<< Our Photo Pages >> Grand Village of Natchez Indians - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in The South
Submitted by bat400 on Wednesday, 29 August 2012 Page Views: 3762
Multi-periodSite Name: Grand Village of Natchez Indians Alternative Name: Fatherland Plantation, 22-Ad-501Country: United States Region: The South Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Natchez, MS
Latitude: 31.523000N Longitude: 91.38W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
Internal Links:
External Links:
I have visited· I would like to visit
bat400 visited on 1st Oct 2011 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 3 Access: 4 Interesting site for a short visit. The mounds are reconstructions based on the footprints discovered during excavations. And the layout tells you something about the size of the village.
The small museum is worth a visit, as is a trip to the huge Emerald Mound, outside of Natchez. A comparison of the collossal Emerald Mound ceremonial site to this modest one, seemed to me to tell a lot about the devastation caused by the introduction of "Old World" disease to the Americas.
Admision to the site is free but a donation is suggested.
Andy B have visited here
Village location and three earthwork mounds built on the loess bluffs on the east side of the Mississippi River. The mound sites were much reduced by modern agriculture, and obscured by periodic floods and erosion of nearby St. Cathrine's Creek. However, excavations beginning in the 1930's revealed their footprints and the locations of numerous ceremonial and residential buildings.
The site was built in separate stages around 1200AD, mid 14th C, and early 17th C. The earliest construction is associated with the Plaquemine culture, part of the broader Mississippian culture. They were an agricultural society found in portions of what are now Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. They are known by their specific ceramic styles and more general traits of wattle and daub housing, village sites with central plazas, and ceremonial earthwork mound centers.
During the excavations in the 1930's, it was realized that the "Fatherland Plantation" site was the historic "Grand Village of the Natchez" visited by LaSalle's 1682 expedition down the Mississippi River. At the time of that expedition the "Natchez" were using this village as their ceremonial center after having abandoned the much larger Emerald Mound center. The Natchez were a confederation of autonomous villages, which appear to have reformed following the chaos caused by European diseases introduced by the DeSoto expedition in the 1540's, and the further disruption of an English colonial slave trade of native people centered farther east on the Carolina coast.
The descriptions of the Natchez society by the early French inform much of what has been deduced and hypothesized based on the archaeological record for all Mississippian cultures in the American southeast and Mississippi basin. The Natchez had a hereditary and, at that time, a largely ceremonial leader "the Great Sun", who lived in a large residence on a platform mound at the east end on the village plaza. A temple containing a charnal house and the remains of previous "Suns" was built on a platform mound at the western end of the plaza.
The competing interests of the French and English in the Mississippi Valley brought the Natchez into armed conflict with the French. In 1715 the first of several wars broke out. Many of the Natchez, including the last of the "Great Suns" were eventually captured and sold into slavery, shipped to French holdings in the West Indies. Other remnants of the Natchez people joined the historic tribes of the Chickasaws and Creeks.
The village site is maintained and protected by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The mounds seen today are reconstructions over the sites of the excavated mounds. Several reconstructions of buildings are based on historic descriptions. The site is used as a public park for the city of Natchez and is the site of an annual Powwow.
The location given is general for the site. A small museum is located on the site, adjacent to a car park,
National Historic Landmark.
National Register of Historic Places. .
Additional features of the site include a nature trail, a “Touch Table” for children, and a Visitor Center with gift shop featuring Native American crafts.
Normal hours are 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 1:30 – 5 p.m. Sunday.
Admission: free
400 Jefferson Davis Boulevard
Natchez, MS 39120
tel (601) 446-6502
fax (601) 446-6503
email [email protected]
Link to Official Web Site
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