1650, there were 4,000 Chitimacha Indians. Up through the 20th


century, 13 to 15 names


of their many villages could be recalled and their sites identified. But when the French and Indian War end-


ed in 1764, Louisiana tribes underwent a lot of movement. And even more occurred with the Indian Removal Act. The Biloxis had already been well traveled and knew the channels and ridges of the area. Some Biloxi and Choctaw Indians, fleeing the Trail of Tears, sought ref- uge first in the Houma area north of the Isle, then further down in the remote marshes of the Mississippi delta. There they commingled with the Chitimacha, hoping American au- thorities would not find them and force them onto reservations in Oklahoma. The language now is mostly a mix of Choctaw with French, and Comardelle’s father and grandmother speak to each other in these soft Cajun tones.


AN ISLAND FOR TRADE, ART AND OIL


The Isle was once accessible only by small dugout canoes, or pirogues. Later the canal was made bigger so boats could navigate the area. “When the Great Depression happened, people on the Isle didn’t even know it was happening,” recalls Billiot. “People on the Isle lived by trade – fishing, making furniture, building houses, on up into the 1940s. The community took care of itself. We had three stores on the island when I was growing up. The land provided blackberries. Once a year we would have a big party where we killed a pig for the community. We raised our own chickens, cows.” Palmetto baskets – made from the heart of the young palmetto before it starts flaring up – became an art form. Then the oil fields came in and drillers


started making canals to bring in more rigs. In 1953 a road was built to access the oil tanks. Salt water seeped into the canals. “When I was growing up, it was mostly brackish water, lots of fresh water,” Comardelle recalls. “I was told these were rice fields, but you wouldn’t know because now it’s just water over there.” The road accessing the Isle from the mainland used to have land on either side. Now it’s all water, and that water all too often flows over the road itself. “The top few meters of land consists of


mostly organic matter, made up of plants and roots – a biological system,” explains R. Eugene Turner of the department of oceanography and coastal sciences at Louisiana State Univer- sity. “When it dries out, the soil oxidizes and turns to CO2


. And the land sinks.”


The ecosystem depended on the growth of plants and the production of organic matter


to produce the soil. The tides are only six to 12 inches during the day, a bit higher in sum- mer, but this provided enough water to keep the plants surviving. The problem, according to Turner, stems from the dredging of canals through this land by the oil industry, which began early in the 20th


century and acceler-


ated after 1940. The canals are dredged much deeper than a natural channel – 12 to 15 feet versus a foot or two – and then the materi- als dredged are piled on either side to build a levee called a spoil bank, which can be up to 10 feet high. It doesn’t let water in that often, and when it does, it doesn’t get out as easily. “The total length of these spoil banks is


enough to cross south Louisiana 80 times – or to go to London and back with miles left over,” Turner says. “These ‘spoil banks’ really inter- fere with the natural flow of water. They are higher than the water would ever go, except in a hurricane.” The land behind them does not get the water it needs, so the plants die, and as the organic soil dissolves into CO2


, the land


sinks. “Where there are more canals, there’s more land loss; where there are less canals, there’s less land loss, so these are correlated,” Turner states. “It depends on always growing on top,”


Turner says. “Add sea level rise to this subsid- ence and it’s going to turn to open water. Sea level rise is going to start a whole new chapter of land loss.” “Back then, a hurricane hit, we’d get a


foot of water on the land here,” Billiot states. “Now, if there’s a hurricane in Texas, we get seven or eight feet of water here. There’s no more land, no buffers, no barrier islands to stop the surge. Not just from the canal dig-


ging, but hurricanes and subsidence. And sea level rise. There are some docks that in the 1970s were two feet above the water. Now they’re under water and they had to build a new dock above it.” Oil companies were the bread and butter


of the economy. “You couldn’t fight them,” says Billiot, “because everything is oil over here, it would be a losing battle. On the other side, most of the people down here work in the oil field, so it’s a double-edged sword.”


THE RELOCATION BUY-IN


The Tribal Community began discussions about relocating Isle residents in 1999. That year, the Corps of Engineers changed the path of the levee so that it no longer protected the remaining homes. In 2002, community mem- bers began working with the Corps to relocate the Isle’s residents, but the Corps would not move them individually, only as a communi- ty; only if there was 100 percent buy-in. “How often do you get 100 percent?” Billiot muses. Leaders managed to get about 90 percent of the residents to agree, but it was not enough. In 2008, after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike,


the Tribal Community tried again to seek funding to relocate tribal members from the Isle. It found a place that seemed like it would do the job. The community had support from the local government and some other funders and backers, but the people from the area to which they were looking to move protested, saying their presence there would cause more flooding. “We were Indian and they were white,” Comardelle says. “The chief got up, gave his introduction, and was told ‘Your time’s up, please sit down.’”


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 25


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