beausoleil group consisted of former residents of the Isthmus of Chignecto region, where profitable Acadian cattle ranching had been well established for decades.[9] After only about a week in New Orleans, the new immigrants were apparently offered land in the far western Attakapas frontier. Frenchmen Antoine-Bernard Dauterive and André Masse were Attakapas land partners. On 2 March 1765 in the City, the partners relinquished title to their frontier land, presumed to have been along Bayou Teche in the vicinity of present-day St. Martinville. In exchange for this ceded tract, the partners were given a large expanse of land named La Prairie du Vermillion located well west of St. Martinville. It is written that the Acadians were to settle specifically on the partners’ ceded east-bank land opposite St. Martinville. It is also reported that the partners’ relinquished land extended from the east-bank all the way to the mouth of Bayou Portage. Dauterive had cattle in the Attakapas. On 4 April in New Orleans, he made a compact with eight Acadian “chiefs” including: Joseph dit Beausoleil Broussard, Alexandre Broussard, Joseph Guilbeau, Jean Dugas, Olivier Thibodeau, Jean-Baptiste Broussard, Pierre Arseneau and Victor Broussard. These eight leaders were possibly also acting for their comrades not present at the formal meeting attended by the governor. Dauterive agreed to furnish five cows and one bull to each willing Acadian, once the newcomers were on the western frontier. After six years, Dauterive would get half their herd’s increases. From their shares, the Acadians would also return to Dauterive his initial investments.[10]

On 8 April in New Orleans, the governor gave Joseph Broussard a title and a responsibility. Beausoleil was named “Captain of Militia and Commandant of the Acadians going to settle on the land of the Acutapas [sic].” The governor reported on 24 April 1765 that the Beausoleil group had “departed New Orleans.” They traveled in boats with supplies bound for their new sub-tropical homeland. On that same date, possibly somewhere along the Mississippi River near present-day Plaquemine, the pastor at St. Francis Church of Pointe Coupée baptized one-day old Marguerite Broussard, daughter of Joseph [Petit Joseph] and his second wife, Marguerite Savoie. These parents were recorded as “Acadians going to establish a new settlement at Attakapas.” The newborn was a granddaughter of Beausoleil. Her male sponsor, André Masse, was absent at the baptism and represented by René Trahan, who was the brother-in-law of the father. Because the child’s parents choose Masse, they may have met the Frenchman before the baptism date, possibly in New Orleans, although there is no known record of Masse there in 1765. Could Masse have traveled with the Acadians to the Attakapas? Perhaps the parents stopped to give birth and Masse accompanied the rest of the Beausoleil group on west? That might explain why Masse was absent at the baptism.[11]

Jean François de Civrey, a Capuchin missionary priest, was assigned the tasks of accompanying the new Acadian colonists to the western frontier and serving them there. He did not perform the Broussard baptism in April on the river. On 11 May 1765, Father Jean François baptized one-day-old Marguerite-Anne Thibodeau. Her parents were Olivier and Marguerite Broussard. Olivier was a party to the Dauterive Compact; Marguerite was the daughter of Alexandre. Both the newborn and her mother died five days after the baptismal ceremony. Their deaths may have been the result of childbirth complications. This is the first known record identifying Acadians present in the Attakapas. The document date reveals that at least some, if not all, of the group had arrived in the Attakapas Post by mid-May 1765. [12]

Jean-Baptiste Semer, the son of Germain and Marie Trahan, his maternal grandmother, Isabelle Darois, and her four married Trahan children were all members of the Beausoleil group. In September 1766, authorities in France reported that they had received “the copy of a letter from Mr. Semer[,] an Acadian settled in Louisiana, addressed to his father, who resides in Le Havre.”[13] Although this letter’s existence was reported, for many years historians were unable to locate such a document. Finally, in 2005 a copy was located in France. This copy was dated 20 April 1766 in New Orleans.[14] It revels that Semer had departed New Orleans in April 1765 and was now back in the city one year later to help return boats used to transport his group to the Attakapas. This very important “new” document, now translated and published, may well be the earliest dated extant first-hand Acadian account of the arrival and settlement in the Attakapas. The complete document is worth reading. Only relevant parts of Semer’s letter are presented now:

I arrived here [New Orleans] in the month of February 1765 with 202 Acadian persons….Beausoleil led [the group]….seven or eight men [as scouts] have [had] been sent to look over the land and locations in order to find a suitable site, and we were told that at Attakapas there were magnificent grasslands with the finest soil in the world…. We [the Beausoleil group] went to Attakapas with guns, powder, and shot, but as it was already the month of May, the heat being so intense, we started to work in too harsh conditions. There were six plows that worked; we had to break in the oxen [and] travel fifteen leagues [to the Opelousas post area] to get horses. Finally, we had the finest harvest, and everybody contracted fevers at the same time and nobody being in a state to help anyone else, thirty-three or thirty-four died, including the children. Those who started again wanted to go and work on their wilderness properties, and they fell ill again, but we came down [to New Orleans] in the month of February 1766 of this year and here [there in the Attakapas] we all are, thank God very well and hoping for a very fine harvest this year, with God’s help, having cleared a great deal [of land]….They have granted us six arpents to married people and four and five [arpents] to young men, so we have the advantage, my dear father[,] of being sure of our land [ownership], and of saying I have a place of my own…. A person who wants to devote himself to property and make an effort will be comfortably off in a few years…. [15]

Semer states that scouts were sent to “look over the land and locations in order to find a suitable site….” He does not name any specific potential settlement locations in the Attakapas. It is also unknown when the scouts returned to make a report. Were they still on their inspection journey when the land and cattle deals were made in New Orleans? Regardless, once the Beausoleil group was actively settling on “a suitable site” in the western frontier, I believe Semer’s choice of the words “help” in the phrase: “nobody being in a state to help anyone else…” and “go” in “those who started again wanted to go and work on their wilderness properties…” are important clues to the Beausoleil group’s initial Attakapas settlement strategy, which will be discussed shortly.

The old, colonial Attakapas Post encompassed the modern civil parishes of St. Martin, Lafayette, Iberia, St. Mary and Vermilion. Part of the post’s northern boundary was Bayou Fuselier. The middle Teche drainage is rather narrow and defined by natural ridges along both banks. The ridges can be less than a mile wide. The crests of these ridges are about 20 to 25 feet above sea level, and frequently they are only a short distance from the bayou’s edges. Hardwood and prairie vegetation grew on this “high ground.” The outer elevations of these ridges gradually drop until the decreasing high grounds often end in back lowland swamps or become the base-elevation landscape. The westernmost bank of the ancient Mississippi River delta system, an escarpment locally called the Coteau, parallels Bayou Teche to the west. In fact, eons ago the Teche was actually a channel of the Mississippi. At the Coteau, the land again rises to about 35 feet on average. Beyond the Coteau, a vast prairie terrace, cut by small natural coulees and rivers, extends far toward the sunset. Colonial settlement of the Attakapas started on the Teche ridges (See Map 1).

When the Acadians appeared on the western frontier, there were at least five influential French colonists who claimed sizeable portions of Attakapas land along the Teche. Several other inhabitants, including Jean Berard, apparently occupied much smaller tracts of land. Some of these established colonists claimed their Attakapas lands through purchase or occupancy and use; they did not have royal concessions in 1765. Most or all the inhabitants seemed to have generally acknowledged each others’ land privileges. Several of the Frenchmen with large holdings were absentee land owners; most all of them had herds of cattle and horses. The cattle barons’ resident hired hands and Negro slaves were their ranch workers and drovers. Undoubtedly, many of the already established frontier inhabitants, both free and enslaved residents, became involved with the large group of new, Francophone exiles from Acadia.[16]

The 1765 Vermillion Prairie Concession already mentioned was included in a petition to secure land rights filed by the heirs of Bernard Dauterive in the Federal District Court in New Orleans in 1846. The district court ruled in favor of the heirs in 1848; The 1765 Vermillion Prairie Concession already mentioned was included in a petition to secure land rights filed by the heirs of Bernard Dauterive in the Federal District Court in New Orleans in 1846. The district court ruled in favor of the heirs in 1848; the US. Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision in 1850..[17]

A copy of the Transcript of Record for the Supreme Court’s case in question was located in December 2013. The 1765 La Prairie du Vermillion concession to Dauterive and Masse is included. The precise date, 14 May 1765, when Masse sold his interest to Dauterive, is now revealed. Curiously, Masse was Dauterive’s partner in their new land grant for only two months; for an unknown reason, he sold out to his former partner about the same time the Acadians arrived in the Attakapas. Of particular interest among the court records is the 23 August 1836 Affidavit of Jean-Baptiste Degruys on behalf of Bernard Dauterive’s heirs.[18] Degruys settled in the Attakapas about 1777; he had known Dauterive prior to that time. Dauterive was never a full-time resident on his Attakapas land holding. He lived on his Bayougoula plantation along the Mississippi River, where he died in 1776. About 1778, the widow Dauterive and her four children relocated from their river plantation to their Attakapas land. Degruys married Dauterive’s widow in 1779. Duguys’ new family lived on and managed Dauterive’s Attakapas cattle ranch until about 1784. After that, the family relocated to the New Orleans area and essentially neglected their frontier land.

Degruys was 86 years old when he made his declaration; the record states that the old man still had a “very good memory.” However, I believe a relevant part of his affidavit, of interest here, is inaccurate. Some of his “good” memory and his objectivity may be questionable. By the time of the Supreme Court case in 1850, Degruys was deceased; his cross-examination was impossible.

The part of Degruys’ 1836 affidavit germane to this study reads:

Dauterive had extensive lands at Attakapas before the year 1765; he was then in partnership with Andre Masse; Masse had a concession in the upper part of bayou Teche, about two leagues above the church, in partnership with Dauterive; they had there a vacherie.

Some time after the arrival of the Acadians in this country, Dauterive and Masse allowed several of them to move and establish themselves on said land, and they gave to each family who had established themselves on the premises six cows and one bull.

