The Chickasaws and the Mississippi River, 1735-1795

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE A RIVER OF CONTINUITY, TRIBUTARIES OF CHANGE: THE CHICKASAWS AND THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, 1735-1795 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By DUSTIN J. MACK Norman, Oklahoma 2015 A RIVER OF CONTINUITY, TRIBUTARIES OF CHANGE: THE CHICKASAWS AND THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, 1735-1795 A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY __________________________ Dr. Joshua Piker, Chair __________________________ Dr. David Wrobel __________________________ Dr. Catherine E. Kelly __________________________ Dr. Miriam Gross __________________________ Dr. Patrick Livingood © Copyright by DUSTIN J. MACK 2015 All Rights Reserved. For Chelsey ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been completed without the help of several individuals and institutions. I want to thank my advisor Josh Piker and my entire committee David Wrobel, Catherine Kelly, Miriam Gross, and Patrick Livingood for the time and effort they have invested. The OU History Department has molded me into a historian and made much of this research possible in the form of a Morgan Dissertation Fellowship. For both I am grateful. A grant from the Phillips Fund for Native American Research of the American Philosophical Society facilitated this endeavor, as did a Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies Graduate Student Fellowship. A Bullard Dissertation Completion Award from the OU Graduate College provided financial support to see this project to fruition. A special thank you goes out to Laurie Scrivener and Jacquelyn Reese Slater at the OU Libraries, Clinton Bagley at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Christina Smith at the Natchez Trace Parkway, and Charles Nelson at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. Words seem insufficient to thank my family for the sacrifices they have made along the way. My parents, Mick and Stacey Mack, have seen me through the “first day of school” twenty-five times with unconditional love and unwavering support. I gained in-laws, Jim and Maureen Schmidt, on this journey and they too have provided steadfast encouragement. My son Jensen’s giggles and cries are the soundtrack of this work, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Finally, I am forever indebted to my wife Chelsey for making this dream come true. Her sense of humor and work ethic sustained us both during the process. Though the shortcomings are my own, we share in the success. Thank you all. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………..iv List of Table………..………..….………………………………………………vi List of Figures…………………………………………………………………..vii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………viii Introduction……………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One: Sakti Lhafa’ Okhina’.……………………………………………21 Chapter Two: Navigating the Mississippi………………………………………68 Chapter Three: “We Shall Paddle our Canoes on the Mississippi”…………….121 Chapter Four: Sakti Lhafa’……………………………………………………...175 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………225 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….237 v LIST OF TABLE Table 1 Chickasaw Migration Legends……………………………………27 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figures 1 Chickasaw Nation Map, ca. 18th century…………………………20 2 The Mississippi River Defines the Landscape…………………....37 3 Chickasaw Camp Square………………………………….............46 4 Scorpius and the Great Serpent…………………………………...56 5 Milky Way and the Great Serpent………………………………...60 6 Native Americans Making Canoes, ca. 1540……………………..86 7 Chickasaw Map, ca. 1723…………………………………...........105 8 Chickasaw Map, ca. 1737………………………………………...115 9 Course of the Mississippi River Map, ca. 1796………….....…….124 10 The Chickasaws and Louisiana Map, ca. 1764…………………...156 11 Chickasaw Bluffs Map, ca. 1765…………………………………182 12 Mississippi River at Third Chickasaw Bluff Map, ca. 1811……...186 vii ABSTRACT This project examines the relationships between the Chickasaw Indians and the Mississippi River between 1735 and 1795. Chickasaws imagined, managed, and manipulated the river in a number of ways. For them, the Mississippi was a metaphysical and physical boundary as well as a conduit. Its presence marked both time and place in their history. As the water flowed past Chickasaw Country it differentiated historical eras and demarcated the western bounds of their territory. More generally, waterways constituted a central place in the worldviews of Southeastern Native Americans. This influenced how they related to the riverine landscape and other peoples within that space. Environmental factors also determined when, where, and how Chickasaws interacted with the Mississippi River. Seasonal variation and weather conditions affected water levels, which in