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For hundreds of years North American Indians, in all of their tribes and clans and families, lived their lives, pretty much minding their own business, until a bunch of strangers from Europe moved into the neighborhood and ruined property values from coast to coast. It only took another few hundred years before the descendants of those Europeans got around to recognizing the original occupants of this country, and their contributions to our cuisine, our habits, and our culture. Here in East Texas and West Louisiana, Native American culture has influenced the history of European settlers since their arrival in the early 1700s, when the Spanish founded Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Los Adaes Presidio in what is now Natchitoches Parrish. With the absence of Spanish women in the area, soldiers established relationships with local Caddo, Adai, and Lipan Apache women in the area, spreading to establish settlements in the Zwolle and Ebarb area, where they stayed with their families even after being ordered back to San Antonio in 1773 when the Presidio was abandoned.
