El Camino Real

“ To write a history of such an area as that which includes Natchitoches, El Camino Real, Los Adais and the Neutral Strip, one must be blessed with the knowledge of several languages, and feel that he can comprehend the nature of the people, who for nearly three and one half centuries have passed before him, from the time of Cabeza De Vaca in the year 1530 to the establishment of Fort Jesup by General Zachary Taylor in 1823. One must specially be familiar with the Adais Indians, who were a branch of the great Caddo Federation of Indians and their Nation when Cabeza De Vaca visited the Adais. ”

“ Upon reaching the summit, attaining an altitude of over ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, we traversed for many miles a grassy tableland, where were herds of the long-horned cattle, and flocks of the thin-wooled sheep with their keepers. Running parallel to our track extended the ancient Royal Turnpike, built long ago by Montezuma and maintained by Cortez with the labor of his conquered Aztec slaves, and still called “El Camino Real del Rey.” On the very summit of the height of land stood the ruins of an old roadhouse and towered fortress. ”

“ General Gaines was aware of the feeling of those settlers from the Sabine River westward along El Camino Real to the 94 Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas. These were Spaniards that had felt the freedom of being so far from their government’s head in Mexico City. They, with the Anglo-American settlers, wanted a different kind of freedom, not allegiance to Mexico or to the United States. Thus, the Fort Jesup-Natchitoches and El Camino Real Area on the eastern end from Nacogdoches and San Augustine was ripe for the filibusterers. ”

“ He led the way down into a shallow depression which wound aimlessly towards the ocean; and later, when trees and bushes and precipitous bluffs threatened to bar their way, he swung abruptly to the east and south.
"Maybe you won't object so hard to Palo Alto now," he bantered at last, when at dusk he ventured out upon "El Camino Real" (which is pure Spanish for "The King's Highway") , that had linked Mission to Mission all down the fertile length of California when the land was wilderness. "Solitude ought to feel good, after to-day." When he got no answer, Dade looked around at the other. ”

“ Padre Hidalgo’s letter and St. Denis’ answer resulted in the settlement of El Camino Real from San Antonio to Natchitoches. 104 Here, then, was cast the first seed, in form of settlers, who learned to live as the Indians—free as the wind, this newly found freedom had been felt by settlers and their descendants for over a hundred years.
The land of Sabine, “’tis mine,” said the Americans, “by right of purchase”; “’tis mine,” said the Spanish, “by the claim of Domingo Teran Del Rio of 1690.”
And so the Neutral Strip was established. Each nation begrudging the other every inch of it. ”

“ In mid-summer of 1713 the Governor of Louisiana, La Mothe de Cadillac, had the letter in his possession. (There is always an incident in history which incites a chain reaction in such a way that a new era begins, always resulting in the establishment of new frontiers. The Hidalgo letter was such an incident) .
One must surmise how such a letter could travel through nearly a thousand miles of wilderness and reach its destination. The whole new frontier of El Camino Real hinged on this accomplishment. ”

“ The former inhabitants of El Camino Real were not happy. They longed for the fertile soil and forests which abounded in wild game of the East Texas and West Louisiana area. Flores and y Barbo were sent with a petition to the Viceroy of Mexico. The two returned with the news that the people would be allowed to settle in a new area. They moved to a settlement on the Trinity River at Robbins Crossing, the present day location in Madison County, Texas.
Floods and the danger of hostile Indians soon forced the settlers to seek a new environment. ”

“ Much of the credit for the establishment of the Fort Jesup Museum goes to Mrs. W. M. Knott of Many, Louisiana. The building was erected according to the plans of the officers quarters during the time of military occupancy. Mrs. Knott’s knowledge of landscaping is seen on the grounds which encompass this building. She is an excellent historian, and was a member of the Research Committee which set the markers for El Camino Real and the Old Natchitoches-to-Natchez Trace. The people of Sabine Parish can well be grateful that they have in their midst such a gifted personality. ”

