Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

“With strict propriety of language, we might call the awful catastrophe about to be particularized, a massacre, a wholesale assassination, or anything else but an accident. In some instances, and this is one of them, a reckless disregard of human life, when it leads to a fatal result, can claim no distinction, on any correct principle of law or justice, from willful and premeditated murder.” These are the words from Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory in 1856 describing the sinking of the steamboat Monmouth 19 years earlier.

In the 1830s, some 18,000 Muscogee Creek Indians were forcibly moved from Georgia and Alabama to new western lands in present-day Oklahoma. A group of 1,600 Muscogee Creeks marched in the summer of 1837 to Mobile Point, Alabama and later to Pass Christian, Mississippi. A yellow fever epidemic killed more than 100 of those Indians while they waited at the two posts. When the time came in the fall to move the survivors to the territory in the West, the U.S. Army contracted three steamboats: John Newton, Yazoo, and Monmouth. The Indians were put aboard to start their journey up the Mississippi on the night of October 27, 1837, which was the Eve of All Saints. The Monmouth was a small steamer weighing 135 tons. Her human cargo, it was said, was crammed onto the boat without regard to comfort or safety. About 700 Creeks managed to get aboard. The ship didn’t make it to its destination, nor did the over 400 Muscogee Creek Indians. The Trail of Tears, in this case, was by water, not land.

At the monthly meeting of the Natchez Historical Society, Tuesday, November 26, Ms. Yvonne Lewis Day will present “Who Will Sing My Name? The Loss of the Steamboat Monmouth.” She will illuminate the causes of the calamitous sinking of the steamboat, just north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the tragic deaths of the Muscogee/Creek Indians who were aboard. Said Ms. Day, “The wreck of the steamboat Monmouth is a tale of mystery, intrigue, and shame. The loss of 400 lives on that fateful night was the greatest death toll in a single incident on the Mississippi until the final days of the Civil War. Though my research has added new information, the story of the Monmouth remains without a final chapter, as of yet.” Her well-researched program is a poignant account of the collision and loss of the steamboat Monmouth and has received recognition from representatives of the Muscogee Creek Nation.

A recognized authority in several fields, Ms. Day is a local historian, genealogist, and a prolific writer and editor of works in the scientific and academic fields. She has been a keynote speaker or workshop leader at more than 900 local, state, national, and international conferences. Day is a native of New Orleans. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Louisiana State University, where she pursued graduate studies in linguistics. She is past president of the Baton Rouge and Louisiana genealogical and historical societies. She has been a Distinguished Speaker at the Old Governor’s Mansion (Louisiana) and keynote speaker at the Cabildo, Louisiana State Archives, Save Our Cemeteries, and Historic New Orleans Collection. In 2015, she received the Good Citizenship Medal from the Sons of the American Revolution.

The Natchez Historical Society’s meeting will occur at the Historic Natchez Foundation, 108 S. Commerce St., in Natchez. The program will begin with a social at 5:30 p.m., with the presentation at 6 p.m. All are invited, members and non-members alike, and attendance is free. The Natchez Historical Society’s programming is funded by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council through funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information, call 281-731-4433 or 601-492-3004 or send email to info@natchezhistoricalsociety.org

DAYE DEARING is a trustee of the Natchez Historical Society and chair of programming.