Natchitoches Preservation Network Podcast, Episode 1: The Underground Railroad in Northwest Louisiana
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Transcript follows:
Welcome to the Natchitoches Preservation Network Podcast. I’m Jeff Guin and today I’m joined by Rolanda Teal of the heritage research organization Cultural Lore.
J: Now, Rolanda has been investigating the concept of the Underground Railroad, particularly as it relates to Northwest Louisiana. Rolanda, I wonder if you’d just tell us about how you came across this concept.
R: Well, I really first became interested in this project as an undergraduate student here at Northwestern. It was really a class assignment. We were working on a project and I came across a book by Gary Mills entitled Tales of Old Natchitoches. And he discussed this event from 1804 in about three pages, and that sparked my curiosity. I felt if he found this information, “What else is out there?” and so the research began really from that point.
J: After making that first discovery in the Mills book, where did you go from there? What was the next step in your research?
R: I really didn’t know where to go other than here at Cammie Henry Research Center, because you know, this is where the information is, and I started basically I think going through the bare archives and just looking for names and just anything that made me think it might be connected. They say “slave escape”—BAM, I looked at it, you know. And then that’s when I began to see that, yeah, there was a distinct pattern of names coming from the Natchitoches region. And then to go from there, to start trying to look at the families: who were these families? Why were the escapes a massive planned escape, taking place from this one region in the parish? It wasn’t, I guess, really a parish then, but why is this happening and what’s going on? And I find that the biggest concentration, at least right there in 1804 at least, was down river in what we now kind of refer to as Iberville community and south of that. And then we’ll notice later, in about 1808, you have another massive escape. And this is more taught from in town, based on some of the names of people that had been identified. So, you know, it’s just interesting to kind of look at what’s going on at that time, what’s causing people to want to leave, and just doing the research on what causes people to run in the first place, other than just a natural desire perhaps to be free, when you have so many obstacles when you run.
J: And what did you find?
R: Almost every plantation is known to have had a person that they kind of considered a habitual runaway, you know. And what they meant by that is simply they might leave for a couple of days, and they’re gonna come back, face the consequences, and go on, and everybody knew that. Then you had instances in which people just actually left. They were willing to, “I do not want to be a part of this anymore.” And that they were usually based on either that person that’d maybe been whipped or beaten that day or a close relative sold that day, or something like that. And what I tend to see down river what was going on is that there was a lot of abuse of slaves—Instances in which someone from the plantation had lodged complaints against the owners, which you could do under Spanish law, saying that you wanted a new master. These complaints were made against some of the owners down river. Several times the things were ignored. At one point, some of the slaves were even threatening to be taken away from this particular owner, because of the amount of abuse. And so when I look at the names connected with the 1804 escape, and look at some of the court records that have come up around them, in almost every instance they were physically abusive, mentally abusive, or whatever to their slaves. And then some of that reflects in their personal life as well, so it’s very realistic, you know, to believe that, yes, that’s what was happening. And not with this particular escape, but in 1808, you know, they actually had an interrogation over in Spanish territory, wanting to know “Why are all these people coming over here?” And that’s a lot of the things that they’d heard was “We got beaten because we asked for food. We weren’t getting enough food. We were beaten because we didn’t work fast enough that day.” And then those Spanish even made comments, such as, you know, “They had the scars to show it.” You know, so I think that that was the major cause of escape from down river.
J: Now you mentioned that the slaves were going to Los Adaes. Where were they headed beyond that?
R: Well, really you can see beyond that. I almost see Los Adaes, really—and that’s how I’m going to interpret it—as a safe house, if you look at it in terms of Underground Railroad, because there really was nowhere for them to stay. We’re talking about small posts for people who’re not familiar with it. Very few soldiers, very poor soldiers, etc. so that the slaves coming through, really, were just doing that—they’re coming through. They’re trying to get more into the interior regions of Spanish Texas and away from French Dominion. And so, I think there are only two documented cases even of a slave sale, at Los Adaes and they were both to Spanish officials, like a government person. So those are the only two documented cases we even know. But I think that the biggest thing that attracted people to that area—and not just slaves but fugitives of all kind. You had Spanish deserters, military deserters, French military deserters, you got American Indians coming through there, as a part of slave trade as well as bringing in slaves for trade. And so, it’s almost surprising, really, to see that Los Adaes was a multicultural, inclusive community way back then. And most people don’t realize that. And so when it closes, it doesn’t stop this knowledge that people have that this is a safe territory; it just disrupts it for a moment. And then when Nacogdoches forms, they simply go a little bit further in, and it’s still the same environment as it was in Los Adaes. You’ve got the same people there and you still have Indians coming in and out, you’ve got slaves coming in and out, you’ve got traders coming in and out, so, same thing.
