CHAPTER XI.
THE NATCHEZ, CHICKASAW, CHOCTAW AND OTHER INDIAN TRIBES.
Source: Lowry, Robert and McCardle, William H.; A History of Mississippi,
from the Discovery of the Great River by Hernando DeSoto, Including the Earliest
Settlement Made by the French Under Iberville, to the Death of Jefferson Davis
[1541-1889]. Jackson, Miss.: R. H. Henry & Co., 1891. Pages 246-258
When the French, under the command of Iberville, landed on our southern coast,
they found three large and powerful tribes of Indians inhabiting the vast
wilderness now known as the State of Mississippi. The Pascagoula, the Biloxi,
and other small and feeble tribes occupied the territory skirting the borders of
what is now recognized as the "Mississippi Sound," and along the banks of the
various streams flowing into it.
The Natchez Indians were the undisputed lords of the beautiful country embraced
within t he territorial limits of what are now known as the counties of Amite,
Wilkinson, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson and Claiborne, extending to the Big Black
river. They had their principal towns and villages in Adams county, in the near
vicinity of the present city of Natchez.
The Natchez Indians were devout worshipers of the sun. Their traditions traced
their origin to a land near the great luminary of the world. They had been in
Mexico for centuries, were there at the landing of Cortez, and were said to have
aided that bold and ambitious leader in the conquest of the country and the
overthrow of Montezuma.
Becoming dissatisfied with the tyrannous rule of the Spaniards, they determined
to abandon a country which had been the home of their tribe for centuries, and
seek a new home and fresh hunting grounds in other lands. They moved in an
easterly direction, and finally found themselves in a ravishingly beautiful
country on the eastern shore of the great river. Here they founded their homes,
builded their towns, and erected their temples.
"Their government," says Gayarre, "was a perfect Asiatic despotism. Their
sovereign was styled the Great Sun, and on his death it was customary to
immolate in his honor a considerable number of his subjects. The subordinate
chiefs of the royal blood were called Little Suns, and when they also paid the
inevitable tribute due to nature, there was, according to their dignity and the
estimation they were held in, a proportionate and voluntary sacrifice of lives.
The poor, ignorant barbarians, who thus died for their princes, did it
cheerfully because they were persuaded that by escorting them to the world of
spirits, they would, in recompense for their devotion, be entitled to live in
eternal youth and bliss, suffering neither from cold, nor from heat, hunter,
thirst, or disease, and rioting in the full gratification of all their tastes,
desires and passions. These frequent hecacombs of human beings were one of the
causes, it is said, which contributed to the diminution of that race."
The same author furnishes the following description of the tribe: "The Natchez
were of a light mahogany complexion, with jet black hair and eyes. Their
features were extremely regular, and their expression was intelligent, open and
noble. They were tall in stature, very few being under six feet, and the
symmetry of their well proportioned limbs was remarkable. Their whole frame
presented a beautiful development of the muscles. The women were not as good
looking as the men, and were generally of the middle size."
The Natchez were quite expert in supplying their few and simple wants. Mr.
Gayarre, referring to their inventive faculty, in making implements to meet
their requirements, has this to say:
"To cut down timber, they had flint axes, ingeniously contrived, and to sever
flesh, either raw or cooked, they had knives made of a peculiar kind of
keen-edged reed, called conchac. They used for their bows the acacia wood, and
their bow-strings were made either of the bark of trees, or the skins of
animals. Their arrows, made of reed, were winged with the feathers of birds, and
when destined to kill buffaloes or deer their points were armed with sharp
pieces of gone, and particularly, of fish bone.
"The Natchez understood the art of dressing or preparing buffalo, deer and
beaver skins, and those of other animals, so as to provide themselves with very
comfortable clothing for the winter, and they used as awls for sewing, small,
thin bones, which they took from the legs of herons. Their huts were made of
rude materials, such as rough timber and a combination of mud, sand and Spanish
moss, worked together in a solid sort of mortar and forming their walls, to
which they gave a thickness of four inches. The roofs were of intermingled grass
and reeds, so skillfully put together that these roofs would last for twenty
years without leaking. The huts were square and usually measured fifteen feet by
fifteen; some, however, such as those of the chiefs, were thirty feet square,
and even more. They had no other aperture for egress or ingress, or for
admitting light than a door which generally was two feet wide by four in height.
The frames of the beds of the Natchez, which were two feet from the flower, were
of wood, but the inside was of a soft and elastic texture of plaited or woven
reeds; and those unsophisticated sons of nature had, the rest during the day,
nothing but hard and low wooden seats, without backs to lean against.
