Ric Trout, of Lafayette, was interested in writing a historical screenplay when he asked Curious Louisiana: “What was known as the Free State (aka: No Man’s Land) in early Louisiana history? Was an unknown ethnic group found living there?”
The answer could be enough to inspire a screenplay. Maybe a series.
Known by several names — Sabine Free State, Louisiana Neutral Strip/Ground/Zone — much of Louisiana’s current border with Texas was once a wild, ungoverned territory that included a little-studied people whose descendants are still there.
Map depicts Louisiana area in the early 1800s.
As European powers colonized the Americas, French and Spanish territories met near the Sabine River. The exact boundary between the French and Spanish lands was disputed, and the matter was unresolved when the United States purchased France’s Louisiana territory in 1803. Spain claimed its territory extended east to the Calcasieu River and a stream near Natchitoches. The U.S. argued that its newly acquired territory extended all the way to the Brazos River in Texas, according to Archie P. McDonald, director of the East Texas Historical Association. Both nations sent military forces to the region.
To avoid precipitating a war neither side wanted, on Nov. 5, 1806, U.S. Gen. James Wilkinson and Spanish Lt. Col. Simón de Herrera, the two military commanders in the area, signed an agreement declaring the disputed territory a neutral ground until their governments could agree on the boundary. Neither government ratified it as a treaty, but they respected it.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
“Squatters, fugitive slaves, filibusters, smugglers and even outlaws used the Neutral Ground as a safe haven,” wrote Keagan LeJeune, professor of English and folklore at McNeese State University. “Soon the region became known as a no man's land where residents in the region often faced criminals alone and without governmental aid. One victim of the area's bandits in a petition to the U.S. government explained that ‘the damned Neutral Ground is cursed of the Devil’ and had been overrun with bands of desperate men.”
“As time went on, the outlaws of the neutral ground perfected their organization, established regular headquarters, built outposts, stationed spies, and did whatever else was needed to the conduct of their free-booting profession,” author Florence Elberta Barns wrote in 1935.
When the United States bought the Louisiana Territory in 1803, the western boundary was not clearly defined. Into this "neutral strip," a no man's land in which neither the US nor Mexico had dominion, poured outlaws who preyed upon settlers moving into the Southwest. The boundary dispute was finally settled at the Treaty of Washington in 1819 when America's western border was established at the Sabine River. A historic fort in the area was restored and reconstructed, and now stands as a state monument.
In 1821, the border was formally set at the Sabine River, putting the territory in the United States. It included all or parts of what are now Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, De Soto, Jefferson Davis, Natchitoches, Rapides, Sabine and Vernon parishes.
Of those living there, one group wasn’t a clearly defined race, with physical characteristics often including dark, copper-hued skin, high cheekbones, dark eyes, dark straight hair and no single body type, according to historian Don C. Marler. They became known as Redbones, and the term stuck, although that’s not a term they used for themselves, said Pete Gregory, history professor at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.
“Different families get called that,” Gregory said. “It is an inconsistent label not applied even to whole families or communities. People living in western Louisiana know the term and advise strangers it is not polite, not appreciated. … I do not think anyone knows when it was first used.”
There are numerous theories about their origins. Some have suggested they are a sub-group of Melungeons (a mixed-race people who lived in the Appalachians) or are related to Romani people, also called Gypsies, according to Marler, who wrote “The Louisiana Redbones.” A group in South Carolina in the 19th century was called Redbones and may have migrated west. The website Redbone Nation says their ancestors left the Carolinas and Georgia. Separating fact from fiction gets tricky.
Which sounds like a perfect subject for a screenplay.
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