NATIVE AMERICANS OF
MISSISSIPPI
DID YOU KNOW?
• Missi and Sippi are Indian words meaning “Great
River.”
PREHISTORIC CULTURES
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Paleo Culture 10,000 B.C. – 8,000 B.C.
Archaic Culture 8,000 B.C. – 500 B.C.
Woodland Culture 500 B.C. – 1,000 A.D.
Mississippian Culture 1,000 A.D. – 1,600 A.D.
EARLY NATIVE AMERICANS
• Paleo
– Ice Age
– Earliest Americans crossed land bridge from Siberia into Alaska
(and downward from there)
• Archaic
– Climate warmer and drier
– Native Americans adjusted to climate and became less nomadic
• Woodland
– Highly organized societies in Mississippi and Ohio River valleys
developed
– Built burial mounds over tombs
– Moundbuilders – lived alongside rivers and streams (see slides
below)
– Villages grew larger and tied together politically
– Used bow and arrow
MISSISSIPPIAN
• built religious buildings and the homes of chiefs on
top of their flat, rectangular mounds
• Choctaw connect their early history with a mound
called Nanih Waiya [Na’-na Wai’-a] along the Pearl
River in southeastern Winston County
IN NATCHEZ
THE TEMPLE MOUND AT
WINTERVILLE
NANIH WAIYA
MOUND SITES IN MISSISSIPPI
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Bear Creek
Pharr
Owl Creek
Bynum
Winterville
Jaketown
Nanih Waiya
Pocahontas
Boyd
Emerald
Grand Village
NATIVE AMERICAN SOCIETIES
• Most of the Native American societies in Mississippi,
such as the Choula, Pascagoula, Tunica, and Biloxi,
were fairly small.
• The largest tribes were the Chickasaw, Choctaw,
and the Natchez.
• With the exception of the Biloxi, the languages of
the American Indians in Mississippi were related to
those spoken by the other tribes of the Southeast.
– The southeastern Indians, including the Cherokee and the
Creek, shared many beliefs, practices, and customs.
MISSISSIPPI TRIBES (TRIBES IN RED
INDICATE THE LARGER TRIBES)
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CHICKASAW (north Mississippi)
TAPOSA
CHAKCHIUMA
IBITOUPA
TIOU
YAZOO
HOUMA
KOROA
TUNICA
NATCHEZ (south Mississippi)
CHOCTAW (central Mississippi)
ACOLAPISSA
BILOXI
PASCAGOULA
CHOCTAW
• Connect early history with Nanih Waiya (Winston
County)
http://www.wlbt.com/story/14932810/indian-head-rockthe-rocks-of-winston-county
• Major crop: maize (corn)
• One of three largest tribes
• Choctaw Fair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5o61Gcqyw&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLB11AF31F
BFBCB784
• (Choctaw Code Talkers – Choctaw nation – not just
Mississippi)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y0mmVxxr3w
NATCHEZ
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“Great Sun” chief lived on top of mound here
Major crop: maize (corn)
One of three largest tribes
http://www.wlbt.com/story/15279745/emeraldmound-in-natchez
Archaeologists at
work near the Great
Sun’s Mound, Grand
Village of the
Natchez Indians, in
1972. The Mississippi
Department of
Archives and History
conducted
excavations at the
Grand Village in
1930, 1962, and 1972.
Photograph courtesy
of the Mississippi
Department of
Archives and History.
CHICKASAW
• Major crop: maize (corn)
• One of three largest tribes
MISSISSIPPIAN NATIVE AMERICANS
Smaller tribes: Choula, Pascagoula, Tunica, Biloxi
Larger tribes: Chickasaw, Choctaw, Natchez
Major crop: maize (corn)
Well organized and had developed ways of life that fit into
environment (HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION)
• Each village included several clans (groups of related families)
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• Punished criminals
• Protected individuals from violence
• Exogamy: practice of marrying outside the clan
• Polygyny: having more than one wife (occasionally,
a man in tribe had two wives)
• Built villages close to streams/creeks
• Religious beliefs: centered on sun and the sacred fires
(represented sun on Earth); believed in many spirits
associated with nature and animals
CHOCTAW STICK BALL
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7NoDil-c0E
SPANISH EXPLORERS
• First to visit MS
• (1539-1542) Hernando de Soto explored area
searching for gold and silver
• Attacked north of Mobile by Native Americans but NA did
not know how to fight soldiers so were defeated
• Introduced horses/hogs to America
• MAIN OUTCOME: diseases spread from Spanish to
Native Americans who had no immunity to them
• Repeatedly attacked by Native Americans
• Reached Gulf of Mexico and sailed to Mexico
• Never returned
FRENCH EXPLORERS
• Visited MS after Spaniards
• Originally settled in Quebec, Canada and explored from
there
• 1673: Louis Jolliet (trader) and Father Jacques Marquette
(missionary) sailed down MS River and reached presentday site Rosedale, MS
• Turned around when they realized that river flowed into Gulf
and not Pacific Ocean
• 1682: Rene Cavelier, de La Salle, Henri de Tonti, and
Father Membre traveled down MS River and claimed
region for France
• From 1699 to 1763, the future state of Mississippi was a
part of the French colony of Louisiana.
• During these years, the French explored the region,
established settlements and military outposts, engaged
in political and economic relations with the area’s
American Indians, and sought to establish a profitable
economy
French: built
Fort Rosalie
in 1716
(Natchez)
BRITISH MISSISSIPPI
• MS officially part of province West Florida (1763)
(included southern halves of Alabama and MS as
well as parts of Florida)
• 1783 Treaty of Paris (between US and Great
Britain…peace treaty of Revolutionary War): US
controlled southern boundary at 31 degrees north
latitude
• Spain held territory south of that line (refused to give
up Natchez District which was north of line)
• Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo (Pinckney’s Treaty) in
1795 in which it recognized the 31st parallel as the
boundary between Spanish Florida and the United States.
SETTLEMENTS
• Spain, England, and France established colonial
settlements in eastern North America
• First European settlement in MS – Ocean Springs
• Mississippi ruled first by French, then English, and finally
Spain
• Mississippi Territory - after centuries of control by several
European powers, the land that would become
Mississippi became a part of the United States at the
close of the 18th century… April 7, 1798, Congress
created the Mississippi Territory