Isle de Jean Charles

I recently attended an interesting program about a vanishing community on an island at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. This island is Isle de Jean Charles, which is probably no more than 20 miles southeast of Houma in Terrebonne Parish. It is named after a Frenchman who first settled there. The presenter of this much appreciated program was Heather Stone, associate professor of the college of Education and Human Development at UL. Professor Stone had an excellent PowerPoint program with plenty of photos of the island community. She has visited Isle de Jean Charles community several times and is familiar with the inhabitants. The island is the home of the state recognized Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe. It has been their home since the early 1800s after President Andrew Jackson authorized the shameful Indian Removal Act of May 1830 and the subsequent Trail of Tears. The act effected all native Americans in the U. S. east of the Mississippi River. It was ethnic cleansing at its worst. It was much like the Acadian removal from old Acadie. It was for the land and nothing else. What an awful disgrace. Again, it was ruthless Americans of the Eastern United States that perpetrated this ugly atrocity.
Years ago, Isle de Jean Charles was a much larger area. According to reports, it was perhaps five miles wide and more than eleven miles long with an abundance of inhabitants, which numbered in the hundreds. Today, there is perhaps only a handful of residents. Years ago, the islanders were self-sufficient and didn’t require outside help. They did not know there was a great depression when it occurred. They farmed the land producing all the vegetables needed. They had cattle, horses, chickens, and hogs, and they trapped, hunted, fished, caught oysters, crabs, crawfish, and shrimp. In essence, they lived off the land. And again, much like the Acadians, when the indigenous people attended school, they were forbidden to speak their native language.
Over the years soil erosion accelerated by pipeline and canals created by oil and gas exploration companies have continuously eaten away at the island. The canals have allowed saltwater intrusion onto the island, which drastically changed the landscape, not to mention an end to living off the land. The once lush and beautiful moss-draped oak trees and other vegetation died a slow death. Today, the lifeless sun-bleached trees devoid of any foliage stand like frightening ghosts on the barren landscape. To add insult to injury, the New York Times referred to these victims as “climate refugees” said Stone. Nothing could be further from the truth. The publication was simply taking advantage of a nationally hot catch phrase that perfectly fit their cause. The islanders are victims, not refugees.
Isle de Jean Charles is a sliver of what it once was. It is now a thin slice of land resting on the edge of the gulf. The land is much like most of the prairies of south Louisiana—a thick layer of soft earth floating on water. Early Acadians referred to it as terre trembler or flotant defined as “vegetation and humus that has not yet stabilized, in the marshes of the Mississippi delta and the coastal plain.” According to Professor Stone, within the last 50 years, 98% of the island has disappeared. Remnants of Ida, a category 4 hurricane, struck the area in August 2021 are still visible. Most of the homes were badly damaged. Some of the inhabitants left the island while others stayed. Today, the island is probably no more than a couple of miles long by one-fourth mile wide at its widest point. The federal and state government constructed a protection wall or barrier to shield other areas of Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes from flooding. However, Isle de Jean Charles was left out claiming it was too expensive to include, or the cost-benefit was prohibitive. Thus, allowing the island to slowly disappear. There is a relocation or resettlement effort for the tribe to what was once a sugarcane field in Schriever, LA., perhaps 20 miles away in northern Terrebonne Parish. However, there doesn’t seem to be much interest at this time. Life as they once knew it will never be the same. There will only be memories, which is stronger than time.