J: Right, and Los Adaes actually closed a few times, so you’re going pretty far back in our history here.
R: Right, and particularly after that last time—What? 1721… I don’t want to get the wrong date, but approximately when they reopened that last time and then closed again—that period was especially a high time. I want to say that historian Gwendolyn Hall talks about this in the Afro-Creole book that she did with the database and she says—I want to say she says as early as 1750s or maybe a little bit before that—this was a known escape route from as far south as New Orleans. And that’s so of course then, and this is not Gwendolyn saying this, but we believe that the basic route was to come up along the Mississippi, hit the Red River, come up the Red into Natchitoches, and simply cross over to Los Adaes.
J: Well, so, have you been able to track down any descendants of the slaves who went through Los Adaes?
R: I really haven’t looked at it in that respect. I know that Kathe Hambrick, who is with the River Road Project in south Louisiana, is the only person in the state that has done this nomination for National Underground Railroad Project. And they have been able to trace out some of the descendants of slaves that left there going into Mexico and some of those descendants have come back, you know, to see—
J: Wow.
R: So there’s a possibility of that, but we’re not at that stage yet.
J: Okay, well you mentioned that after Los Adaes, a lot of the slaves would go to Nacogdoches. Any idea where they went after that? Did they go further into Texas or even into Mexico?
R: You know, it very well may be that some stayed right there around the Nacogdoches area. What seems more common though was that they moved on into the interiors more towards San Antonio and others, like the case with Kathe Hambrick’s project, moved down into Mexico. Keep in mind too that even if they had been successful in escaping to Texas, then once you reach the 1840s you still had another problem because by then, Texas was a state. And so now it doesn’t matter that you’re over here. And if I put myself in that place and I had been here and established myself and then there’s a possibility that I might be re-enslaved because now this was a slave-holding territory, I would move further south as well, because the one thing I don’t want to do is get caught up in that same system that I just escaped from. So, you know, I think that they went south into Mexico and that if you look at some of the data and statistics on population in late 1800s early 1900s Mexico, large groups of African Americans, African descended people, living in those areas.
J: Well, yeah, I wanted to ask if they had actually established communities in those areas, or did they just assimilate into the local population?
R: We know that there are large groups of African descended peoples in, like Loredo and around those areas, just where the path went naturally. And then I would imagine that they spread out. Now if we look at it globally, because I like to look in terms of African Diaspora, if we look at trends like that, then it makes sense that there are some communities that formed independent and separate from what was already established because that’s what happens everywhere else. If you look at Brazil, if you look at Honduras, wherever you look you see independent groups, as well as the ones that merged into society as it was.
J: Now obviously, this must have been a massive long-term project. How did you actually get it funded?
R: This project is being funded by the Cane River National Heritage Area through a grant process that they hold each year. Last year the focus was on cultural landscapes, and I was able to work that in, in respect that transportation networks were considered a part of the natural landscape. And so when you talk about Underground Railroad activity and this established trail, then it falls under that. So, I received the funding from them. This was the first time that I actually received any funding on this project. I’ve been doing the research off and on, you know how researchers do when they can, on my own. So this was the first group that was willing to show an interest and to back that financially. And then later I was able to get a grant through the National Trail System out of Santa Fe, and I’ll be looking at Underground Railroad activity in direct relationship to El Camino Real.
J: Okay, well has there been any research that you know of done previously on the Underground Railroad in this area?
R: Not that I’m aware of, there’s not. You know, it’s just really been a matter of just pulling several documents. We have researchers come through all the time, and so much here that one could go into. I just think that that was something either that people were not aware of and so haven’t researched it or it just wasn’t a topic of interest right then.
J: Okay, well I’m interested to hear if you did any research on how religion played a role in everyday life, because I know that you had two Catholic communities, both French and Spanish, with very different approaches. And then the slaves also had—there were indicators in the archeological record at Los Adaes that they practiced, possibly Voodoo or witchcraft. Anything you know about that?
R: I didn’t go into it on that level. Well, I tried to look at it and see what evidence was out there already, and it seemed too skeptical to me, based on that one medallion and then the egg shell, and the...
J: Right.
R: Okay, now see, that’s comparative. We can look at that in terms of Kenneth Brown’s work, and some of the same things he’s finding in these deposits are the exact same things that are being found in that other one at Los Adaes. So in that respect, but to me that’s a separate paper.
J: Okay.
