Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, having evaded…

Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, having evaded transport to Spain by the authorities in Mexico City, had by February 1719 made his way to Natchitoches, where Spanish officials in 1721 permit his wife Manuela to join him.

The couple will spend their remaining years here at the French outpost, Le Poste des Cadodaquious, on the Red River.

From his command at Natchitoches, St. Denis is a troublesome thorn in the side of Spanish Texas, and controversy surrounds his motives to this day.

St. Denis insists that he desires to become a Spanish citizen, and his Spanish wife is proof.

Suspicious Spaniards see him as a covert agent of France.

St. Denis contributes greatly to the geographical knowledge of both France and Spain as well as bringing Spanish and French settlements into closer proximity and contact.

His contraband trade becomes a way of life on the frontier and borders of Spanish Texas and French Louisiana.

The settlement of Natchitoches had soon become a flourishing river port and crossroads; it will soon give rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river.

Planters will develop large plantations over time and build fine homes in a growing town, a pattern that is to be repeated in New Orleans and other places.