After the departure of the Quapaw, a Choctaw camp was established a few miles south of Camden, where they hunted and planted corn until the early 1830s, when they followed migrations on the “old Quapaw trail” brought on by Indian Removal to the west.īy 1819, Jesse Bowman, of future Alamo fame, was living at Ecore Fabre, while the Tate brothers-Andrew, Richard, and George-came up the Ouachita on keelboats. In the two treaties of 18, the Quapaw were dispossessed of their extensive territories and sent to live on the Red River in Louisiana with the Caddo. These locations were noted in 1804 by the Hunter-Dunbar Expedition that explored the Ouachita River. After about two years, he decided to move downriver to the more central site of Prairie des Canots, present-day Monroe, Louisiana. Filhiol first chose to locate his headquarters at Ecore a Fabri with the expectation of creating a settlement there. In 1782, the Spanish governor sent a Frenchman named Jean Baptiste Filhiol, known to him as Don Juan Filhiol, to establish a civil and military post in the Ouachita district. In late 1762, France ceded Louisiana to Spain. The place became known as Ecore a Fabri or Fabri’s Bluff (later spelled Fabre). French hunters, trappers, and traders, who were drawn to the area by the abundant game, later established a rendezvous point on the high bluff above the crossing. The Quapaw claimed the territory that included this part of the Ouachita basin, but it was also influenced by both Caddo trade and culture. The old Indian trail called the Caddo Trace, leading from the Quapaw villages on the Arkansas River to those of the Caddo on the Red River, crossed the Ouachita River at what is now Camden. The explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673 and René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, in 1682 established French claims to the land they called Louisiana, which included what would become Camden, and found the Quapaw living at the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. The more recent study of Charles Hudson, however, projected a more northerly route away from Camden. The De Soto Commission of the 1930s had de Soto following the Ouachita on a southerly route that places him near Camden. Local tradition claims that Camden’s historic period began with the arrival of Hernando de Soto in 1541. Until around AD 1541, the Camden portion of the Ouachita River was one of cultural overlap between the Plaquemine culture of southeast Arkansas and the developing Caddo culture of southwest Arkansas. The early inhabitants of the area around Camden were distinguished by the use of pottery, the development of agriculture, the introduction of the bow and arrow, and the building of large burial mounds. Politically, Camden has had tremendous influence, producing three governors as well as three powerful senators. Camden has also been important in both industry and education. With the development of railroads, Camden was able to exploit its rich timberlands and remain an important transportation hub. In 1864, it became the unintended focus of a major Civil War effort called the Red River Campaign, resulting in several significant battles. At the head of practical navigation, Camden was the “Queen City” of the Ouachita during the steamboat era. Since it began life as Ecore a Fabre, a French trading post, its history has been closely tied to the Ouachita River. Census:Ĭamden is the county seat of Ouachita County and is located in south-central Arkansas on the Gulf Coastal Plain, about fifty miles north of Louisiana.
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