Natchez People

Natchez People

The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi. They spoke a language isolate that has no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek Confederacy.

The Natchez are noted for being the only Mississippian culture with complex chiefdom characteristics to have survived long into the period after the European colonization of America began. Others had generally declined a century or two before European encounter. The Natchez are also noted for having had an unusual social system of nobility classes and exogamous marriage practices. It was a strongly matrilineal society with descent reckoned along female lines, and the leadership passed from the chief, named "Great Sun", to his sister's son which ensured the chiefdom stayed within one clan. Ethnologists have not reached consensus on how the Natchez social system originally functioned, and the topic is somewhat controversial.

Around 1730, after several wars with the French, the Natchez were defeated and dispersed. Most survivors were sold by the French into slavery in the West Indies; others took refuge with other tribes, such as the Muskogean Chickasaw and Creek, and the Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee. Today, most Natchez families and communities are found in Oklahoma, where the Natchez Nation is a treaty tribe. Members are also enrolled in the federally recognized Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) nations. Two Natchez communities are recognized by the state of South Carolina.