“ Texas threw open its doors to immigrants and daily these passed through the Fort Jesup area, to travel El Camino Real westward. Many, however, stopped in the Natchitoches-Sabine country. Texans knew that immigrants represented power, power to resist Mexico.
This peaceful existence was not to last long. There was talk of the annexation of Texas by the United States which Mexico did not want. For as long as Texas was a Republic there was 121 a possibility that Mexico might recover this prize possession, a possession which also included the present states of New Mexico and a part of Wyoming. ”

“ Besides these, there are on this side of the camino real the remains of other buildings, but all in a ruinous condition, and there is one monument, perhaps more curious and interesting than any that has been presented. It is a lonely arch, of the same form with all the rest, having a span of fourteen feet. It stands on a ruined mound, disconnected from every other structure, in solitary grandeur. Darkness rests upon its history, but in that desolation and solitude, among the ruins around, it stood like the proud memorial of a Roman triumph. ”

“ Louis Bonnafons died in 1759. He never married. His ledger brings out but one important fact: Natchitoches and El Camino Real area has always had possibilities for the right sort of man. Likewise, these so-called, one-stop, shopping centers are nothing new to our country. Too, during this early period of the Natchitoches community there was a form of socialized medicine, which proved even at this early period a doctor could not exist by merely depending on his chosen profession for a livelihood when controlled or limited by the state. ”

“ Francois Prudhomme was a trader among the Indians and at the same time had a Spanish co-partner, Antonio Gil y Barbo, who traded among the Spanish along El Camino Real. Manuel Flores was another partner of Prudhomme, also Miguel Viciente who later sold his grant to Isaac Crow. It is very likely that Viciente at his out of the way home on Sabine River was a trader in contraband merchandise supplied by Prudhomme. ”

“ These two men had no outstanding quarrels, for during these four years both the French and the Spanish prospered, crops were favorable and the trail from Los Adais was traveled daily by each of the nationalities. The Natchitoches area was prosperous and shipped to New Orleans, tobacco, cattle, horses and other farm products. Even those farmers at Los Adais were selling to the New Orleans market. Young Gil Y. Barbo was importing wild cattle and horses, obtained from the plains of Texas, driven over El Camino Real to the Adais-Natchitoches frontier, and on to New Orleans. ”

“ John Coleman Tarver, honorable Mayor of Many, La. wed Thelma Mayer of Woodward, Oklahoma. Their children are: Joan Tarver, who wed Wayne Dew of Natchitoches, La.; and Mike Thayne, senior at Many High School. Mayor Tarver owns and manages Tarvers’ Grocery located on El Camino Real, which is Highway 6 east to Fort Jesup. Mr. Tarver is a descendant on his great grandmother’s side of A. Cole who is listed in the 1806 period as being a settler in the Neutral Strip. Cole is also listed as a participant in the Guitreez-McGee Expedition to Texas in 1812. ”

“ There were rumors in 1806 that Aaron Burr was attempting to organize the settlers of the Neutral Strip and that an actual Free State of Sabine was to be established, Breastworks at Sabine-Town and a Block House with two companies of the United States militia were established near the confluence of Bayou Negrett and the Sabine River on the El Camino Real.
The establishment of the Block House by General Wilkinson resulted in the Spanish bolstering their strength in the western part of the Neutral Strip by giving presents to the Indians and thereby establishing an Indian barrier in the area. ”

“ The road, like all the main routes in Uruguay, is called the camino real, or royal road, but the roads are all mere tracks over the Campos, chosen so as to avoid the steepest hills and seek the easiest places to ford the rivers. ”

“ This is just three tenths of a mile from the site of El Presidio Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Los Adais. Mrs. McCaa is always ready to assist visitors to the Los Adais area. This location was at one time a stage coach station on El Camino Real between Natchitoches and Fort Jesup.
Mrs. McCaa’s family name, La Cour, appears very early in Natchitoches history. La Cour one of the fourteen French soldiers sent by St. Denis in 1723 to establish “Post du Rapides” which was the beginning of Alexandria, Louisiana. ”

