swANTONl INDIAN' THir.KS OF TIIK LOWl'.K M ISSISSI I'I'I VAIJ.FA' 219 



(Mioiifrli ^vily liv (luMii, but |)('iliai)s he made a mislaUi' in not \vailiM<j; 

 for the ('liicfs (tf (he Natclicz towns, who had hccii sent foi' to coiiu^ 

 and smoke the jieace cahniiel with hini. As the largest. stron<>fest, 

 and proudest tribe on tlie lower course oi' tlie ri\'er, liis hasty de- 

 parture may have been taken as a sli<i:ht. Subse(iuentJy on liis retui'n 

 we know that thi'V and the Koroa assumed a hostile attitude toward 

 him. Iber\ille and HiiMixille. however, soon after the permanent 

 settlement of Louisiana, established satisfactory rehitions with the 

 tribe and for a time everythin<i' went smoothly, the most iidluential 

 part of the nation at any rate, includin<r the <ireat Sun, welcomin<^ the 

 French as allies a<rainst the frecpiently hostile Chickasaw. But 

 ahnost as rapidly as the I''rench advanced from the south English 

 traders from Carolina |)ushed towartl the Mississip])i from the north- 

 east. Some of them, as we have seen," reached the Quaj)aw as eai'ly 

 as 1700, while their establishments among the Chickasaw' must have 

 considei'ably antedated this, and the Chickasaw were almost unwaver- 

 ingly in the Knglish interest. From them English traders connnuni- 

 cated with the Yazoo and Koroa, as was well known to the French, 

 and the very year in which a mercantile establishment was located 

 among the Natchez, Penicaut records that he found three English- 

 men among them.'' The towns which seem to have received most of 

 these men Avere those of AVhite Apple, The Hickories or Jenzenac, and 

 the town of the Oris or Grigras, and it was with the people of these 

 same villages that the French had most difficulty. We know also 

 from the confession of the great Sun to Bienville that councils had 

 been held to invite the English into their towns.'' Since the great 

 chief claimed to have had no part in them, it is a fair assumption 

 that they were held by the chiefs of the three towns in question. At 

 any rate, although Penicaut believed the great Sun to have been a 

 party to the affair, inhabitants of these towns, including their chiefs, 

 were responsible for the murder of the four French royageurs in 

 1715, the innnediate occasion of the first Natchez war.'' Whether a 

 result of previous injuries or not, those hostile acts which led to the 

 second war Avere attributed to Indians of the same towns both by 

 the Tattooed-serpent and the inhabitants of the concession of St. 

 Catherine, and these towns were taxed by the great Sun to indenmify 

 the French.^ Later, in revenge for their losses, they devastated the 

 concession of St. Catherine and were in turn the special objects of the 

 attack led by Bienville, the Tattooed-serpent claiming that he had 

 been unable to restrain them. In this expedition the three villages 

 were burned and several scalps taken, including that of a Sun, while 

 to obtain terms of peace the great Sun was obliged to send Bien- 

 ville the head of Old-hair, chief of the village of White Apple.^ In 



« r. 102. "P. 193. "P. 202. " I'p. ly:;, i!J7. m'. lmi. f Pp. 214-215. 



