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This picture is a good example of one of my screw ups. I
read the mural, but I assumed the white man was part
Indian....never dawned on me the Indian Chief Saracen was behind
the city erected sign. Duh..... Here is a pic of the
full mural..http://www.muralcity.org/dafford/ Here is the
story:
According to legend, two children were stolen from their mother
at Pine Bluff by a marauding band of Chickasaw. The old Quapaw
Chief Saracen promised the distraught mother to return the
children and went in pursuit of the Chickasaw. Overtaking them
downstream on the Arkansas River, Saracen waited until nightfall
and when the Chickasaw were asleep he broke the night's
stillness with the Quapaw war cry. The frightened Chickasaw
disappeared into the night abandoning the children. Saracen
gathered up the children and returned them to their mother. In
1824 the Quapaws signed a treaty to abandon claims to land in
southeast Arkansas and move to Caddo country near present day
Texarkana. Antoine Barraque and Saracen led the exodus but the
new location did not work out and most of the Quapaws quietly
moved back to Jefferson County. A final treaty was signed in
1833 when they agreed to move to Oklahoma just northwest of Fort
Smith, but Saracen did not go. His petition to the governor to
stay was granted, and he spent his last days on the banks of the
Arkansas River near where the Port of Pine Bluff is now located
on land given to him by the State of Arkansas. He is buried in
St. Josephs Catholic Cemetery where visitors often go just to
see his monument.
When he died he was
buried in the Old Town cemetery behind the Methodist Church that
was at 4th and Main. In 1888 the cemetery was moved and the
grave of Saracen was brought to the attention of Father J. M.
Lucy of St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Bishop Edward Fitzgerald,
after getting a petition from Father Lucy, agreed to allow
Saracen's remains to be retired in the Catholic Cemetery.
In the early 1880's
Edward Palmer was sent to Pine Bluff by the Bureau of Ethnology
to collect Quapaw information and artifacts. Then they wanted
to dig up Saracen's body and send it to Washington, D.C.. The
people of Pine Bluff refused to reveal to the Washington
bureaucrat where Saracen was buried. So, the old chief "rested
in peace" with the townspeople who had regarded him highly.
Painted by Dafford Mural Company of Lafayette, Louisiana. |
