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Fort de la Boulaye ? Russell Guerin
http://www.russguerin.com/history/our-pioneers/fort-de-la-boulaye/
This was also the time when Iberville had dropped off a young cabin boy of his way up the river. The boy was left with the Bayougoulas, who lived near the fort. It was reported that on Iberville?s return down the river, the boy already had a fair command of the Bayougoula language.
A less successful experiment involved Iberville?s taking of a young Indian boy he took to France. He later died of a throat illness near the Bay of St. Louis and never had the chance to act as interpreter for his people.
Dr. Marco Giardino, my friend and co-conspirator, has explained that it is difficult to find the site of the Bayougoula tribe. He has told me, ?[It is] complicated by the frequent, historically documented movement of the tribe after 1700. They settled briefly near Fort La Boulaye following an attack by the Taensa in 1706 which forced the Bayougoula to vacate the village where they were first encountered by Iberville in 1699.? His source was Father Gravier, in his 1700 journal.
It is probable that the site was the first land with a little higher elevation compared to the marshes along the lower river. Indeed, one may observe in driving down the river road that the relative height of the levee seems to reduce as Phoenix is approached, indicating slightly higher ground.
Whether the fort?s location was chosen because of the tribe?s presence or because of the higher elevation, it is certainly true that important personages were there. They were, besides Iberville and Bienville, Sauvole, St. Denis, and Tonti, all among the elite of our earliest settlers. In addition were the soldiers, Canadian, I think, numbering 15 to 25.
No Guerin is to be found, however, and so, the question remains as to whether Guerin was among them.
In perhaps an unrelated account, I find that a little later, in 1723, one Lt. Avignon Guerin de la Boulaye, with 13 soldiers took command of a post on the Arkansas River. The year before, he had been stationed near the mouth of the Arkansas, but because of flooding they had moved upriver to the Menard Mounds. The post consisted of a cabin for Boulaye and a bam for the garrison. This was part of the failing John Law East India Company. (The first name in this account, Avignon, is probably really the same as Agnon, shown in earlier paragraph.)
In 1726, the Jesuits took over the task of keeping friendship with the nearby Quapaw Indians, and the military was withdrawn. Father Poisson was in charge and occupied the cabin. He died in 1728 and the site was abandoned.
What happened to Guerin I do not know. Could he have been a son of the one mentioned in the Gazette? Perhaps. The years seem about right.
As to the question of whether any grants or concessions were dated as early as 1699, as the Gazette implies, I know of none.
It is curious to find that currently there is a law firm in Quebec named Boulay Guerin, rbg
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