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Credits and Sources

This exhibit is the work of many. Hiram F. (Pete) Gregory, George Avery, Francis X. Galán, and Steve Black are the primary authors. Additional writing was contributed by Mariah Wade (on the Adais), Jay C. Blaine (on metal artifacts), and Aubra L. Lee (on archeology). TBH Co-Editor Steve Black created the exhibit with the help of TBH web developer Heather Smith, who crafted many of the exhibit graphics.

The Los Adaes exhibit was underwritten by a grant from the Coypu Foundation (founded by John Stauffer McIlhenny) of Louisiana with additional support coming from individual members of the Texas Archeological Society, the Instructional Technology Services of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Louisiana Division of Archaeology of the Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism.

Pete Gregory is professor of anthropology at Northwestern State University (NSU) in Natchitoches. Gregory carried out excavations at Los Adaes between 1966 and 1986. His early work was part of his dissertation research at Southern Methodist University. Later investigations were funded by the State of Louisiana through the Louisiana Office of State Parks. Throughout his work Gregory has carried out archeological field schools at Los Adaes during which NSU undergraduate and graduate students have gained training while contributing to the research. Graduate students, such as Aubra Lee, have carried out additional research on the Los Adaes collections, which are housed at the Williamson Museum at Northwestern State University.

George Avery served as Los Adaes Station Archaeologist for the Louisiana Division of Archaeology between 1995 and 2005 based out of Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.  Avery carried out management-related fieldwork at Los Adaes as well as archival research, and is currently working on a compilation of the site's extensive archeological collections. All archeological fieldwork at Los Adaes was coordinated, as much as possible, with the visits of school groups.  Lab work was done by NSU undergraduate students in the NSU Archaeology Lab in the Williamson Museum.

Francis X. Galán teaches at Northwest Vista College and Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio. His recent (2006) dissertation from the Department of History at Southern Methodist University examines the history of the 18th-century Los Adaes community based on extensive archival research. He tracked down and translated many obscure documents relating to Los Adaes. Most of the archival quotes in this exhibit are Galán's translations. His disseration is the basis for a forthcoming book on Los Adaes from Texas A&M Press as well as several journal articles.

Mariah F. Wade is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a specialist in ethnohistory and has been researching the history of the Adai Indians for whom Los Adaes was named.

Jay C. Blaine is a metal conservation expert who lives in Allen, Texas. He has been involved in the identification and conservation of the metal artifacts from Los Adaes since 1970. Blaine has conserved metal artifacts from many Spanish and French colonial archeological sites in Texas and adjacent states.

Aubra L. Lee analyzed the plant and animal remains from several houses excavated at Los Adaes as part of thesis research at Northwestern State University. His work contributed to the interpretation of the Southeastern House Complex (House of the Curandera).

Most of the unattributed photographs in this exhibit were provided by George Avery and Pete Gregory from the Los Adaes archives at the Williamson Museum at Northwestern State University. Don Sepulvado served as chief photographer for all of the excavations carried out by Gregory and has photographed the Los Adaes artifacts as well. Nancy Hawkins of the Louisiana Division of Archaeology provided much needed help with image permissions and licensing.

Many others provided assistance. Among these: Chief Rufus Davis hosted a visit to the Adai Indian Nation Cultural Center and provided information about Adai heritage; Lee Johnson translated the legend and profile text on Urrutia's map; Pamela Hogan at the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University scanned drawings from Gregory's 1993 dissertation; Jeff Girard provided images and information; Robert Norment provided photographs and information; and Ken Brown helped with the technical editing. The Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin provided scans of documents from the Bexar Archives.

Readers should know that this is not the only online exhibit on Los Adaes. The state of Louisiana has created a beautifully designed that tells some of the same story in a different form. This graphically innovative exhibit is well worth a visit and might even give you all you want to know. Ours tells more of the story in words and provides many new images and linked documents. We think the two exhibits complement each other and we encourage you to explore both.

Links:

Los Adaes: Life at an Eighteenth-Century Spanish Outpost
Graphically innovative online exhibit created by the State of Louisiana.

Handbook of Texas Online
Many entries related to Los Adaes and Spanish Colonial Texas can be found in this searchable encyclopedia of Texas history, culture, and geography produced by the Texas State Historical Association.

David Rumsey Map Collection
Superb collection of historic maps.