"Their agriculture, before they became acquainted with the French, who taught
them the use of wheat and flour, was limited to the cultivation of corn, which
they knew how to grind with a wooden apparatus. Their women had arrived at
considerable proficiency in the manufacturing of earthenware, and they made all
sorts of pots, pitchers, bottles, bowls, dishes and plates bearing designs,
among which it is pretended that Grecian letters and Hebrew characters are
plainly to be discovered. Their crockery was generally of a reddish color. They
also excelled in making sieves and winnowing fans. With the bark of the linden
or lime tree, they made very beautiful nets to catch birds or fish. They knew
how to dye skins in several colors; of those which they liked best were the
white, the yellow, the red and the black, and their taste was to use them in
alternate stripes. The skins thus dyed, particularly that of the porcupine, they
embroidered with considerable art, and the drawings were somewhat of a gothic
character. They also made bed coverings and cloaks with the bark of the mulberry
tree, and with the feathers of turkeys, ducks and geese. Like the other Indians,
the Natchez had not carried very far the science of navigation, and to cross
rivers, they had learned to scoop the trunks of trees which they shaped into
canoes. Some of their largest canoes measured forty feet in length by four in
width. They were generally made to carry twelve persons, and were exceedingly
light. These boats were propelled by the means of paddles six feet long.
"During the summer, men and women were always half naked and bare-footed, except
when traveling. They they would wear shoes, (mocasins - sic), made of the skin
of deer. For ornaments they wore rings of painted bones through their ears and
noses, and in the shape of bracelets around their arms and legs. They were also
very fond of painted glass beads, which they interwove with their hair, or
carried round their necks in the shape of collars, to which they added the teeth
of alligators, or the claws of wild beasts. These same painted glass beads they
also used in ornamenting their leather garments, and they composed with them
fanciful embroideries. The vermillion with which they painted their bodies was
one of their favorite embellishments, together with the hieroglyphic figures, or
crude heraldic devices, with which they used to impregnate their skins from head
to foot."
The Natchez had two languages, one for the use of the nobility, the other for
the sole use of the common people. The tribe was divided into three separate
classes. First came the Sovereign, the Great Sun, with his family, the Little
Sons, who comprised what was called the nobility; then followed the men of
prominence and consideration, what would be called in England, "the gentry;" the
third class embraced the common people, the lowly born, who had achieved nothing
to lift them above their fellows, and these were called in the dialect of their
tribe, "michequipy," or the "stinking."
The Yazoo Indians, a small tribe that occupied a portion of what is now known as
Yazoo county, were few in numbers, but warlike, ferocious and cruel. The last of
that tribe perished many years ago. They had not the stamina, or staying
qualities of the other powerful tribes who then occupied this vast territory,
and hence they faded rapidly away before the onward march of the white race.
The Choctaw Indians, a large and powerful tribe, were in possession of an
immense territory, extending from the lower Tombigbee in a northwesterly
direction, to the Mississippi river. The Choctaws owned nearly all of
southeastern Mississippi, much of the central portion of the State, and
nine-tenths of the "delta of the Yazoo," which embraces the most fertile and
productive soil in the world. The delta of the Yazoo is nearly as extensive in
are as the famous delta of the Nile, and is undeniably more fruitful of
productive wealth. The Yazoo delta is the home of the cotton plant, and from the
prolific soil of the delta lands cotton grows in luxuriance, yielding its wealth
producing staple in regal abundance.
The Hon. Charles Gayarre has the following in reference to the original
proprietors of the magnificent territory to which attention has just been
called:
"The Choctaws occupied a very large territory between the Mississippi and the
Tombigbee rivers, from the frontiers of the Colapisas and the Biloxis, on the
shores of lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne, up to the frontiers of the Natchez, of
the Yazoos and of the Chickasaws. They owned more than fifty important villages,
and it was said at one time, they could have brought into the field twenty-five
thousand warriors. Chacta, Chatka or Choctaw, spelling it according to the
varions pronunciations, means charming voice in the Indian dialect. It appears
that the Choctaws had a great aptitude for music and singing, hence the name
that was given to them. Very little is known about their origin, although some
writers pretend that they came from the province of Kamtschatka. It is said that
they suddenly made their appearance, and rapidly overran the whole country. That
appearance was so spontaneous that it seemed as if they had sprung up from the
earth like mushrooms. With regard to their manners, their customs and their
degree of civilization, it is sufficient to say that they had many
characteristic traits in common with other Indian nations. However, they were
much inferior to the Natchez in many respects. They had more imperfect notions
of the divinity, and were much more superstitious. They were proverbially filthy
and stupid in the estimation of all who knew them, and they were exceedingly
boastful, although notoriously less brave than any of the other red tribes.
