page_title: Natchez people
section_title: French contact era
hierarchical_section_title: Natchez people / French contact era
caption_attribution_description: English: In french "Mort et Convoi du Serpent piqué" (litteraly "death and convoy of stung snake"), The funeral procession of Serpent Piqué (Tattooed Serpent) by Le Page du Pratz. Français&#160;: «&#160;Mort et Convoi du Serpent piqué&#160;», procession funéraire dans l'actuel Missouri, États-Unis, alors colonie française, en Amérique du Nord, par Le Page du Pratz
context_page_description: The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area in the Lower Mississippi Valley, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi in the United States. They spoke a language with no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek Confederacy.
  The Natchez are noted for being the only Mississippian culture with complex chiefdom characteristics to have survived long into the period after the European colonization of America began. Others had generally declined a century or two before European encounter. The Natchez are also noted for having had an unusual social system of nobility classes and exogamous marriage practices. It was a strongly matrilineal kinship society, with descent reckoned along female lines. The paramount chief named the Great Sun was always the son of the Female Sun, whose daughter would be the mother of the next Great Sun. This ensured that the chiefdom stayed under the control of the single Sun lineage. Ethnologists have not reached consensus on how the Natchez social system originally functioned, and the topic is somewhat controversial.
context_section_description: The French explored the lower Mississippi River in the late 17th century. Initial French-Natchez encounters were mixed. In 1682 René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle led an expedition down the Mississippi River. The Natchez received the party well, but when the French returned upriver, they were met by a hostile force of about 1,500 Natchez warriors and hurried away. At the time of the next French visit in the 1690s, the Natchez were welcoming and friendly. When Iberville visited the Natchez in 1700, he was given a three-day-long peace ceremony, which involved the smoking of a ceremonial pipe and a feast.
  French Catholic missionaries from Canada began to settle among the Natchez in 1698. On the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, French colonists established Biloxi in 1699 and Mobile in 1702. Early French Louisiana was governed by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and his brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, among others. Both brothers played a major role in French-Natchez relations.
  During the early 18th century, according to French sources, the Natchez lived in six to nine village districts with a population estimated at 4,000-6,000 people, and with the ability to muster 1,500 warriors. There were three village districts in the lower St. Catherine's Creek area, called Tioux, Flour, and the Grand Village of the Natchez. Three other village districts were located to the northeast, along upper St. Catherine's Creek and Fairchild's Creek, called White Apple (or White Earth), Grigra, and Jenzenaque (or Hickories). Historian James Barnett, Jr. described this dispersed leadership structure as developing in the post-epidemic years. It enabled the Natchez to conduct parallel diplomacy with the English to the east and French to the south of their homelands, but the Natchez finally suffered deeper internal divisions as a society.
  The Natchez chiefs were called Suns, and the paramount chief was called the Great Sun (Natchez: uwahšiL li∙kip). When the French arrived, the Natchez were ruled by the Great Sun and his brother, Tattooed Serpent, both hereditary positions. The Great Sun had supreme authority over civil affairs, and the Tattooed Serpent oversaw political issues of war and peace, and diplomacy with other nations. Both lived at the Grand Village of the Natchez. Lesser chiefs, mostly from the Sun royal family, presided at other Natchez villages.
   from a drawing by Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz
  The Natchez performed ritual human sacrifice upon the death of a Sun. When a male Sun died, his wives were expected to accompany him by performing ritual suicide. Great honor was associated with such sacrifice, and sometimes many Natchez chose to follow a Sun into death. For example, at the death of the Tattooed Serpent in 1725, two of his wives, one of his sisters (nicknamed La Glorieuse by the French), his first warrior, his doctor, his head servant and the servant's wife, his nurse, and a craftsman of war clubs, all chose to die with him.
  Mothers sometimes sacrificed infants in such ceremonies, an act which conferred honor and special status to the mother. Relatives of adults who chose ritual suicide were likewise honored and rose in status.  The practice of ritual suicide and infanticide upon the death of a chief existed among other Native Americans living along the lower Mississippi River, such as the Taensa.
  During the 18th century, the English and French colonies in the American southeast had a power struggle. The English colony of South Carolina had established a large trading network among the southeastern Native Americans. By 1700 it stretched west as far as the Mississippi River. The Chickasaw Indians, who lived north of the Natchez, were regularly visited by English traders and were well supplied with English trade goods. The most lucrative trade with the English involved Indian slaves. For decades the Chickasaw conducted slave raids over a wide region. Chickasaw raiders were often joined by Natchez and Yazoo warriors. The warriors raided over great distances to capture slaves from enemy tribes. For example, in 1713 a 
caption: The funeral procession of Tattooed Serpent in 1725, with retainers waiting to be sacrificed
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "A drawing by Le Page de Pratz in 1758 at the Grand Village of the Natchez showing the funeral procession of \"Serpent Pique\"(Tattooed Serpent\"), the war chief and brother of the \"Great Sun\".In the background is the Temple builoding on Mound  C. The figures to the right and left of the litter are sacrificial victims who volunnteered to go into the afterlife as retainers for the war chief and their executioners", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:10:24 06:34:18", "Image Artist": "Le Page du Pratz", "Image ExifOffset": "616", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "754", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4971", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "269", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "475"}