Mississippi Natchez Indians
It was designated a national historic landmark in 1964 and opened as a museum in 1976.
Mississippi natchez indians. The grand village of the natchez indians administered by mdah contains three prehistoric native american mounds and a museum. The natchez are noted for being the only mississippian culture with complex chiefdom characteristics to have survived long into the period after the european. The museum exhibits artifacts excavated from the site and sponsors public education events and activities.
The natchez indians inhabited the site as early as ad 1200. The story ofnatchezbegins with the indigenous mound building cultures known since french occupation as the nachee or natchez indians. Today people of natchez descent live among the creek and cherokee indians.
Natchez mississippi may be best known for its antebellum mansions but the human history of the area goes back thousands of years. Undoubtedly tribes of the natchez group were encountered by de soto and his companions in 1541 43 and it is highly probable that the chief quigaltanqui who figures so prominently in the pursuit of the spaniards when they took to the mississippi was leader of the tribe in question or of one of its divisions. The grand village of the natchez indians designated a national historic landmark is maintained as a park by the mississippi department of archives and history.
When french colonizers first interacted with the natchez in the early 18th century the tribal population comprised about 6000 individuals living in nine villages between the yazoo and pearl rivers near the site of the present day city of natchez miss. According to historical and archaeological evidence the grand village was their main ceremonial center between 1682 and 1730. The natchez indians and their ancestors inhabited what is now southwest mississippi ca.
The people of the. They spoke a language with no known close relatives although it may be very distantly related to the muskogean languages of the creek confederacy. Arrival of the europeans.
Natchez north american indian tribe of the macro algonquian linguistic phylum that inhabited the east side of the lower mississippi river.