What the Choctaws were most conspicuous for was their hatred of falsehood and
their love of truth. Tradition relates that one of their chiefs became so
addicted to the vice of lying that in disgust they drove him away from their
territory. In the now parish of Orleans, back of Gentilly, there is a tract of
land in the shape of an isthmus, projecting itself into lake Pontchartrain, not
far from the Rigolets, and terminating in what is called "pointe aux herbes," or
herb point. It was there that the exiled Choctaw chief retired with his family
and a few adherents, near a bayou which discharges itself into the lake. From
this circumstance this trace of land received, and still retains the appellation
of Chef Menteur, or "Lying Chief."
The Choctaws were the uniform friends of the French, and neither the wiles nor
the lures of the English were ever able to detach them from a people whom they
had befriended in their hour of weakness, whom they had fed when threatened with
starvation, and whose battles they had fought for many years. The French were
indebted to the Choctaws on many occasions, notably in their wars with the
Natchez and Chickasaw Indians, and in the war with their Spanish neighbors at
Pensacola.
At a later day, when the American government obtained from Spain a cession of
all the territory comprised within the present State of Mississippi, the
Choctaws transferred their friendship to the Americans, and they never swerved
in their allegiance and devotion to the cause of their new allies and friends.
One of the most conspicuous chiefs of the Choctaw nation in its latter days in
Mississippi, was Pushmataha, who was born on the soil of the State about the
year 1765. He became distinguised [sic] on the war-path before he reached the
age of twenty. Joining an expedition against the Osages, west of the Mississippi
river, he was laughed at by the elder warriors as a "boy." The Osages were soon
after defeated, after a desperate battle which lasted an entire day. Young
Pushmataha disappeared early in the fight and was seen no more during the day.
Returning at the midnight hour he was jeered at, and cowardice was openly
charged against him. The only reply he designed to make was, "let those laugh
who can show more scalps than I can," and taking from his girdle five human
scalps, he flung them at the feet of his jeering companions. These scalps were
the trophies he had won in an attack he had made single handed and alone on the
real of the enemy. This gallant feat of arms won for Pushmataha the proud title
of "The Eagle." After spending several years in Mexico, he returned to his own
tribe east of the Mississippi. He was frequently on the war-path against other
Indian tribes, and constantly added to his reputation for courage. It is related
of him when absent on a foray, that on one occasion he entered a hostile village
in Tennessee, alone one night, and with his own hand killed seven of his
enemies, set fire to the village, and effected his escape in safety and
unharmed. In the next two years he made a raid into the country of the enemies
of his nation and secured eight additional scalps as trophies of his prowess.
During the war of 1812 and 1815 with England, Pushmataha promptly declared
himself in favor of the Americans. A council of the Choctaw Nation was assembled
to consider the question on which side the Choctaws should align themselves. The
council was in session ten whole days and the discussions waxed warm. All the
chiefs and head men, save only Pushmataha and John Pitchlyn, counselled [sic]
the neutrality of the Choctaws. Until the last day of the council Pushmataha
remained silent. He then rose and said:
"The Creeks were once our friends. They have joined the English, and we must now
follow different trails. When our fathers took the hand of Washington they told
him the Choctaws would always be the friends of his people, and Pushmataha
cannot be false to their promises. I am now ready to fight against both the
English and the Creeks. I and my warriors are going to Tuscaloosa, and when you
hear from us again the Creek fort will be in ashes."
This prophecy was promptly realized. The Creeks and Seminoles had formed an
alliance and were acting in concert to the interest of England, and Pushmataha
waged a most vigorous and successful war against both, and the whites who were
much pleased with his brilliant and successful efforts against their enemies
gave him the title of "the Indian General."
In the 1824, Pushmataha visited the great White Father in Washington, where he
was received with much distinction by President Monroe, and his Secretary of
War, the Hon. John C. Calhoun. After visiting the Marquis de La Fayette, who was
then in the city as the guest of the nation, Pushmataha was taken seriously ill.
Finding that his life was drawing rapidly to a close, he expressed the desire
that he should be buried with military honors, such as became a warrior, and
that the "big guns" should be fired over his grave. His last request was
religiously complied with. He was accorded all the honors of a military funeral,
such as befitted a great chief. A processions, civil and military, of more than
a mile in length, followed the dead chief to his last resting place in the
Congressional Cemetery, and as the last honor the "big guns" were fired to
herald his approach to the happy hunting grounds of his race.
