Chawasha

The Chawasha lived along Bayou Lafourche in the watery lowlands of southeastern Louisiana. Their village stood near that of the related Washa when the French established their colony at the end of the seventeenth century. Bayous, marshes and the branches of the Mississippi joined their country to the Gulf of Mexico, forming a landscape of waterways and wooded lowlands.

In 1712 Bienville moved the Chawasha to the Mississippi below New Orleans. The following year a party connected to British slave traders attacked them under the guise of a peaceful visit. War, disease and colonial pressure reduced and dispersed many communities of the lower river. The Chawasha remained closely associated with the Washa, whose name was also applied to a lake in the coastal country.