Natchez

Member of an American Indian people who lived along the Gulf of Mexico and the lower Mississippi river valley from AD 700 to the 1730s. Their Muskogean language is extinct. One of the Moundbuilder cultures, they had a highly developed caste or ranking system and were ruled by a chief priest called the Great Sun. In 1700 the Natchez numbered about 6,000, but conflict with French settlers brought them close to extinction by 1730. The surviving Natchez took refuge with the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creek and accompanied them to Oklahoma in the 1830s. They now live in the southern Appalachians and Oklahoma.

The Natchez were primarily farmers and grew corn, beans, and squash. Clothing was made from the bark of mulberry trees, and they were skilled potters. They lived in sun-baked mud and straw houses, either scattered as farms or built in rows around a central square in towns. The chief's house and temples were built on large, flat-topped mounds. The Grand Village (now Natchez, a city in Mississippi) was their largest ceremonial centre by the 1700s, but Emerald Mound (near Natchez) was possibly the main centre before the 17th century. Only the highest ranks lived permanently in the ceremonial centres. Natchez society was divided into nobility and commoners, each subdivided into ranks or castes. Ranking was matrilineal (inherited through the female line), but movement through the ranks could be made by marriage or performing an exceptional deed; members of the highest caste (Sun) always married members of the lowest (Stinkard). The Natchez worshipped the sun, and kept sacred fires burning in the temples. The chief, or Great Sun, was regarded as a living god, and on his death his house was burned and all his wives and members of his household were killed to accompany him to the world of spirits.

The Natchez were probably descendants of earlier moundbuilding cultures of the Mississippi Valley. Emerald Mound, the second largest in North America, was built and used between 1250 and 1700. The mounds of the Grand Village were begun in the early 13th century. By the 1700s they had established nine towns. First contact with Europeans probably took place in 1682, when the French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle came down the Mississippi River. In 1716 the French established Fort Rosalie at Natchez as the basis of a colony. Conflict between the Natchez and the settlers soon broke out, and was encouraged by the English who were fighting the French for control of North America. They revolted in 1720 and 1723, and split into pro-French and pro-English factions. When the Great Sun, who favoured the French, died in 1728, the pro-English Natchez took control. In 1729 they rebelled against the French, massacring over 200 settlers, and were almost exterminated in the subsequent retaliation. Those who did not escape were sent to the West Indies as slaves.