turn, altered resource availability and travel patterns. These became particularly important factors in the eighteenth century when colonial competition brought new people, products, and would-be empires to the Mississippi Valley. Those who built social, political, and economic relationships with the Chickasaws travelled the river unencumbered. However, Chickasaw warriors limited the mobility of their enemies, particularly at the Chickasaw Bluffs where topography and geography favored them. The Chickasaw Nation held a powerful place along the Mississippi River and used that position to its advantage. This made them valuable allies or influential adversaries for France, Britain, Spain, and the United States. Beginning to understand the connections between Chickasaw history, the riverine environment, and geopolitics gives new insight to the world in which eighteenth century Chickasaws lived. viii INTRODUCTION “Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years,” as the legend is told, until one day just as the sun was settling on the horizon, the Indians “came upon a scene beyond their imagination. It was a great river, the likes of which they had never seen before, and the unexpected sight overwhelmed them.” Recounting the Chickasaw migration legend, respected elder Reverend Jesse Humes continued, “For a long time the astonished people stood on the riverbank and stared in awe at the mighty watercourse….The homeless people saw that the kohta falaya [the sacred pole] still leaned toward the east, and they knew that ‘home’ was somewhere on the other side of the wide, wide river before them.” 1 They eventually managed to cross the expansive waterway and the people found their homeland. The migrants settled just to the east of the Mississippi River, and there they became Chickasaws. As Humes recited the tale in the mid-twentieth century, crossing the Mississippi proved a watershed moment for the Chickasaw people. The river symbolized the boundary between what once was and what was to be. It offered a new beginning, hope for the future, and a definitive physical landmark denoting their transformation. In crossing to the other side, the Chickasaws arrived home. In late 1796 esteemed headman Ugulayacabé told a story of another kind. Since their migration the Chickasaw people had called the Mississippi Sakti Lhafa’ Okhina’, 1 Reverend Jess J. Humes, as told to Robert Kingsberry, “The Legend of the Big White Dog and the Sacred Pole,” The Chickasaw Nation, https://www.chickasaw.net/Our- Nation/Culture/Beliefs/Legends.aspx (accessed 6/16/2014). 1 “meaning scored bluff waterway,” after the rock walls of the Chickasaw Bluffs.2 There, on a portion of that ground, the Chickasaw Nation had recently consented to a Spanish fort in the expectation Spain would safeguard the river and Chickasaw lands. However, Spain quickly transferred its title to the United States. According to the report of a Massachusetts newspaper, Ugulayacabé berated Spanish officials exclaiming: we had received [that land] from our fathers, and had sworn to them to preserve in the state in which the Master of breath had given it to them, and to preserve which we have shed our blood against the French, which we often refused to the English, which we had given to you over persuaded by your promises of keeping it, not only for the advantage accruing to yourselves, but as we also thereby secured to ourselves the possession of the rest and a supply of our wants, which our own industry was incapable of furnishing. In attempting to resist the worst manifestations of colonialism they had ceded part of that all-important place to the Spanish, only to be betrayed. The Americans now possessed it, and Ugulayacabé contended, “we could perceive in them the cunning of the rattlesnake, who caresses the squirrel he intends to destroy.”3The Fourth Chickasaw Bluff had been a Chickasaw stronghold along the Mississippi River, but that would not continue. The events described in these narratives bookend a transformative era in Chickasaw history. In the intervening period the Mississippi River had come to play a critical role in Chickasaw lives. People have always mythologized, identified with, and ascribed meaning to waterways.4 The Chickasaws, and other Native American polities, 2 John P. Dyson, “Chickasaw Village Names From Contact to Removal: 1540-1835,” Mississippi Archeology 38:2 (2003), 118; John P. Dyson, The Early Chickasaw Homeland (Ada, OK: Chickasaw Press, 2014), 7, 99, 154. 3 "The Talk of the Chickasaw Chiefs, At the Bluffs, represented by Ugalayacabe," MASSACHUSETTS SPY, OR WORCESTER GAZETTE, 1 November 1797, 2-3. For a different translation of this speech see Charles A. Weeks, “Of Rattlesnakes, Wolves, and Tigers: A Harangue at the Chickasaw Bluffs, 1796,” William and Mary Quarterly vol. 67, no. 3 (July, 2010), 511-513. 4 Christof Mauch

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