Some time afterwards the number of Dautrive and Masse’s cattle having considerably increased, and many of them run [ran] away and became wild, this circumstance became the cause of constant quarrels between Dauterive and Masse and the Acadians, their neighbors. The Acadians presented then a petition to the governor, exposing to him the wrong that the wild cattle of Dauterive and Masse were doing [to] them, and bege [begged?] the permission of killing them. Tired and harassed with all these difficulties, Dauterive and Masse petitioned then for a new concession in the prairie du Vermillion, between the bayou Tortue, [and] the Vermillion and the Muddy prairies on the seashore, and offered to abandon to the Acadians the land on which they allowed them to establish themselves.

The concession was granted to them on this condition – it was towards the year 1765. They removed there immediately to their [new] vacherie and abandoned their [old] concession, situated on bayou Teche, to the Acadians, as they had agreed to. Since that time, neither Dauterive nor Masse ever pretended to raise or claim any right to [or] title to the said land on the bayou Teche. Shortly afterwards, Masse sold to Dauterive his portion in the land of vacherie du Vermilliom, and form [formed] an establishment in the lower part of bayou Teche, under Mr. Sorel, where he died. Dauterive had in the prairie du Vermillion, about three or four hundred tame cattles and about several thousand wild ones. Dauterive also had a concession on the bayou Teche of a latter date than the one of the prairie du Vermillion. That land was sold by the deponent and his wife, at the exception of six arpents. [19]

In brief, Degruy stated the following: Dauterive and Masse allowed several Acadian families to settle on their Bayou Teche land and gave each family some cattle; the Acadians and the Frenchmen became quarrelsome because the partners’ wild cattle were influencing the Acadians’ cattle; the Acadians complained to the governor; the partners decided to settle the dispute by ceding their Bayou Teche land to the Acadians in exchange for the Vermillion Prairie Concession; the associates moved their cattle operation to their newly granted land west of Bayou Teche; Masse then sold his interest in their new land and the livestock operation to Dauterive, who received, at a later date, a concession on Bayou Teche.

Some of Degruys’ time sequence does not fit the known progression of historic events; unfortunately, the unknowns are just that. The large Beausoleil group was in New Orleans from late February 1765 to about the third week of April. Semer reported that during this seven-week period, presumably in the early part, a few men of the group were sent to inspect the Attakapas’ grasslands. On 2 March 1765 in New Orleans, Dauterive and Masse ceded their old Attakapas land, which was not delineated in the concession document, to the Acadians in exchange for the Vermillion Prairie concession. Degruys identifies the location of the partners’ ceded land as being on Bayou Teche. Perhaps the scouts were to look over this land ceded to them and also identify other suitable sites? Semer does not report that any of the scouting party stayed in the Attakapas. No mention of a conflict over wild-ranging cattle as the reason for the land exchange is recorded in the 2 March document. The Dauterive Compact was agreed to on 4 April in New Orleans. Dauterive and eight Acadian leaders and the governor were present; Masse was also possibly present. In the compact document, Dauterive agreed to furnish five cows and a bull; Degruys stated six cows. The governor reported that 231 Acadians had departed the City by 24 April. This report does not mention whether they traveled to the Attakapas in one or several groups. Semer said the group arrived on the Attakapas frontier in the month of May. The first known Attakapas Acadian document records a birth there on 10 May. Masse sold his interests in the Vermilion Prairie cattle vacherie to Dauterive on 14 May.

Jean-Baptiste Degruys was not a witness to all the events that happened 71 years prior to what he reported as fact. He was possibly confused about the time progression of several events he reported. It is well documented that the Acadians, once well established, along with other small Attakapas cattle ranchers, did have repeated conflicts with the larger ranchers over some of their cattle running wild.[20] Degruys alleges that the Acadians were already in the Attakapas in control of some cattle when a particular conflict over Dauterive and Masse’s wild cattle prompted the partners to cede land to the Acadians along Bayou Teche and move their cattle ranch father west. However, other than Degruys’ questionable 1836 statement in this matter, I have not found direct evidence to suggest that Acadians were present in the Attakapas, except possibly a few scouts, on 2 March 1765, the date the Vermillion Prairie Concession was drawn in New Orleans.

Elements of Degruys’ affidavit may be accurate. It is possible that around mid-May, a number of Acadian families did briefly inhabit some of Dauterive and Masse’s ceded land in accord with the land exchange deal made back in New Orleans. Once on the frontier, these families may have also received cattle from Dauterive in agreement with the cattle compact made in the City. However, there is no known document that suggests the agreement was ever carried out. The identities and numbers of families that possibly landed on the ceded ground are not revealed in Degruys’ statement, nor is their exact settlement location along the Teche explained. The eastern boundary of Dauterive and Masse’s ceded land is reported to have been the mouth of Bayou Portage. That ancient boundary position can be located today on the ground; however, the exact size or shape of this ceded land is unknown. Some of the Beausoleil group may have chosen to settle on some of the ceded land in the vicinity of Bayou Portage rather than along the east-bank of Bayou Teche opposite present-day St. Martinville. This will be examined later.

On 4 September 1771, Dauterive received a Spanish land grant that straddled the Teche and included present-day St. Martinville. Degruys correctly noted this other “latter date” concession. It was one league fronting on both banks. Its depth extended from the Teche to Bayou Tortue on the west-bank and for one-half league on the east-bank.[21] The cattle baron declared that he had “about 6000 animals [cattle and horses]” on his Attakapas ranch at that time.[22] Dauterive’s 1771 Bayou Teche grant apparently included some of the same land that he and Masse had ceded to the Acadians six years earlier. The 1771 grant did not include land along Bayou Portage. There are no extant land records which even remotely suggest that any Acadian families were settled on the land that Dauterive received in 1771. If Acadians families had actually begun to settle in mid-1765 on the partners’ ceded land along the Teche, possibly in the vicinity of St. Martinville, they did not remain there for very long. Finding a suitable location in 1765 for such a large number of newcomer families to settle on soon provoked some hostility with one cattle baron. However, the newcomers’ presence was also apparently accepted by some.

At least three of the established French colonists had direct, helpful contact with Acadians soon after the newcomers appeared in the Attakapas. All the frontier residents probably interacted with the new immigrants. André Masse signed Acadian baptismal certificates on 11 May and 19 June 1765. Augustin Grevemberg was the male sponsor for the infant baptized on 19 June. In August, Masse was the male sponsor at another Acadian baptism. That same month, Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg, probably Augustin’s younger brother, was a sponsor at yet another Acadian baptism.[23] Augustin and Jean-Baptiste Jr. were the sons of Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg Sr.; these brothers were managing their father’s Attakapas cattle ranch when the Acadians arrived in May 1765. Grevemberg’s land was adjacent to and south of Dauterive and Masse’s land. Grevemberg Sr. became upset with the Acadians because of their chosen settlement site soon after the newcomers appeared. The paper trail which now reveals more of their dispute is worthy of note.

For many years, researchers interested in the history of and settlement patterns in the early Attakapas Post have relied, in part, on historic land records found in the collection of the Louisiana State Land Office. Many of these documents are part of a collection called the Pintado Papers. About 2000, through previously published works, I became aware of a particular set of Pintado records that were relevant to my ongoing attempt to understand early Attakapas Post history. I reviewed microfilm of the records and found four short, typewritten, English-translated Pintado entries: the first was a Memorial of Grevemberg and the second was a concession awarded him by French officials based upon his memorial. Both were drawn in 1765.[24] The other two were a request by Grevemberg for land in 1770 and another concession also dated in 1770. I assumed the translations of the Pintado records were whole. I went to Baton Rouge to ask where the originals were located. Land office personnel looked in their collection, but could not find them. They said that possibly the originals were in the Vicènte Sebastián Pintado Papers Collection in the Library of Congress. I made an attempt to locate them there from afar, but was unsuccessful. I gave up the search and relied on the short, translated Land Office Pintado entries to continue my study. Many of the State Land Office Historic Records are now online. Later, I found out that some Pintado Paper originals are on microfilm in the Hill Memorial Library at LSU. I did not look there.

About three years ago, Shane K. Bernard, historian and archivist for McIlhenny Company, asked me what was the earliest reference to the word “Teche” that I had found thus far. I told him that it was “River Teche” in the translated 1765 concession to Grevemberg recorded in the Pintado Papers. He was interested in both the earliest known dated document to use the historic bayou name and how it was originally spelled. Dr. Bernard took up the search for the originals of the Grevemberg documents.

In October 2013, Bernard was informed that original documents concerning the Grevemberg family, including a 1765 land grant, were now in the archives of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) in Washington, D.C. The documents were donated by the Louisiana Society DAR to NSDAR in 2012. The LSDAR had acquired them from the St. Mary Landmarks Society of Franklin, Louisiana. These originals were part of many Grevemberg family papers donated to the Franklin society over the years and kept in Grevemberg House Museum, an antebellum home maintained and operated by Landmarks. NSDAR gave the Franklin society the right to publish, share or use scans of the originals.[25]

On 8 November 2013, historian and genealogist David Lanclos completed the translations of six important “new” Grevemberg grant documents now with NSDAR. His timely work is much appreciated. It is as yet unclear if the first of the six, Grevemberg’s Memorial, is the one translated in the Pintado records. If the NSDAR documents are the primary-source originals, then the typewritten Pintado memorial is just a very short abstracted, translated version. It is also possible that these extant documents are approximate copies of the originals which have not surfaced yet. The name “Tuton” and the translated phrase “having more than three thousand cattle” found in the short Pintado memorial are not found on Lanclos’ translation of the six-paragraph memorial in the NSDAR collection. All six Grevemberg family grant documents were written with only a space between them on the old sheets. Each entry date and handwriting style is different. The six grant entries run on to each other; the six are actually, in essence, one document. The first four entries are of concern here. The interpretations of some of the language and meanings in the first entry, Grevemberg’s Memorial, are not easily understood by this researcher; nonetheless, an attempt is now made to present a basic, evolving understanding of this significant new find.