Thus perished Pushmataha, the great Choctaw warrior. Pushmataha was of humble
and lowly origin. In other words, he could not trace his lineage from a long
line of warriors, a fact, of which, like the great Napoleon, he was proud.
Napoleon, at the height of his power, exclaimed, "I am the founder of my own
dynasty," and the great Choctaw chief once said: "i had no father, no mother, no
brother, no sister. The winds howled, the rain fell, the thunder roared and the
lightning flashed; a pine tree was shivered and from its splinters Pushmataha
stepped forth with his rifle on his shoulder!"
General Andrew Jackson, who knew Pushmataha well, and who was entirely familiar
with his career, frequently expressed the opinion that the great Choctaw chief
was "the greatest and the bravest Indian" he had ever known. This was praise of
the highest character, and coming from a man who knew what he was talking about,
would have warmed the heart of the old chief could he have heard it.
A tribute of like character was paid Pushmataha by the Hon. John Randolph, of
Virginia. In the course of a eulogy pronounced on him by the eloquent Virginian,
in the Senate of the United States, Mr. Randolph declared that he "was wise in
council, eloquent in an extraordinary degree, and on all occasions and under all
circumstances, the white man's friend."
Another large and powerful tribe, the Chickasaw Indians, occupied an immense
scope of beautifully undulating territory, extending from the upper Tombigbee
due west to the Father of Waters. They also claimed a small portion of what is
now the State of Tennessee, that portion abutting upon what is now the northern
boundary of Mississippi.
The Chickasaw tribe constituted a large, powerful and warlike nation. They were
brave, cruel, implacable and bloodthirsty. They had their principal towns and
villages to what are now known as Monroe and Pontotoc counties. Their chief
towns were in the latter county, and their largest one was in the vicinity of
the present town of Pontotoc.
Gayarre has this to say of the Chickasaw Indians:
"They numbered from two to three thousand warriors, and were by far the most
warlike of all the (Louisiana) Mississippi tribes. They had numerous slaves,
well cultivated fields and large herds of cattle. They never deviated in their
attachment to the English, and they became exceedingly troublesome to the
French. With some shades of difference, they had, in the main, the irrascible
[sic] and well known attributes of the Indian character. Therefore, to pursue
the subject into further details would, perhaps, be running the danger of
falling into the dullness of monotonous and uninteresting description. Suffice
it to say, that they were the Spartans, as the Natchez were the Athenians, and
the Choctaws the Beotians of (Louisiana) Mississippi."
The remark of Mr. Gayarre, that the Chickasaws "became exceedingly troublesome
to the French," is well calculated to provoke a smile, with those who are
familiar with the fact that the Chickasaws drove back in disgrace three large
and powerful expeditions which the French sent against them. "Exceedingly
troublesome" is a fine phrase, but it does not express the several severe
defeats inflicted on the French by the Chickasaw Indians, and the loss sustained
by the arms of a La Belle France.
Col. Claiborne in his volume "Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State,"
furnishes an interesting tradition of the origin of the Choctaw and Chickasaw
Indians, which is given in his own words:
"The Choctaws believed that their ancestors came from the West. They were led by
two brothers, Chacta and Chicsa, at the head of their respective Iksas, or
clans. On their journey they followed a pole, which, guided by an invisible
hand, moved before them. Shortly after crossing the Mississippi, the pole stood
still, firmly planted in the ground, and they construed this as an augury that
here they must halt and make their homes. What connection this may have with,
and how far it has been derived from, the exodus of the Israelites, and the
"cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night," is for the curious to determine;
but the pole moving in the march before them is the oldest and best established
tradition of the Choctaws and Chickasaws.
"The two leaders concluded to reconnoitre the country. Chicsa moved first, and
ten days thereafter Chacta followed, but a tremendous snow storm had obliterated
his brother's trail and they were separated. He went southerly to Nanawayya on
the head-waters of Pearl river, about the geographical center of the State, and
the other brother, it was afterwards ascertained, settled near where Pontotoc
now stands. At the first meeting of the brothers it was determined that the two
clans should constitute separate tribes, each occupying their respective
territories, and the hunters of neither band should encroach on the territory of
the other. The present Oktibbeha and the Nusicheah, were indicated as the line
of demarkation [sic].
