The American Cemetery

The American Cemetery began as the fort's own burial ground, and the people laid there were not sorted by race or class. Historians believe it occupies the second site of Fort St. Jean Baptiste, after the post moved following the 1731 Natchez attack. The oldest surviving gravestone dates from 1797. A survey by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, working with the American Cemetery Association, assessed about 2,000 markers and tombs to guide city maintenance. Accounts differ on the later name, which followed either the arrival of non-Catholic Americans or the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Natchitoches Historic District — steps away
  The riverfront blocks of the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, founded in 1714 at a Natchitoches village, with a brick-paved Front Street, Cane River frontage and the largest bousillage construction in the South.
• Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site — 0.2 mi
  A reconstruction of the 1716 French fort beside the Natchitoches village, with a palisade of nearly 2,000 pine logs, a chapel and storeroom, and living-history programs, open Wednesday to Sunday.
• Cane River Creole National Historical Park — 8.1 mi
  Oakland and Magnolia, two Cane River cotton plantations kept as they stood, told through the enslaved families who worked them, the 1864 and 1804 freedom seekers and the tenant farmers who stayed into the 1960s.
• Los Adaes State Historic Site — 12 mi
  The Spanish presidio that was the capital of Texas from 1729 to 1770, some 15 miles from French Natchitoches, now an archaeological site where Native pottery is the most abundant find.

More markers nearby

• Fort St. Jean Baptiste (1804 Transfer) — steps away
• Steel Magnolias — steps away
• Northwestern State University — steps away
• Judge Porter House — steps away