Red River Parish, Louisiana

Infobox U.S. County
county = Red River Parish
state = Louisiana




founded year = 1871
founded date =
seat wl = Coushatta
largest city wl = Coushatta
area_total_sq_mi = 402
area_total_km2 = 1041
area_land_sq_mi = 389
area_land_km2 = 1008
area_water_sq_mi = 13
area_water_km2 = 39
area percentage = 3.18%
census yr = 2000
pop = 9622
density_sq_mi = 25
density_km2 = 10
time zone = Central
UTC offset = -6
DST offset = -5
footnotes =
web =
named for = Red River

Red River Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Its seat is Coushatta. It was one of the newer parishes created in 1871 by the state legislature under Reconstruction. The plantation economy was based on cotton cultivation, highly dependent on enslaved labor before the American Civil War. In the late 19th century, the parish had a population with more than twice as many freedmen as whites. [ [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~laredriv/history.htm "Red River Parish History", "Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana", Chapter IV, Chicago: The Southern Publishing Co., 1890] , accessed 25 Apr 2008] Due to outmigration and changes in agriculture, by 2000, the parish population was 9,622 and the majority was white.

History

As in many other rural areas, Red River Parish and the Red River Valley were areas of white vigilante and paramilitary violence after the Civil War, as insurgents tried to regain power after the South's defeat. Created only in 1871, the parish was established by the state legislature during Reconstruction to try to develop Republican Party strength through new parishes in the state.

Marshall H. Twitchell was a Union veteran who moved to the parish from Vermont and married a local woman. With the help of her family, he became a successful cotton planter and local leader. He was elected in 1870 as a Republican to the state legislature and filled four local offices with his brother and three brothers-in-law, the latter native to the parish. He won support from freedmen by appointing some to local offices and promoting education. [Eric Foner, "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877", New York: Perennial Classics, 1988; edition 2002, pp.356-357] [ [http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-01/reconstruction.html Danielle Alexander, "Forty Acres and a Mule: The Ruined Hope of Reconstruction", "Humanities", January/February 2004, vol.25/No.1] , accessed 14 Apr 2008]

The 1870s of Reconstruction continued with regular outbreaks of violence in Louisiana, despite the presence of 2,000 federal troops stationed there. [Eric Foner, "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877", New York: Perennial Classics, 1988; edition 2002, p.550] The extended agricultural depression and poor economy of the late 19th century aggravated social tensions, as both freedmen and whites struggled to survive and to manage new labor arrangements.

The disputed gubernatorial election of 1872 increased political tensions in the state, especially as the outcome was unsettled for months and both the Democratic and Republican candidates certified their own slates of local officers. Established in May 1874 from white militias, the White League was formed first in the Red River Valley in nearby Grant Parish. It grew increasingly well-organized in rural areas like Red River Parish. Soon White League chapters rose across the state. Few people in rural areas could resist their enforcement. [Nicholas Lemann, "Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War", New York, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2006, p.76] Operating openly, the White League used violence against officeholders, running some out of town and killing others, and acted at elections to suppress black and white Republican voting. [Nicholas Lemann, "Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War", New York, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2006, p.76]

In August 1874 the White League forced six white Republicans out of office in Coushatta, the parish seat of Red River Parish, then assassinated them before they left Louisiana. Four of the men murdered were the brother and three brothers-in-law of Marshall H. Twitchell, the Republican state legislator representing the area. [Eric Foner, "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877", New York: Perennial Classics, 1988; edition 2002, p.551] The White League also killed five to twenty freedmen who had accompanied the Twitchell relatives and were witnesses to the vigilante acts. [Nicholas Lemann, "Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War", New York, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2006, p.76-77] [ [http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-01/reconstruction.html Danielle Alexander, "Forty Acres and a Mule: The Ruined Hope of Reconstruction", "Humanities", January/February 2004, vol.25/No.1] , accessed 14 Apr 2008]

The events became known by historians as the Coushatta Massacre. The murders contributed to Republican Governor Kellogg's request for more Federal troops from President Grant to help control the state. Ordinary Southerners wrote to President Grant at the White House describing the terrible conditions of violence and fear they lived under during these times. [Nicholas Lemann, "Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War", New York, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2006, p.76-77]