For unknown reasons, once actually in the Attakapas, the Acadians decided not to permanently settle on the Dauterive and Masse ceded land available to them near present-day St Martinville. It appears that the Acadians decided to claim by settlement and occupancy Attakapas land farther down Bayou Teche. The Beausoleil Acadians’ settlement choice resulted in an immediate conflict with Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg Sr. This established Attakapas colonist felt the newcomers were settling on ground he considered his land. He sent a lengthy memorial to French officials in New Orleans explaining the situation from his point of view and requesting royal concessions for all the lands that he considered his ground by purchase or use. The Acadians may have also presented the governor their own point of view of the conflict. The search for such a document is ongoing.

Grevemberg’s six-paragraph memorial is not dated; however it was undoubtedly written in the second-half of May or June or the first-half of July 1765. It is unclear if Jean- Baptiste Grevemberg Sr. wrote it, although a grevenber signature is present at the end. The Frenchman claimed that he had purchased a portion of Attakapas land thirteen years earlier. The boundaries of this parcel are not fully defined and what is written is not exactly clear. Grevemberg’s purchased land was apparently adjacent to the land of Sieur Mas [Masse and also Dauterive] and extended from Riviere de Teiche to Riviere de Vermillon. The parcel apparently included Lac du [sic] Taste [Tasse, also called Lac Flamand in colonial times – today’s Spanish Lake]. Grevemberg had a habitation of “cabins and establishments” at an unidentified site within his purchased tract where “he resides.” Although not included in the memorial, we know that Grevemberg’ sons, hired hands, and slaves were actually the full-time Attakapas residents. His principal residence was his plantation along the Mississippi below New Orleans. Like his neighbor Dauterive, Grevemberg’s Attakapas holding was essentially an additional property, a cattle ranch, possibly with some crop land.

From the Pintado memorial and other land records, we knew that Grevemberg’s purchased land was on the west-bank of Bayou Teche below the land Dauterive and Masse ceded in March 1765 and also apparently below some or all of the La Prairie du Vermillion issued to the partners at the same time. From the lengthy NSDAR memorial, we now know that Grevemberg also claimed another portion of Attakapas land either adjacent to or very near his purchased tract. It was within this “other land” that the Acadians were attempting to settle.

Grevemberg named this other land he claimed “presque isle [the peninsula]” nine times in his memorial. Grevemberg was upset that the newcomers had landed there. He believed that he was being dispossessed of this land by the Acadians. He claimed that the peninsula was never considered a common-use area. He felt that “The recent arrivals have come to encroach with impunity upon the possessions of the [established] inhabitants with the unique motive of expediency.” Where was this Peninsula? The tenth and final time in the memorial the disputed land was named “fausse pointe ou presque isle.” The Acadians apparently were settling on the peninsula formed by the large, irregularly-shaped oxbow of Bayou Teche, which is downstream from present-day Daspit and upstream from New Iberia (See Maps 1 & 2). Today, many refer to both banks of this Teche oxbow as the “Fausse Pointe.” However, just the west-bank land inside the oxbow, a true peninsula, was apparently named the “fausse pointe ou presque isle” in Grevemberg’s 1765 memorial.

Grevemberg was using this peninsula as a defined pasture for his cattle. He believed he had first-rights to the Presque Isle and his wording implies that the other established cattle ranchers did not challenge his claim to it. It is stated that Grevemberg intended to “build a fence in order to close off the isthmus with the view of preventing his animals [cattle] from leaving Presque Isle to go and cause damage to the cultivated lands….” Earlier in the memorial it is written:

His [Grevemberg’s] point of view concerning the lodgers [Acadians] is that they are to occupy [are now occupying?] the narrowest part of a strip of land [the isthmus] constricted between the Riviere Tecihe and Lac du Taste [sic] at which place by means of five or six arpents of enclosure [a fence] it bars passage of his animals [cattle] from that of his neighbors, but when allowed to go other than where intended they [the Acadians] will group in the middle of his property [the presque isle]. The Acadians, however, can only conclude that they should not occupy the presque isle since its acquisition does not determine the quantity of land that it encompasses. Rather, it is evident [to Grevemberg] that this acquisition [present Acadian occupation of the narrowest part of a strip of land?] can only have [other parts of] the said presque isle as its objective.[26]

From the wording of another part of the memorial, it appears that Grevemberg felt the Acadians were justifying their settlement on the Presque Isle because he did not have a royal concession for it, nor had he purchased that land. It is stated that “he [Grevemberg] was not able to purchase this Presque Isle because of his situation prior to determining the use he would have for it….” Now, the cattle baron was using the peninsula and considered it his property by-right-of-first-occupant. He said that the Acadians were wrong to assert that Presque Isle was the only place that could be suitable to them.

Grevemberg contends that the Acadians:

have told all who will listen that they are not permitted to settle on the Riviere Teiche all [at all?] because of the bad quality of the water and the lack of being able to drink from this source, [and] that here [author’s underline – it is unclear exactly where here was] all the land between the said Riviere Tecihe and that of the Vermillon [sic] has been granted to Mr. Masse and Dauterive from the time they settled there up to the present year, and that, additionally their animals [Acadian’s cattle] will mix each day with the undomesticated ones of the said Sieurs Masse and Dauterive. After the harvest, they [the Acadians] have no other alternative but to go and place themselves on the other side [west-bank] of the Riviere Vermillion where they will not be exposed to the above-mentioned inconveniences…. [27]

The disgruntled Frenchman does not mention that the water of the Vermilion would also be unfit for consumption. Surface water in South Louisiana is undrinkable without treatment. The “bad quality of the water” of the Teche did not prevent settlement along its banks.

The memorial does not inform us about the circumstance of Grevemberg’s cattle. Did he have only domesticated stock contained in an enclosure on his purchased tract? And were his cattle on Presque Isle undomesticated – cattle running wild in the woods and prairies, as was apparently the situation with some of the stock of his neighbors? From Degruys’ deposition discussed earlier, we are told that there was an immediate dispute between the Acadians and Grevemberg’s northern neighbors over cattle running wild. It appears that Grevemberg intended to construct a fence across the isthmus to contain his stock. Possibly he also wanted the Acadians to settle on the Vermilion far away from his cattle. Once the newcomers arrived in the Attakapas, some may have actually obtained cattle from Dauterive according to the terms of their compact made in New Orleans, although this is not documented. Amazingly, it is reported that the Acadians actually purchased some cattle from Grevemberg.[28] Was this purchase made before, during, or after their period of conflict with him? The Grevemberg brothers became godfathers of Acadian infants about the same time that their father was in conflict with the Acadians. At least these two sons seemed not to have totally shunned their father’s new, unwanted neighbors.

The memorial states that “after the harvest…the lodgers” should go and settle permanently beyond the Vermillion. This confirms Semer’s statement that the Beausoleil group had planted seeds soon after arrival. The planting location was possibly somewhere on the Presque Isle. Grevemberg may have realized that the newcomers would not easily move far away from their crops, so necessary for immediate survival. Possibly, he had to accept Acadian occupation of the peninsula through one growing/harvesting season, but apparently not for a second planting season.

Grevemberg petitioned officials in New Orleans to acknowledge his ownership of two different portions of Attakapas land by granting him legal concessions to the grounds he already considered his through rights of purchase and occupancy or use. At this time, Louisiana belonged to the Spanish king; Spanish officials had not yet arrived in the colony. French officials were functioning as a caretaker government. On 16 July 1765 in New Orleans, acting Governor Aubry and Controller Foucault granted “Sieur Grevemberg” the following:

La fausse pointe commonly called presque isle on la Riviere Tecihe in the quarter near [of] Attakapas [consisting of] about six leagues in all, extending to the mauvais bois, including the cul-de-sac, the said Fausse Pointe being bounded on one side by the Riviere Tecihe and on the other by the [River] Vermillon, and a [another] plot of land consisting of about one and a half leagues in length adjoining the said fausse pointe, the width being between the said rivers, [and] upon which plot of land he [Grevemberg] is established…. [29]

The concession document further states that Grevemberg can “…firmly hold only the part conceived [granted?] and occupied, the limits which can include certain costs at the time of possession, French or Spanish, in this country, on the conditions that the establishments he has are continued, and upon default as such, the said part will be returned to the domain of the king….” The “mauvais bois” recorded in this document will soon be considered. The modern definition of a cul-de-sac is “a passage or alley with no exit.” The concession “cul-de-sac” probably referred to the isthmus of the Fausse Pointe, which is a passage onto the Presque Isle.[30]

Reviewing my interpretations of both documents seems to present a somewhat matter-of-fact story of the conflict between Grevemberg and the Acadians – that is, if my analysis is accurate. At least some, if not all, of the large group of newcomers was settling near the isthmus at the western end of the Fausse Pointe peninsular. They felt Grevemberg had no rights to the Presque Isle. Grevemberg considered it his land because he was using the peninsula as grazing ground for his livestock, although he had no legal rights to it and his actual ranch habitation was not on the Fausse Pointe. This peninsula, formed by the Bayou Teche oxbow, was the west-bank of the convoluted waterway. French officials sided with the cattle baron and issued him a patent for the Fausse Pointe and also for his purchased land along Bayou Teche. If the Fausse Pointe land in the document referred to the whole peninsula, and there is no reason to think otherwise, then after 16 July the Beausoleil Acadians would have been considered trespassers. It is unclear who would evict such a large group of determined people from their chosen settlement location after a harvest season. Their leader had been appointed captain of a new militia company by the same officials who sided with their adversary. There are some ambiguities and questions concerning the details presented in Grevemberg’s Memorial.

