Rivers and Bayous of Louisiana, The

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