Arkansas Créole

Rediscovering a Lost Vernacular Landscape

Nathan Marvin

01 / 34

Screenshot from the Mapping Application

1819 US Survey of "Spanish Land Grant" Accorded to Pedro (Pierre) Pertuis. (Source:  Arkansas Commissioner of State Lands )

Detail from an original copy of the 1824 Treaty between the Quapaw and the US Government, with beginning of list of signatories and portion indicating the grants from the land being seized to be awarded to several Arkansas Creoles "being Indians by descent," including Barthelemy (Louis), Bonne (Joseph and Baptiste), Coussot (François), Duchassin (Joseph and Antoine), Imbeau (François and Baptiste), Saracen, and Saucier (Baptiste).

Although only faintly visible in this sketch, the French naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur passed this spot in 1829 to capture "the Villemont Habitation at the Pointe Chicault." Swannee Bennett, “Rediscovering the Artists and Art of Early Arkansas 1820-1860,” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 53, no. 1 (1994): 33–36.

Extract from an 1825 letter, in French, of Antoine Barraqué, French-born US government agent among the Quapaw, to George Izard, governor of Arkansas Territory.

A map published based on Zebulon Pike's explorations along the Arkansas, in 1810 in Philadelphia, indicated a cluster of "French Hunters" near the site of Little Rock.  https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/83485/the-first-part-of-captn-pikes-chart-of-the-internal-part-o-pike 

Photographer Unknown, ambrotype of Francis Godfrey Le Fevre (1800-1862) [son of Pierre Lefevre], 3 3/4 x 3 1/4 in., collection of Historic Arkansas Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. A. Howard Stebbins III, accession number 95.035.0005.

Brand engraving from Thibault Brothers Co., silver coin flatware, Philadelphia, 1810-1836

The Thibault House, Center for Arkansas History and Culture, UALR

Haitian Revolution Emigre Diaspora

View of Arkansas River from Petit Jean Mountain (Author's Photo)

Marker, "The Legend of Petit Jean," Petit Jean Mountain, 2019 (Author's Photo).

Petit Jean Pilsner, Point Remove Brewery ( https://pointremovebrewingcompany.com )

1966 Time Magazine cover featuring an illustration of Winthrop Rockefeller on Petit Jean Mountain.

Petit Jean Grave Site in 2019 (Author's Photo).

Letter of Governor Bienville, New Orleans, 27 July 1734. in Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer, COL C12A, fol. 226v (Author's Photo, taken in the Microfilm Gallery of the Archives Nationales, CARAN Site, Paris)

Detail from the report of Bienville, from the archives of the office of the Ministry of the Navy (now in the colonial division of the French national archives).

Site of the Sautier Household, at the corner of Royale and Saint Pierre Streets. From "Plan of New Orleans the capital of Louisiana; with the disposition of its quarters and canals as they have been traced by Mr. de la Tour in the year 1720" (Detail). Library of Congress).

Daily Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 3, 1869, p. 3. Accessed April 16, 2024. newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/131672061. It is unclear where the tellers of this tale derived the surname "d'Ambrose," but this would have been a well-known name in the region. Ambroise (or Ambrose) Lefevre (1830s - 1889) was a prominent settler in the Arkansas River Valley.

Frontispiece from T. W. Hardison's pamphlet, "A Place Called Petit Jean: The Mountain and Man's Mark," 1955, one installment in a series of brochures promoting the mountain.

Extract from Lucille Clerget Rankin's poem, "The Legend of Petit Jean Mountain," published in 1946. Its dedication reads: "to our forefathers, who so nobly blazed those barren trails, that they might give to us the modern civilization which we enjoy today."

George Caleb Bingham's 1845 painting, "Fur Traders Descending the Missouri," Metropolitan Museum of Art, depicts voyageurs returning with their trade goods, including a rare black fox. The artist's original title was "French-Trader, Half-breed Son." Since its 1935 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, the painting has captivated American audiences, helping forge the enduring stereotype of the French voyageur as "in tune with wild nature" and apart from "civilization" (Korhauser and Mahon 2014).

The "Three Villages Robe," housed in the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, is a rare indigenous artistic representation of European settlers in Arkansas. This segment of the image, rendered on painted buffalo hide, features the French settlement of Poste des Arkansas, situated adjacent to several Quapaw villages in the lower Arkansas Valley.