One of Grevemberg’s 1765 Fausse Pointe grant boundaries was recorded as the River Vermilion. This was obviously an error made by officials in New Orleans who were familiar with bayou names but unfamiliar with their relative locations on the ground. The Fausse Pointe is nowhere near the Vermilion. And where was this mauvais bois named in the grant document? A “bad woods” in colonial times meant a section of seasonally wet bottomland with dense undergrowth that was difficult to traverse or develop. The mauvais bois associated with Grevemberg’s 1765 Fausse Pointe grant was different from another mauvais bois identified in the 1765 La Prairie du Vermillion grant issued to Dauterive and Masse. A remnant of that “bad woods” is still present between Lafayette and Cypress Island. Today’s upper Bayou Tortue flows along its western edge. In the 1780s, there was also a place named “the swamp of Mauvais Prairie” east of Bayou Vermilion and north of present-day Interstate 10. The mauvais bois of Grevemberg’s 1765 grant may likely have been part of a marshy/swampy area shown on an 1863 Civil War map; this bottomland was located between the isthmus of the Fausse Pointe peninsula and Spanish Lake. Over time the margins of that mauvais bois have been partially drained, filled-in and developed. This will be discussed further. Likewise, human development on both Teche ridges in the Fausse Pointe area has increased considerably.[31]

Grevemberg’s Fausse Pointe concession was “about six leagues in all.” A Spanish linear league was about 2.6 miles. It is assumed that the general course of Bayou Teche, as it forms the unusually shaped Fausse Pointe peninsula, has not significantly changed in two-and-a-half centuries. The peninsula has a northern broad sweeping bend and a southern sharp bend. The distance following the Bayou from Daspit to New Iberia is about 16.5 miles. That is close to the “about six leagues” distance (15.3 miles +/-) noted in the grant document. Grevemberg’s granted land, the “Fausse Pointe commonly called Presque Isle on the River Teche,” was apparently only west-bank land inside the Teche oxbow. The east-bank land opposite the actual peninsula may have not been claimed by any other established cattle barons; this will be considered shortly. If the large Beausoleil group of Acadians was indeed excluded from settling on the Fausse Pointe peninsula, where would they go after the 1765 harvest season?

Jean-Baptiste Semer said the Acadians had already planted crops when the deadly epidemic struck in force. Where did they sow seeds? Grevemberg’s Fausse Pointe concession was issued just as Semer’s “fevers” began to seriously affect the new colonists. Father Jean François, missionary priest to the Beausoleil Acadians, became a very busy clergyman.

Between 1 July and 24 November 1765, Father Jean François recorded thirty-nine Acadian burials, the results of a deadly, unidentified epidemic – Semer’s “fevers.” The illness was perhaps smallpox, which was reported in the newly arriving Acadian immigrant population.[32] This malady could have also been yellow fever or typhoid, both of which could be epidemic in colonial Gulf Coast sweltering summers. The priest recorded three sites where twenty-one of the unfortunate victims were buried. Jean François’ Acadian place-names were: Le Premier Camp d’en Bas and Le Dernier Camp d’en Bas and Camp appellé Beau Soleil. Each camp is associated with certain extended families.[33]

Based upon the priest’s use of the word “camps” in association with specific families and Semer’s words “help” and “go,” I suggest that the initial Acadian Attakapas settlement strategy was to first cluster in extended-family communal base camps. The practice of related families first living together in a strange, unfamiliar environment would be very advantageous. Mutual assistance and group protection, especially in times of crisis, would be better assured. Once camp members had each selected undeveloped personal property, workers of a camp could go to each other’s parcels, where they could together help build more permanent shelters and also clear, plow, plant, and cultivate the virgin ground that each had claimed. In their former northern homeland, Acadians had lived for generations in family settlements, often adjacent to each other. The Attakapas newcomers had a history of communal work experience in Acadia; they carried that south. A deadly epidemic disrupted the Beausoleil group’s 1765 collective farming plans. Semer does tell us that by April 1766 some or all of the men had selected individual tracts of land. His statements do not necessarily suggest that by April 1766 these families were already living on their personal properties, nor do his statements suggest that the Acadians were settled in two or more far-separated locations in the Attakapas. By the date of Semer’s letter, the epidemic had passed and the Acadians were looking forward to a more successful second growing season, presumably on the same ground of the first planting season.

In early March 1766, the much-anticipated first Spanish governor, Antonio de Ulloa, arrived in New Orleans. He soon ordered a census made of all the residents of Spanish Louisiana under his jurisdiction. The 1766 Census of the Colony of Louisiana was compiled by combining individual censuses for each settlement area within the colony. The new Spanish governor and his counterpart, the former French governor, conducted an inspection tour of colonial settlements. The officials visited the Attakapas Post.[34]

Governor Ulloa’s colonial survey included an Attakapas Spanish Census that was dated 25 April 1766.[35] This was only five months after Father Jean François’ last burial date and five days after Semer’s letter date. In 2006 the translation of an untitled and undated French document was published; this new find is obviously a companion of the 1766 Attakapas Spanish census.[36] This French document does not have all the numerical counts found on the Spanish document. It also has some slight differences in names and spellings from its counterpart, a most important one being in place-names. Both documents identify the same three locations, each named a quartel [neighborhood/community/sector] on the Spanish census and a camp on the French census.

On the April 1766 Spanish census, there were 40 Acadian residents at Quartel de la Punta; 41 at Quartel de el Caño de Tortuga sand 42 at Quartel de la Manque (See endnote 24). I have combined the Spanish and the French place-names for the three locations. That the French place-names were “camps” suggests that some or all the epidemic survivors were possibly still living in the extended-family communal camps recorded by Father Jean François as late as 24 November 1765. Six months after the epidemic ended, all the extended families possibly had not yet moved from their initial base camp sites to their individual land parcels. Just as with the priest’s three place-names, the censuses’ three place-names are not found in later Attakapas documents. These earliest Acadian locations are not revealed in the documents recording them. Evidence will be presented that suggests that each of the 1765 priest’s camp sites was somewhere within the same general area of each of the 1766 censuses’ neighborhoods. I will also propose that all three neighborhoods were somewhat adjacent to each other along about a ten mile section of Bayou Teche. Together, I consider them one Attakapas location. The land conflict with Grevemberg will be considered further. The three Acadian sectors will be referred to here by their full italicized names or shortened versions.

Le Dernier Camp d’en Bas and Quartel de la Punta/Camp de la Pointe

Between 26 July and 22 October 1765, Father Jean François buried six Acadians at Le Dernier Camp d’en Bas and three at Le Camp d’en Bas. Alexander Broussard and Joseph Girouard were buried at Le Camp d’en Bas. Alexander’s wife, Marguerite Thibodeau, and his daughter, Théotiste Broussard, were buried at Le Dernier Camp d’en Bas. It seems very unlikely that husband and wife would have been buried at different camps. Jean-Baptiste Semer’s grandmother and Semer’s aunt, Ursule Trahan, were both also interred at Le Dernier Camp d’en Bas. Ursule’s first husband was Joseph-Grégoire Broussard, a son of Alexandre; her second was Joseph Girouard. One daughter of Alexandre and one of Joseph dit Beausoleil were each married to Ursule’s brothers, Jean and René Trahan respectively; these brothers were Semer’s maternal uncles. The Acadians were a tight-knit, clannish people. The other four Acadians buried at Dernier Camp were members of these combined extended-families. Other members perished, but their burial locations were not recorded.[37]

On the April 1766 Spanish census, all but one of Alexandre Broussard’s surviving family members were residents at Quartel de la Punta/Camp de la Pointe. Jean Trahan, Alexandre’s son-in-law, was at La Pointe. Trahan’s mother, sister and some of his wife’s family had all been buried at Le Dernier Camp in 1765. Joseph-Pepin Hébert, an orphan whose father was Alexandre’s wife’s first cousin, also resided at La Pointe. Joseph Guilbeau died during the epidemic. Like Alexandre Broussard, Guilbeau had been a participant in the Dauterive Compact. His 1765 burial place was not recorded. It may well have been at Le Dernier Camp, because Magdeleine Michel, Guilbeau’s widow, and her three unmarried sons and her unmarried daughter and her four married daughters were all at La Pointe in 1766. The unmarried Guilbeau daughter would marry Sylvain Broussard, a son of Alexandre, also a La Pointe resident. One of the unmarried Guilbeau sons and Joseph-Pepin Hébert would both marry daughters of Jean Trahan.

Where was Le Dernier Camp, clearly linked with Alexandre Broussard’s family and Jean Trahan’s family; and Quartel de la Punta/Camp de la Pointe, associated with these two families and the Guilbeau family?

In 1990, Glenn Conrad published Land Records of the Attakapas District: Volume I, The Attakapas Domesday Book, Land Grants, Claims, and Confirmations in the Attakapas District, 1764-1826. Conrad’s extensive work is a standardized, abstracted compilation of federal and state land records presented by township and range; it includes his editorial notes for some records. Digital copies of many historic Louisiana State land records are now available on the Internet. Conrad’s book has been used extensively in my research of early Attakapas history. The cover of my copy is much frayed; its pages have many penciled-in remarks.[38]

On page 271, one of Conrad’s editorial notes, “Additional information is provided,” sparked my curiosity years ago. In 1815, Louis Delahoussaye made a claim to the U.S. Board of Land Commissioners for inherited land. Conrad had abstracted a declaration made in 1799 by Jean-Baptiste Broussard, Alexandre’s oldest son and also a participant in the Dauterive Compact. Broussard’s statement dealt with land that he and his brothers had freely ceded in 1772 to Louis’ father, Paul Pelletier Delahoussaye.[39] The “additional information” was found in the American State Papers (ASP). I immediately reviewed Louis Delahoussaye’s land claim records in ASP to understand what this “additional information” revealed and was extremely and pleasantly surprised to learn that Jean-Baptiste Broussard himself told us where he and his family first settled in the Attakapas.

This very significant 1799 declaration, that I consider direct evidence, is the smoking gun mentioned earlier; it reveals the following:

[I]n the year 1772, Mr. de la Houssaye (here) arrived in the [Attakapas] post for the purpose of settling in it with his family; he [Jean-Baptiste Broussard] the deponent, Sylvaine [sic] Broussard, the [now] deceased Simon Broussard, and John Frahan [sic], their brother-in-law, have [had] ceded, by their free will, all their pretensions to the said La Houssaye, not only on their lands situated at Fausse Point, which they occupied seven years previous to that date, but he, the deponent, on his buildings where he immediately settled, cultivated, and resided for five years; and the land ceded by the four named contained forty arpents on each side of the river Teche.[40]

An Alexandre Broussard family member pointedly states “immediately settled…on their lands situated at Fausse Point…on each side of the river Teche.”

