There is no record I can find how they built the town of Charenton in the middle of the grant. The older Indians did not say what happened from then to the time when Spain sold out to France. When the Frenchmen came over, they started to take over the land that was donated to the Chitimachas which they claimed the French had bought it all from Spain. The treaty was no more good. Then the French started killing Indians. The Indians tried to fight back, but were no match for Frenchmen who nearly wiped out the Indians. They killed them like animals, slaughtered, murdered until a few that remained gave up. So the French took them and made slaves out of them, those able to work in the fields. The women were made servants, the young ones taken by the French as concubines. They were forced to lay with the men, as young as ten years old. There were more men than there were Indian women, so one Indian woman would satisfy the lust of five or six Frenchmen. Then half breeds were born to the Indian women. Some of us still have French names. There were only about fifty Indians escaped to Plaquemine, Weeks Island, and all about. Some of them came back here and lived pretty peaceful with the French. They populated well. By that time the Frenchmen decided that the Indian worship of the Great Spirit was wrong. They must forget their way of living and live like the Frenchmen. So they sent a missionary among the Indians to teach them their invisible God. The Indians, ready to believe anything to help their plight, believed what this man was saying. His name was St. Cosmos. He was so pleased with his work, he talked the Chief into letting him take some Indians to meet the General to show him how they had accepted the white God. So the Chief consented to let them go. He took six of the Indian braves and left. It was not known where the French army was located. Anyhow, when they got there the soldiers killed all the Indians. The priest was outdone, so to speak, so he returned to the reservation. When the Chief asked where were his men, the priest told him they were all dead, shot by the French army. The chief was so very angry, he ordered the priest killed and brought back to the French. So be it. When the French woke up the next morning, there was the dead priest. That is when all hell broke loose. The French hunted the Chitimachas down and killed everyone in sight. Some Chitimachas ran and hid all over the woods. Some went to what is now Weeks Island, some got to Plaquemine. There were about fifty Chitimachas remaining on the same land that is now the reservation. At that time, O’Reilly was governor of Louisiana. He issued a proclamation that the Indians could live there as long as they remained peaceful and that they were on their own and that parcel of land would show as a body of water on the map of Louisiana. This map can be found in the archive of the state Capitol today.