“ Percy Roberts Dillon is a Beautitian and owns and manages the Petite Beauty Shoppe at 435 San Antonio St., which is a portion of El Camino Real and is the Main Street in Many, Louisiana.
Mrs. Herbert Dorfer, Ph.★
Mrs. Herbert Dorfer, Ph., neé Ada Trichel of Fairview Alpha, La., taught school in Natchitoches Parish for 25 years before studying and becoming a pharmacist. Her business establishment, Campti Drug Store, is on Edenborne Street. Her children by her first marriage are Blanche McElwee, who wed Dr. A. L. Hushey of Opelika, Ala., and Ray McElwee who wed Rosemary Peters of Austin, Texas. ”

“ DUST OF THE DESERT
PROLOGUE Roads of men thread the world. They thunder with a life flood. They are vibrant with a pulse of affairs. By land and water and air they link to-day to to-morrow. But El Camino de los Muertos (the Road of the Dead Men) is a dim highway leading nowhere but back and back to forgotten yesterdays. ”

“ If I can not bring to the mind of one living to-day the full picture of those days when this country was not yet all ours, and can not restore to the comprehension of those who never were concerned with that life the picture of that great highway, greatest path of all the world, which led across our unsettled countries, that ancient trail at least may be a memory. ”

“ About a road that ends there is no glamour. It may be pretty or useful, but as a road it is a failure. For the Road is the symbol of endless possibility. From the faintest footpath across a meadow, where as a child one has always felt that some elf or gnome may appear, or along which, if one were to wander with sufficient negligence, one might be led into the realm of "faerie" to the broad turnpike which fares through open country, plunges through the surging cities, and escapes to broad lands beyond—any path, any road, makes this appeal. ”

“ The path at first leads off through fields of real flowers, betokening the early part of the Christian life, neither difficult nor uninviting. In the distance a dark mist, hovering over the track, conceals from the advancing wayfarer the real difficulties of his journey, and betokens the sorrows which of necessity befall him. ”

“ We take it so much for granted that its original meaning escapes us. Men, indeed, whose pleasure it is perpetually to explore even their own country on foot, and to whom its every phase of climate is delightful, receive, somewhat tardily, the spirit of The Road. ”

“ It was the one indispensable link in the endless chain of evolution popular and powerful, the only public agent of the Trail and the plains until the unconquerable initiative of the lord of the world had time to steel a highway with trackage for more rapid transit. What a living link was that old overland stage! To look upon an isolated and abandoned relic of earlier pioneerdom is like standing at the marble monument 110 of some human pivot in the mighty march of man’s progress. ”

“ In the darker shadows of this same panorama I saw the Broad Highway with its thronging multitudes. Some, with deliberate step, scrutinizing the objects along the way; others, in mad haste, rushing on toward an awful destruction whose wreck and ruin loomed up dimly in the glare of an eternal burning.
Among the happy pilgrims of the King’s Highway was one named Miss Church-Member, who had left the Broad Way of death, and entered, through Christ, into that marvelous light wherein she was now walking. ”

“ That narrow foot-path led to civilisation, and has broadened into the highway because human fellowships and needs have multiplied and directed the countless feet that have beaten it into permanency. Every new highway has been a new bond between Nature and men, a new evidence of that indissoluble fellowship into which they are forever united. ”

“ Nothing but our common life. They, too,—all the glad or sorrowing children of imaginative literature from Helen of Troy to Helena Richie—are travelers like ourselves on the great highway. We know well how difficult a road it is, how rough, how steep, how dangerous, how boggy, how lined with pitfalls, how bordered with gardens of deadly delights, how beset by bandits, how noisy with fakirs, how overhung with poisonous fruit and swept by devastating storms. ”

“ The new highway appeared to have been thrown open to the world, and the dullest imagination saw the air thronged with colossal chariots, bearing travellers in perfect safety, and with more than the speed of the eagle, from city to city, from country to country, reckless of all the obstacles—the seas, and rivers, and mountains—which Nature might have placed in the path of the wayfarer. ”

“ We left these people, while making this digression, on the king's highway severing forever the strong ties that bound them to the land and the people of their birth. As we now resume our journey with them, especially if we have not made the trip before, we are irresistibly attracted by the wild and rugged manifestations of nature along our route. ”