Natchez chiefdom

Origins

The Natchez descended from the Plaquemine culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley. Emerald Mound, one of the largest platform mounds in North America, was built from around 1250, and by the late 17th century the political centre was the Grand Village on St Catherine Creek, near the modern city of Natchez, Mississippi.

Rule and society

The Great Sun, a sacred ruler said to descend from the sun, lived on a mound facing a temple where an eternal fire burned. Society was divided into Suns, Nobles, Honoured People and commoners, and members of the upper ranks had to marry commoners, so rank shifted through the female line. When the war chief Tattooed Serpent died in 1725, wives and retainers were killed to accompany him, as described by the French settler Le Page du Pratz. The Natchez farmed maize and spoke a language isolate.

Decline and legacy

French Louisiana built Fort Rosalie in 1716. In 1729 the Natchez attacked it, killing around 230 colonists. French and Choctaw forces retaliated, and by 1731 hundreds of Natchez, including the Great Sun, had been sold into slavery in Saint-Domingue. Survivors joined the Chickasaw, Muscogee and Cherokee.