Library of Congress Map Collection, American Memory
Superb collection of historic maps.

Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin holds the massive Bexar Archives, records of Spanish Colonial government and mission activity in Texas, and historic maps.


Print Sources:

Abernathy, Francis
1976   The Spanish in the Moral. The Bicentennial Commemorative History of Nacogdoches, pp.21-23. Nacogdoches Jaycees, Nacogdoches.

Armistead, Samuel G.
1992   The Spanish Tradfition in Louisiana: Isleno Folkliterature. Juan de La Cuesta, Newark, Delaware.

Armistead, Samuel G. and Hiram F. Gregory
1986   French Loan Words in the Spanish District of Sabine and Natchitoches Pairishes, Louisiana Folklife 10:21-30.

Avery, George
1995-2005    Annual Reports for the Los Adaes Station Archaeology Program.  Dept. of Social Sciences, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana.

1996    Archival investigations of the people of Los Adaes.  Southern Studies 7(1):65-88. Download Download pdf

1997    More Friend than Foe:  Eighteenth Century Spanish, French, and Caddoan Interaction at Los Adaes, A Capital of Texas Located in Northwestern Louisiana.  Louisiana Archaeology 22:163-193.

Berthelot, Raymond Octave
2001    A Comparison of the Archaeological and Documentary Evidence relating to the Material Culture from Nuestra Señora del Pilar de los Adaes, an Eighteenth Century Spanish Colonial Frontier Presidio.  Unpublished M.A. thesis, Dept. of History, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

1996   The Presidio Nuestra Señora del Pilar de los Adaes and the Spanish Colonial Presence in Northwestern Louisiana.  Southern Studies 7(1):25-43. Download Download pdf

Blaine, Jay C.
1993 Problems in the preservation and study of archaeological metals in East Texas. Notes on Northeast Texas Archaeology 1:10-12.

1996    (With George Avery) Conservation and Indentification of Metal Artifacts from Los Adaes.  Southern Studies 7(1):97-119. Download Download pdf

Bolton, Herbert E.
1915   Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century. University of California Press, Berkeley.

1987   The Hasinais: Southern Caddoans as Seen by the Earliest Europeans. Edited by Russell M. Magnaghi. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Carter, Cecile Elkins
1995   Caddo Indians: Where We Come From. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Paperback 2001.

Chipman, Donald E. and Harriett D. Joseph
1915   Notable Men and Women of Spanish Texas. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Corbin, James E., Thomas C. Alex, and Arlan Kalina.
1915   Mission Dolores de los Ais, Papers in Anthropology 2. Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas.

Galán, Francis X.
2006   Last Soldiers, First Pioneers: The Los Adaes Border Community on the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1721-1779. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Southern Methodist Univerisity. UMI Microfilm, Ann Arbor.

Gregory, Hiram F.
1973   Eighteenth Century Caddoan Archaeology: A Study in Models and Interpretation. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.

1983   Los Adaes, the Archaeology of an Ethnic Enclave. In Historical Archaeology of the Eastern United States, edited by Robert W. Neuman. School of Geoscience, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

1996  Adaeseo: A Nahuatl Lexicon from Natchitoches and Sabine Parishes, Louisiana.  Southern Studies 7(1):89-96. Download Download pdf

Gregory, Hiram F. (editor)
1980   Excavations: 1979-Presidio de Nuestra Seora del Pilar de Los Adaes Report. Williamson Museum, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana.

1982 Excavations 1981-82, Presidio de Nuestra Seora del Pilar de los Adaes. Williamson Museum, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana.

1983 Los Adaes: The Archaeology of An Ethnic Enclave. Geoscience and Man 23:53 -57

1984   Excavations: Presidio de Nuestra Seora del Pilar de los Adaes. Williamson Museum, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana.

1985   Excavations, Unit 227, Presidio Nuestra Seora del Pilar de los Adaes (16NA16). Williamson Museum, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Gregory, H. F., George Avery, Aubra L. Lee, and Jay C. Blaine
2004   Presidio Los Adaes: Spanish, French, and Caddoan Interaction on the Northern Frontier. Historical Achaeology 38(3):65-77. Download Download pdf Provided courtesy of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Gregory, Hiram F. and James McCorkle
1961   Los Adaes: Historical and Archaeological Background. Louisiana Office of State Parks, Baton Rouge,

Jackson, Jack
1995   Flags along the Coast: Charting the Gulf of Mexico, 1519-1759: A reappraisal. Book Club of Texas.

