Was This Town In Mexico? No! It was in Louisiana! - Part 1

Welcome to the Troyville Archaeological Zone

The Troyville Archaeological Site was a major town in the Lower Mississippi Basin that was densely populated between around 400 AD and 1100 AD. Most of its mounds were always platform mounds for buildings, not burial mounds. Therefore, the town appears to have been one of the primary locations where the Mississippian Culture evolved.  It once contained a massive mound that even when abandoned for a thousand years, was still 82 feet high and therefore the second highest known Native American mound. 

The site has been completely destroyed by late 19^th century and mid-20^th century construction projects.  It is now just a section of the town of Jonesville, LA.  Analysis of old maps and photographs, plus excavation of small sections of the ancient town that were not developed, have enabled archaeologists to piece together a description of this important archaeological site as it evolved. Much of the information on the site’s appearance in the 1800s and early 1900s comes from the published Catahoula Parish History – also available on the internet. The Troyville site is one of the largest and important Native American heritage sites in Louisiana, but few people know about it.

During the late 1600s French explorers noted a cluster of large Indian mounds at the confluence of the Black and Catahoula (Little) River.  The large, abandoned town site was also near where the Ouachita and Tensas Rivers joined to form the Black River.  However, Indian mounds back then were extremely common in the Lower Mississippi Basin. Most were abandoned by the time the French arrived on the scene, but the Natchez Indians continued to construct important buildings on mounds, and occupy villages in the vicinity of other mounds.  The hamlet of Troyville was settled near the mounds by French colonists in the 1700s after the Natchez were driven out of Louisiana.  The name “Troy” came from the apparent ruins of an ancient city at the confluence of the Black and Catahoula Rivers.

We next hear of this mound site in 1804, a year after the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. President Thomas Jefferson appointed William Dunbar and Dr. George Hunter to explore the Ouachita and Red River Basins.  Dunbar was a Natchez plantation owner, scientist, inventor and explorer.  The explorers experienced difficulty in measuring the mounds because they were covered in thick growths of river cane.  A Frenchman named Heberd lived in a house atop the largest mound. 

Early Anglo-American settlers also built their homes on top of the mounds, because the elevation gave them protection from seasonal floods. From time to time amateur Indian artifact hunters dug holes into the flanks of the mounds, hoping to find items, which could be sold to collectors or museums.  During the Civil War, the Confederate Army converted the largest mound into a fort.   Rifle pits were dug into the side of the mound for the infantry, while the top of the mound was flattened in order to facilitate the positioning of field artillery.

The town of Jonesville developed next to the archaeological zone in the late 1800s.  Contractors and townspeople regularly excavated fill soil from mounds and embankments to raise building sites in Jonesville above flood levels. They even used dynamite to demolish mounds and make the soil easier to excavate and transport. Intact artifacts were typically retained as family treasures or sold to collectors.  Sections of the town site were cleared for fields, gardens and pastures. During a series of severe floods between 1912 and 1927 the largest mound at Troyville was the only dry land for miles.  During these floods, refugees crowded the top of the mound.

When campaigning for governor of Louisiana in 1928, Huey P. Long promised the people of Jonesville that a bridge would be built across the Black River so that they would not be so isolated from the remainder of the state.  By 1930 state engineers had designed a bridge whose access ramp would end squarely at the face of the largest Troyville mound.  Rather than move the bridge’s location a hundred feet, the Louisiana Highway Department decided that the mound must go and the earth within the mound would be used as fill soil for the access ramp. A contractor leveled the huge mound and transferred 21,000 cubic yards of fill dirt to the bridge construction site.  It is quite probable that the owners of the mound had requested or at least encouraged the location of the bridge because they considered the mound to be a hindrance to the development of their property. 

The State of Louisiana Highway Department was certainly not the only such agency to destroy Native American mounds during the mid-20^th century.  In earlier articles on the Woodland and Sedentary Periods in the Etowah River Valley of northwestern, we discussed similar fates of very important archaeological sites.  A massive 2000 year old truncated pyramidal mound adjacent to the Etowah River was leveled by the Georgia Highway Department while building a highway between Cartersville and Dallas, GA.  A little later,  a state paving contractor scooped up all the fieldstones that composed an ancient observatory on top of Ladds Mountain to make gravel for paving state highways!

Archaeologist Winslow Walker of the Smithsonian Institute heard about pending destruction of the great mound and raced down to Catahoula Parish to try to salvage what information and artifacts he could.   He published a 103 page booklet on the Troyville archaeological zone that was not really complete.  Desecration of key sections of the site by local townspeople made it impossible for him to complete his work.

Demolition of the largest mound began in early summer of 1931 and continued for about a month.  The destruction of the mound reduced its height almost to street level.  The work also created large dust clouds which local mothers feared would cause tuberculosis.  Children were kept indoors because of this unfounded fear.

The Natchez Indians had fought their last battles with the French just north of the Troyville site in 1730.  A legend had persisted that the Natchez owned large amounts of pure gold, which they hid in the landscape around the Troyville mounds.  While frantically excavating what was left of the Troyville site, archaeologist Walker uncovered a mass burial in a small mound.  He planned to study the burials the next day.  However, during the night, townspeople tore the burial asunder in search of the fabled Natchez gold.  When Walker returned in the morning he discovered that the grave robbers had not only destroyed the burial but hauled off the skeletons. In discussed, he packed up his equipment and returned to Washington, DC.

In the next part of this series, we will discuss the efforts of modern archaeologists to piece together an understanding of the Troyville site, from its surviving remnants.