Natchez revolt

The Natchez and French had lived alongside each other in the Louisiana colony for more than a decade prior to the incident, mostly conducting peaceful trade and occasionally intermarrying.

When the French in New Orleans, the colonial capital, heard the news of the massacre, they feared a general Indian uprising and were concerned that the Natchez might have conspired with other tribes.

The attack on Fort Rosalie destroyed some of the Louisiana colony's most productive farms and endangered shipments of food and trade goods on the Mississippi River.

Perier broke with Bienville's policy of diplomatic engagement with neighboring tribes, including the Natchez,[14][15] and refused to recognize Native American ownership of their traditional lands.

In response to this threat, the Natchez seemed to promise to cede the land, wrote Dumont de Montigny, but only if they were given until after the harvest to relocate their temple and graves.

Chépart agreed to give them the time in exchange for pelts, oil, poultry, and grain — a request the Natchez promised to fulfill later.

According to Le Page du Pratz, it was the Natchez female chief Tattooed Arm who attempted to alert the French of an upcoming attack led by her rivals at White Apple.

The commandant, still somewhat intoxicated from drinking the night before, was certain that the Natchez had no violent intentions, and he challenged those who had warned of an attack to prove that the rumors were accurate.

The details of the attack are mostly unknown, as chroniclers such as Le Page du Pratz, who talked with several eyewitnesses, stated that the events were "simply too horrific" to recount.

Women, children, and enslaved Africans were mostly spared; many were locked inside a house on the bluff, guarded by several warriors, from where they could see the events.

[36] A group of Yazoo people who were accompanying Commandant du Codère remained neutral during the conflict but were inspired by the Natchez revolt.

[42] Eight warriors died attacking the homestead of the La Loire des Ursins family, where the men had been able to prepare a defense against the intruding Natchez.

[36] Chépart himself was taken captive by the Natchez, who were at first unsure what to do with him, but finally decided that he should be killed by a stinkard — a member of the lowest caste in the tribe's hierarchy.

[43] Just as Governor Bienville had done with the executed Indians in 1717 and 1723, the Natchez beheaded the dead Frenchmen and brought the severed heads for the Great Sun to view.

[44] The city depended upon grain and other supplies from the Illinois settlement, and shipments up and down the Mississippi River would be threatened by the loss of Fort Rosalie.

[46] Perier ordered slaves and French troops to march downstream and massacre a small village of Chaouacha people who had played no part in the uprising in Natchez.

[49] More serious retaliation against the Natchez began late in December 1729 and January 1730, with expeditions led by Jean-Paul Le Sueur and Henri de Louboëy.

[54][55] The Natchez captured by the Choctaw and Tunica allies of the French were given over to the governor and sold into slavery, and some were publicly tortured to death in New Orleans.

The Natchez then brought gifts to Louboëy, but left their fort that night and escaped across the Mississippi River, taking enslaved Africans with them.

[57][58] The next day, Louboëy and his men burned down the abandoned Grand Village fort as the Natchez hid in the bayous along the Black River.

At the time, the Natchez had regrouped to the west, settling in the Ouachita River drainage basin and establishing a fort near present-day Sicily Island, Louisiana.

[60] Although significantly weakened by the defeat, the Natchez managed to regroup and make one last attack on the French at Fort St. Jean Baptiste in October 1731.

With reinforcements from Spain and Native American allies, the French under the fort's commander Louis Juchereau de St. Denis mounted a counter attack and defeated the Natchez.

Perier's replacement was his predecessor, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, whom the French state thought to be more experienced at dealing with the Native Americans of the region.

Bienville's army ascended the Mississippi River to the site of present-day Memphis, Tennessee, and attempted to build a military road westward toward Chickasaw villages.

[72][73] However, historians Gordon Sayre and Arnaud Balvay have pointed out that Jean-Baptiste Delaye, a militia commander in the French retaliations following the massacre, wrote in a 1730 unpublished narrative that Perier's claims were groundless, and that the Tioux, Yazoo, and other nations were not complicit and had no foreknowledge of the attack.

[76] To describe the details of the attack and its background, Dumont de Montigny and Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, the leading 18th-century historians of Louisiana, drew on information collected from French women taken captive during the massacre.

Chateaubriand saw the Natchez Massacre as the defining moment in the history of the Louisiana colony,[82] a position consistent with the views of other 18th-century historians, such as Le Page du Pratz and Dumont de Montigny.

[83][84] The 19th-century Louisiana historian Charles Gayarré also embellished the story of a conspiracy behind the Natchez revolt, composing in his book a lengthy speech by the Great Sun in which the leader exhorted his warriors to invite the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Yazoo to join in the attack on the French.

Historian Gordon Sayre attributes this to the fact that both the French and the Natchez were defeated in colonial wars before the birth of the United States.