R: I simply looked at religion in terms of—we’re dealing with two Catholic societies: a French society and a Spanish society, but the interpretations and the following through of the Catholic Doctrine is very different between the two societies, even though they’re both Catholic. And so I’m looking at it more in that respect and how these areas played a huge role in forming this free people of color community that develops in the state of Louisiana in manumission, self-purchase, things like that, in which you could buy your own freedom. We find the biggest development of a free people of color community and the largest rate of manumissions during the Spanish period, and I think that that sets the tone a lot because as somebody pointed out, and I had never really thought about it like that before, is that if you look at a slave who was over here, living here in French Natchitoches, even though at that time we’re under Spanish control in New Orleans, et cetera, then when they left to Los Adaes or go over to Nacogdoches , they felt like, “I am a citizen of Spain. I was born under the Spanish crown, and therefore I should have a right to freedom.” And I had never thought about it like that and it makes a lot of sense if you’re going to use that as your argument as to why I should be free. “I’m not a French citizen. Spanish don’t believe this; therefore I am a Spanish citizen, I was born under Spanish crown.”
J: Well, I’m interested to hear what you think the impact of this research will be both on Louisiana as a whole and on the interpretation of our heritage resources in Northwest Louisiana. I know that you mentioned that Los Adaes would certainly benefit from the additional information. Any other places?
R: Well I think the entire state of Louisiana would be affected in that—and once again we only have one site that’s been identified in the state, and you have to think that there were instances of escapes fugitives and runaways throughout the entire state. And so the impact I think would be, if nothing else, to raise awareness. To not just simply think of Underground Railroad activity in terms of northern states, but that it also happened in the south. A lot of people are surprised about that. And then I think it changes things since we had the development here of this African American Heritage Trail that runs through the state. One of the things—now this is a totally separate project, but in the same respect this can work the same way—is to connect back into this main trail. And the state is very much interested in doing that. In other words, they identified maybe 26 sites running through the state. And they want more information. How can, if we’re bringing somebody through Natchitoches, we’ve got two sites identified in Natchitoches, how can we maybe get them interested in identifying 5 more sites, so that the person coming has 7 places to visit instead of 2. So that’s the advantage I think that it will have state-wide, is that greater opportunity to create separate trails or to add on to existing trails and then also just to boost tourism.
J: Exactly. Now some folks may not realize that you actually have your own company to do this kind of research. What can you tell us about it and its mission?
R: Cultural Lore responded in 2006 with myself and my partner is Dustin Fuqua (15:16), who works with some of the same organizations I’ve been working with. I think basically we formed because we saw a need to conduct so much research here, and you know, as a student you are very limited, and so we thought that maybe we could get a lot of the work done since we both had a history of working here in various capacities—that we could maybe tap in to different projects. And for myself it’s more personal in that I just—I know that there are things that I’m interested in and I wanted to pursue that you just can’t necessarily find a grant on. And so I hoped that in working for myself I would have more time to find grants and to find the research information that I needed. So basically what we do is we contract in on anthropological, archeological projects; we conduct grant writing, a lot of presentations and things, and then like a project that we’re working on now with Desoto Parish is to create an African American tour that’s web based. So I think that the goal for us basically is to just to stay, you know, nose to the grind on collecting historical information and then getting that out to the proper places so that it can either be interpreted or used or stashed here in a research center that other people can have access to it.
J: Okay, so what are some of the projects that you have coming up?
R: Well, yes. The two that I’m working on right now—the Desoto Parish project, I should know about another one in December. This is one actually with Dr. Nancy Morgan. We’re looking at developing a—well it’s a combination of things. We’re doing historic structural reports and all of this stuff but basically what it’s around is interpreting Thurgood Marshall’s life out of Baltimore, Maryland. So we’ll know about that in December (about mid-December), and that’s one that we’re both very excited about and Nancy and I worked together before. I worked for her and then we just continue to try to maintain a relationship along the way. So on occasion we call each other, it’s like, “I’m going for this grant. Are you going for this grant?” So this is one that we’re actually going to try to get together. So we’ll see how that goes. That would be a really big one because it involves entire from start to finish interpretation of Thurgood Marshall’s life and his role in the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore, Maryland.
J: So, you really see your organization as a national or even international organization documenting cultural—
R: Actually international, because just as that project is going on, I’ve already started the ground work for a project in Belize and if we can continue to do this work, we’re looking toward a project that is a six figure number grant. And part of the requirement for that is that you have to show an established relationship with that community or that group of study. And so I’ve been taking trips over to Belize and, you know, ant to keep establishing that. And one of the attractions there, of course, is looking at Creolization and forms of Creolization, which is a specialty in this area, it seems. And then for me, also, the whole thing about the Africa Diaspora, just being able to do some comparative studies around things.
