Fort Toulouse

About this property

Fort Toulouse and Fort Jackson are two forts that shared the same site at the fork of the Coosa River and the Tallapoosa River, near Wetumpka, Alabama, United States. Fort Toulouse (Muscogee: Franca choka chula), also called Fort des Alibamons and Fort Toulouse des Alibamons, is a historic fort near the city of Wetumpka, Alabama, United States, that is now maintained by the Alabama Historical Commission. The French founded the fort in 1717, naming it for Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse. In order to counter the growing influence of the British colonies of Georgia and Carolina, the government of French Louisiana erected a fort on the eastern border of the Louisiana Colony in what is now the state of Alabama. The fort was also referred to as the Post of the Alabama, named after the Alabama tribe of Upper Creek Indians, who resided just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers on the upper reaches of the Alabama River. The number of troops in garrison varied between 20 and 50 French Colonial Marines. Living and working at the fort, the Marines traded extensively with the local Creek Native Americans and cultivated friendly relations with them. The French would trade European goods such as Flintlock guns, ammunition, and gunpowder, iron tools, knives, glass beads, copper pots, and wool blankets in exchange for local food stuffs, fur and deerskins. According to tradition, the French commander Captain Jean Baptiste Louis DeCourtel Marchand married the high-status Creek woman Sehoy in about 1720. Later generations of Sehoy's descendants include the Creek chiefs Alexander McGillivray, and William Weatherford, who inherited their status in the matrilineal tribe from their mothers' clans. Due to the poor living conditions at the fort, which was neglected by the French government, the troops mutinied in 1722. They killed Captain Marchand and captured the other officers, tying them up before leaving the fort. The imprisoned officers managed to escape, and with the help of nearby Creek, they captured the mutineers and sent them to Fort Conde in Mobile for punishment. In 1735, the British built Fort Okfuskee further up the Tallapoosa River at Okfuskee to compete with French trade at Fort Toulouse. Fort Okfuskee was garrisoned by the Province of Georgia from 1735 to 1743 and by the Province of South Carolina from 1744 to 1745. Pierre de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial, the Governor of French Louisiana, demanded that the commandant of Fort Toulouse notify the Abihka and Tallapoosas that the French would withdraw trade from Fort Toulouse if they did not refuse to help build and destroy any constructed portions of South Carolina's Fort Okfuskee.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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