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Mississippian Indians
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* These prehistoric Native Americans, who are called Mississippian Indians by archaeologists, lived in permanent towns which were built on a fairly standard pattern. Ceremonial buildings on large four sided flat-topped mounds faced a plaza. The villagers gathered in the plaza for important events, ceremonies, and to watch various games such as stickball and chunkey. The earthen mounds were built over a period of years. Perhaps they began as a slight rise with an important building on it. After a time, the building burned. Maybe the people set it on fire because it had become infested with vermin or perhaps the grass roof caught fireaccidently.
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Originally inhabited by Mississippian Indians known as "Mound Builders" and then by Cherokees, the first non-Indians in the area were Revolutionary War (1775-83) veterans who settled there just after that war. On August 18, 1905, the state legislature established the 179-square-mile Stephens County, Georgia's 143rd, from parts of Franklin and Habersham counties. It is named for the statesman Alexander Stephens, who served in the state legislature and the U.S. Congress, as vice president of the Confederacy, and as the state's governor in the two years preceding his death.
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Mississippian Indians were more common in other parts of the Southeast and Midwest. They had a hierarchical society, with status determined by heredity or exploits in war. They were militarily aggressive and fought battles to gain and defend group prestige, territories, and favored trade and tribute networks. The surviving, often flamboyant artifacts from Mississippian Indian sites reflect the need that those individuals felt to show their status and glorify themselves.
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Links to the National Park Service's Southeastern Archeological Center web pages for prehistoric Paleo Indians, Archaic Indians,Woodland Indians, and Mississippian Indians have been added to the "Georgia Indians" page of "Georgia History" in the "General Information" section of Georgia Info. Additionally, a link has been added to the Paleo Indians of Florida web site.
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The Mississippian Indians met Hernando DeSoto when he explored North Mississippi and, traditionally, came through DeSoto County. Some scholars project that DeSoto discovered the Mississippi River west of present-day Lake Cormorant, built rafts there and crossed to Crowley's Ridge, Arkansas. The National Park Service declared a "DeSoto Corridor" from the Chickasaw Bluff (Memphis) to Coahoma County, Mississippi.
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The Mississippian culture flourished between 900 and 1300 AD, and then, as the Woodland culture before it, mysteriously declined. By the time of Europeans first recorded arrival in the Mississippi valley in 1541, the local population had ebbed for over a century. The first white men to set eyes on the Meramec in the 1670's found the area vacant of prehistoric Indians and, for the most part, historic Indians as well. The Maroa or Tamaroa tribe of Indians (probably Mississippian descendants), lived in Illinois, across from the Meramec's mouth. They knew the valley well, and acted as guides on many of the first white mining expeditions into the area, directing the French adventurers to age-old crudely worked sites of rich lead and iron deposits, and salt springs. Occasionally, mobile bands of Algonquin Indians passed through the region on hunting or marauding excursions; members of the Sac and Fox tribes came from the north; Osages from the west; and Delaware's and Shawnees from the east.
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Mississippian Indians