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UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Natchez Diaspora: A History of Indigenous Displacement and Survival in the Atlantic World Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/05k3f9xj Author Smyth, Edward Glenn Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ THE NATCHEZ DIASPORA: A HISTORY OF INDIGENOUS DISPLACEMENT AND SURVIVAL IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY by Edward Noel Smyth September 2016 The Dissertation of Edward Smyth is approved: _______________________________ Professor Marilyn Westerkamp, chair _______________________________ Professor Lisbeth Haas _______________________________ Associate Professor Amy Lonetree _______________________________ Associate Professor Gregory O’Malley ___________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Edward Smyth 2016 Table of Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgments vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 – Natchez and French Relations, 1682-1730s 18 Chapter 2 – Hoping to Return: Natchez Slaves in Saint Domingue 54 Chapter 3 – Negotiating Diaspora: Natchez Survival Along Chickasaw Networks 81 Chapter 4 – The Natchez Disaporic Network 118 Chapter 5 – The Natchez among the Upper Creeks, 1738-1838 139 Chapter 6 – “The End of the Natchez”? 162 Epilogue 193 Bibliography 198 iii Abstract The Natchez Diaspora: A History of A History of Indigenous Displacement and Survival in the Atlantic World Noel E. Smyth In 1731, the French colonists of Louisiana and their Native American allies defeated the Natchez after a bloody conflict and drove the Natchez survivors from their ancestral homelands. The dissertation responds to the question: what happened to the Natchez survivors after 1731? Instead of thinking about the year 1731 as an end to Natchez history, I argue that the war with the French marked the beginning of a new phase of Natchez history that is best characterized as a diaspora. Indeed, the Natchez established many new communities after 1731: some Natchez eventually settled in colonial South Carolina while others established Natchez communities among the Chickasaws, Cherokees and Creeks. This is the first project to explore Natchez history after the 1730s and it enlarges the temporal scope of Natchez history and its significance to larger colonial processes in the Atlantic World. Through the use of French and English sources, as well as Natchez oral history that I have collected by working with contemporary Natchez communities in Oklahoma and South Carolina, this project examines Natchez communities in an extended Indigenous diasporic network. This network enabled Natchez people to survive multiple colonial displacements and to establish a network of contacts with several different European and Native American populations during the eighteenth century and beyond. In tracking the diaspora, the dissertation departs from scholarship that focuses on the adaptation of Native American polities, culture, and society in response to iv European colonialism. Rather than only looking at how Natchez adapted to European colonialism, which clearly had a major impact on Natchez history, this project also examines how Natchez people responded to living with other Native American groups. The diasporic Natchez communities reveal that the Natchez adapted to changes in multiple directions, not just in response to European colonists, but also in response to their interactions with Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees. By examining how each Natchez community integrated themselves into new areas and with new peoples, the dissertation argues that the limited choices that were available to the Natchez were as much conditioned by Native American societies as European colonization. v Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank Hutke Fields and the Natchez Nation for embracing this project. Their warm invitations to participate in stick ball games and stomp dances, and the opportunity to learn about and to participate in contemporary Natchez culture has been one of the most enriching and enjoyable experiences of the dissertation. I would also like to thank Jason Baird Jackson for helping me to contact the Natchez in Oklahoma. The History Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz has been a great supporter of my project. They were the first to fund my research, which was invaluable for getting the project started. The department also provided me with funding to attend conferences throughout my graduate career. Since my dissertation research required travel to multiple archives, I am indebted to numerous institutions. The American Philosophical Society was a great boon to my research. They were kind enough to honor me with two Phillips Fund Grants for Native American Research and a Library Resident Research Fellowship. Earle Spamer and the archivists in Philadelphia made my research trip to the American Philosophical Society feel like I was visiting old friends. The Huntington Library generously offered me a Mellon Research Fellowship that allowed me to peruse the Vaudreuil Collection, an essential archive for my dissertation. Thank you to Olga Tsapina and the entire staff at the Huntington for making my time there productive and enjoyable. vi I would not have been able to do this project without the support of multiple institutions and I am grateful to have received research funds from the Center for New Racial Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University, and the International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard University. I would also like to thank the archivists at the Western History Collection at the University of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City, the Southern History Collection at the University of North Carolina, the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in Columbia, SC, and the Colonial Archives of France in Aix, France, for their support of my research and their helpfulness in locating obscure documents. In addition to the wonderful and extensive research support I have received, I am happy to thank the Institute for Humanities Research at the University of California, Santa Cruz for awarding me a one-year dissertation writing fellowship. This allowed me the time to sort through the archival material and to have the time necessary to write this dissertation. Of great importance to the dissertation has been the support of many individuals. My dissertation advisor, Marilyn Westerkamp, has been a tireless supporter of my work while also making me a better scholar by challenging me to rise to higher levels of intellectual inquiry. Her guidance and critiques have been invaluable. Gregory O’Malley’s comments and support of my dissertation have increased the quality of the final product significantly and I thank him for his sharp vii mind and caring personality. I would like to thank Amy Lonetree and Lisbeth Haas who helped me to craft a dissertation that never lost sight of the Native Americans at the center of the project. This project was strengthened by the conversations and support I received from my entire dissertation committee and it is my hope that the dissertation will reflect the hard work that they have done for me over the years. I would like also to thank Edmund Burke III who expanded my understanding of history to a global scale and his insights into colonial and world histories helped me to situate Natchez history in a larger context. I have been greatly aided by the insights and critiques of my fellow graduate students at UC Santa Cruz. In particular, the comments and support from Jeffrey Sanceri, Kelly Feinstein-Johnson, Elyse Banks and Martin Rizzo have been invaluable to my work, not to mention their friendship has sustained me throughout the process of writing a dissertation. I am indebted also to the workshop participants of the Atlantic Geographies Workshop at Miami University in 2012. I received wonderful feedback from the participants that helped me to revise and improve my chapter about Natchez slaves in Saint Domingue. I would not have been able to do the research on the Natchez slaves in the first place without the assistance of Patricia Galloway, who pointed me in the direction of doing this research and helped me to locate relevant French archives. Her willingness to share her critical knowledge of Natchez historiography and her depth of experience with the French archives was greatly appreciated. viii Finally, I want to thank my wife Kathy for her unwavering support of my research and academic goals. Without her positivity, love, and belief in me, I am not sure I would have been able to finish this project. I also want to thank my parents Linda and Trey for their love and support, and my sister Katie who dared me to dream. ix Introduction In Natchez, Mississippi, a historic marker tells visitors that the town was “First settled by the French, 1716-1729. Lasting growth came with Britain, 1763- 1779, and Spain, 1779-98. Cotton and trade made it the commercial and cultural capital of the Old South.” This plaque commemorates the diverse European history of the town but makes no mention of the original inhabitants of the land and the people after whom the town is named.