Saracen (Quapaw chief)

Morris S. Arnold, a 21st-century historian of colonial Arkansas, notes that while the white neighbors considered Saracen a hero, he "did not fare nearly so well among many of the Quapaws.

[1][3] François married or had a common-law union (also called "the custom of the country") with a Quapaw woman, who was mother of the boy Saracen/Sarazin.

François is recorded as formally having married Marie Lepine, an ethnic French woman, in 1752, but it is not known how long she lived.

[1] Local European-American settlers credited Saracen as a hero for having saved two white children who were kidnapped by Chickasaw from a family of trappers near Pine Bluff.

For his action, Saracen was presented the Presidential Medal by James Miller, Governor of the Arkansas Territory.

They splintered into two assemblies, those led by chief Heckaton, the traditional leader, and those who were grouped with Saracen by James Miller, Governor of the Arkansas Territory.

[7] The gravestone of Sarasen (this spelling more typical of French) at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery in Pine Bluff is inscribed, "Friend of the Missionaries.