•
General Information • Important
Past Projects |
Current Projects
Sulfur Fork Factory: In 1795 the United States government began operating a system of posts, called factories, for regulating trade with Native American groups. As whites began settling in Louisiana and developing commercial relations with Native Americans, a factory was established at Nachitoches to oversee trade and to administer Indian affairs in general. Problems over the location of the factory buildings as well as conflicts with the local merchants made it advisable to move the factory farther up the Red River. The location recommended was on a high bluff on the west bank of the Red River near the mouth of the Sulphur Fork. Factor John Fowler chose this site because various Indian groups were already using the area to hunt and because unscrupulous private traders were operating nearby. The site also offered the opportunity to trade with Native groups who lived too far away to make the trip to Nachitoches--Fowler mentioned villages of Coushattas, Delawares, Caddos and Pascagoulas. It was 1818 before construction was begun on the new site. Choosing a location about a kilometer below the mouth of the Sulphur Fork, Fowler left the highest part of the bluff for a military post and built the factory on an adjacent site. BY May of 1819 the complex included a two-story combination store and dwelling, a smaller two-story skin and fur house, a cookhouse, and temporary buildings used as a guardhouse and for storage. A ferry was built later to allow the Indians to hunt on the east side of the river. Congress abolished the factory system in 1822 and substituted agents who would license private traders. George Gray took over the buildings and the Sulphur Fork Factory became the Red River INdian Agency. Gray stayed at the site until 1825 when he moved his agency down river to Caddo Prairie to be closer to the Indians. In 1988 a team of volunteers from the Kadohadcho Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society, led by Claude McCrocklin and with Dr. Frank Schambach as their professional advisor, organized to survey the Arkansas portion of the Sulphur River. Using written accounts, maps and slides of the terrain, McCrocklin and company located the site of the Sulphur Fork Factory (state site number 3MI266) on one of the series of high ridges that form the five mile long bluff on the west side of the Sulphur River near its junction with the Red River. Tests made in the midden revealed 20 cm of human occupation yielding European ceramics, bottle glass, Native American ceramics, bone, charcoal and ash. Frank Schambach, David Jeane and members of the Arkansas Archeological Society conducted extensive test excavations in April of 1988--excavating 42 2m x 2m test units into the site's two distinct midden areas. Excavations encountered an irregular square-shaped trash pit measuring 110 cm x 1130 cm x 55 cm (Feature 1) and a rock and daub chimney fall. These features were interpreted as the location of the cook house (Area 1) and part of the soldier guardhouses or the fur storage building (Area 2). As extensive as these test excavations seem to be, only a small portion of the site has been investigated. Other structures, such as the main two story post building, remain to be located and tested. Currently Theresa J. Russell, a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and long-time associate of the SAU Research Station, is revisiting the Sulphur Fork Factory materials as a part of her dissertation research. Ms. Russell will be creating a larger historical context for the factory system and exploring the cultural interaction between Euro-Americans and various Native groups in the area. Check back later for updates and more information. Further Reading Magnahghi, Russell M. McCrocklin, Claude
More Coming Soon...
|
|
Copyright
©2006, Arkansas Archeological Survey, Revised -
September 14, 2006
|
•