By the time of the 1799 declaration, Paul Pelletier Delahoussaye was deceased. The ASP land records reveal that he had petitioned Spanish officials for a frontier concession on 18 September 1771. On 8 October 1771 Delahoussaye was put in possession of the Attakapas land that he requested situated in the “post of Attakapas, quarter of Fausse Pointe.” This land was “Bounded on one side by land of Étienne de Vaugine and on the other side by royal domain [land].” Apparently a title in form was not issued to Delahoussaye in 1771. Jean-Baptiste Broussard said that Delahoussaye arrived in 1772. Delahoussaye may have actually arrived in 1771. De Vaugine, his brother-in-law, may have also arrived then. Both men were former French military officers. The ASP reported that “Mr. La Houssaye resided on the left side[41] of the river Teche, where his principle fields of cultivation were [located].” Delahoussaye’s house site may have been on a higher, well drained location on the east-bank ridge of the Teche; in south Louisiana, inches do matter. Perhaps Delahoussaye’s habitation was on the same site where Broussard declared he had immediately built buildings, resided and cultivated for five years. In 1773, an inventory of de Vaugine’s property was made at his plantation home located “at a place commonly called Fausse Pointe on the east bank of the river Teichte.”[42] The brothers-in-laws’ habitation sites were on the same bank. Again, were the Broussards’ residences “immediately” also on the east-bank? “Immediately” seems clear, yet Jean-Baptiste Broussard’s seven-year count in his 1799 declaration seems inconsistent.

The Acadians arrived in the Attakapas in mid-May 1765. Broussard said he and his brothers “occupied” their lands at Fausse Pointe for seven years “previous” to 1772, the year they ceded their lands to Delahoussaye. According to his “for seven years” count, Broussard’s family occupied their Fausse Pointe lands from 1765 to 1772. Broussard also said that he “immediately settled, cultivated and resided for five years” on land on both banks of the Teche at Fausse Pointe. His two brothers and their brother-in-law apparently also immediately settled in that general same location. By “immediately” did Broussard mean when the Beausoleil group first arrived in the Attakapas in mid-May 1765? If so, then, according to his “for five-years” count, Broussard resided and cultivated at Fausse Pointe from 1765 to 1770. So was Alexandre Broussard’s family at Fausse Pointe for five or seven years? The two statements seem inconsistent, unless “resided” and “occupied” meant different things to the deponent. If Broussard had said that he and his brothers “first occupied” their Fausse Pointe lands seven years “previous” to 1772, his two figures would be less ambiguous. As we shall soon learn, most all of the Alexandre Broussard family was not at Fausse Pointe in 1772. According to the land records noted above, Delahoussaye was put in possession of Fausse Pointe land in October 1771; this was at least three months before the Broussard brothers apparently ceded that land at an unknown specific date in 1772. Jean-Baptiste Broussard was 67 years old in 1799. Perhaps he was off by a year or two when he said “occupied…for seven years.” Even though Broussard made his statement thirty-five years after the fact, he would have probably remembered where he “immediately” settled in the Attakapas and also that at least five to seven years later he ceded his initial settlement location on both banks of the Teche at Fausse Pointe to “Mr. de la Houssaye.”

Paul Pelletier Delahoussaye’s original 1771 petition was for forty arpents of land. About 25 years later, Louis Delahoussaye needed clarification for the land he inherited from his father. The known location of the “forty arpents front on both sides” ceded by the Broussards in 1772 is based upon surveys made in 1796 and 1799. Some or all of this surveyed Delahoussaye land was the same land where the Alexandre Broussard family first settled for five years, starting in mid-1765. Delahoussaye’s original 1771 land, surveyed in the 1790s, includes Section 5,6,7,59,60 and 77, T12N R7E. That old tract is located along both banks of the Teche about three miles downstream from present-day Loreauville (See Map 2).

The Teche makes a sharp turn (the lower, sharp point within the greater Fausse Pointe oxbow) three miles below Loreauville. Sometime before 18 August, 1772, Étienne de Vaugine was apparently issued a land grant that includs Section 2 and 58, T12N R7E (See endnote 42). He apparently had been occupying or had interests in that tract in October 1771 when his brother-in-law was placed in possession of adjacent land. It is written (without adequate citation) that de Vaugine was present on his land in 1764. I find this suspect. In 1773 it was reported that Delahoussaye and de Vaugine had “made only one harvest in the Attakapas.” [43] De Vaugine’s land grant was also along both banks of the Teche, upstream from and adjoining his brother-in-law’s land; it included the sharp point. The land that the Alexandre Broussard family freely ceded to Delahoussaye was just below that sharp point. This area along the Teche is within the present-day rural community called Belle Place. The center of the Delahoussaye 1790s surveyed land is near the bridge-crossing of the Olivier-Belle Place-Road/State Road 320. Highway 86 runs right over original Alexandre Broussard family land. And, just as Jean-Baptiste Broussard reported, “both sides” of the Teche are within Section 77, T12N R7E.

Jean-Baptiste Broussard’s statement that he and his family “immediately” settled on both banks of the Teche at Fausse Pointe seems at odds with the newly located 1765 Grevemberg grant document, which records that Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg was given the “Fausse Pointe commonly called the Peninsula.” After July 16, the actual peninsula, which is west-bank land, was apparently legally owned by Grevemberg. If Alexandre Broussard’s family had honored Grevemberg’s royal land rights, then they would have only settled on the east-bank opposite the peninsula. On the other hand, in 1773 when de Vaugine’s inventory was made, the east-bank opposite the actual peninsula was also included in “a place commonly called Fausse Point.” The precise location of the early colonial place-name Fausse Pointe apparently could refer to a slightly different area depending on who used that name and when it was recorded on a primary-source document.

The epidemic struck the Acadians at about the same time that Grevemberg was in dispute with them over land rights on the peninsula. Did the epidemic affect Grevemberg’s attitude toward the newcomers? Given the turmoil of a deadly epidemic in a hot, humid season in a new, foreign homeland, could the Acadians have realistically moved off Grevemberg’s peninsula land in the summer of 1765 during a raging time of disease? After mid-July, did the Alexandre Broussard family disregard Grevemberg’s west-bank ownership, or did the French cattle baron actually allow the Acadians to remain on his land grant for the planting and harvesting season, as might be interpreted from his memorial? Did the Acadians first occupy only the east-bank opposite the peninsula, which was apparently royal domain land available to them, and then spill over onto Grevemberg’s west-bank land with or without his consent? The resolute Acadian families who arrived in the Attakapas had survived the trials of eight years of a horrific ethnic cleansing. For generations, the Acadians – a distinct North American Francophone culture – were known to be self-determined, industrious, persistent, pragmatic and, at times, obstinate. Did Grevemberg realize that he alone could not move the newcomers off the peninsula? Did the other French cattle barons support Grevemberg’s right to the peninsula? Did Grevemberg decide that he did not actually need the peninsula to continue his Attakapas cattle operation?

Grevemberg’s patent states that “he can firmly hold only the part conceived and occupied, the limits which can include certain costs at the time of possession….” The Frenchman apparently had cattle grazing on the peninsula in 1765. Was that enough to actually have a “firm hold” on the “part conceived and occupied”? Did Grevemberg have “certain costs [payments]” to the French or Spanish kings to fulfill the “limits [requirements]” of his new peninsula grant? If so, did he perhaps not pay them and default on the peninsular land, thereby allowing the Acadians to legally settle on both banks? The answers to all these and other related questions may never be fully answered. Regardless of the lack of details explaining the outcome of the dispute between Grevemberg and the Acadians, Alexandre Broussard’s oldest son nevertheless reported that his family “immediately settled…on both sides of the Teche…at Fausse Pointe.”

Grevemberg’s Memorial implies that some or all of the Acadians landed near the isthmus of the Fausse Pointe with the intent to occupy more of the peninsula. This was unacceptable to the colonist born in French Flanders; he wanted them to move elsewhere. Grevemberg was granted the peninsula in mid-July. Perhaps some of the unwanted newcomers moved farther east to the other end of the Fausse Pointe peninsula. Jean-Baptiste Broussard tells us that he immediately settled and cultivated on both banks of the Teche at Fausse Pointe. Jean-Baptiste Semer tells us that the Acadians had already planted seeds somewhere in the Attakapas when the fevers began. Father Jean François’ records tell us that the epidemic apparently first struck in force about the beginning of July and members of Jean-Baptiste Broussard’s family including his father, mother, sister, sister-in-law and her mother were all buried at or in the near vicinity of an extended family camp called Le Dernier Camp d’en Bas. The last burial at that camp occurred on 22 October 1765. Alexandre Broussard’s surviving family was settled in a neighborhood named Quartel de la Punta/Camp de la Pointe in April 1766. Jean-Baptiste Broussard also tells us that he resided at the Fausse Pointe for five years. From all the evidence presented thus far, even with some inconsistencies and unknowns, the location of both the 1765 Le Dernier Camp site and also the 1766 Camp de la Pointe site must have been in the Fausse Pointe area because of Jean-Baptiste’s declaration, and because Alexandre Broussard’s extended family is clearly linked with Le Dernier Camp and were recorded at Quartel de la Punta/Camp de la Pointe. I suggest that the 1765 camp site and the 1766 neighborhood were in the same general Fausse Pointe location with the above noted sections in T12N R7E. There is other indirect evidence to support this.

Jean Berard was a young French merchant. He settled in the Attakapas about 1764. Although Berard was apparently present in the Attakapas in 1766, curiously he is not recorded on either the Spanish or French censuses drawn that year. He was a notary at the post in 1767. On 29 February 1768, Berard petitioned Governor Ulloa for a concession on the “left-bank” of Bayou Teche. On 1 June 1768, Ulloa issued Berard “a grant of land measuring six arpents by thirty at Atakapas in the place requested.” This grant was identified on a map included in a survey record made in 1798. Berard’s 1768 grant was a long, rectangular tract that included Sections 51, T12S R6E and 19, T12S R7E (See Map 2). This land grant location is within present-day New Iberia, running SW-NE from the City Park area to the Teche near Morbihan.[44] When Berard received his grant, the governor noted that “this concession becomes null if Jean Berard has neither wife nor children.” Sometime in 1768 or early 1769, the notary married Anne Broussard, a daughter of Alexandre.[45] Anne was a resident at La Pointe in 1766. Berard’s 1768 grant was down the Teche from the land ceded by Alexandre’s family to Delahoussaye in 1772. The location of Berard’s grant and his association with Alexandre’s daughter may support the contention that the La Pointe neighborhood was along the lower Fausse Pointe. For years, Berard was a notary and an influential citizen in the Attakapas Post jurisdiction. Along with Acadians, he undoubtedly interacted with Paul Pelletier Delahoussaye.

