A Chickasaw village once stood here with several houses and a fort. In summer the Chickasaw lived in rectangular well-ventilated houses, and in winter they lived in round houses with plastered walls. In times of danger, warriors, women, and children sought shelter in strongly fortified stockades, and the original foundations of four of these structures survive under concrete curbing. The Chickasaw Nation, with a population of about 2000, lived in the Chickasaw Old Fields, a small natural prairie near Tupelo, Mississippi. Although their villages occupied less than 20 square miles, they claimed and hunted over a vast region in northern Mississippi and Alabama and western Tennessee and Kentucky. They were closely related to the Choctaw, Creek, Natchez, and some smaller tribes of the Mississippi River. De Soto’s followers were the first Europeans to see the Chickasaw, and fought a bloody battle with them in 1541. After ceding the last of their ancestral lands to the United States, the Chickasaw moved to Oklahoma from 1837 to 1847 and became one of the Five Civilized Tribes. After the founding of Louisiana, England and France fought four wars for control of North America from 1700 to 1763. The Chickasaw became allies of the British and opposed French expansion, remaining independent and threatening French shipping on the Mississippi. The French conquered or allied with all tribes along the Mississippi except the Chickasaw, made repeated efforts to destroy them, sent powerful forces against them in 1736 and 1740, and incited the Choctaw and others to do the same. The Chickasaw resisted successfully and remained a thorn in France’s side until France lost all its North American possessions in 1763. In 1735 Bienville ordered a French and Indian column led by Pierre d’Artaguette from Illinois to meet him near Tupelo while he led a French army joined by the Choctaws up the Tombigbee by way of Mobile. Two months before Bienville reached the Chickasaw villages on May 25, 1736, the Chickasaw had defeated and killed d’Artaguette and forced his followers to flee. Unaware of that defeat, Bienville attacked the fortified village of Ackia on May 26, 1736, was bloodily repulsed, and withdrew to Mobile, leaving the Chickasaw more dangerous than ever.