J: Now I know one of your goals is to have this area recognized by the National Network to Freedom Program. Can you tell me how that program defines the Underground Railroad?
R: It’s actually defined in several ways. What I’m particularly interested in in the definition is that they talk about places of departure, destination places, and over land routes, and that’s kind of how this area fits in. When we look at it in terms of places of departure, we know that in the 1804 Escape, the names of the owners that these slaves left from, so those are places of departure, those plantations. When we talk about destinations, well then destination in the early days would have been Los Adaes, and then later on after Los Adaes closes then the new destination become Nacogdoches, Texas. And then when we talk about over land routes, then of course we’re looking at, “Well how did they make this travel?” A lot of it, it seems, involved of course El Camino Real, and that they were simply picking up on El Camino Real to get into Spanish Texas, which they knew once they reached that place they had a far better chance of being free than to stay in French Louisiana.
J: Well let’s go back to the Underground Railroad Project again. If these sites receive designation as components of that program, what’s the next step?
R: Well, the next natural step, I would think, would be to contact the owners in terms of how this information is going to be interpreted. For example, at Los Adaes, if it is accepted, I’ve already spoken with people from state office; they are aware that the project is going on and they are very interested in what information is uncovered, so that they can use it to interpret more out at Los Adaes. So, that, to me, would be the next step: how to interpret information at the sites that it’s connected with.
J: Okay, well just out of curiosity, other than the money, or the lack thereof, what motivates you to do this kind of research? What drives you personally to do this research?
R: Definitely a personal thing. I think it has a whole lot to do with how I was raised, you know, more than anything. It’s certainly not a money motivator. This is not the kind of work you do if you want to make money. It’s about a passion for history, a passion for truth, about being raised to be very proud of who I was and things like that. I’m the type of person—I think I was in, like, the third grade or something and we had a book report. Not a typical third grade book report, maybe a Nancy Drew mystery. Well, my father had me read a book called—I’ll never forget it because, you know—it was called The Rise and Fall of a Proper Negro. It was actually an academic book. I didn’t know half the words in it, but that’s how I was raised. And so when I didn’t know the words, then we had the encyclopedias, we had, you know—it was up to you to go and figure it out. So in the third grade, I’m doing a book report on a college level book and those kinds of thinks, I think, have always driven me then to always want to know more and to seek out more and I was always taught that you never take anything at face value. You always investigate, I don’t care if it is in a book, you know. And so that sense of—when I come in to do research, like, for example the Mills story, I didn’t just say, “Okay, Mills said…” I started from scratch, just like I was researching from the very beginning and then I found that I did disagree with him on certain things he said that had I just gone with “Mills said…” and quoted and just kept going on, we could never correct what becomes folklore or, you know, just a stand in history, we can never correct that until people go back and do the original research themselves, because I think to some level as academics, you are required to do that. You might quote what somebody said or something that they discovered, but without you kind of looking into it to some extent yourself, I think that that’s faulty research, so…
J: Okay, well does your passion for this just come from your sense of heritage values or do you enjoy the research process as well?
R: I enjoy the research process. The part I don’t like is the write-up. I can research forever and take it and throw it to somebody and say “Here, write it up.” I’ll stand there with you while you’re writing it up! But I hate the writing part of it. Research, oh I just get excited. I could go for days, and really, I have done this. I’ll come and I’ll research all day and then, say at about ten o’clock at night maybe I’ll take an hour nap and then I’m up, ‘cause suddenly something has hit my mind and, you know, I’m researching and it might be five o’clock in the morning again before I lie down. But when it goes like that—I mean it’s just—I’m driven, and it’s almost like a natural high, if you will, to research or to find the pieces coming together. For example, in that 1804 Escape, they kept seeing the slaves were instigated from a place called Maria Cove. And I kept looking for a place. I’m looking at maps, I’m asking everybody in the world, all the people that’s been here a million years and there’s no cave down there, there’s nobody… but, you know. Come to find out, it was not a place! It was an individual’s name. So when you get those little, “Wow!” you know, it was taking me two years to figure out this was not a place, but a person, and I could go right to where she lived. Those kind of things are so rewarding to me.
J: That’s great. Well, Rolanda, as always it’s a joy to talk to you, and thank you so much for being here on Podcast.
If you want to learn more about Natchitoches heritage or this project in particular, visit our website. It’s www.natchitochespreservation.com. Until next time, I’m Jeff Guin.
Transcript follows:
Welcome to the Natchitoches Preservation Network Podcast. I’m Jeff Guin and today I’m joined by Rolanda Teal of the heritage research organization Cultural Lore.
