Before Us, the Chickasaw: Their History Is Often Overlooked in the Homeland

This article and its contents were originally published by Daily Journal (a division of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal) in News at djournal.com on June 20, 2015 and is reprinted here by permission.Mark Twain said history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. Well, here's some poetry for you.Verse OneBy the 1700s on the Western part of the globe, the British Empire was in full flower, chased by France and Spain, already entrenched in Mexico. Aside from directly engaging in war, the three countries were jostling each other in the New World, establishing colonies, trading with the locals, and laying claim to the vast abundance of Native American land. Indeed, the New World was the big exploitable prize for the time.By the 1730s, settlements and forts of New France were established not only along the Gulf Coast, but extending from Eastern Canada down to the Great Lakes Region, parts of the Ohio River Valley and Missouri. While the English had considerable settlements along the Eastern Seaboard, the French seemed to be in a stronger position because of their Northern and Southern strongholds.However, in between those two poles lay a vast amount of unconquered land, an unvarnished wilderness, rich in resources and home to a large population of Native Americans with a variety of unique cultures. To gain those resources, the French determined they must take total control of the Mississippi River and the major port at its mouth. With command, they would have an easy transportation advantage, allowing them to bring in colonizing settlers and material, but also an easy and generous trade route.However, there was an impediment to that empirical aim: the indigenous people known as the Chickasaw who occupied is now the northern section of Mississippi, and parts of Alabama and Tennessee. For some time, the English had been trading with the Chickasaw, supplying them with weaponry and other materiel. And, of course, this is standard practice when any empire, be it Roman, English, or U.S., wants to expand. They enlist local folks to fight on their behalf. And so, it was the Chickasaw (and the Natchez Indians to a lesser extent) who stood in the way of the French colonial aims.It all came to a head with two battles between the French and the Chickasaw. The first, the Battle of Ogoula Tchetoka, at Chokkalissa or Old Town in northwest Tupelo, occurred on March 25, 1736. It was followed two months later May 26 with a heated battle at Ackia, around is now Lee Acres Subdivision in Tupelo.The French, aided by their Choctaw allies, a company of slaves, and 100 Swiss troops attacked the badly outnumbered Chickasaw. As battles go, it did not involve a large number of participants, but strategically the stakes could not have been higher, ultimate control of the Lower Mississippi Valley, with the intention of total destruction of the Chickasaw and Natchez Indians.With intense fighting, including an early form of hand grenades rolled out by the French which the Chickasaw promptly threw back, the French were repulsed, and eventually failed to gain control of the Mississippi. Ultimately it was the English who prevailed in the New World, but only for a short-lived 40 years before the American Revolution in 1776.Professional historians don't particularly care for the what questions regarding historical events, leaving that kind of speculation to the dilettantes, but for those who are historians by avocation, if not fetish, that kind speculation is makes history fascinating.So, if the French had defeated the Chickasaw at Lee Acres? Their march to control the Mississippi River would have been largely unimpeded. They would have moved more setders into the territory and, more than likely, would have consolidated their holdings by settling the land between the Gulf Coast and Canada.And the logical consequence of that turn of events? None of us would be here now, or, if so, would likely be speaking French. …

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