160 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLCKiY [Bull. 137 



The Yazoo post was also destroyed, but the conspiracy, which had still 

 wider ramifications, was able to accomplish nothing more. In January 

 a force of French troops with Choctaw allies attacked the Natchez 

 suddenly and rescued many prisoners, driving the Natchez into two 

 newly constructed forts, which they also besieged, though the Natchez 

 presently escaped across the Mississippi. In January 1731, Governor 

 Perrier advanced against the new fort of the Natchez on the present 

 Sicily Island. He induced about 400 to surrender and these were sent 

 to the West Indies as slaves, but the remainder escaped during the 

 night. Part subsequently suffered a severe defeat at the hands of St. 

 Denis and his Indian allies near Natchitoches, but the rest scattered 

 through the low lands of the Mississippi in bands, causing the French 

 great annoyance and considerable loss. Gradually, however, they 

 withdrew among the Chickasaw, who had always been in the British 

 interest, and later separated into two main bands, one of which settled 

 among the Upper Creeks while the other long maintained an inde- 

 pendent existence in the territory of the Cherokee. A third band 

 reached South Carolina and lived at a place called Four Hole Swamp. 

 In 1738 they were invited to occupy Palawana Island, but seem to have 

 remained where they were until 1744 when they left in fear of the 

 vengeance of the Catawba Indians, seven of whom they had killed. 

 Ultimately they probably united with the Cherokee band. This group 

 of Natchez and those who had joined the Creeks followed the fortunes 

 of their respective tribes when they removed to the other side of the 

 Mississippi. Those who went with the Creeks settled close to their 

 particular friends, the Abihka Indians, on the Arkansas Kiver above 

 Euf aula, and from some of them considerable vocabularies of Natchez 

 words were collected by early ethnologists, but the last speakers of the 

 Natchez tongue there appear to have died before 1890. In the Cherokee 

 Nation, however, a few miles south of Fort Gibson, are still (1940) two 

 individuals who are able to converse in the old language. Otherwise 

 the Natchez tribe may be said to be extinct, though, of course, a great 

 deal of Natchez blood flows in the veins of both Cherokee and Creeks. 



Plate 38, figure 1, shows Creek Sam, the oldest speaker of the 

 Natchez tongue in 1907, standing at the door of his cabin; plate 38, 

 figure 2, the home of Watt Sam (son of Creek Sam), my informant 

 as also of aU later workers on the Natchez language ; plate 39, figure 

 1, Nancy Taylor, one of the last speakers of the Natchez language ; plate 

 39, figure 2, Square Ground in the Greenleaf Mountains at which Watt 

 Sam was the principal medicine maker (hilis hay a) ; and plate 40, 

 figure 2, a ball ground beside the Square Ground. 



Natchez population. — In 1686 Henry de Tonti estimated that there 

 were 1,500 warriors in the Natchez Nation, and in 1699 and 1700 Iber- 

 ville and De Montigny found that they occupied from 300 to 400 