J: Now, Rolanda has been investigating the concept of the Underground Railroad, particularly as it relates to Northwest Louisiana. Rolanda, I wonder if you’d just tell us about how you came across this concept.
R: Well, I really first became interested in this project as an undergraduate student here at Northwestern. It was really a class assignment. We were working on a project and I came across a book by Gary Mills entitled Tales of Old Natchitoches. And he discussed this event from 1804 in about three pages, and that sparked my curiosity. I felt if he found this information, “What else is out there?” and so the research began really from that point.
J: After making that first discovery in the Mills book, where did you go from there? What was the next step in your research?
R: I really didn’t know where to go other than here at Cammie Henry Research Center, because you know, this is where the information is, and I started basically I think going through the bare archives and just looking for names and just anything that made me think it might be connected. They say “slave escape”—BAM, I looked at it, you know. And then that’s when I began to see that, yeah, there was a distinct pattern of names coming from the Natchitoches region. And then to go from there, to start trying to look at the families: who were these families? Why were the escapes a massive planned escape, taking place from this one region in the parish? It wasn’t, I guess, really a parish then, but why is this happening and what’s going on? And I find that the biggest concentration, at least right there in 1804 at least, was down river in what we now kind of refer to as Iberville community and south of that. And then we’ll notice later, in about 1808, you have another massive escape. And this is more taught from in town, based on some of the names of people that had been identified. So, you know, it’s just interesting to kind of look at what’s going on at that time, what’s causing people to want to leave, and just doing the research on what causes people to run in the first place, other than just a natural desire perhaps to be free, when you have so many obstacles when you run.
J: And what did you find?
R: Almost every plantation is known to have had a person that they kind of considered a habitual runaway, you know. And what they meant by that is simply they might leave for a couple of days, and they’re gonna come back, face the consequences, and go on, and everybody knew that. Then you had instances in which people just actually left. They were willing to, “I do not want to be a part of this anymore.” And that they were usually based on either that person that’d maybe been whipped or beaten that day or a close relative sold that day, or something like that. And what I tend to see down river what was going on is that there was a lot of abuse of slaves—Instances in which someone from the plantation had lodged complaints against the owners, which you could do under Spanish law, saying that you wanted a new master. These complaints were made against some of the owners down river. Several times the things were ignored. At one point, some of the slaves were even threatening to be taken away from this particular owner, because of the amount of abuse. And so when I look at the names connected with the 1804 escape, and look at some of the court records that have come up around them, in almost every instance they were physically abusive, mentally abusive, or whatever to their slaves. And then some of that reflects in their personal life as well, so it’s very realistic, you know, to believe that, yes, that’s what was happening. And not with this particular escape, but in 1808, you know, they actually had an interrogation over in Spanish territory, wanting to know “Why are all these people coming over here?” And that’s a lot of the things that they’d heard was “We got beaten because we asked for food. We weren’t getting enough food. We were beaten because we didn’t work fast enough that day.” And then those Spanish even made comments, such as, you know, “They had the scars to show it.” You know, so I think that that was the major cause of escape from down river.
J: Now you mentioned that the slaves were going to Los Adaes. Where were they headed beyond that?
R: Well, really you can see beyond that. I almost see Los Adaes, really—and that’s how I’m going to interpret it—as a safe house, if you look at it in terms of Underground Railroad, because there really was nowhere for them to stay. We’re talking about small posts for people who’re not familiar with it. Very few soldiers, very poor soldiers, etc. so that the slaves coming through, really, were just doing that—they’re coming through. They’re trying to get more into the interior regions of Spanish Texas and away from French Dominion. And so, I think there are only two documented cases even of a slave sale, at Los Adaes and they were both to Spanish officials, like a government person. So those are the only two documented cases we even know. But I think that the biggest thing that attracted people to that area—and not just slaves but fugitives of all kind. You had Spanish deserters, military deserters, French military deserters, you got American Indians coming through there, as a part of slave trade as well as bringing in slaves for trade. And so, it’s almost surprising, really, to see that Los Adaes was a multicultural, inclusive community way back then. And most people don’t realize that. And so when it closes, it doesn’t stop this knowledge that people have that this is a safe territory; it just disrupts it for a moment. And then when Nacogdoches forms, they simply go a little bit further in, and it’s still the same environment as it was in Los Adaes. You’ve got the same people there and you still have Indians coming in and out, you’ve got slaves coming in and out, you’ve got traders coming in and out, so, same thing.
J: Right, and Los Adaes actually closed a few times, so you’re going pretty far back in our history here.
