108 BUREAU OF AMEKICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Spanish Florida, they took refuge in French territory and were given 

 lands at a place on Mobile Bay, which came to be known as L'Anse 

 des Chactas and from which they were again removed to make way 

 for the new French settlement, destined to grow up into Mobile, and 

 were given lands on Dog River. After this country passed into the 

 hands of Great Britain, the Chatot moved to Louisiana and settled 

 on Bayou Boeuf , where Sibley mentions them under the name "Chac- 

 toos," calling them "aborigines of the country," which merely means 

 that they were among the earlier emigrants from the lands east of the 

 Mississippi. About 1817 we hear that they were on Sabine River, 

 but they then disappear from history, the survivors having probably 

 moved to Oklahoma and become merged with the Choctaw or one of 

 the other large nations. 



Chatot 'population. — As we have seen, the Spanish missionaries claim 

 to have baptized 300 of this tribe in 1674. Bishop Calderon gives the 

 population of the village served by San Nicolas at this time as 30 and 

 that of the San Carlos village as 100, but he probably means heads 

 of families because Governor Salazar reported the very same year 

 that there were 100 Indians at San Nicolas and 400 at San Carlos. 

 After they settled near Mobile in 1706-7 Bienville says they could 

 muster 250 men, but that in 1714 there were but 10 families and in 

 1725-26 they had become reduced to a tribe of 40 men. At about the 

 same time Du Pratz states that they occupied in the neighborhood 

 of 40 cabins. In 1805, after their removal to Louisiana, Sibley gives 

 30 men. In 1817, according to Morse, they had a total population of 

 240, a figure which is probably considerably too high. 



CHAWASHA 



A small tribe allied to the Chitimacha living in the alluvial country 

 about the mouth of the Mississippi. It was possibly Indians of this 

 tribe which the survivors of the De Soto expedition encountered in 

 1543, and who were found to be using atlatls. Their village and that 

 of the related Washa (q. v.) was on Bayou Lafourche in 1699 when 

 the colony of Louisiana was founded. Du Pratz says that they and 

 the Washa attempted to attack an English vessel under Captain Bond. 

 This had been sent to the Mississippi to uphold the claims of Daniel 

 Coxe and ascended the Mississippi as far as English Turn, where it 

 was turned back by Bienville September 15, 1699. The tribe furnished 

 40 warriors, half of the Indian contingent, to a punitive expedition 

 sent against the Chitimacha to avenge the death of the missionary 

 St. Cosme, and they acted as guides. In 1713 (or more likely 1715) a 

 party of Natchez, Chickasaw, and Yazoo made a treacherous attack 

 upon the Chawasha under guise of a peace embassy, killed the head 

 chief, and carried off 11 prisoners, including the chief's wife. This 



