Historical Overview
The Decades and the Villages - 1720 -1730
Historical Overview
The Carolinian trade losses caused by the Yamasee War took years to regain. The French in March 1721 found the Chickasaw assisted English attempting to steal the Choctaw trade (MPA III 303) again. A Choctaw/Chickasaw war was declared by Bienville in 1721 to stop Chickasaw trade intervention. For good measure, the Choctaw were incited by the French to wage the war with incentives for Chickasaw scalps and slaves (MPA III 303).
The incentives proved effective enticements for the Choctaw to war. In February 1723 Bienville (MPA III 343) reported the defeat of the Chickasaws during the winter . . . "The Choctaws whom I have stirred to activity this winter have just destroyed entirely three villages of this fierce and warlike nation who were disturbing the commerce of the river, have brought in about four hundred scalps and taken one hundred prisoners." While this 1722/3 attack was not recorded by the English, it proved devastating to the Chickasaw. Five hundred casualties or even a number approaching that would have reduced the Chickasaw considerably.
The war produced severe consequences for the Chickasaw. A group under Squirrel King (ISEUS 117) left the Nation and by 1723 settled hundreds of miles away on the Savannah River in Carolina. This was the first exodus Chickasaw group recorded.
Ultimately, Bienville and a Council of War (MPA III 458) allowed the Chickasaw/Choctaw war to end December 1724 when the French granted peace to the Chickasaw. Bienville (MPA III 538) wrote in 1726 . . . "The last Indian nation is that of the Chickasaws consisting of eight hundred men. They occupy six or seven villages. These people breathe nothing but war and are unquestionably the bravest on the continent. However the war that I have had made on them by the Choctaws has obliged them to come and ask for peace several times." Bienville felt comfortable that he had stopped the Chickasaw inroads to the Choctaw.
Because of alleged improprieties, Perrier succeeded Bienville as governor late in 1726 (MPA I 20). The peace granted by Bienville and the change in French administrations kept Louisiana relatively quiet until the end of the decade when in November 1729 it erupted in violence. The Natchez revolted (MPA I 126) against the French at Fort Rosalie where 235 French soldiers and settlers, men, women and children, were massacred. The French had nothing but revenge on their minds.
Village Locations
For several reasons we can conclude that Yaneka, Figure 1, was the village that suffered most in the Choctaw attack of 1723 mentioned above by Bienville. Yaneka was the closest village to the Choctaw as noted by Adair (Adair 1775 66) "The most southern old town, which the Chikkasah first settled, . . . they called Yaneka". The situation of Yaneka proved its undoing.
Adair (Adair 1775 282) provided the concept of barrier towns and described a Choctaw barrier town . . . "The barrier towns, which are next to the Muskohge and Chikkasah countries, are compactly settled for social defense, according to the general method of other savage nations". Yaneka was the barrier town for the Chickasaw, the most southern and therefore the closest to the Choctaw.
Note in Table 1 that Yaneka disappears from the village names, except for a one-time revival in 1755, which will be explained later. Figure 4 indicates another problem in the defense of Yaneka; there were no swamps to protect it from the south. While the village name Yaneka disappeared, its surviving people remained in South Carolina and Georgia for several decades. They eventually returned to the Nation.
Once Yaneka left its barrier position, its neighboring villages to the north became by default barrier towns. Figure 1 indicates one of these, a village area situated southwest of Shatara. With Yaneka's exodus this isolated village area became exposed to the south and Choctaw attack. This village was Adair's Hykehah, see Figure 1. We know from French records in the 1730s that Hykehah as Ackia or Aekeia, see Table 1, had moved to the north end of Adair's Chookka Phaarah. We may assume that this movement happened sometime after the 1722/3 Choctaw attack.
The Choctaw attack of 1722/3 would have consequences for all of Adair's villages of 1720, see Figure 1. All of the 1720 villages would have been forced to move and/or nucleate for protection, especially those to the south. Shatara and Phalachecho nucleated but remained on Coonewah Creek. Tuskawillao and Chookheereso moved from Coonewah Creek several miles north to Old Town. This is the same location on Figure 1, which Adair called ‘Present Settlements’.
After Yaneka fell, Adair's Chookka Phaarah moved as well, its exposed southern village component moved north perhaps as much as two miles. It would have crowded into the north end of its prairie with Hykehah.
Not only did all of the Chickasaw villages move/nucleate, but they built better defenses, including large forts. These defenses would have been supervised by the English traders who lived among them. While these activities are not recorded in this decade, they are in the next. In fact, there are descriptions of the types of forts built.