R: Right, and particularly after that last time—What? 1721… I don’t want to get the wrong date, but approximately when they reopened that last time and then closed again—that period was especially a high time. I want to say that historian Gwendolyn Hall talks about this in the Afro-Creole book that she did with the database and she says—I want to say she says as early as 1750s or maybe a little bit before that—this was a known escape route from as far south as New Orleans. And that’s so of course then, and this is not Gwendolyn saying this, but we believe that the basic route was to come up along the Mississippi, hit the Red River, come up the Red into Natchitoches, and simply cross over to Los Adaes.
J: Well, so, have you been able to track down any descendants of the slaves who went through Los Adaes?
R: I really haven’t looked at it in that respect. I know that Kathe Hambrick, who is with the River Road Project in south Louisiana, is the only person in the state that has done this nomination for National Underground Railroad Project. And they have been able to trace out some of the descendants of slaves that left there going into Mexico and some of those descendants have come back, you know, to see—
J: Wow.
R: So there’s a possibility of that, but we’re not at that stage yet.
J: Okay, well you mentioned that after Los Adaes, a lot of the slaves would go to Nacogdoches. Any idea where they went after that? Did they go further into Texas or even into Mexico?
R: You know, it very well may be that some stayed right there around the Nacogdoches area. What seems more common though was that they moved on into the interiors more towards San Antonio and others, like the case with Kathe Hambrick’s project, moved down into Mexico. Keep in mind too that even if they had been successful in escaping to Texas, then once you reach the 1840s you still had another problem because by then, Texas was a state. And so now it doesn’t matter that you’re over here. And if I put myself in that place and I had been here and established myself and then there’s a possibility that I might be re-enslaved because now this was a slave-holding territory, I would move further south as well, because the one thing I don’t want to do is get caught up in that same system that I just escaped from. So, you know, I think that they went south into Mexico and that if you look at some of the data and statistics on population in late 1800s early 1900s Mexico, large groups of African Americans, African descended people, living in those areas.
J: Well, yeah, I wanted to ask if they had actually established communities in those areas, or did they just assimilate into the local population?
R: We know that there are large groups of African descended peoples in, like Loredo and around those areas, just where the path went naturally. And then I would imagine that they spread out. Now if we look at it globally, because I like to look in terms of African Diaspora, if we look at trends like that, then it makes sense that there are some communities that formed independent and separate from what was already established because that’s what happens everywhere else. If you look at Brazil, if you look at Honduras, wherever you look you see independent groups, as well as the ones that merged into society as it was.
J: Now obviously, this must have been a massive long-term project. How did you actually get it funded?
R: This project is being funded by the Cane River National Heritage Area through a grant process that they hold each year. Last year the focus was on cultural landscapes, and I was able to work that in, in respect that transportation networks were considered a part of the natural landscape. And so when you talk about Underground Railroad activity and this established trail, then it falls under that. So, I received the funding from them. This was the first time that I actually received any funding on this project. I’ve been doing the research off and on, you know how researchers do when they can, on my own. So this was the first group that was willing to show an interest and to back that financially. And then later I was able to get a grant through the National Trail System out of Santa Fe, and I’ll be looking at Underground Railroad activity in direct relationship to El Camino Real.
J: Okay, well has there been any research that you know of done previously on the Underground Railroad in this area?
R: Not that I’m aware of, there’s not. You know, it’s just really been a matter of just pulling several documents. We have researchers come through all the time, and so much here that one could go into. I just think that that was something either that people were not aware of and so haven’t researched it or it just wasn’t a topic of interest right then.
J: Okay, well I’m interested to hear if you did any research on how religion played a role in everyday life, because I know that you had two Catholic communities, both French and Spanish, with very different approaches. And then the slaves also had—there were indicators in the archeological record at Los Adaes that they practiced, possibly Voodoo or witchcraft. Anything you know about that?
R: I didn’t go into it on that level. Well, I tried to look at it and see what evidence was out there already, and it seemed too skeptical to me, based on that one medallion and then the egg shell, and the...
J: Right.
R: Okay, now see, that’s comparative. We can look at that in terms of Kenneth Brown’s work, and some of the same things he’s finding in these deposits are the exact same things that are being found in that other one at Los Adaes. So in that respect, but to me that’s a separate paper.
J: Okay.
