THE ADAES
The Adaes (fromNa·daiwhich meant “A Place Along a Stream”) were supposed to have had a village on Red River, near the Natchitoches. If their reported village is taken to mean a dispersed series of kin-based hamlets—what Spanish colonial people calledrancherías—the previously described Chamard site may be it.
In the 1720’s the Spanish established a mission for the Adaes, but its priest and one lay-soldier were expelled by the French lieutenant, Blondel (Bolton 1921). At the time there were no Indians living at the mission. Apparently, they relocated nearer the Spanish, but conversions were rare, and the Adaes were more interested in trade than religion. So, for that matter, were the Spanish, and when thepresidio(now called Los Adaes) was established in 1723, ostensibly to protect the mission, the Adaes seem to have lived all around the vicinity.
Los Adaes then became essentially an Indian dominated community: Lipan, Coahuiltecans, Adaes, Wichita, Tawakoni, and others lived there offand on. Even the commandant, Gil Ybarbo, was married to amestiza, a half-Indian woman. Whenever the Spanish authorities in Texas needed translators for Caddoan languages, they sent for soldiers from Los Adaes (Blake Papers).
There was an Adaes village near Big Hill Firetower at a place called La Gran Montaña (Bolton 1962) which has never been found, and another nineteenth century village on Lac Macdon. The latter is probably a later village than the one known on Spanish Lake where burials with European goods were excavated by James A. Ford (1936, unpublished fieldnotes, Museum of Geoscience, Louisiana State University).
Historic archaeological sites in the Caddoan area.
Historic archaeological sites in the Caddoan area.
Taylor (1963:51-59) finally placed Adaes as a definite Caddoan language, but it was the most deviant of all (Sibley 1832), and the Adaes became more and more western in their cultural orientation (Gregory 1974). They gradually extended to the Sabine River where a late trash pit (A.D. 1740) at Coral Snake Mound may be evidence of their presence (McClurkan, Field and Woodall 1966). It contained glass trade beads, and a French musket lock was found nearby. Their Lac Macdon village, where they remained as late as 1820, was probably near the water body known today as Berry Brake and may well be on Allen Plantation.
Little is known of Adaes history or culture. De Mézières (Bolton 1914:173) noted that they were severely impacted by Europeans and “extremely given to the vice of drunkenness.” Like the Natchitoches, they seem to have had close relationships with the Yatasi who were sometimes called the Nadas, likely a homonym forNa·dais.
One Adaes chief who was their leader in the 1770’s has been identified and they are clearly an archaeologically distinct group. Gregory (1974) has pointed out the higher frequencies of bone-tempered pottery and the ceramic typesPatton EngravedandEmory Incisedfrom trash pits at Los Adaes.
Unlike the Natchitoches and others, the Adaes are not remembered by contemporary Caddo who may have heard of them merely as part of the Yatasi, who are remembered as a group. Many may have been absorbed, as Christians, into the generalmestizopopulation at Los Adaes and still have descendants in northwestern Louisiana.