"The Choctaws preserve a dim tradition that, after crossing the Mississippi they
met a race of men whom they called Na-hou-lo, tall in stature and of fair
complexion, who had emigrated from the sun-rise. They had once been a mighty
people, but were then few in number, and soon disappeared after the incoming of
the Choctaws. This race of men were, according to the tradition, tillers of the
soil and peaceable. There had likewise been a race of Cannibals, who feasted on
the bodies of their enemies. They, too, were giants, and utilized the Mammoth as
their burden bearers. They kept them, closely herded, and as they devoured
everything and broke down the forests, this was the origin of the prairies.
"This Cannibal race and the Mammoth perished about the same time, by a great
epidemic. Only one of the latter escaped, who made his home for several years
near the Tombigbee. The Great Spirit struck him several times with lightning,
but he presented his head to the bolt and it glanced off. Annoyed, however, by
these attempts, he fled to Soc-te-thou-fah (the present Memphis), and at one
mighty leap cleared the river, and made his way to the Rocky Mountains.
"They have a tradition of a great drought that occurred during the early part of
the eighteenth century. Not a drop of rain fell for three years. The Noxubee and
Tombigbee rivers dried up. The forest trees perished. The elk and the buffalo,
then numerous, migrated beyond the Mississippi, and neither of those species
returned. Towards the close of the third year it began to rain, and continued
for two moons, and the Great Spirit had forgiven them.
"The Choctaws and Chickasaws had occasional conflicts, particularly after the
whites appeared in the country. The former were allies of the French. The latter
were under English control, and the rivalry of these kept the two kindred tribes
on bad terms. They had a great battle about two miles south of the present town
of West Point. There may be seen two mounds, about one hundred yards apart.
After they came to terms and erected these mounds over their dead, to the
neighboring stream they gave the name of Oka-tibbe-ha, in their dialect
'fighting' or 'bloody water.'
The Noxubee river owes its name to one of these bloody frays. Noxubee is a
corruption of Oka-nahka-shua, stinking bullet water. Thus: Oka, water; Nahka,
bullet; Shua, stinking."
The same author has this reference to the Chocchuma Indians:
"The hunters of the Chocchumas, a once powerful tribe that occupied the
Tallahatchie and Yalobusha valleys, had intruded on the Tombigbee prairies, the
hunting ground of the Chickasaws and Choctaws, and the warriors of these tribes
attacked them, slew many and cast their bodies into the river, hence the name
given to the stream.
"This, of course, caused retaliation, and a general war ensued. The Chocchumas
had once lived low down on the Yazoo river, were in alliance with the Natchez,
and had immigrated to the Tallahatchie valley about the time the Choctaws
arrived from the west. Each regarded the others as intruders. The Chocchumas
were a warlike race, and had been greatly reduced by war. They were finally
exterminated by the allied Chickasaws and Choctaws. This last battler was fought
six miles west of Belle Fontaine, on the old Grenada road, on the land now owned
by C. M. Roberts. Chulahoma (Red Fox), their most renowned warrior, resided
there with his followers. He was attached in his village, and all but a few
women and children were slain. In 1830, an old half-breed, Coleman Cole, resided
there, and claimed to be the sole surviving warrior of the Chocchuma tribe. The
decisive battle occurred at Lyon's Bluff, on the south side of Line Creek, eight
miles northeast of Starkville. This Bluff was the site of a cemetery of the
mound builders. Here the Chocchuma warriors, with many of their wives and
children were posted, and here they were besieged by the Choctaws on the south
and in front, while the Chickasaws were in position on the north side of the
creek, so there was no outlet for retreat. The siege was one protracted fight
until the last of the Chocchuma warriors fell, and then the women fought until
the most of them had perished.
"At the conclusion of this war, the victorious tribes re-established their
boundaries. Line Creek was afterwards known by the Chickasaws as Nusic-heah,
"you asleep," because on one occasion the Choctaws attacked them there when
unprepared or asleep."
These mighty tribes, the original occupants and owners of the wide domain of
Mississippi, have long since passed away from the land of their homes. The
worshippers [sic] of the sun, the fierce and warlike Natchez, have faded from
the face of the earth, and are entirely extinct. The powerful Choctaw and
Chickasaw nations have crossed the great Father of Waters, and found homes and
hunting grounds nearer the setting sun. A remnant only of the famous Choctaw
Nation, memorable for their friendship and inflexible fidelity to the white
race, are dwellers on the vast domain their fathers ruled with kingly power. A
few hundred harmless Choctaws, the owners of small farms, upon which they pay
taxes, are all that is left in Mississippi to remind one of the once powerful
Choctaw Nation, whose warriors were led to battle and to victory by their great
Chief, Pushmataha, and always on the side of the white race, their friends and
neighbors.