From Delahoussaye family land records and Jean-Baptiste Broussard’s 1799 declaration, we can now infer that the 1765 Le Dernier Camp d’en Bas site, where members of Alexandre Broussard’s family were interred, including Alexandre himself, and the April 1766 Quartel de la Punta/Camp de la Pointe neighborhood were both somewhere within the land “immediately” settled by Alexandre’s family. This general area included some or all of the land eventually granted to Delahoussaye and possibly some adjacent land granted to de Vaugine. Both the Le Dernier Camp site and the La Pointe neighborhood were somewhere along the Teche within the general vicinity of the modern Olivier-Belle Place Road bridge-crossing, probably on some of the highest grounds along one or both Teche ridges from upper Belle Place down to near Morbihan. The outside ridge on the east-bank might be a prime, first candidate for continued research into the footprint of the ancient Le Dernier Camp d’en Bas. Aside from Jean-Baptiste Broussard’s important 1799 declaration, actual civil land records for Acadians from 1765 to 1771 have not been located.

In his letter, written in April 1766, the same month that the Attakapas Spanish Census was dated, Jean-Baptiste Semer reported that the Beausoleil Acadians had already been “granted” land. Semer may have meant that by April the Acadians had been authorized to select and develop their individual parcels of Attakapas land consisting of a specific size. Semer said “my dear father…I have a place of my own….” Like Delahoussaye, who was put in possession of land without a title in form, I feel that in April 1766 the Acadians had probably not yet received official patents for their selected, authorized parcels, because on the 1771 Attakapas Census all of the Acadians had land “without a title,” possibly meaning that surveyed royal land grant documents had not yet been issued. The first records of land grants issued to some of the Beausoleil Acadians were dated June 1771.[46]

This first known set of Acadian grants was undoubtedly, at least in part, the result of decisions made in the beginning of 1770 by the second Spanish governor, General Alexandre O’Reilly. He reported that “complaints and petitions made by the inhabitants… of Attakapas” and other western posts prompted some changes. These complaints were presented to his representatives, military officers Eduardo Nugent and Juan Kelly, when they were in the Attakapas in December 1769 to administer a Spanish loyalty oath to the adult male residents.[47]

On 18 February 1770 in New Orleans, O’Reilly issued new, far-reaching concession and cattle ordinances for his entire Spanish colony.[48] He explained that “the tranquility of the settlers…demands a new set of regulations establishing the size of concessions….” Specific regulations limited the size of large Attakapas land grants to “one league frontage [on a waterway] by one league in depth” or “one and a half leagues by one-half league” if necessary. Another ordinance required a settler “to prove that he owns one hundred domesticated head of cattle, some horses and sheep, and that he has two slaves to tend to them” in order to acquire a concession of forty-two arpents frontage by forty-two arpents in depth.” One cattle ordinance required owners to brand their stock; if this was not done before the cattle reached eighteen months, then the ranchers could not claim them as their own. Colonial Attakapas brand records do not contain land location information. Another cattle ordinance dealt with the problem of unrestrained cattle. O’Reilly said that “Nothing is more harmful to the settlers than stray cattle.” He set a date, 1 July 1771, for cattle owners to round up and restrain or kill their stray stock to ensure a profit from them. After that date anyone could kill strays. It appears that the petit habitant Acadian settlers, with a few livestock and no slaves yet, complained in December 1769 that the French cattle barons were claiming most all Attakapas land along Bayou Teche and the Acadians had no room to expand as their family sizes increased. They also complained that the cattle barons’ wild cattle were influencing their tame cattle and trampling their crops. The cattle barons’ original land claim amounts were reduced to a specified size; this opened some of their former large land quantities to new settlement. Some Acadians immediately took advantage of O’Reilly’s new regulations.

On 4 February 1770, the governor appointed Gabriel Fuselier de la Claire the commandant of both the Opelousas and Attakapas Posts. Sixteen days later, on the same day the new Spanish land ordinances were set forth, O’Reilly authorized and instructed Fuselier to “mark [the boundaries of] the properties…requested by Habitants….” We shall soon learn that some of these habitants were evidently the adult men of Alexandre Broussard’s and Joseph Guilbeau’s extended families who had been settled along the lower Fausse Pointe in the 1766 La Pointe neighborhood. They were now relocating. They had been some of Grevemberg’s neighbors to the southeast; now they would be well north of his ranch location.[49]

Back on 6 February 1770, two days after Fuselier became commandant, Jean-Baptiste Grevemberg Sr., together with his five sons, submitted a petition to the governor for an “immutable” concession of land consisting of “one and one-half leagues on the River Teche beginning from [at] the Isle du Copaline [Island of the Sweet Gums] adjacent to Mr. Dauterive [and] as far as Fausse Pointe and descending the river, and being fifty arpents in depth….” This request was signed by Augustin Grevenber [sic].[50] Curiously, this was twelve days before O’Reilly’s ordinances were dated. Perhaps the father was informed that his 1765 Attakapas concession for “one and a half leagues in length adjoining the said Fausse Pointe, the width being between the said rivers [the Teche and Vermilion]” was about to be reduced in size and he would soon have to surrender rights to land along the Vermilion. He was probably also about to lose any remaining rights he had to the Fausse Pointe peninsula. We have already learned that some Acadians had been occupying the lower Fausse Pointe for five years.

There is an interesting revelation in Grevemberg’s February 1770 land petition. That year, beyond the Island of the Sweet Gums, Dauterive was Grevemberg’s adjoining northern neighbor on the Teche. Dauterive apparently had been occupying this land for over a year before he received a grant in September 1771. Back in March 1765 in New Orleans, Dauterive and Masse had ceded their land along the Teche to the Acadians in exchange for the Vermilion Prairie grant that was described as being between the “River Tortue” and the Vermilion. Masse sold out to Dauterive in May 1765, about the same time Acadians arrived in the Attakapas. Degruys stated that some Acadian families had settled on the partners’ ceded Bayou Teche land. I suggested earlier that, if indeed some families occupied the partners’ ceded land, they did not remain there for very long. I find Degruys’ statement suspect. The 1765 Grevemberg Memorial, made between mid-May and 16 July 1765 and discussed at length earlier, stated that “all the land between the said Riviere Tecihe and that of the Vermillion has been granted to Mr. Masse and Dauterive from the time they settled there up to the present year.” The memorial does not state that after March 1765 the partners no longer possessed the land between the Teche and the Tortue, nor does it state that Masse sold out to Dauterive. In his 1765 memorial, Grevemberg does not mention that the Acadians should settle on land ceded by Dauterive to them above his land. However, he is upset that the newcomers are settling on the Presque Isle. It seems unusual that Grevemberg would not have known of such important events involving his neighbors when he presented his memorial. That document implies that Dauterive and Masse were still partners and had land along the Teche. Grevemberg makes no mention of the Tortue, although he clearly refers to the Teche and Vermillion.

On 2 March 1770 in New Orleans, O’Reilly issued “Sieur Grevemberg dit Flaman [sic]” a concession for one and one-half leagues front by a half league in depth in the place designated in Flamand’s February request. The governor also stated that this amount of land was “prescribed in our regulation of the 18th of last February.”[51] Back on 6 February, how did Grevemberg know to request only the exact amount of land that would be legally available to him twelve days later? And, if Grevemberg’s 1765 grant to the peninsula had been upheld until 18 February, the Alexandre Broussard family would not have legally been able to settle along both banks of the Fausse Pointe for the previous five years. Regardless of what was the position of Grevemberg after 1765 regarding the Alexander Broussard family’s rights to lower Fausse Pointe land, these Acadians were beginning to move off the Fausse Pointe.

Alexandre Broussard’s and Joseph Guilbeau’s sons and sons-in-law, including Jean Berard, were heads of a group of ten families who relocated from their old La Pointe neighborhood to a new Acadian settlement location about twenty-four miles north along the Teche, where they all received Spanish land grants on 20 June 1771 at a place called La Pointe du Repos (See Map 3). This explains why Jean-Baptiste Broussard, his brothers, and Jean Trahan freely gave up interest in their former Fausse Pointe land at today’s Belle Place to Delahoussaye in 1772. Some or all of these Acadian families apparently were residing on their new lands for a time before they received their dated grant documents because on 4 February 1771, Silvain [Sylvain] Broussard submitted a formal requête (a petition) to the third Spanish governor, Luis de Unzaga, for a land grant of six arpents at a place “commonly called l’anse au [sic] la pointe au repos sur le bord Occidental [west-bank] de la Riviere Têche.” [52] Three months later, Sylvain and the other nine former residents from La Pointe were issued grants on both banks at that location.

These grants, the first known set awarded to Beausoleil Acadians, were probably located on some ground formerly claimed by the established cattle barons. In 1762, Jean-Francois Le Dée, a businessman in New Orleans, purchased Attakapas land and cattle; the specific location is not identified in the sale document. In February 1769, Le Dée was issued a grant for a large tract of land, presumed to be the land he purchased seven years earlier.[53] His land was centered in the present-day Breaux Bridge area. Although not verified in land records, Le Dée’s original 1769 grant size probably was reduced to the prescribed size when O’Reilly’s new land regulations took effect. Some of Le Dée’s original land along the Teche included the upper La Pointe du Repos area where Acadians received grants in 1771.

Almost all of the 1766 La Pointe neighborhood settlers relocated north along the Teche to the La Pointe du Repos location about 1770-1771. This new Acadian settlement location was upstream from and including present-day Parks. These settlers’ old and new locations were both along prominent bends of the Teche; the 1766 La Pointe location, along the lower Fausse Pointe oxbow, was different from the La Pointe du Repos location at Parks. The La Pointe residents probably scouted their new location with the intent to relocate prior to the actual move. They possibly were planning to move when the 14 February ordinances were made official and new land became open for settlement. This may explain, in part, why O’Reilly ordered Fuselier to immediately begin marking boundaries on the same date the ordinances were publicly issued. There is another document that suggests that these Acadians were planning to move or were actually relocating in February 1770. On the 28th of that month, O’Reilly issued a directive to all the Attakapas residents.

