The Tattooed Arm & The Natchez Massacre
The 1729 Natchez Massacre was included in an 1850 panoramic painting of the Mississippi Valley by John J. Egan, St. Louis Art Museum.
July 2023In the early 1700s, a powerful woman chieftain of the Natchez tribe – Tattooed Arm – was unable to prevent an attack on the French Fort Rosalie, with disastrous consequences for her people.
– by Frank Perez
If Native history is mentioned at all in French Quarter walking tours, it’s usually in reference to the attack on the French settlement of Fort Rosalie in 1729—the Natchez Massacre, as it’s often called.
What typically follows is a dramatic tale of primitive savages filled with bloodlust murdering white settlers. Background and context are customarily left out of the account, which is unfortunate because the full story is not only fascinating, but also sheds light on the surprising role of women in Natchez culture.
Scholars have described the first few centuries after initial European contact as a “Shatter Zone,” meaning the various indigenous groups of the Southeastern U.S. experienced great upheavals and profound changes resulting from epidemics for which they had no immunity and the slave trade sponsored by the British colonies’ alliance with the Chickasaws.
For the most part, indigenous groups responded to the Shatter Zone by resisting or fleeing—communal fight or flight. But the Natchez were different.
Like the Borg in Star Trek, their strategy was to absorb outsiders—and women played a key role in that absorption. Outsiders such as traders, missionaries, and even men from other tribes were married to Natchez women and expected to follow the leader of the Natchez nation—the Great Sun.
Because of their adaptability to the shifting tides of the Shatter Zone, the Natchez survived far longer than many of their counterparts who had died off or faded away. Many groups who had been decimated and displaced were assimilated into Natchez villages and culture. By the time Louisiana was being colonized by the French in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Natchez nation was the last of the great Mississippian chiefdoms.
Women played a key role in Natchez society. That society was highly stratified and those at the top were called Suns. (The Natchez called themselves People of the Sun). Female Suns helped form policy toward Europeans, served as diplomats when negotiating with Europeans, and facilitated a relatively peaceful relationship with the French. This would change in the 1720s.
Drawing by Antoine Simone le Page du Pratz, from his “History of Louisiana” first published in 1758, “Femme and Fille.” Courtesy The Historic New Orleans Collection, acc. no. 1980.205.32
The life and career of one female Sun—the Tattooed Arm—illustrates the role of women in Natchez politics, and the horrific consequences that ensued when that role ended.
What little we know of her, and the Natchez in general, comes to us for the most part from the writings and drawings of Antoine Simone le Page du Pratz, a Dutchman in service to the French Crown who lived among the Natchez from 1720—1728.
The Tattooed Arm was the Great Sun’s sister, who in 1700 married a Jesuit missionary from Quebec named Jean-Francois Buisson de St. Cosme. The couple had a son who would grow up to be the last Great Sun. The royal line of the Natchez was matrilineal, and the firstborn son of the Great Sun’s sister would succeed the Great Sun upon his death.
St. Cosme married into the Natchez in an effort to convert them to Catholicism; conversely, the Tattooed Arm married St. Cosme in an effort to convert him as well. Neither was successful.
St. Cosme was eventually killed by a band of Chitimacha warriors in 1706 as he sailed down river on his way to Mobile. His son, however, would eventually side with the Natchez, become their ruler, and betray the French. It was a decision that changed history.
For 35 years after first contact, relations between the Natchez and the French were friendly and economically beneficial to both sides. In addition to being trading partners, they were also military allies. Many French immigrants married Natchez women and French Jesuits had a long established presence among the Natchez since Father Montigny first tried to convert them in the 1690s.
Native American women of the Mississippi Valley, from the journal of Dumont dit Montigny, French military officer and historian, written in France in 1747 about his experiences in Louisiana and Natchez from 1719 - 1737. Newberry Library digital collection.
Detail of drawing above. Could the markings on the woman’s body be representative of tattoos?
But these warm relations began to turn cold in 1716 when French Governor Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac snubbed the Natchez by sailing right by them without stopping to say hello on his way to the Illinois Territory to search for silver. Cadillac repeated the snub on the return trip. By not stopping at the Natchez Grand Village (essentially their capital city) to pay his respects to the Great Sun, Cadillac greatly insulted the People of the Sun.
Also contributing to the deterioration of Natchez-French relations was the infiltration of British allied Chickasaw spies/agents. One such man was Price Hughes, who urged the Natchez to expel the French and trade with the British, assuring them that Charles Town could supply everything they needed and then some. The Great Sun remained loyal to the French, but Hughes was successful in planting seeds of doubt in some of the outlying Natchez villages.
Things took a turn for the worse when the leaders of a few outlying villages murdered five French traders. Cadillac was incensed and deployed Bienville to lead an expedition against the Natchez. Bienville was renowned for his ability to get along with indigenous peoples and his charming diplomacy in general.
Bienville “captured” the Great Sun, his brother, and several other leaders and then began negotiating for the names of the murderers. During the two weeks of negotiations, Bienville shared quarters with the Stung Serpent, the Great Sun’s brother, and actually strengthened his reputation and relationship with the Natchez leadership. Nevertheless, this “conflict” is known to history as the first Natchez War.
