Note 50 — Chapter III · {XI}[48] Red River—Exploring Expedition of 1806—Return to the Arkansa—Earthquakes

The settlement of Avoyelles occupied an island of prairie, about forty miles in circumference, rising out of the swamp thirty or forty feet above high water. The name was that of a small tribe of Indians found there by the early French. Acadians went thither in considerable numbers during the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century. In 1803 the inhabitants were a mixture of French, Irish, and Americans, settled around the edge of the prairie, near the woods, their houses facing the open land, which they cultivated. A decade later the population was estimated at four hundred and fifty whites and a hundred and fifty slaves.—Ed.