O’Reilly’s 28 February 1770 order was issued “Based upon the presentations that were made to us [Nugent and Kelly] regarding L’ Isle nommée des Cypres Située aux atakapas being indispensably necessary to the settlers in that section.” The governor set aside L’ Isle des Cypres as a common, timber-harvesting ground. Wood was needed for building materials, fence posts, and firewood. This ancient commons was undoubtedly within today’s Cypress Island area, which is adjacent to Parks. Cypress Island is also an early Attakapas place-name. Some of “the settlers in that section” probably referred to the former La Pointe Acadians and four other Acadian families who will be discussed later. In early 1770, these Acadian colonists were probably starting to relocate north to land along Bayou Teche where a nearby common woodlot was established for them.[54]

In March 1771, Joseph-Pépin Hébert married Jean Trahan’s daughter. The newlyweds had both been singles at La Pointe in 1766. On 17 February 1772, Hébert was issued a land grant at La Pointe du Repos. This date was eight months after his father-in-law and the others from La Pointe received their grants. Back in 1769, Hébert had been living in the household of his second cousin, Jean-Baptiste Broussard. Could Broussard, his brothers and their brother-in-law, Jean Trahan, have waited for their relatives to marry before formally ceding land at La Pointe to Delahoussaye? If so, that might explain the year-discrepancy discussed earlier. By early 1772, all these former La Pointe residents were settled at La Pointe du Repos.[55]

The full name of the bend area at present-day Parks was L’ Anse de la Pointe du Repos. After 1800, in some church and civil records La Pointe du Repos was shortened to just La Pointe. In several records the bend at Parks was named Pointe des Acadiennes or Pointe du Bon Repos or L’Ance du Bon Repos. There are several significant named points/bends/turns along the Teche including: Grande Pointe, La Pointe du Repos, Fausse Pointe, Indian Bend and Irish Bend. The location named La Punta/La Pointe on the 1766 censuses was different from the location named L’Anse du la Pointe du Repos on Sylvain Broussard’s 1771 requête document.[56]

By piecing together all the relevant details and my interpretations of them in the primary documents presented here, I have inferred that the 1765 La Dernier Camp d’en Bas, associated with Alexandre Broussard’s extended family, and the 1766 Quartel de la Punta/Camp de la Pointe neighborhood, associated with the families of Alexandre Broussard, Joseph Guilbeau and Jean Trahan, were both located somewhere within the general area of Belle Place along the lower Fausse Pointe oxbow. Where were the other two 1766 Acadian neighborhoods?

Camp appellé Beau Soleil and Quartel de el Caño de Tortugas/Camp du Bayou des Tortue

Joseph Broussard, like his older brother Alexandre, was a casualty of the tragic epidemic. Father Jean François wrote that on 20 October 1765 le corps de feu [deceased] Joseph Broussard dit Beau Soleil, Capitaine Comandant les Acadiens des Atakapas ete inhume au camp appellé Beau Soleil. The Captain is the only known person, in all of the thirty-nine burial records, interred at Camp Beausoleil. It appears that most of Beausoleil’s extended-family survived the epidemic; Alexandre’s family was not so fortunate. The probable general area of La Dernier Camp d’en Bas, Alexandre’s burial site, has just been put forth. What evidence suggests the general area of Camp Beausoleil? [57]

In April 1766, six months after Captain Joseph Broussard was interred at Camp Beausoleil, all his extended family were residents of a neighborhood named Quartel de el Caño de Tortugas/Camp du Bayou des Tortue [sic].[58] René Trahan, Jean Trahan’s brother and also Beausoleil’s son-in-law, and Jean-Baptiste Semer, the Trahan brothers’ nephew, were also there. Again, the French word Camp suggests that Beausoleil’s surviving family members might still have been living in the communal base camp area where they had buried their patriarch only six months earlier.

Given the April 1766 Acadian neighborhood named Quartel de el Caño de Tortugas/Camp des Bayou des Tortue, a place associated with Joseph Broussard’s family, it could logically be assumed that this 1766 Tortugas/Tortue location was along present-day Bayou Tortue – a waterway that runs between Spanish Lake and Bayou Vermilion. The upper Bayou Tortue area, named Côte Gelée in colonial times, was indeed one of the 1766 Acadian settlement locations proposed years ago by Dr. Brasseaux. In October 1765, was Camp Beausoleil also in this area? As will be explained below, after much examination, I question if any Acadians were actually settled in 1766 in the Côte Gelée area, which includes the present-day town of Broussard – a village that started in 1884.

The land settlement conflict in 1765 between Grevemberg dit Flamand and the Acadians and his two 1765 land grants have already been discussed in depth. Grevemberg’s grant for one and a half leagues in length apparently included Lac du Taste; this grant fronted on Bayou Teche and ran to the Vermilion. He had a habitation on this land, which may have included Bayou Tortue north of present-day Spanish Lake – a water body named both Lac Tasse and Lac Flamand in colonial times. Dauterive and Masse’s 1765 La Prairie du Vermillion grant was just above Grevemberg’s land. Their grant was “bounded east by the Riviere des Tortues and the Lac du Tasse, north by the Mauvais bois, west by the Riviére Vermillion….” Why Lac du Tasse was included in their boundary description is not clear, because Grevemberg may have actually had the land adjacent to Lac du Taste. In the Vermilion Prairie grant document, Riviere des Tortues undoubtedly referred to a historic waterway that ran from the northern Spanish Lake Basin to Bayou Vermilion; this waterway is present-day Bayou Tortue,

The Spanish Lake Basin and Bayou Tortue have both been altered considerably since 1765. The historic lake basin included a lake and adjoining marsh/pond/swamp lands on the north, east and southeast sides of the lake. The original lake surface area has been reduced and a drivable levee now encircles the existing open water. Some of the historic adjoining bottomlands have been drained and have filled in. Likewise, historic Bayou Tortue has been altered; its channel courses between St. Martinville and Broussard and joins the Vermilion at the east end of the Lafayette Regional Airport runway. Above Spanish Lake, a portion of the Tortue channel was dredged. Bayou Tortue is very noticeable and navigable passing under both Lady of the Lake Road and Smede Highway/State 92-1. However, to the north, the historic Tortue channel crossing at Duchamp Road is not so easily noticed. The reason is that south of Duchamp Road, starting in 1856, Bayou Tortue was redirected. This new channel, the Sproal/Eugene Canal, captured the Bayou Tortue flow; Sproal ran toward the east and then northward to connect with the Cypress Island Coulee Canal northwest of St. Martinville. Like the old channel at Duchamp Road, the historic Tortue channel is barely noticeable at its crossing of the Terrace Highway/State 96. Bayou Tortue again becomes a somewhat navigable waterway at its crossing under Bayou Tortue Road. Apparently once Bayou Tortue was redirected, its middle section dried up and filled in. Nonetheless, the entire historic waterway above Spanish Lake to the Vermilion may have been navigable to small watercraft and therefore apparently warranted the name Riviere des Tortues in 1765. (It is reported that there was also a waterway in the Opelousas area named “River Tortue” in 1764.)[59]

In the late 19th century a lock was proposed on Bayou Teche. The Keystone Lock and Dam facility was finally completed in 1913. As part of the overall operational plan, water from Spanish Lake Basin was redirected into the Teche. Today, water from the lake flows into a spillway and then flows through a north levee culvert into a short canal. This canal connects with today’s junction of the historic, dredged Bayou Tortue channel going toward the Vermilion and the dredged Joe Daigre Canal into the Teche. Initially, Joe Daigre Canal was cut through the west-bank Teche ridge to connect marshland in the northeast lake basin with the Teche just below the Keystone Lock. Eventually the channel was further dredged westward to join with the Tortue. Even in historic times, present-day Bayou Tortue water could either flow into or out of Spanish Lake Basin, depending on specific water levels.

When I first published this article in April 2014, I wrote there was “no was known [natural] connection between Spanish Lake/Bayou Tortue and the Teche drainage in colonial times.” I was mistaken in that statement. I had seen two historic maps (the Hutchins and Lafon maps cited later) that showed a line between the lake and the Teche; however, without any written evidence, I dismissed these lines as probable errors and/or I did not consider the lines noteworthy. I now realize they are significant. I also wrote that “In the future, another document may clearly reveal the truths of the Tortugas/Tortue name and its location and then possibly change some of the theory presented here.” An 1883 document (that “future, other” record) has now been located and studied describing a waterway between the Spanish Lake Basin and the Teche. Another document suggests that this waterway may have also been named Bayou Tortue, if only for a brief moment in colonial times. And another recently located historic map also clearly shows a doubled-lined channel drawn between the lake and the Teche. This current revision of my article is the result of interpretations of these newly located documents and historic maps. Here are the relevant parts of these “new” finds.

Archaeologist Donny Bourgeois recently located a digital online copy of an undated, historic map. The original carte is in a Spanish collection. [60] This old map of the Mississippi River, Atchafayaya Basin, and Rivieres [sic] Attakapas [Bayou Teche], along with a legend written in French, identifies sites, person’s names, and Amerindian tribes, particularly along the Mississippi. Thus far it seems the map was made between about 1772 and late 1775. This important carte is possibly now the earliest known extant, visual document identifying many specific water-feature place names and some location names within the Atchafayaya Basin and on the land west of the basin. On the map, a numbered water body is identified in the legend as Lac du Tase; this lake is west of Rivieres Attakapas – another name occasionally used for the Teche. The Fausse Pointe oxbow, although its shape is distorted on the old map, is identified as Cul des Sac de la Fausse pointe. From Lac du Tase, there are two double-lined waterways drawn on the map: one, at the southern end of the lake that connects with the Teche at the beginning of the distorted oxbow and another that connects with Rivieres des Vermillion. This northern waterway is numbered on the map and named in the legend as Bayou des Tortues. The southern waterway from the lake to the Teche is unnumbered. However, as we shall soon learn, at least once it may have also been named Bayou des Tortues.