As compensation for the murders, the Natchez agreed to construct a fort on a bluff along the banks of the Mississippi river. Fort Rosalie not only served as the seat of colonial government in the area, it also protected the French tobacco plantations, as well as communication between Illinois and Louisiana. Fort Rosalie became a magnet for hundreds of French settlers and their African slaves. Later it would become the present day city of Natchez.
Fort Rosalie was aided by the influx of Europeans to Louisiana during John Law’s recruitment efforts, which began in earnest in 1717. Cadillac had “privatized” the Louisiana colony in 1712 by turning its administration over to Antoine Crozat, but Crozat could not turn a profit and gave up the exclusive monopoly in 1717.
Law was successful in selling a lot of shares in Louisiana and in persuading Europeans to come to the colony, but his dishonest descriptions of the land and his shady banking practices caused the “Mississippi Bubble” to burst. Also, the tobacco Louisiana produced could not compete with the tobacco the British were growing in the Carolinas. As far as French colonies went, and there were many, Louisiana was among the least profitable.
Yet another incident occurred in 1722. This one also involved murder, leading to the further erosion of Natchez-French relations.. The “Second Natchez War” began with a debt dispute between a French trader and native of Apple Village. Apple was anti-French and their Village Sun frequently disagreed with the Great Sun over issues involving the French.
1722 map by Jean Baptiste Michel le Bouteu, showing Fort Rosalie, Grand Village (upper right) and Apple Village (Village de la Pome, above and left of fort). Map has been photoshopped for clarity.
The trader ultimately killed the Apple villager. In response, The French commander at Fort Rosalie reprimanded the trader, but this did not satisfy the Apple people, who began to attack nearby French settlements. The Stung Serpent, brother to the Great Sun and Bienville’s former host, managed to restore peace. When Bienville arrived with a French army, he demanded the Apple Village Sun be handed over, which he was.
The Stung Serpent died in 1725. According to tradition, when a Sun died, the Sun’s spouse was ritually killed by strangulation and it was not uncommon for close relatives to offer themselves as sacrifices. The Stung Serpent’s wife actually said it was an honor to die with her husband and before her death exhorted her people, “Walk in peace with the French” and she urged the French, “Be friends always with the Natchez.”
Not everyone condoned this ritual spousal murder. The Tattooed Arm didn’t like it at all and actually devised a plan to end the practice. Assuming the French would not allow a man of du Pratz’ stature to be killed, she offered the Dutchman her fifteen-year-old daughter for marriage, but he refused the offer.
A few years later, in 1728, the Great Sun died and the son of St. Cosme and the Tattooed Arm assumed leadership of the Natchez nation. The Tattooed Arm warned the People of the Sun, “He is young and inexperienced.” The warning was prophetic.
The following year, the commandant of Fort Rosalie, an arrogant man named Captain de Chepart, nonchalantly informed the Apple Sun he was confiscating their village in order to build a plantation and that they needed to move.
Understandably alarmed, the Apple Village Sun met with Great Sun and the Suns of the other villages to deliberate a response. In a departure from tradition, women were not included in this meeting. They decided it was time to expel the French. There would be no negotiations, no diplomacy, only violent bloodshed. They would attack Fort Rosalie and kill Captain de Chepart.
Native American dressed for summer with war club and bow and arrows, illustration by Antoine Simone le Page du Pratz, from his “History of Louisiana” first published in 1758, courtesy John Carter Brown Library.
The Natchez women were horrified and opposed the decision. The Tattooed Arm tried to warn de Chepart of the impending attack but in his haughtiness, he dismissed the warning as impossible or the rantings of a hysterical woman. The Tattooed Arm tried again, this time sending men to inform de Chepart, who arrested the informants for cowardice.
And so on the morning of November 28, 1729, several hundred warriors entered the Fort to “pay off old debts” and “borrow guns for a great hunt.” On the Great Sun’s signal, they started killing every Frenchman in sight. Most were dead within an hour. They then trapped de Chepart in his vegetable garden and let a “commoner” beat him to death. About 150 women and men were captured and made slaves. Thus began the Third (and final) Natchez War.
In January of 1730, the French, along with their Choctaw allies, attacked the Natchez and took back dozens of African slaves and nearly 50 French captives. As the fighting continued, the Natchez used the French women as scribes and diplomats. On February 27, they negotiated a truce and prevented a siege of Grand Village. Eventually the Natchez surrendered to the French on January 27, 1731.
450 women and children and 46 warriors were taken prisoner and transported to New Orleans, the Tattooed Arm among them. Once in New Orleans, du Pratz recognized her. She recounted for him the events that led to their reunion.
Governor Etienne Perier sent most of the prisoners of war to St. Domingue where they became slaves on sugar plantations. It is reasonable to assume that some of their descendants came to New Orleans nearly a century later when the long revolution on that island inundated the city with refugees.
And what of the Tattooed Arm? Did she live out her days as a slave in St. Domingue? Did she remain in New Orleans? When and where and how did she die? The answers to these questions are lost to history.
What we do know is that the Tattooed Arm, and women like her, helped pick up the pieces of the Shatter Zone and in so doing helped the Natchez survive European contact longer than most.
Recommended Reading / Citations
Du Pratz, Antoine Simon le Page. History of Louisiana. 1758.
Milne, George Edward. “Picking Up the Pieces: Natchez Coalescence in the Shatter Zone.” In Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone: The Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South, Robbie Ethridge and Sheri M. Shuck-Hall, Editors. University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15498/?r=0.249,0.097,0.655,0.51,0
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