The Rivers and Bayous of Louisiana

Long ago, someone wrote that the rivers and

bayous were the great architects of Louisiana. Certainly the statement has

major elements of truth; for the waterways, which today total almost as many

miles as there are miles of highways, have in eons past aided in shaping the

face of the Land of Louis, and in historic times have determined many of the

patterns of the State's development.

To the Indians these rivers and bayous offered sites for villages and places

to fish and were roads of easy travel. To Spanish explorers they were

hindrances to movement, hazards to be crossed. To French pioneers they offered

locations for settlement and were highways for coureurs de bois,

trappers, Indian traders and voyagers of commerce. To the British and Americans

they were international boundaries and were barriers to be forded or ferried or

bridged in the development of farmland and timberland and other natural

resources. Throughout the years, they were determining factors in international

diplomacy and played major roles in the rise of economic empires. And all of

the men who traveled these streams developed a strong desire to possess and to

live upon the lands through which they passed. . . .

Here then, along the banks of the rivers and bayous of Louisiana, is found

the stuff of which legends and tall tales and dreams and romances are

fashioned-and where, also-matter of fact, magnificent history has been and is

still being made. Here are the heartlands of Louisiana.

-Edwin Adams Davis

from the Foreword