St. Jean Baptiste Los Adaes Fort Claiborne Fort Jesup Fort Towson Fort Washita Fort Belknap Fort Phantom Hill Fort Griffin Fort Richardson Fort Sill |
Fort Los Adaes |
The Royal Road (El Camino de Real), which was established in this part of its Empire by the Spanish after establishing the fort to link to Texas missions and to San Antonio and further south, can be easily discerned at the Los Adaes fortification. |
Daily bread at Los Adaes: “The soil is almost entirely destitute of water; which unhappy circumstance, joined to the natural indolence of the people, frequently reduces them to the way of the most common necessaries of life. The chief means of their subsistence is Indian corn, which they boil, mixed with quick lime, whereby the husk is dissolved into a kind of powder, and the grain considerably softened. Having washed and bruised it on a chocolate-stone, it is formed into a lump of paste, which they knead between their hands. Of this dough they made a sort of cake, which is toasted on a plate of iron laid over the fire. This bread is the native food of the people of New Spain; and indeed, when these thin cakes, or rather wafers, named by the Spaniards tortillas, are well baked, they are far from unpleasant” (Pierre Marie François de Pagès, Travels Round the World, 1763, p. 51)* |
A detailed plan of the Los Adaes installation from 1720 (University of Texas at Austin)* |
Archaeologists have re-outlined the fort for the state park. |
A 1763 map of Louisiana shows the proximity of the Spanish fort, Los Adaes, and the French fort (St. Jean Baptiste). (Library of Congress) |
Catholic religious emblems found at the fort during archeological excavations. (Wlliamson Museum, Nothwestern State University).* |
Image captions noted with an asteriks (*) denote that the image derives from the Los Adaes website designed and maintained by the Louisiana Division of Archaeology |