II. ARKANSAS POST AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

A. War Comes to the Lower Mississippi Valley

3. The Relocation of Arkansas Post

Seventeen hundred and seventy-nine was also an important year in the checkered history of Arkansas Post. In that year the fort and trading village were relocated from the site on the south bank of the Arkansas, 3 leagues above its mouth, to a new location on the north side of the river farther upstream. The reason for this move was the periodic spring floods which inundated the lower Mississippi Valley. The necessity to relocate the fort on higher ground had been called to Governor-General Gálvez’s attention by the spring rise in 1777. In that year floodwaters from the Mississippi and Arkansas partially inundated Fort Carlos II. Having only recently been named to the position, Governor G his attention occupied by other problems, took no corrective action. The June rise of 1778 caused the post commandant, Capt. Balthazar de Villiers, to repeat his complaint “relative to the bad situation of the post because of the land on which it is situated and relative to the benefit and advantage that would result to the king and to his subjects who inhabit it if it should be removed” to a site higher up the Arkansas.

Governor Gálvez agreed to refer the subject to the Crown for final decision.

Captain de Villiers, dissatisfied with continued procrastination, protested that annually the spring rise flooded the post. Moreover, he continued, the fort was “an inconvenient distance below the Quapaw villages.

Governor Gálvez taking cognizance of increasing traffic on the Mississippi, decided to move. Acting under authority allowing provincial governors to initiate action in emergencies, Gálvez on October 19, 1778, ordered de Villiers to relocate the fort on the suggested site.[7]

Captain de Villiers accordingly in 1779 abandoned the post near the mouth of the Arkansas, reestablishing it on a bend of the river about 36 miles upstream. Here it was on high ground at the edge of Grand Prairie and out of the flood plain. A short distance above the new site of the post was the village of the hunting community which had grown up here in the 1750s Downstream about 10 miles, on the right bank, was the Quapaw village of Uzutiuhi [Osotouy], home of trusted chief Angaska. Upstream, also on the south side of the river, were two other Quapaw villages--Kappa and Toriman.

In 1779 the Arkansas approached the peninsula on which the village stood by a reach farther south than today. A sharp bend to the left carried the river around the head of the peninsula and to the north. The river, after flowing about one-half mile in the new direction, again changed course and veered toward the southeast. Fort Carlos III was positioned on the left bank, a little below the bend where the river changed its course from north to southeast. About one-half mile below the fort, north of the river, was the habitants’ settlement. Their fields paralleled the Arkansas to within a short distance of the village. Most of the habitants were newcomers to the Grand Prairie, as they had abandoned their settlement near the mouth of the Arkansas when the garrison moved upstream. Unlike the residents of the village, the habitants relied on trading and agriculture for their livelihood.

Some of the newcomers erected homes in the village adjacent to the cabins of the hunters.[8]