Historical Overview
The Decades and the Villages
This paper and the "Chickasaw Villages Defined by Bead Dating" will use a decade format to describe the Chickasaw villages. The assumed start of sustained trade, 1690, will start the decade presentation.
Note that each decade has two divisions:
Historical Overview and Village Locations.
The Historical Overview introduces the decade in a worldview snapshot before providing glimpses into French colonial Louisiana, British South Carolina/Georgia colonies, British West Florida or the United States and their relations to the Chickasaw.
The Village Locations section addresses the village location provided by the primary historic sources for that decade. Where historic documents exist that provide motivation or reasons for village movements, it will be introduced in either the historical or village sections. Again, references will be attributed, and the material referenced will appear as recorded. Locations provided in the 1980 paper will be provided in the appropriate decade.
The reader should take note that most of the Indian Nations (or factions thereof) of Louisiana/South Carolina did not remain in fixed village settings during the eighteenth century. Within the Chickasaw there were at least two exodus groups or factions that left the Nation for an extended period of time. The first group settled near Fort Moore in South Carolina (SCIAD 1754-1765 420) "the Chickesaws near Fort Moore" and later near Augusta, Georgia. A second exodus group settled among the Upper Creeks and was called Breed Camp (SCIAD 1754-1765 414) by the English traders.
Confederate Indian groups joined the Chickasaw. These confederates consisted of at least splinter groups of the Napochi, Natchez, Chakchiuma, Shawnee and Choctaw. These unions served both Nations' mutual protection and through intermarriage sustained the Chickasaw loses due to wars. These confederate groups will be presented during the decades, when warranted.