Chicaksaw Village
One of the big Tupelo-area attractions along the Natchez Trace Parkway is this collection of raised beds of grass enclosed in concrete curbs. This is, in theory, the former site of a village of Chickasaw, the native people who dominated much of the Lower Mississippi Valley in the region now called the Delta at the time of European settlement. The National Park Service created the attraction well before anybody thought about preserving a site of archeological significance, so any actual trace of the village has been landscaped over. The big concrete circles supposedly mark the foundations of a summer house, a winter house, and a fort.
My knowledge of the different tribal people who inhabited North America when the Europeans swept through is typical (which is to say virtually nonexistent), so my feelings about an Indian tribe tend to be based on how I feel about the name. I never liked the word "Chickasaw." It's not known what the Chickasaw called themselves. The word is likely an anglicized version of the name of one of the tribal leaders first encountered by early British explorers. (The Chickasaw ran into the Spanish first, but De Soto didn't bother taking names.) It probably means something like "rebel," which is ironic considering that the Chickasaw were among the most accommodating tribes of their new European neighbors. The British considered them one of the "Five Civilized Tribes," meaning the Chickasaw didn't kick up a fuss when the missionaries tried to save them.
The origin of the Chickasaw is as blurred as that of any other tribe, though consensus seems to suggest they emerged (along with the Choctaw) from the Plaquemines culture of Mississippian mound builders. They likely migrated into what would become northeastern Mississippi within a century or two of European settlement from someplace south and west. They'd built a fairly large domain by the time De Soto rampaged through, with villages spread all across northern Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and into South Carolina. They spent a century losing territory from the east to the British and then to the new Americans, and in 1830 they were rounded up and shipped to Oklahoma. Their descendants still mostly live in Oklahoma today as one of the larger surviving tribes, with 38,000 members.
Chicaksaw Village
One of the big Tupelo-area attractions along the Natchez Trace Parkway is this collection of raised beds of grass enclosed in concrete curbs. This is, in theory, the former site of a village of Chickasaw, the native people who dominated much of the Lower Mississippi Valley in the region now called the Delta at the time of European settlement. The National Park Service created the attraction well before anybody thought about preserving a site of archeological significance, so any actual trace of the village has been landscaped over. The big concrete circles supposedly mark the foundations of a summer house, a winter house, and a fort.
My knowledge of the different tribal people who inhabited North America when the Europeans swept through is typical (which is to say virtually nonexistent), so my feelings about an Indian tribe tend to be based on how I feel about the name. I never liked the word "Chickasaw." It's not known what the Chickasaw called themselves. The word is likely an anglicized version of the name of one of the tribal leaders first encountered by early British explorers. (The Chickasaw ran into the Spanish first, but De Soto didn't bother taking names.) It probably means something like "rebel," which is ironic considering that the Chickasaw were among the most accommodating tribes of their new European neighbors. The British considered them one of the "Five Civilized Tribes," meaning the Chickasaw didn't kick up a fuss when the missionaries tried to save them.
The origin of the Chickasaw is as blurred as that of any other tribe, though consensus seems to suggest they emerged (along with the Choctaw) from the Plaquemines culture of Mississippian mound builders. They likely migrated into what would become northeastern Mississippi within a century or two of European settlement from someplace south and west. They'd built a fairly large domain by the time De Soto rampaged through, with villages spread all across northern Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and into South Carolina. They spent a century losing territory from the east to the British and then to the new Americans, and in 1830 they were rounded up and shipped to Oklahoma. Their descendants still mostly live in Oklahoma today as one of the larger surviving tribes, with 38,000 members.