La Harpe's Council

Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe was born at Saint-Malo in 1683, served briefly in Philip V's Spanish army, and married a wealthy widow in Peru. He returned in 1718 as a concessionaire for the Company of the Indies and in April 1719 founded Fort Saint Louis de los Cadodaquious on the Red River, in present Bowie County, Texas. Spanish law barred trade with Texas, so he turned to exploring. His later Journal historique is not considered reliable, since many of its claims cannot be substantiated. He died on September 26, 1765.

What the plaque says

La Harpe's Council First peace council and alliance in Oklahoma between a European nation and Indian tribes held here at a Tawakoni village, by Comdt. Bernard de La Harpe on his first visit to the Arkansas River. He erected a post here carved with the coat-of-arms of the French king, on Sept. 10, 1719. This date marks beginning of French place names and trade activities in Oklahoma. Oklahoma Historical Society 72-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muscogee (Creek) Nation Council House — 21 mi
  The Muscogee (Creek) Nation's 1878 stone capitol on the Okmulgee square, where the House of Kings and House of Warriors met, lost at statehood and bought back by the Nation in 2010.
• Honey Springs Battlefield — 22 mi
  The July 17, 1863 battlefield on the Texas Road, the largest fight in Indian Territory, where Cherokee and Muscogee regiments fought on both sides and the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry held.
• Fort Gibson Historic Site — 24 mi
  The army's first post in what became Oklahoma, built at Three Forks in 1824, where removed nations arrived; deeded to the Cherokee in 1857, it later housed the Dawes Commission.
• Philbrook Museum of Art — 28 mi
  Waite Phillips's 1927 Italian villa and its Villa Lante-inspired gardens, given to Tulsa in 1938 and open as an art museum since October 1939, strong in Native American art.

More markers nearby

• Red Bird — 7.3 mi
• Koweta Mission — 10 mi
• Tullahassee — 13 mi
• Wigwam Neosho — 15 mi