Dr. Shane Bernard recently located two relevant primary-source documents, one from the Civil War era, the other from the post-reconstruction era. Dr. Bernard realized the probable significance of information in these documents and kindly shared them with me.

The Union Army marched up the Teche Valley in November 1863. A union soldier from Maine wrote a memoir of his participation in that campaign. [61] The Maine man recorded “The second day the army marched eighteen miles, passed through New Iberia and went into camp four miles beyond, on the shore of Lake Tasse, an enlargement of Bayou Tortue, one of the few tributaries of Bayou Teche.” Residents probably told the Yankees about the Bayou Tortue waterway system. The soldier’s reference to Bayou Tortue as a tributary of the Teche may suggest that the southern waterway from the lake to the Teche – drawn but not specifically named on the circa 1770 map – perhaps might have also been named Bayou Tortue by some locals.

In 1883, H. C. Collins, Assistant Engineer with the US Army, studied and took measurements and soundings in the Teche Valley. He then reported on his work as part of an effort to determine the feasibility of placing a lock in Bayou Teche.[62] Both the soldier’s memoir and the engineer’s report (made twenty years later) were not studied when I first presented the theory. A revelent part of Collin’s report is central to this present revision. Here is what Engineer Collins wrote in 1883:

“On the high land of the west side [of the Teche?] just above the upper end of the bend [beginning of the Fause Pointe oxbow?] is Spanish Lake…. Bayou Tortue is the present outlet at high water of the lake, but it only takes water at a height about 2 feet above the stage of last November, when I saw it. Inhabitants say that at the first settlement of the country the outlet [of the lake?] was through a slough at the southeast end [of the lake basin] which has since filled up; that it [the slough] ran into the Teche at Fausse Pointe bend; that at that time Bayou Tortue was an inlet bayou from the swamps to the northward [of the lake?] between the Teche and Vermillion; and that it [present-day Bayou Tortue?] had another mouth into the Vermillion. As the lower end of Spanish Lake filled in it raised the water in Bayou Tortue and found a discharge into the Vermillion…. The area of the lake is about 6 square miles of open water, 7 to 15 feet deep, and about half as much floating grass marsh, which rises and falls with the water of the lake, and would be nearly as useful as a reservoir as the open lake….”[63]

According to Collins, the historic Spanish Lake Basin was about 9 square miles; about 6 was open water. Today the open water of the lake is barely 2 square miles. The engineer clearly described being told that, when the middle Teche region was first settled, there was a historic “slough” waterway connecting the southeastern end of the basin with the Teche at Fausse Pointe bend. This first-settlement reference probably included the Acadians who settled along the Teche in 1765. When Collins made his report in 1883, this historic slough had “filled up.” His statements also confirm different mapmaker’s placement of a line, apparently representing this slough, between the lake and the Teche. Although not in the exact same outlet location on the different historic maps, these lines show the “slough” joining the Teche in the beginning bend of the Fausse Pointe oxbow. If this slough was also named Tortue in 1766, then the place names Quartel de el Caño de Tortugas/Camp du Bayou des Tortue may have referred to a location along the Teche in the vicinity of the slough outlet. Unfortunately, to date, after a search in many collections and relevant publications, I have not found a document that clearly refers to Collin’s “slough” as being named Bayou Tortue in 1766. The search continues. Nonetheless, this revised theory considers the possibility that the slough in question was indeed also named Bayou Tortue, if only once. Where exactly on the ground today was Collin’s historic “filled up…slough” that connected the lake basin to the Teche,. More important, where was the slough outlet into the Teche?

In 1784, Thomas Hutchins published a report on Louisiana that included information about the Tage [Teche] River from its mouth to above present-day Leonville, located in the upper Teche Valley.[64] Hutchins may have never traveled along the Teche, but instead received information from some astute resident who knew about human presence along that important waterway and the distances between settlements. In his book, Hutchins recorded the “town of Nouvelle Iberie,” which had been established by Spaniards in 1779. Hutchins reported that six leagues above New Iberia on the Teche was “la Shute branch, which passes over a fall of about 10 feet, near where it enters into the Tage river….” This “branch” is the only waterway joining Bayou Teche along its entire course described by Hutchins in 1784. One of the historic maps mentioned above is found in the Thomas Hutchins Papers of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; this crude, geographically-detailed map is not dated or signed. Although the map was not included in Hutchins’s book, he probably used this map to help describe the Teche section of his book. The map shows Lac de Flamand west of a waterway that is obviously Hutchins’ Tage River. There are two lines from the lake – one from the north side of the lake joining the Vermilion and the other from southeast side joining the Teche at the beginning of the roughly drawn Fausse Pointe oxbow. On the map, the word Shout [sic] was labeled inside the peninsula where the southern line from the lake meets the Teche. On the unpublished map, both this line from the lake and the word Shout represents Hutchins’s la Shute branch described in his book. [65]

In 1785, the year after Hutchins’ book was published, La Chute was identified in a civil document as a boundary between two properties in a land sale agreement. Another historic map, one made by Barthélémy Lafon in 1806, shows a wiggly line between L. du Tase and the Teche at the beginning bend of the Fausse Pointe oxbow. Lafon placed the word Chûtte just across the Teche from the wiggly line’s meeting with that bayou. This wiggly line probably also referred to Hutchins’s la Shute branch. Lines, drawn many years apart on the Hutchins and Lafon maps from Spanish Lake to the Teche, undoubtedly represented the historic “slough” described by the engineer as being “filled up” by 1883. An 1846 plat map for T12 R7E identifies Bayou La Chute; this bayou is the 1784 la Shute branch and the 1806 Chûtte. The old plat map accurately places the waterway outlet in the correct location. This historic waterway exists today and it is still named Bayou La Chute by some locals and on maps of fairly recent vintage.[66]

Bayou La Chute enters the Teche from the south in the vicinity of the mid-point of the bend that forms the beginning of the Fausse Pointe oxbow. The outlet is in Section 13 of T12S R7. Present-day Blue Haven Subdivision is located on both the east bank of La Chute and the south bank of the Teche. La Chute has two forks (one from the east, the other from the west); both forks drain the peninsular of the Fausse Pointe oxbow, that is, the Presque’ isle de la Riviere de Teiche described in 1765 and also the Cul des Sac de la Fausse pointe on the circa 1770s historic map. Today the east fork is larger that the west fork. However, in this study it is the west fork that is the focus.

An 1845 plat map for T12S R6E shows that the southeast side of Lake Tasse/Spanish Lake Basin narrowed toward the east into a funnel that became a channel going east into T12S R7E. Individual section plat maps made in 1817 and 1818 show a double line feature (apparently a waterway) from the east end of the basin funnel to the present-day west fork of Bayou La Chute.[67] This waterway was most probably the historic “slough” described by Collins as being “filled up” by 1883. It was also represented by the lines drawn on historic maps between Spanish Lake and the Teche.

The funnel area of the former basin and the existing slough east of the funnel end filled up because a canal was dug within the east end of the basin funnel. This canal then turned north, cut through the Teche ridge, and joined the bayou. The man-made canal, today’s Belmont Canal, diverted water from the natural slough to provide water power for a sugar mill that was in operation by at least the beginning of the nineteenth century.[68] It also drained the basin funnel area. The natural slough area east of Belmont Canal dried up, “filled up” and then became agricultural land. However, from the old Belmont Canal diversion point to the present, obvious west fork of Bayou La Chute, there is still a shallow drainage channel that is undoubtedly the remnants of Collins’ historic “slough” from the lake basin to the Teche. The old slough course is very visible on a 1939 USGS topographic map.[69] The outlet of the historic slough into the Teche in colonial times was and still is Bayou La Chute.

I can find no direct evidence that Hutchins’s 1784 La Shute branch (later named Bayou La Chute) was named Bayou Tortue when the middle Teche was first settled in the mid-1700s.. The new clues found in the historic documents and maps just presented do suggest that perhaps, at least in two 1766 colonial documents, today’s Bayou La Chute was actually named Bayou Tortue. The Civil War soldier’s reference to Bayou Tortue as a tributary of the Teche might suggest that the slough waterway from the lake basin to the Fausse Pointe bend was perhaps named Caño de Tortugas/Bayou des Tortue on the April 1766 Spanish and French censuses. If that was the reality, then Camp du Bayou des Tortue in 1766 might have referred to a location in the vicinity of the historic “filled-up slough” outlet that joined Bayou Teche. Historic records presented when the theory was first published support this suggestion.

From land records and their interpretations, Grevemberg in 1765 held the lands along Lac du Taste and also probably along lower present-day Bayou Tortue; Dauterive and Masse held the land along present-day upper Bayou Tortue (the Riviere Des Tortue in 1765) including Côte Gelée. There is no record of Acadians settling on Grevemberg’s land along today’s lower Bayou Tortue/Spanish Lake area. He was disturbed with their land settlement choice on the Fausse Pointe oxbow. Likewise, there is no known document which revels or even suggests that Dauterive and Masse were upset with the Acadians over settlement along upper Bayou Tortue. We have already learned that in August 1765 Grevemberg complained about the Acadians settlement somewhere on the isthmus of the Fausse Pointe peninsula. The historic slough, the present-day west fork of Bayou La Chute, joins the Teche in this general area.

We have also already learned that the Alexandre Broussard family “immediately” settled on both banks of the lower Fausse Pointe oxbow in an area called, at least once, “post of Attakapas, quarter of Fausse Pointe.” (today’s Belle Place area), even though Grevemberg apparently held a title to the land on the west-bank in that area. In 1765, why would Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil and his family settle at Côte Gelée along present-day upper Bayou Tortue? That location is about 16 miles away from where Alexandre’s family settled along the lower Fausse Pointe. Back in their old homeland along the Petitcoudiac River, the brothers’ families lived near each other. In fact, the Acadian settlement pattern for generations was for extended families to cluster together in adjoining or nearby locations. It seems logical to assume that the Beausoleil group might do the same in a very different, foreign environment. It is only 3.1 miles from the Bayou La Chute outlet across the peninsula by land to the Belle Place-Olivier Bridge; 