An Belgian map from an 1825 atlas, titled "North America" (this is plate No. 55) includes some interesting annotations of the Red River of the South between today's Oklahoma and Texas. I've annotated it, because I wonder if this poor mapmaker was a bit confused? Or maybe I am?
The Pawnee Village at the Blue River, abandoned in 1820, also probably served as a French trading post. Might this be the elusive Fort St. Louis de Carlorette, which was identified as being at the Twin Villages further west during the 1930s (and which I believe is erroneous)?
The map maker describes that the Custis/Freeman /Sparks expedition of 1806 ended at the Boggy River. That ain't Spanish Bluff!
Did the Arcadians (Cajuns?) ride from Santa Fe to the Red River and then go to their current homelands in Louisiana on bark canoes? They would have used the Great Spanish Road, I guess. Might the map be referencing St. Denis, the founder of Natchitoches, who was an Arcadian (Cajun)?
Today's historians are sticklers for the "Acadia" v. "Arcadia" references. However, in the colonial period, these descriptions were interchangeable:
"In the early 1500s the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, sailing on behalf of France in voyages of exploration to the New World, used the name “Arcadia” – with the ‘r’ as in the Greek name – for all of the North American coast north of Virginia because of the “unspoiled, harmonious wilderness.”"
The "William Establishment" (fort?) was at the Red River of the North, right? In Manitoba? Was there a William Store (?) near Pecan Point at the Kiamichi River?
This map also describes the Red River (in French, of course) and hit the nail on the head, so at least the mapmaker got this right:
The length of the course of the Red River, following its sinuous sites, cannot be less than 830 leagues. It crosses a very rich country which it fertilizes by its annual flooding; its waters are loaded with a reddish silt which gave it the name Red River. Its banks are covered with woods and meadows. The river bed is impregnated with salt which makes the water brackish.
This Belgian Map from 1825 of the Red River of the South leaves more questions than answers.
You're right--more questions than answers. Number one for me is who were the Arcadians? Arcadia is a region in Greece. Acadia is the region in Canada. Just a misspelling? Because the Acadians weren't expelled from Canada until 1755 and didn't really come to Louisiana until after that. So, if they were, in fact, Acadians, how and why were they in Santa Fe, which was entirely Spanish? In 1740 Sante Fe was difficult to reach even from the south, let alone from the north and east. More questions than answers.