Chitimacha

The Chitimacha lived in villages among the waterways of the Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana and spoke a language unrelated to any established family. They cultivated maize, beans and squash and travelled in canoes carved from cypress logs.

In 1707 the Chawasha joined a French expedition against them; a long war with the French, epidemics and enslavement devastated the Chitimacha and drove them from Bayou Lafourche. Some Chawasha joined them after a French massacre in 1730.