Natchez

The Natchez group centres on the Natchez and their close kin the Taensa, peoples of the lower Mississippi Valley. Both descend from the Plaquemine culture, which raised platform mounds and farmed maize, and the Natchez spoke a language with no known relatives. The Natchez were ruled by a hereditary paramount chief, the Great Sun, whose title passed through the female line.

Hernando de Soto's expedition met a powerful chiefdom on the river in 1542. The Taensa, pressed by Chickasaw and Yazoo raids, moved to Mobile under French protection in 1715. The Natchez rose against French Fort Rosalie in 1729 and were crushed by 1731, and their captives were sold into slavery in Saint-Domingue.