Jim Bradshaw: Shell reefs served as natural defense for south Louisiana

In the early 1800s, when European nations were constantly fighting each other or threatening to do so, at least one man thought the Acadiana coast was one of the safest places in the world to be.
His name was William Darby, and he was one of the first men to thoroughly survey south Louisiana. He predicted a great future for the Vermilion River and its environs, partly because it offered protection from marauders.
He made his comments in a book published in 1817 with the easy-to-remember title of “A Geographical Description of the State of Louisiana, the Southern Part of the State of Mississippi, and Territory of Alabama; Presenting a View of the Soil, Climate, Animal, Vegetation, and Mineral Production; Illustrative of their Natural Physiognomy, their Geographical Configuration, and Relative Situation; with an Account of the Character and Manner of their Inhabitants; Together with a Map from Actual Survey and Observation, Projected on a Scale of Ten Miles to an Inch, of the State of Louisiana and Adjacent Countries.”
In those days, you could judge a book by its cover.)
“The Vermilion, by its union with the gulph (sic), forms the natural communication of its inhabitants to the sea,” he wrote. “The time is not far remote when many thousands of people will exist on the shores of this river, the fruits of whose industry will be taken to market with much more facility than the present difficult and circuitous route.”
That circuitous route from the Vermilion’s banks to New Orleans markets was via alternately muddy or dusty ruts (some people elevated them to the distinction of “roads,” but not anyone who traveled on them) that led to Bayou Teche, then by flatboat through the Atchafalaya Basin to Plaquemine, then down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The Vermilion couldn’t be easily used because there was a shell reef at its entrance that would not “admit vessels of very considerable burthen,” in Darby’s words. That meant big boats couldn’t get in.
He thought that wasn’t such a bad thing.
“Whether the difficulty of entering not only the Vermilion, but every other river in Louisiana, can be considered an evil, in either a moral or political view, there is much reason to doubt.” Darby wrote.
He liked the idea of rivers that were hard to get into, because he was writing at a time when memories of the War of 1812 were still fresh, when people thought Napoleon was plotting an invasion of Louisiana, when “war continue(d) to distract and distress the world,” and “the European world plume(d) itself more upon its power of doing injury than upon either reason, justice, or humanity.”
With all of that going on, Darby thought that “the more (the) internal parts of our country are fenced by nature, the better. Perseverance will give skill to navigate all our rivers, whilst their shallow inlets and intricate channels will set foreign invasion at defiance.
“The shell banks and deep morasses of Louisiana have always been considered by the writer as a bulwark that will contribute to the safety and happiness of the people,” he continued. “It is an incontrovertible fact that from the mouth of the Sabine to the mouth of the Atchafalaya, not one spot is found where an army of a thousand men could land with its implements of war. ... A small body of (determined) troops on their banks could, by choosing their ground, repel very superior numbers.”
Darby was right about both transportation and defense.
The Abbeville Meridional was able to report in February 1879, some 75 years after Darby’s description, that “Vermilion Bayou is now fairly alive with water craft.”
As for war, Darby’s theory of “a few determined men” had been tested just a few years before his book was published.
A brief biography of J.V. Moss, scion of an early Calcasieu Parish family (William Henry Perrin, Southwest Louisiana Historical and Biographical, 1891) reports that he “was a soldier in the War of 1812, but did not participate in the Battle of New Orleans. He with others were stationed as a guard at the mouth of the Vermilion Bayou during the latter part of the war.”
As we know, the British didn’t make it to New Orleans, and didn’t even try to get to Abbeville, with Moss and his pals and the reefs guarding the way.
We have been invaded by armadillos, nutria, water hyacinths, fire ants and a few other critters, but never by people bringing “instruments of war.” And, technically speaking, the armadillos and their friends have been infiltrators, rather than invaders.
Knowing this, I’m sure you can rest easier tonight.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.