The Story of the Monmouth Steamboat Tragedy” and the Months Leading Up to the 1837 Shipwreck on the Mississippi Saturday, April 12, 2025
Port Allen – The West Baton Rouge Historical Association in partnership with West Baton Rouge Museum will dedicate a historical marker on April 12 to memorialize the loss of up to 400 lives in a steamboat wreck on the Mississippi near Profit Island on October 31, 1837.
The steamboat Monmouth, headed upriver, was transporting 693 Muscogee-Creek Indians who were being forcibly removed under military escort to Oklahoma Indian Territory.
The day’s events will begin at the West Baton Rouge Museum on April 12 at 10 a.m., with a light breakfast, followed at 10:30 by two presentations comprising the 2025 Ethel Claiborne Dameron Lecture Series.
The speakers will be J.D. Colbert (Muscogee-Creek/Chickasaw) of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Yvonne Lewis Day, an award-winning Baton Rouge researcher who has spent two decades studying the Monmouth tragedy. The title of Mr. Colbert’s talk is Nene Estemerketv (“The Trail of Suffering”).
Following the speakers, dedication ceremonies will be held at 12 noon at the historic marker site 10 miles from the Museum, at the intersection of North River Road and Section Road. A reception will be held immediately afterward at nearby historic St. Mark Baptist Church, 6025 Service Road. Parking for the marker dedication and the reception will be available at the church.
The first speaker, Colbert, will focus on events leading up to the Trail of Tears, which is the historical context in which the Monmouth disaster occurred. He is a member of the Mvskoke clan, Windclan, and a native of the Coweta tribal town. He is the author of a historic fiction thriller, Between Two Fires – The Creek Murders and the Birth of the Oil Capital of the World. He has been a columnist for several indigenous publications, has written many op-eds, and contributed numerous articles to a variety of publications. He has a long and successful career in the banking and finance industry, specializing in providing services to Native American tribes.
Day’s presentation, “Who Will Sing My Name?”, continues the storyline beginning a few months in advance of the wreck and includes a vivid account of the events and principal characters involved in the Monmouth wreck and its aftermath.
Day, who is a nationally recognized expert in business communication, is a noted genealogist, historical researcher, and past president and program chair of both the Baton Rouge and Louisiana genealogical and historical societies. She has been a keynote speaker at several hundred state, national, and international conferences and has been a state and chapter officer in several lineage organizations, serving for a decade as chair of the American Indians committee.
The program is free and open to the public. It is part of the Ethel Claiborne Dameron Lecture Series, held annually in memory of the founder of the West Baton Rouge Historical Association and West Baton Rouge Museum.
The Museum is located at 845 N. Jefferson Avenue in Port Allen. For more information, call (225) 336-2422, or visit www.WestBatonRougeMuseum.org
