From Chicaza to Chickasaw: The European Invasion and the Transformation of the Mississippian World, 1540–1715 (review)

At first glance, the title of this book seems to indicate a narrowly focused study of a single tribe. In reality, it is a consideration of the complicated history of two centuries of cultural evolution in what is now the southeastern United States. The thread that runs through this panoramic story is the sociocultural group known historically as the Chickasaw tribe. Ethridge masterfully introduces the many Native and European characters that played a part in the process, using primary documents and secondary works to deduce the allegiances and aims of the groups and individuals involved.

Ethridge approaches her study from an anthropological perspective. Starting with the arrival of the Hernando de Soto expedition in the interior in 1540, the competition between Spanish, French, and English colonial interests directly affected the Mississippian chiefdoms, causing turmoil and modifying Native power structures in the region. Some polities disappeared, but most of them were drawn into cycles of aggregation and shifting allegiances. Ethridge recounts these changes as they affected and altered the Chickasaw people throughout the centuries.

After a short introduction, the book offers an overview of the Mississippian cultures of the Southeast, with an emphasis on the Chicaza. The violence that ensued when the Soto expedition encountered the Chicaza was reported in the four narratives of the entrada.¹ In this section, Ethridge relies heavily on archaeological evidence, which is the only source for the prehistoric period, and can also be used to infer some of the cultural movements of later groups. Her explanation of Mississippian religious beliefs is masterful. These beliefs affected all aspects of native life, including warfare and leadership. Throughout the book, Ethridge deftly combines ethnohistorical, archaeological, and ethnological data to explain the changes that occurred in the South.

The Soto expedition and subsequent early contacts disrupted Native groups through warfare and disease, but the most profound effects were caused later by the European encouragement of commercial trade in animal skins and Indian slaves. Ethridge recounts the stunning evidence of widespread slaving among Native groups, which was especially encouraged by the English. The Chickasaws and their precursors were major participants in this system, which exacerbated population movements and power shifts in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

The story concludes with the Yamasee War in 1715. By that time, slaving had expanded in the South to reach every Native group. The Native cultural systems were drastically disrupted by dependence on European goods (especially firearms and ammunition), which ultimately facilitated increased colonization by Europeans. Ethridge’s treatment of this complicated subject is engaging and impressive.