On the cold, rainy night of October 31, 1837, the overloaded Monmouth steamboat carrying between 600 and 700 Creek (Muscogee) Indians from New Orleans to Arkansas collides violently with a sailboat being towed by another steamship. The Monmouth splits in half and sinks just north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Casualty reports vary, but it is believed the accident kills about half the Native American people aboard.
It was the deadliest pre-Civil War steamboat disaster on the Mississippi River.
All the Indians on the Monmouth were in the process of being forcibly moved from their ancestral homelands. They were part of a group of 1,500 Creeks who had traveled from Alabama to New Orleans, where they were divided among three boats, including the Monmouth. The U.S. Army had commissioned the vessels to transport them north along the Mississippi River to newly designated reservation lands.
