Article Title

A Probable Early 19th Century Coushatta Village Site on Big Cypress Bayou in Northeastern Texas

Authors

Timothy K. Perttula, Heritage Research Center, Stephen F. Austin State UniversityFollow
Bryan E. BoydFollow

Agency

Journal of Northeast Texas Archeology

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21112/.ita.2008.1.35

Abstract

In February 2002, avocational archaeologists from northeastern Texas and northwestern Louisiana conducted archaeological investigations in an area along Big Cypress Bayou in Marion County, Texas, to search for and identify a pre-1841 Coushatta Indian village depicted on a 1943 General Land Office map. That map showed a "Coushatti" village with at least seven to eight structures (a common way at the time to indicate an Indian village, but not necessarily an accurate characterization of the number of structures once present at the site) near the confluence of Black Cypress Bayou and Big Cypress Bayou. This article describes the results of these archaeological investigations..

Other Alabama (Alibamu) and Coushatta (Koasati) villages have been documented in recent years through archaeological and historical investigations in the Caddo Lake and Red River areas of northeastern Texas and northwestern Louisiana. These villages were first established around 1803 or 1804 by these members of the Creek Indian confederacy who had moved or resettled as a group from the Alabama River area of east-central Alabama. The Alabama and Coushatta chose to resettle in traditional Caddo lands rather than "associate with the British and American traders and settlers who moved into Creek Territory after the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763, and the American Revolution".

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