1998 Shooting the Sun: Cartographic Results of Military Activities in Texas, 1689-1829. Book Club of Texas.

Jackson, Jack, ed. and William C. Foster, annotator
1995   Imaginary Kingdom: Texas as Seen by the Rivera and Rubí Military Expeditions, 1727 and 1767. Texas State Historical Association, Austin.

John, Elizabeth A. H.
1995   Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.

Lee, Aubra L.
1986   Floral and Faunal Analyses of House Remains at Los Adaes, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Natchitoches.

Lemée, Patricia R.
1998   Tios and Tantes: Familial and Political Relationships of Natchitoches and the Spanish Colonial Frontier, Southwestern Historical Quarterly 101(3):341-350.

Lemmon, Alfred E., John T. Magill, and Jason R. Wiese
1995   Charting Louisiana : Five Hundred Years of Maps. Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans.

Lipski, John
1990   Sabine River Spanish: A Neglected Chapter in Mexican - American Dialectology in Spanish in the United States. In Socio-Linguistic Issues, edited by J. Bergen, pp. 1-13. Georgetown University, Washington D. C.

Loren, Diana DiPaolo
1996   Colonial Dress at the Spanish Presidio of Los Adaes, Southern Studies 7(1):45-64.

1999   Creating Social Distinction: Articulating Colonial Policies and Practices along the Eighteenth-Century Louisiana/Texas Frontier. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Binghamton. University Microfilms Internation, Ann Arbor, MI.

2001   Manipulating Bodies and Emerging Traditions at the Los Adaes Presidio.  In: The Archaeology of Traditions:  Agency and History before and after Columbus, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat, pp. 58-76.  University of Florida Press, Gainesville.

Magnaghi, Russell M.
1984   Texas as Seen by Governor Winthuisen, 1741-1744, Southwestern Historical Quarterly 88(2):167-180..

McCorkle, James
1981   Los Adaes: Outpost of New Spain, Journal North Louisiana Historical Association 12:113-122.

McDonald, Archie
1980   Nacogdoches: Wilderness Outpost to Modern City. Eakin Press, Burnet, Texas.

Nardini, Louis R., Sr.
1915   My Historic Natchitoches, Louisiana and its Environment. Nardini Publishing, Natchitoches.

Pagés, Pierre Marie François de
1793   Travels Round the World, in the Years 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771. Translated from the French. J. Murray, London.

Perttula, Timothy K.
1992   "The Caddo Nation": Archaeological and Ethnohistoric Perspectives. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Perttula, Timothy K. and Bo Nelson
2006   Test Excavations at Three Caddo Sites at Mission Tejas State Park, Houston County, Texas. Archeological and Environmental Consultants, LLC, Report of Investigations 76.

Phares, Ross
1992   The Governors of Texas. Pelican Publishing, Gretna, Louisiana.

Sepulvado, Don L.
1977   Folk Curing in a Spanish Community. Louisiana Folklife Newsletter 2:1-31.

Sibley, John.
1922   A Report from Natchitoches in 1807. Edited by Anne Heloise Abel, Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.

Stark, Louisa
1980   Notes on a Dialect of Spanish Spoken in Northern Louisiana. Anthropological Linguistics 22 : 163 - 175.

Swanton, John R.
1942   Source Material on the History and Ethnology of the Caddo Indians. Bulletin 132. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.

Voellinger, Leonard R.
1983   The Archaeological Investigation of the Louis Procello Site, 16DS212, De Soto Parish, Louisiana. Espey, Huston and Associates, Austin, Texas.

photo of Pete Gregory
Pete Gregory excavating at Los Adaes.
photo of George Avery
George Avery water screening at Los Adaes.
photo of Francis Galan
Francis Galán and daughter Madison.
The state of Louisiana has created a beautifully designed interactive website that tells Los Adaes story in a different form
The state of Louisiana has created a beautifully designed interactive website that tells some of the Los Adaes story in a different form. This graphically driven exhibit is well worth a visit. Enlarge image
photo of the visitor's center
Today many Adaeseños recognize and proclaim their Adais heritage. Tribal members have established a visitor center, the Adai Indian Nation Cultural Center, approximately 5 miles north of Los Adais State Park.