Avoyelles is a parish located in central eastern Louisiana on the Red River where it effectively becomes the Atchafalaya River and meets the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,693. The parish seat is Marksville. The parish was created in 1807, with the name deriving from the French name for the historic Avoyel people, one of the local Indian tribes at the time of European encounter.
The Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe, formerly known as the Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe of Louisiana, is a federally recognized tribe of primarily Tunica and Biloxi people, located in east central Louisiana. Descendants of Ofo (Siouan-speakers), Avoyel, and Choctaw are also enrolled in the tribe.
The Avoyel or Avoyelles were a small Native American tribe who at the time of European contact inhabited land near the mouth of the Red River at its confluence with the Atchafalaya River near present-day Marksville, Louisiana. The Avoyel are a member of the federally recognized Native American tribe and sovereign nation of the Tunica Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana.
The Mosopelea, or Ofo, were a Siouan-speaking Native American people who historically lived near the upper Ohio River. In reaction to Iroquois Confederacy invasions to take control of hunting grounds in the late 17th century, they moved south to the lower Mississippi River. They finally settled in central Louisiana, where they assimilated with the Tunica and the Siouan-speaking Biloxi. They spoke the Ofo language, generally classified as a Siouan language.
Sesostrie Youchigant, also known as Sam Young, was a chief of the Tunica-Biloxi tribe and the last known native speaker of the Tunica language.
The Biloxi tribe are Native Americans of the Siouan language family. They call themselves by the autonym Tanêks(a) in Siouan Biloxi language. When first encountered by Europeans in 1699, the Biloxi inhabited an area near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico near what is now the city of Biloxi, Mississippi. They were eventually forced west into Louisiana and eastern Texas. The Biloxi language--Tanêksąyaa ade--has been extinct since the 1930s, when the last known semi-speaker, Emma Jackson, died.
Avoyelles Parish School Board is a school district headquartered in Marksville, Louisiana, United States. The district serves Avoyelles Parish in south central Louisiana.
The Trudeau Landing site, also known as Tunica Village and Trudeau, is an archaeological site in Tunica, unincorporated West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, United States. It was once occupied by the Tunica tribe. Later European settlers developed it into the Trudeau Plantation.
The Tunica people are a group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, which include the Tunica ; the Yazoo; the Koroa ; and possibly the Tioux. They first encountered Europeans in 1541 – members of the Hernando de Soto expedition.
Marksville High School is a high school located in the city of Marksville, Louisiana, United States. It is a 7th through 12th grade school with 915 students enrolled.
Bordelonville is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 525.
Fifth Ward is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 800.
Earl Joseph Barbry Sr. was an American politician and Native American leader who served as the Chairman of the Tunica-Biloxi tribe from 1978 to 2013.
On November 3, 2015, Jeremy Mardis, a six-year-old boy, was killed by police in Marksville, Louisiana, in a shooting that also wounded his father, Chris Few.
Edwin Epps was an enslaver on a cotton plantation in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. Epps was the third and longest enslaver of Solomon Northup, who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841 and forced into slavery. On January 3, 1853, Northup left Epps's property and returned to his family in New York.
Samuel Bass (1807–1853) was a white Canadian abolitionist who helped Solomon Northup, author of Twelve Years a Slave, attain his freedom. Northup was a free black man from New York who was kidnapped and forced into slavery in the Deep South. At risk of injury and conviction in default of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Bass mailed letters to friends of Northup that initiated a series of events to save him.
Edwin Epps House is a Creole cottage built in 1852 in part by Solomon Northup on Bayou Boeuf near Holmesville in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. It was built for Edwin Epps, a slaveholder. The house was a "double-sided, wood frame house with one chimney, and a tin roof" of mid-sized farmers. The Edwin Epps Plantation Site, where the house originally stood, is located off of LA 1176 on Carl Hunt Road. It is one of the historic sites of Solomon Northup's enslavement on the Northup Trail.
Sue Eakin (1918–2009) was an American history professor at Louisiana State University of Alexandria. She received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and was made a Fellow of American Association of University Women. Eakin researched the story of Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, and published a version of the book that corrected historical inaccuracies.
The Tunica treasure is a group of artifacts from the Tunica-Biloxi tribe discovered in the 1960s. Their discovery led to a protracted legal battle over their ownership, and the eventual passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Horace Pierite Sr. was an American politician, farmer, trapper, and Native American leader.
United States 
Louisiana 
