This book is about the founding and development of the first French settlement west of the Mississippi. The bulk of the book is given over to a study of the demographic, economic, and social development of this colonial town. Only the first chapter gives a summary historical narrative. Other chapters include numerous tables, the result of meticulous research, elaborating the demographics of the people as well as their economic and social evolution.
Natchitoches began as a community organized primarily to trade with the Indians of the western frontier. Traders went up the rivers to the Indian villages and towns and returned with pelts and other forms of wealth that they shipped downriver to New Orleans. At the height of its trading career, French traders ranged over areas of Texas and Arkansas and as far west as Santa Fe, New Mexico, even though this encroached upon Spanish territory in Texas and...
