Coushatta Homesteading and the Development of the Community at Bayou Blue

After relocating four times between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the Coushattas settled in their current location in the piney woods north of Elton, Louisiana. Unlike earlier relocations to land controlled by powerful Indian confederacies, homesteading was the primary method of land acquisition used during the final move in the late nineteenth century. This new land base was pivotal to the survival of the Coushatta community, and the Robinson homestead, the only land put in federal trust by a community member, helped Coushatta leaders in the 1970s regain federal recognition. However, homesteading also brought challenges for the Coushatta community. When the BIA started studying Louisiana communities to determine eligibility for federal services in the early 20th century, they suggested the community had already achieved some of the key steps towards assimilation, including private land ownership, and would not benefit from federal aid or supervision. When BIA policy shifted in the 1930s and the agency started to consider building a school for the community, mineral leases on Coushatta homesteads controlled by Bel Oil delayed action by the government. BIA officials tried to work with the owners of the company but ultimately failed to gain mineral rights on lands to build a new school, forcing them to instead take over the existing school located in the community church. Ironically, after re-recognition, an heir to the Bel fortune donated land to establish the reservation needed to resume BIA services. Even today the Coushatta reservation is small. Most community members live off the reservation, and many Coushattas take pride in land ownership. This paper focuses on the intersection of land, community, federal Indian policy, and Coushatta agency, and the ways that homesteading shaped Coushatta history between the late nineteenth century and today.