Chickasaw

The Chickasaw Indians resided in present-day northern Mississippi and western Tennessee. Their population declined from about 5,000 in 1700 to around 3,000 by midcentury, then rebounded. Their language and culture closely resembled the Choctaw Indians to their south, with whom they shared a similar history of their origins in a region west of the Mississippi River. Their first contact with Europeans most likely occurred in 1541, when Spaniard Hernando de Soto’s military expedition encamped near their villages, sparking conflict and unleashing deadly diseases. Contact with the British and French began in the late 1600s, and the Chickasaw established a fruitful trade relationship and alliance with Britain centered around exchanging deerskins for guns and other manufactured items. Chickasaw warriors raided Choctaw villages to obtain captives for the Carolina slave market until the Choctaw also acquired guns from the French in the early 1700s.

France sought to sway Chickasaw allegiance away from Britain, but they could never supply enough trade goods to appease the Chickasaw, so they chose to wage war on them instead. France encouraged their Choctaw allies to attack the Chickasaw nearly constantly in the 18th century and even mounted two full-scale military expeditions of their own against the Chickasaw in 1736 and 1739, but both invasions failed. Despite consistent Chickasaw victory and a reputation for fierce and powerful warriors, this constant warfare threatened Chickasaw survival by unduly stressing their population numbers. They compensated by absorbing other peoples into their society. After the French war against the Natchez Indians in the late 1720s, hundreds of Natchez people fled to live among the Chickasaw. In addition, the Chickasaw readily adopted British fur traders into their families and villages. These traders ensured ready access to European trade goods, and they brought new ideas and skills as well as new bicultural children into the nation.

Although their alliance with Britain remained strong throughout the 18th century, the Chickasaw essentially used the British to obtain access to the guns and other supplies that ensured their continuing independence amidst tremendous outside pressure to succumb to foreign domination or migrate from their homeland.

Further reading: Arrell M. Gibson, The Chickasaws (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971); Mary Ann Wells, Native Land: Mississippi 1540-1798 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994).

—Greg O’Brien