II. ARKANSAS POST AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

D. Captain Colbert Raids Arkansas Post

4. The April 17, 1783, Raid

a) Colbert’s Flotilla Moves Against Arkansas Post

By early April 1783, Capt. James Colbert was finally ready to undertake the attack on Arkansas Post, about which he had been talking for almost a year. His force, numbering 11 mixed-bloods and Indians (many of them his sons and nephews), five blacks, one Frenchman, and 64 British and Americans, boarded a keelboat and Lafon’s bateau.[102] The latter, during the winter, had been converted into a gunboat of sorts, although she mounted no cannons. At the camp on Wolf River, Colbert’s people had raised two gunwales as protection against musketry.

Below Chickasaw Bluffs, Colbert’s fleet overtook 16 pirogues of Americans en route down the Mississippi to settle in the Natchez District. About 20 leagues above the mouth of the Arkansas, Colbert ordered the settlers to land and wait for 6 days, after which they would be free to continue.

Near the mouth of White River, into which Colbert turned his fleet, the partisans captured a bercha bound upstream, manned by eight or ten men and loaded with rum and sugar. A bercha from New Orleans, with a cargo of powder, and two pirogues from Arkansas Post, loaded with beaver pelts and bear grease, were also taken.
The Mississippi was in flood, while the White and Arkansas rivers were very low. Consequently, the water in the lower reaches of these rivers, affected by conditions on the Mississippi, had pooled, backing up for many miles. With muffled oars Colbert’s flotilla sailed up White River, passed through the cutoff, and ascended the Arkansas.

A pirogue manned by some of Colbert’s Chickasaw kin scouted the river ahead of the fleet. They stopped at Uzutluhi[Osotouy], the Quapaw village 10 miles below Arkansas Post, early on the evening of April 16. They told Angaska, who had returned from his reconnaissance toward Chickasaw Bluffs, that they were “coming with a dozen Americans to shake hands with Captain Dubreuil” in the morning. They presented Angaska with Wolf River rum, and he decided to wait until the 17th to tell Dubreuil that friends were en route to visit him. It was after midnight when the flotilla, oars muffled with leather, passed the sleeping village.[103]