With increased voter fraud, violence against blacks and whites, and intimidation at the polls preventing people from voting, white Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1876. The population of the parish in 1880 was 8,573, of whom 2,506 were whites and 6,007 were blacks. [ [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~laredriv/history.htm "Red River Parish History", "Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana", Chapter IV, Chicago: The Southern Publishing Co., 1890] , accessed 25 Apr 2008] In 1898 the state achieved disfranchisement of most blacks and many poor whites through a new constitution that created numerous barriers to voter registration. [ [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=224731 Richard H. Pildes, "Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon", "Constitutional Commentary", Vol.17, 200, pp.12-13] , accessed 25 Apr 2008]

To seek better opportunities and escape the oppression of segregation, underfunded education, and disfranchisement, thousands of African Americans left Red River and other rural parishes in the Great Migration north and west, especially from 1940-1970, as may be seen from steep population decreases from 1950 to 1970 for the parish in the census table below. Agricultural problems contributed to outmigration, especially after increasing mechanization in the 1930s reduced the need for laborers.

Additional outmigration from the parish occurred as late as the 1980s, when African Americans from Louisiana also migrated within the South, to jobs in developing metropolitan areas of New South states. [ [http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=9 "African American Migration Experience: The Second Great Migration", website of the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture] , accessed 24 Apr 2008] [ [http://www.brookings.edu/urban/pubs/20040524_Frey.pdf William H. Frey, "The New Great Migration: Black Americans' Return to the South, 1965-2000", The Brookings Institution, May 2004, pp.1-3] , accessed 14 Apr 2008]

Red River Parish has been a Democratic Party stronghold since the party reestablished dominance in the late 1870s. As in other southern states, recent decades have brought a realignment in politics in Presidential elections, with the conservative white majority of the parish voting for Republican U.S. President George W. Bush in his 2004 reelection. The majority of the parish has continued to support Democratic candidates at the state and local level.

Red River was one of only three parishes that did not vote for the Republican gubernatorial candidate, U.S. Representative Bobby Jindal in the October 20, 2007, jungle primary.Fact|Apr 2008|date=April 2008 The others were nearby Bienville and St. Bernard, located southeast of New Orleans. Jindal went on to win the statewide election by a large margin.

Geography

The parish has a total area of 402 square miles (1,041 km²), of which, 389 square miles (1,008 km²) of it is land and 13 square miles (33 km²) of it (3.18%) is water.

Major highways

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Adjacent parishes

*Caddo Parish (northwest)
*Bossier Parish (north)
*Bienville Parish (northeast)
*Natchitoches Parish (southeast)
*De Soto Parish (west)

National protected area

* Red River National Wildlife Refuge (part)

Demographics

USCensusPop
title=
1790=
1800=
1810=
1820=
1830=
1840=
1850=
1860=
1870=
1880=
1890=
1900= 11548
1910= 11402
1920= 15301
1930= 16078
1940= 15881
1950= 12113
1960= 9978
1970= 9226
1980= 10433
1990= 9387
2000= 9622
estimate= 9438
estyear= 2006
estref= [cite web|url=http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/22/22081.html|title=Red River Parish Quickfacts|author=United States Census Bureau|accessdate=2008-02-02]
footnote=Red River Parish Census Data [cite web|url=http://www.census.gov/population/cencounts/la190090.txt|title=Louisiana Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990|author=United States Census Bureau|accessdate=2008-02-02] As of the censusGR|2 of 2000, there were 9,622 people, 3,414 households, and 2,526 families residing in the parish. The population density was 25 people per square mile (10/km²). There were 3,988 housing units at an average density of 10 per square mile (4/km²). The racial makeup of the parish was 57.87% White, 40.91% Black or African American, 0.28% Native American, 0.09% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.22% from other races, and 0.61% from two or more races. 1.01% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 3,414 households out of which 35.70% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.50% were married couples living together, 18.60% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.00% were non-families. Individuals made up 23.10% of all households, and 11.50% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.74 and the average family size was 3.23.

In the parish the population was spread out with 30.10% under the age of 18, 9.30% from 18 to 24, 24.80% from 25 to 44, 21.50% from 45 to 64, and 14.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 90.80 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.40 males.

The median income for a household in the parish was $23,153, and the median income for a family was $27,870. Males had a median income of $27,132 versus $17,760 for females. The per capita income for the parish was $12,119. About 26.00% of families and 29.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 40.10% of those under age 18 and 18.90% of those age 65 or over.

Cities, towns, and villages

Education

Public schools in Red River Parish are operated by the Red River Parish School District.

ee also

References