Red River of the South - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Red River of the South - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Red River, or sometimes the Red River of the South, is a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers in the southern United States of America.[2] The river was named for the red-bed country of its watershed. It is one of several rivers with that name.





"The Mexicans and Indians on the borders of Mexico are in the habit of calling any river, the waters of which have a red appearance, 'Rio Colorado', or Red river", observed R.B. Marcy in 1853.[3] The Red River formed part of the US-Mexico border from the Adams-Onís Treaty (in force 1821) until the Texas Annexation or Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.





The Red River is the second-largest river basin in the southern Great Plains.[4] It rises in two branches (forks) in the Texas Panhandle and flows east, where it acts as the border between the states of Texas and Oklahoma. It forms a short border between Texas and Arkansas before entering Arkansas, turning south near Fulton, Arkansas and flowing into Louisiana, where it flows into the Atchafalaya River. The total length of the river is 1,360 miles (2,190 km), with a mean flow of over 57,000 cubic feet per second (1,600 m3/s) at the mouth.



Native American cultures along the river were diverse, developing specialized adaptations to the many different environments.^[4] By the time of European contact, the eastern Piney Woods were dominated by the numerous historic tribes of the Caddoan Confederacy. They found plentiful game and fish, and also had good land for cultivating staple crops.^[4] The middle part of the Red River was dominated by Wichita and Tonkawa. This area was prairie, where Native Americans constructed portable and temporary tepees for housing. They practiced limited farming and followed game in seasonal, nomadic hunting cycles.^[4] The Plains division of the Lipan Apache dominated the western Red River area until the 18th century, when they were displaced by invading Comanche from the north.^[4]



When John Quincy Adams became Secretary of State in 1817, one of his highest priorities was to negotiate the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase with Spain. He negotiated with the Spanish Minister to the United States, Luis de Onis, and finally concluded Adams-Onis Treaty, also known as the Treaty of 1819. The treaty defined the south bank of the river as the boundary between the United States and Spain. That boundary continued to be recognized when Mexico gained its independence from Spain, then again when Texas became independent from Mexico. It remains so until the present, being the border between Texas and Oklahoma.^[9]



In Louisiana, the area of present-day Natchitoches Parish was settled by French Creole and mixed-race Louisiana Creole people, starting before 1800. The Cane River National Heritage Area marks this area of influence, with plantations and churches founded by Louisiana Creoles. Some of the sites are designated as destinations on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail, designed in the 21st century. For nearly 100 years after the American Civil War, some of the plantations were the center of a large African American and Creole community life, whose people lived and worked in this area for generations.



The area along the lower Red River of Grant Parish, Louisiana, and neighboring parishes were a mixture of hill country and cotton plantations, with white planters and subsistence farmers, and numerous African American slaves working the plantations in the ante bellum years. It was an area of heated social tensions and insurgency during and after the Reconstruction era. Grant was a new parish created by the Reconstruction legislature, which was trying to increase Republican Party representation. In 1873, Grant Parish was the site of the Colfax massacre, caused by the political tension and violence arising from the disputed 1872 gubernatorial election and efforts by local whites to keep white supremacy. White militias, organized from nearby parishes, killed more than 100 freedmen, some of whom had surrendered as prisoners.



In 1874, such militias organized as the White League in Grant Parish, and other chapters were soon founded across the state. The Coushatta Massacre was attributed to the White League, which attacked Republican officeholders to run them out of office. The paramilitary groups intimidated and terrorized freedmen to keep them from the polls, and by the late 1870s, conservative Democrats had retaken political control of the state.



In the early 19th century, settlers found that much of the river's length in Louisiana was unnavigable because of a collection of fallen trees that formed a "Great Raft" over 160 miles (260 km) long. Captain Henry Miller Shreve began clearing the log jam in 1839. The log jam was not completely cleared until the 1870s, when dynamite became available. The river was thereafter navigable, but north of Natchitoches, it was restricted to small craft. Removal of the raft further connected the Red and Atchafalaya rivers, accelerating the development of the Atchafalaya River channel.^[6]



In the 20th century, the interest group known as the Red River Valley Association was formed to lobby the United States Congress to make the river fully navigable between Alexandria and Shreveport, Louisiana. Leading supporters of the longstanding project were Louisiana Democratic senators Allen J. Ellender, J. Bennett Johnston, Jr. and Russell B. Long, the Fourth District Congressman Joseph David "Joe D." Waggonner, Jr., and the late Shreveport Mayor Littleberry Calhoun Allen, Jr. With the completion of the project, a lock system constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers allows navigation of barge traffic as far north as Shreveport.