R: I simply looked at religion in terms of—we’re dealing with two Catholic societies: a French society and a Spanish society, but the interpretations and the following through of the Catholic Doctrine is very different between the two societies, even though they’re both Catholic. And so I’m looking at it more in that respect and how these areas played a huge role in forming this free people of color community that develops in the state of Louisiana in manumission, self-purchase, things like that, in which you could buy your own freedom. We find the biggest development of a free people of color community and the largest rate of manumissions during the Spanish period, and I think that that sets the tone a lot because as somebody pointed out, and I had never really thought about it like that before, is that if you look at a slave who was over here, living here in French Natchitoches, even though at that time we’re under Spanish control in New Orleans, et cetera, then when they left to Los Adaes or go over to Nacogdoches , they felt like, “I am a citizen of Spain. I was born under the Spanish crown, and therefore I should have a right to freedom.” And I had never thought about it like that and it makes a lot of sense if you’re going to use that as your argument as to why I should be free. “I’m not a French citizen. Spanish don’t believe this; therefore I am a Spanish citizen, I was born under Spanish crown.”
J: Well, I’m interested to hear what you think the impact of this research will be both on Louisiana as a whole and on the interpretation of our heritage resources in Northwest Louisiana. I know that you mentioned that Los Adaes would certainly benefit from the additional information. Any other places?
R: Well I think the entire state of Louisiana would be affected in that—and once again we only have one site that’s been identified in the state, and you have to think that there were instances of escapes fugitives and runaways throughout the entire state. And so the impact I think would be, if nothing else, to raise awareness. To not just simply think of Underground Railroad activity in terms of northern states, but that it also happened in the south. A lot of people are surprised about that. And then I think it changes things since we had the development here of this African American Heritage Trail that runs through the state. One of the things—now this is a totally separate project, but in the same respect this can work the same way—is to connect back into this main trail. And the state is very much interested in doing that. In other words, they identified maybe 26 sites running through the state. And they want more information. How can, if we’re bringing somebody through Natchitoches, we’ve got two sites identified in Natchitoches, how can we maybe get them interested in identifying 5 more sites, so that the person coming has 7 places to visit instead of 2. So that’s the advantage I think that it will have state-wide, is that greater opportunity to create separate trails or to add on to existing trails and then also just to boost tourism.
J: Exactly. Now some folks may not realize that you actually have your own company to do this kind of research. What can you tell us about it and its mission?
R: Cultural Lore responded in 2006 with myself and my partner is Dustin Fuqua (15:16), who works with some of the same organizations I’ve been working with. I think basically we formed because we saw a need to conduct so much research here, and you know, as a student you are very limited, and so we thought that maybe we could get a lot of the work done since we both had a history of working here in various capacities—that we could maybe tap in to different projects. And for myself it’s more personal in that I just—I know that there are things that I’m interested in and I wanted to pursue that you just can’t necessarily find a grant on. And so I hoped that in working for myself I would have more time to find grants and to find the research information that I needed. So basically what we do is we contract in on anthropological, archeological projects; we conduct grant writing, a lot of presentations and things, and then like a project that we’re working on now with Desoto Parish is to create an African American tour that’s web based. So I think that the goal for us basically is to just to stay, you know, nose to the grind on collecting historical information and then getting that out to the proper places so that it can either be interpreted or used or stashed here in a research center that other people can have access to it.
J: Okay, so what are some of the projects that you have coming up?
R: Well, yes. The two that I’m working on right now—the Desoto Parish project, I should know about another one in December. This is one actually with Dr. Nancy Morgan. We’re looking at developing a—well it’s a combination of things. We’re doing historic structural reports and all of this stuff but basically what it’s around is interpreting Thurgood Marshall’s life out of Baltimore, Maryland. So we’ll know about that in December (about mid-December), and that’s one that we’re both very excited about and Nancy and I worked together before. I worked for her and then we just continue to try to maintain a relationship along the way. So on occasion we call each other, it’s like, “I’m going for this grant. Are you going for this grant?” So this is one that we’re actually going to try to get together. So we’ll see how that goes. That would be a really big one because it involves entire from start to finish interpretation of Thurgood Marshall’s life and his role in the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore, Maryland.
J: So, you really see your organization as a national or even international organization documenting cultural—
R: Actually international, because just as that project is going on, I’ve already started the ground work for a project in Belize and if we can continue to do this work, we’re looking toward a project that is a six figure number grant. And part of the requirement for that is that you have to show an established relationship with that community or that group of study. And so I’ve been taking trips over to Belize and, you know, ant to keep establishing that. And one of the attractions there, of course, is looking at Creolization and forms of Creolization, which is a specialty in this area, it seems. And then for me, also, the whole thing about the Africa Diaspora, just being able to do some comparative studies around things.
J: Now I know one of your goals is to have this area recognized by the National Network to Freedom Program. Can you tell me how that program defines the Underground Railroad?
