Natchez revolt
The Natchez revolt, or the Natchez massacre, was an attack by the Natchez Native American people on French colonists near present-day Natchez, Mississippi, on November 28, 1729. 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. After a period of deteriorating relations and warring, Natchez leaders were provoked to revolt when the French colonial commandant, Sieur de Chépart, demanded land from a Natchez village for his own plantation near Fort Rosalie. The Natchez plotted their attack over several days and managed to conceal their plans from most of the French; colonists who overheard and warned Chépart of an attack were considered untruthful and were punished. In a coordinated attack on the fort and the homesteads, the Natchez killed almost all of the Frenchmen, while sparing most of the women and enslaved Africans. Approximately 230 colonists were killed overall, and the fort and homes were burned to the ground.
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. They first responded by ordering a massacre of the Chaouacha people – who had played no role in the revolt – and wiped out their entire village. The French and their Choctaw allies then retaliated against the Natchez villages, capturing hundreds of Natchez and selling them into slavery, although many managed to escape to the north and take refuge among the Chickasaw people. The Natchez waged low-intensity warfare against the French over the following years, but retaliatory expeditions against Natchez refugees among the Chickasaw in 1730 and 1731 forced them to move on and live as refugees among the Creek and Cherokee tribes. By 1741, the Natchez had established a town in the northern parts of the Upper Creek Nation. There, with permission from the Abihka, they reconstituted their town and were signatories in the 1790 Treaty of New York and the 1796 Treaty of Colerain. They remain a constituent tribe of the Muscogee Nation.
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. As a result, the French state returned control of Louisiana from the Company of the Indies to the crown in 1731, as the company had been having trouble running the colony. Louisiana governor Étienne Perier was held responsible for the massacre and its aftermath, and he was recalled to France in 1732.
Background
While descending the Mississippi River in 1682, Robert de La Salle became the first Frenchman to encounter the Natchez and declared them an ally. The Natchez were sedentary and lived in nine semi-autonomous villages; the French considered them the most civilized tribe of the region. By 1700 the Natchez' numbers had been reduced to about 3,500 by the diseases that ravaged indigenous populations in the wake of contact with Europeans, and by 1720 further epidemics had halved that population. Their society was strictly divided into a noble class called in French les Soleils "the Suns" and a commoner class called les Puants "the Stinkards". Between 1699 and 1702, the Natchez received the explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in peace and allowed a French missionary to settle among them. At this time, the Natchez were at war with the Chickasaw people, who had received guns from their British allies, and the Natchez expected to benefit similarly from their relationship with the French. Nonetheless, the British presence in the territory led the Natchez to split into pro-British and pro-French factions. The central village, called Natchez or the Grand Village, was led by the paramount chief Great Sun and the war chief Tattooed Serpent, both of whom were interested in pursuing an alliance with the French.First, Second, and Third Natchez Wars
The first conflict between the French and the Natchez took place in 1716, when the governor of Louisiana, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, passed through Natchez territory and neglected to renew the alliance by smoking the peace calumet. The Natchez reacted to this slight by killing four French traders. Cadillac sent his lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville to punish the Natchez. He deceived the Natchez leaders by inviting them to attend a parley, where they were ambushed and captured; he then forced the Natchez to exchange their leaders for the culprits who had attacked the French. A number of random Natchez from the pro-British villages were executed. This caused French–Natchez relations to deteriorate further. As part of the terms of the peace accord following this First Natchez War, the Natchez promised to supply labor and materials for the construction of a fort for the French.By 1717, French colonists had established Fort Rosalie and a trading post in what is now Natchez, Mississippi, seeking to protect their trade monopoly in the region from British incursions. The French also granted numerous concessions for large tobacco plantations, as well as smaller farms, on land acquired from the Natchez. Relations between Natchez and colonists were generally friendly—some Frenchmen even married and had children with Natchez women—but there were tensions. There were reports of colonists abusing Natchez, forcing them to provide labor or goods, and as more colonists arrived, their concessions gradually encroached on Natchez lands.
From 1722 to 1724, brief armed conflicts between the Natchez and French were settled through negotiations between Louisiana governor Bienville and Natchez war chief Tattooed Serpent. In 1723, Bienville was informed that some Natchez had harassed villagers, and he razed the Natchez village of White Apple and enslaved several villagers, only to discover that the alleged harassment had been faked by the colonists to frame the Natchez. One of the later skirmishes in 1724 consisted of the murder of a Natchez chief's son by a colonist, to which the Natchez responded by killing a Frenchman named Guenot. Bienville then sent French soldiers from New Orleans to attack the Natchez at their fields and settlements, and the Natchez surrendered. Their plea for peace was met following the execution of one of their chiefs by the French.
Chronicler Le Page du Pratz, who lived among the Natchez and was a close friend of Tattooed Serpent, records that he once asked his friend why the Natchez were resentful towards the French. Tattooed Serpent answered that the French seemed to have "two hearts, a good one today, and tomorrow a bad one", and proceeded to tell how Natchez life had been better before the French arrived. He finished by saying, "Before the arrival of the French we lived like men who can be satisfied with what they have, whereas today we live like slaves, who are not suffered to do as they please." The most faithful ally of the French, Tattooed Serpent died in 1725, another blow to the relations between the Natchez and the colonists.
In August 1726, the arrival of the new governor, Étienne Perier, sparked new tensions. Perier broke with Bienville's policy of diplomatic engagement with neighboring tribes, including the Natchez, and refused to recognize Native American ownership of their traditional lands. To oversee Fort Rosalie and the Natchez settlement, Perier appointed the Sieur de Chépart, who was described by as "rapacious, haughty, and tyrannical," abusing soldiers, settlers, and the Natchez alike. Perier and Chépart entered a partnership to develop a large plantation on Natchez land.
According to archaeologist Karl Lorenz, who excavated several Natchez settlements, another factor that complicated relations between the Natchez and the colonists was the fact that the French did not understand the Natchez's political structure. The French assumed that the Great Sun, the chief of the Grand Village, held sway over all other Natchez villages. In truth, each village was semi-autonomous and the Great Sun's power only extended to the villages of Flour and Tioux and not to the three pro-British villages of White Apple, Jenzenaque and Grigra. When the Great Sun died in 1728 and was succeeded by his inexperienced nephew, the pro-British villages became more powerful than the pro-French villages centered at Natchez.
Commandant Chépart
In 1728, Chépart, the commandant of Fort Rosalie, was brought to New Orleans and put on trial before the Superior Council for abuse of power. Chépart was saved from punishment, according to Horatio Bardwell Cushman, by "the interference of influential friends," and Governor Perier pardoned Chépart, restoring him to his command. Chépart returned to Fort Rosalie and continued to oppress and abuse the Indians.Looking to further his and Perier's business ambitions, Chépart told the Natchez in spring 1729 that he wished to seize land for a plantation in the center of White Apple, where the Natchez had a temple of their people's graves, planting a missionary cross on the land to indicate he was acting on Perier's orders. By this point, most of the colonists disapproved of Chépart's actions, including Jean-François-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny, a French historian who wrote that Chépart's demand marked the first time that a French colonial leader had simply claimed Natchez land as his own, without prior negotiation.
When the Natchez began to protest the seizure of their land for the plantation, Chépart said he would burn down the temple that contained their ancestors' graves. 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.