Stop #2. (Avoyelles) Bayou Boeuf: Boundary between Rapides and Avoyelles Parishes

(pg. 22) BAYOU BOEUF - Bayou Boeuf was so name for the cattle that came to water at its banks. "Boeuf" means "ox" in French, a small wild cattle drinking from its waters. The name applies to the thousands of acres of fertile delta soil on both sides of the hundred or so miles of the meandering stream. The land was cultivated in cotton and sugar cane by many planters and thousands of slaves who labored along its banks.
In the time of Northup, gum and cypress trees grew along the bayou banks, inhabited by coons and possums. Northup writes of the size and quality of the fish he trapped in Bayou Boeuf and of the importance of these to the diet of the slaves.
The long chain of plantations along both sides of the bayou formed a community whose unity was based on a plantation culture and dependence on the Bayou Boeuf for transportation and communications. The plantation culture of the area was not one of the white-columned mansion and manifestations of great wealth of the Southern myth, but a land of dedicated farmers with impressive contributions to agriculture.
Routes to New Orleans were either down the Boeuf to the Inland Port of Washington, or upstream to Smith's Landing to "Catch the Cars" for Alexandria - then down Red River to Old River to the Mississippi and south to New Orleans.