Screenshot from the Mapping Application

1819 US Survey of "Spanish Land Grant" Accorded to Pedro (Pierre) Pertuis. (Source:  Arkansas Commissioner of State Lands )

Detail from an original copy of the 1824 Treaty between the Quapaw and the US Government, with beginning of list of signatories and portion indicating the grants from the land being seized to be awarded to several Arkansas Creoles "being Indians by descent," including Barthelemy (Louis), Bonne (Joseph and Baptiste), Coussot (François), Duchassin (Joseph and Antoine), Imbeau (François and Baptiste), Saracen, and Saucier (Baptiste).

Interior of St. Mary's Church. Photo 2023.  https://www.stjosephpinebluff.org/st-mary-catholic-church.html 

Although only faintly visible in this sketch, the French naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur passed this spot in 1829 to capture "the Villemont Habitation at the Pointe Chicault." Swannee Bennett, “Rediscovering the Artists and Art of Early Arkansas 1820-1860,” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 53, no. 1 (1994): 33–36.

Extract from an 1825 letter, in French, of Antoine Barraqué, French-born US government agent among the Quapaw, to George Izard, governor of Arkansas Territory.

A map published based on Zebulon Pike's explorations along the Arkansas, in 1810 in Philadelphia, indicated a cluster of "French Hunters" near the site of Little Rock.  https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/83485/the-first-part-of-captn-pikes-chart-of-the-internal-part-o-pike 

Photographer Unknown, ambrotype of Francis Godfrey Le Fevre (1800-1862) [son of Pierre Lefevre], 3 3/4 x 3 1/4 in., collection of Historic Arkansas Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. A. Howard Stebbins III, accession number 95.035.0005.

Brand engraving from Thibault Brothers Co., silver coin flatware, Philadelphia, 1810-1836

The Thibault House, Center for Arkansas History and Culture, UALR

View of Arkansas River from Petit Jean Mountain (Author's Photo)

Marker, "The Legend of Petit Jean," Petit Jean Mountain, 2019 (Author's Photo).

Petit Jean Pilsner, Point Remove Brewery ( https://pointremovebrewingcompany.com )

1966 Time Magazine cover featuring an illustration of Winthrop Rockefeller on Petit Jean Mountain.

Petit Jean Grave Site in 2019 (Author's Photo).

Letter of Governor Bienville, New Orleans, 27 July 1734. in Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer, COL C12A, fol. 226v (Author's Photo, taken in the Microfilm Gallery of the Archives Nationales, CARAN Site, Paris)

Detail from the report of Bienville, from the archives of the office of the Ministry of the Navy (now in the colonial division of the French national archives).

Site of the Sautier Household, at the corner of Royale and Saint Pierre Streets. From "Plan of New Orleans the capital of Louisiana; with the disposition of its quarters and canals as they have been traced by Mr. de la Tour in the year 1720" (Detail). Library of Congress).

Daily Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 3, 1869, p. 3. Accessed April 16, 2024. newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/131672061. It is unclear where the tellers of this tale derived the surname "d'Ambrose," but this would have been a well-known name in the region. Ambroise (or Ambrose) Lefevre (1830s - 1889) was a prominent settler in the Arkansas River Valley.

Frontispiece from T. W. Hardison's pamphlet, "A Place Called Petit Jean: The Mountain and Man's Mark," 1955, one installment in a series of brochures promoting the mountain.

Extract from Lucille Clerget Rankin's poem, "The Legend of Petit Jean Mountain," published in 1946. Its dedication reads: "to our forefathers, who so nobly blazed those barren trails, that they might give to us the modern civilization which we enjoy today."

George Caleb Bingham's 1845 painting, "Fur Traders Descending the Missouri," Metropolitan Museum of Art, depicts voyageurs returning with their trade goods, including a rare black fox. The artist's original title was "French-Trader, Half-breed Son." Since its 1935 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, the painting has captivated American audiences, helping forge the enduring stereotype of the French voyageur as "in tune with wild nature" and apart from "civilization" (Korhauser and Mahon 2014).

The "Three Villages Robe," housed in the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, is a rare indigenous artistic representation of European settlers in Arkansas. This segment of the image, rendered on painted buffalo hide, features the French settlement of Poste des Arkansas, situated adjacent to several Quapaw villages in the lower Arkansas Valley.