Bayou Manchac is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed June 20, 2011

bayou In usage in the Southern United States, a bayou () is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area. It may refer to an extremely slow-moving stream, river (often with a poorly defined shoreline), marshy lake, wetland, or creek. They ...

in southeast

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...

, USA. First called the Iberville River ("rivière d'Iberville") by its French discoverers,''A Map of part of West Florida : from Pensacola to the mouth of the Iberville River, with a view to shew the proper spot for a settlement on the Mississippi'', ondon: ublisher not identified 772 https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3860.ar165000/?r=-0.063,0.075,0.335,0.151,0, last accessed 10 Feb 2019.''Suite du cours du fleuve St. Louis depuis la rivière d'Iberville jusq'à celle des Yasous, et les parties connues de la Rivière Rouge et la Rivière Noire'', https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4042m.ar077900/?r=0.549,0.465,0.411,0.185,0, last accessed 10 Feb 2019. the bayou was once a very important waterway linking the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

(west end) to the

Amite River The Amite River (french: Rivière Amite) is a tributary of Lake Maurepas in Mississippi and Louisiana in the United States. It is about long. It starts as two forks in southwestern Mississippi and flows south through Louisiana, passing Greate ...

(east end).https://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/mybayou2/index.html&date=2009-10-26+02:28:12 East Baton Rouge Parish lies on its northern side, while its southern side is divided between

Ascension Parish Ascension Parish (french: Paroisse de l'Ascension, es, Parroquia de Ascensión) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 126,500. Its parish seat is Donaldsonville. The parish was created ...

(to the east) and

Iberville Parish Iberville Parish (french: Paroisse d'Iberville) is a parish located south of Baton Rouge in the U.S. state of Louisiana, formed in 1807. The parish seat is Plaquemine. At the 2010 U.S. census, the population was 33,387, and 30,241 at the 2020 ...

(to the west). The large unincorporated community of Prairieville and the city of

St. Gabriel In Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), Gabriel (); Greek language, Greek: grc, Γαβριήλ, translit=Gabriḗl, label=none; Latin language, Latin: ''Gabriel''; Coptic language, Coptic: cop, Ⲅⲁⲃⲣⲓⲏⲗ, transli ...

both lie on its southern side.

Etymology

John R. Swanton John Reed Swanton (February 19, 1873 – May 2, 1958) was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and linguist who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of ethnology and et ...

, a linguist who worked with Native American languages, suggested that the name Manchac is derived from ''Imashaka'', which is a Choctaw word meaning "the rear entrance." An early Choctaw language dictionary written by

Cyrus Byington Cyrus Byington (March 11, 1793 – December 31, 1868) was a Christian missionary from Massachusetts who began working with the Choctaw in Mississippi in 1821. Although he had been trained as a lawyer, he abandoned law as a career and became a mi ...

defines the word ''im'' as a preposition meaning "place" and ''ashaka'' meaning "the back side or rear"

Exploration

In March 1699,

Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (16 July 1661 – 9 July 1706) or Sieur d'Iberville was a French soldier, explorer, colonial administrator, and trader. He is noted for founding the colony of Louisiana in New France. He was born in Montreal to French ...

made his way up the Mississippi and came to the area that is now the city of

Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counti ...

. He wished to find a quick way back to the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

, where his ships were moored at Ship Island. On March 26, 1699, the

chief Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the bo ...

of the Bayogoula tribe, who had accompanied him to the future site of

, showed him the bayou that the Bayogoula used to travel between the present-day Mississippi Gulf Coast and their village. Though it once formed an international boundary, attempts to navigate the bayou as a shortcut between the Mississippi and Amite rivers, or to make it navigable, were generally unsuccessful.

Fort Bute

In 1764 the British established a

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to tr ...

on the Iberville River and called it Fort Bute at Manchac. The British traded with boats traveling down the Mississippi and encouraged trading at Manchac rather than with the Spanish farther down at New Orleans. The fort at Bayou Manchac was a strategic position for the British and was positioned to compete with Spain for the fur trade, valued at that time at 100,000

pounds sterling Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and ...

annually.

San Gabriel de Manchac

Soon after the British built Fort Bute, the Spanish responded by building a

on the opposite side of the river. On September 28, 1766, an English ship arrived in New Orleans from Maryland carrying 224 exiled

Acadians The Acadians (french: Acadiens , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Acadians live in the region of Acadia, as it is the region where the de ...

. The Spanish Governor

Antonio de Ulloa Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Giralt, FRS, FRSA, KOS (12 January 1716 – 3 July 1795) was a Spanish naval officer, scientist, and administrator. At the age of nineteen, he joined the French Geodesic Mission to what is now the countr ...

at the Isle of Orleans gave them supplies, and they settled around San Gabriel de Manchac. For about three months, from April 30 to August 4, 1812, Bayou Manchac was the northern border of eastern

, until the addition of the

Florida Parishes The Florida Parishes ( es, Parroquias de Florida, french: Paroisses de Floride), on the east side of the Mississippi River—an area also known as the Northshore or Northlake region—are eight List of parishes in Louisiana, parishes in the southe ...

was approved by the state legislature.

Industrial use and today

Bayou Manchac became one of the most important waterways of southeastern Louisiana. It served the vital role of linking

Lake Pontchartrain Lake Pontchartrain ( ) is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of . Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from w ...

via the

and Lake Maurepas. Through time, as ships became larger and faster, Bayou Manchac was too small to support modern traffic. In the 20th century, when the Mississippi River

levee A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastli ...

s were built, Bayou Manchac was cut off from the river, and later the upper sections dried out or were cut off by roads. Now the bayou is only useful for drainage and recreation, but the area is still regarded by those who live in the vicinity as one of Louisiana's most beautiful examples of nature.

References