In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Indian Country to Slave Country: The Transformation of Natchez during the American Revolution
  • Brandon Layton (bio)

From 1775 to 1778, the British inhabitants of Natchez hoped that the relative isolation of their agricultural settlement on the Mississippi River would shield them from the turmoil that the American Revolution had unleashed along the Atlantic coast. As part of the British colony of West Florida, the settlers of Natchez remained nominally “loyal,” but largely out of a desire to avoid the war, not to take part in it. When the war came, however, it radically reshaped their world. The old colonial order crumbled and, with it, a system of accommodation that had maintained intercultural stability between Anglo-American settlers and neighboring Indians. In the war’s aftermath, a new social order emerged—committed foremost to the rapid expansion of plantation agriculture at the expense of peaceful relations with Indian peoples.

On the morning of February 19, 1778, the Revolution arrived at Natchez in the form of James Willing, a captain in the U.S. Navy, and his company of one hundred American volunteers. The Patriots pillaged their way down the Mississippi in early 1778 and seized Natchez without firing a shot. Although they remained in the area only five days, their raid exposed British weakness and undermined the colonists’ confidence in Britain’s ability to protect them.1 In March 1778 the British superintendent of Indian affairs in the South, John Stuart, requested aid from Britain’s Choctaw and Chickasaw allies to reinforce Natchez’s defenses. Stuart believed them “to be absolutely necessary for . . . the [End Page 27] protection and defence of the settlements at the Natchez.”2 By the end of the month, three hundred Choctaw warriors had arrived.3 When the Choctaws departed Natchez in June, chief Franchimastabé both reassured and warned the colonists: “‘In case you are threatened . . . [by] the Rebels—remember we are behind you. . . . But on the other hand should you offer to take the Rebels by the hand, or Enter into any treaty with them—Remember also that we are behind you—and that we will look on you as Virginians & treat you as Our Enemies.’”4

The Revolution pitted one element of the British empire, its Indian allies, against another, white settlers. When the Willing raid opened the question of the loyalty of the Natchez colonists, imperial officials enlisted the Choctaws and the Chickasaws to pressure the settlers into the British camp. The Choctaws offered to protect the people of Natchez, but only if they remained loyal to the British cause. The Choctaws played along with the British strategy in order to prevent the growing white Natchez population from encroaching on native territory. Although this intimidation reaffirmed the colonists’ imperial allegiance, it ultimately eroded the intercultural balance that had sustained the colonial society. The empire had established a colonial order based on mediating the needs of colonists against those of powerful Indian allies. In the wake of the Revolution, that order turned against itself, and it never recovered.5 Conflict erupted between the Choctaws and the colonists over control of the region’s valuable space. This breakdown of the colonial order transformed Natchez from an Indian world into one devoted to plantation slavery, sowing the seeds for what became the heart of the Cotton Kingdom.6 [End Page 28]

Historians often argue that the American Revolution undermined the position of Indian peoples east of the Mississippi. The new United States became far more aggressively expansionist than the British colonies had been. The United States protected the interests of its western settlers against Indians, whereas the British empire had afforded greater protection to its valuable Indian allies.7 In this respect, the transformation of Natchez reinforces a familiar narrative of native declension after the Revolution. Yet the Spanish empire, not the United States, controlled Natchez during the formative decade after the Revolution, and Spanish policy in Natchez mirrored that of the burgeoning American state.8 This similarity stemmed in part from the Spanish enlistment of American settlers, but more broadly it derived from shared historical circumstances: the breakdown of the British colonial order, the violent conflict that tore it apart, and the inability...

pdf

Share