NATCHITOCHES, LOUISIANA. Natchitoches, established as a trading post on the Red River by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis^qv in the winter of 1713-14, became the westernmost French post in Louisiana. Its influence prevented further eastward expansion of the Spanish. There was much conflict over boundaries and Indian trade between Natchitoches and Los Adaes,^qv a Spanish garrison fifteen miles to the west, but an extensive international trade, much of it contraband, was carried on; on the whole, the two nationalities were good neighbors. Natchitoches was the eastern outlet for raw products of early Texas and in turn a source of manufactured goods. A gateway to Texas for explorers and colonizers, the town figured in many diplomatic and military incidents: in 1719 the Natchitoches commandant drove the Spanish temporarily from Los Adaes; in 1731, with the help of the Spanish it fought for its existence against the Natchez Indians; as a frontier garrison it was a focal point in the formation of the Neutral Ground^qv in 1806; and it was a rallying point and a base of supply for the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition^qv of 1812. With the admission of Texas to the Union, Natchitoches ceased to be influential in Texas history.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Herbert Eugene Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1915; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970). Henry E. Chambers, A History of Louisiana (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1925). Gary B. Mills, The Forgotten People: Cane River's Creoles of Color (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977). Ross Phares, Cavalier in the Wilderness: The Story of the Explorer and Trader Louis Juchereau de St. Denis (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1952). Germaine Portre-Bobinski and Clara Mildred Smith, Natchitoches: The Up-to-Date Oldest Town in Louisiana (New Orleans: Dameron-Pierson Company, 1936).

Ross Phares