R: It’s actually defined in several ways. What I’m particularly interested in in the definition is that they talk about places of departure, destination places, and over land routes, and that’s kind of how this area fits in. When we look at it in terms of places of departure, we know that in the 1804 Escape, the names of the owners that these slaves left from, so those are places of departure, those plantations. When we talk about destinations, well then destination in the early days would have been Los Adaes, and then later on after Los Adaes closes then the new destination become Nacogdoches, Texas. And then when we talk about over land routes, then of course we’re looking at, “Well how did they make this travel?” A lot of it, it seems, involved of course El Camino Real, and that they were simply picking up on El Camino Real to get into Spanish Texas, which they knew once they reached that place they had a far better chance of being free than to stay in French Louisiana.
J: Well let’s go back to the Underground Railroad Project again. If these sites receive designation as components of that program, what’s the next step?
R: Well, the next natural step, I would think, would be to contact the owners in terms of how this information is going to be interpreted. For example, at Los Adaes, if it is accepted, I’ve already spoken with people from state office; they are aware that the project is going on and they are very interested in what information is uncovered, so that they can use it to interpret more out at Los Adaes. So, that, to me, would be the next step: how to interpret information at the sites that it’s connected with.
J: Okay, well just out of curiosity, other than the money, or the lack thereof, what motivates you to do this kind of research? What drives you personally to do this research?
R: Definitely a personal thing. I think it has a whole lot to do with how I was raised, you know, more than anything. It’s certainly not a money motivator. This is not the kind of work you do if you want to make money. It’s about a passion for history, a passion for truth, about being raised to be very proud of who I was and things like that. I’m the type of person—I think I was in, like, the third grade or something and we had a book report. Not a typical third grade book report, maybe a Nancy Drew mystery. Well, my father had me read a book called—I’ll never forget it because, you know—it was called The Rise and Fall of a Proper Negro. It was actually an academic book. I didn’t know half the words in it, but that’s how I was raised. And so when I didn’t know the words, then we had the encyclopedias, we had, you know—it was up to you to go and figure it out. So in the third grade, I’m doing a book report on a college level book and those kinds of thinks, I think, have always driven me then to always want to know more and to seek out more and I was always taught that you never take anything at face value. You always investigate, I don’t care if it is in a book, you know. And so that sense of—when I come in to do research, like, for example the Mills story, I didn’t just say, “Okay, Mills said…” I started from scratch, just like I was researching from the very beginning and then I found that I did disagree with him on certain things he said that had I just gone with “Mills said…” and quoted and just kept going on, we could never correct what becomes folklore or, you know, just a stand in history, we can never correct that until people go back and do the original research themselves, because I think to some level as academics, you are required to do that. You might quote what somebody said or something that they discovered, but without you kind of looking into it to some extent yourself, I think that that’s faulty research, so…
J: Okay, well does your passion for this just come from your sense of heritage values or do you enjoy the research process as well?
R: I enjoy the research process. The part I don’t like is the write-up. I can research forever and take it and throw it to somebody and say “Here, write it up.” I’ll stand there with you while you’re writing it up! But I hate the writing part of it. Research, oh I just get excited. I could go for days, and really, I have done this. I’ll come and I’ll research all day and then, say at about ten o’clock at night maybe I’ll take an hour nap and then I’m up, ‘cause suddenly something has hit my mind and, you know, I’m researching and it might be five o’clock in the morning again before I lie down. But when it goes like that—I mean it’s just—I’m driven, and it’s almost like a natural high, if you will, to research or to find the pieces coming together. For example, in that 1804 Escape, they kept seeing the slaves were instigated from a place called Maria Cove. And I kept looking for a place. I’m looking at maps, I’m asking everybody in the world, all the people that’s been here a million years and there’s no cave down there, there’s nobody… but, you know. Come to find out, it was not a place! It was an individual’s name. So when you get those little, “Wow!” you know, it was taking me two years to figure out this was not a place, but a person, and I could go right to where she lived. Those kind of things are so rewarding to me.
J: That’s great. Well, Rolanda, as always it’s a joy to talk to you, and thank you so much for being here on Podcast.
If you want to learn more about Natchitoches heritage or this project in particular, visit our website. It’s www.natchitochespreservation.com. Until next time, I’m Jeff Guin.
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Comment by Sarah Prudhomme on November 17, 2008 at 11:42am -
Cane River National Heritage Area (CRNHA) Commission is so proud of the work Rolonda has accomplished on this project through funding from the Commission and National Park Service. The project exemplifies what CRNHA's competitive grants program is all about - empowering members of our community to take an active role in preserving the historical, cultural, and natural resources of the Cane River region.
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