Taensa. A tribe related in language and
customs to the Natchez, from whom they must have separated
shortly before the beginning of the historic period. There is
reason to think that part of the Taensa were encountered by De
Soto in 1540, but the first mention of them under their proper
name is by La Salle and his companions, who visited them in 1682
on their way to the mouth of the Mississippi. They were then
living on Lake St Joseph, an ox-bow cut-off of the Mississippi
in the present Tensas parish, Louisiana. Tonti stopped at their
villages in 1686 and 1690, and in 1698 they were visited by
Davion, La Source, and De Montigny, the last of whom settled
among them as missionary the following year. In 1700 Iberville
found him there, and the two returned together to the Natchez,
De Montigny having decided to devote his attention to that
tribe. St Cosine, who soon succeeded De Montigny among the
Natchez, considered the Taensa too
much reduced for a separate mission, and endeavored, without
success, to draw them to the Natchez. In 1706 the fear of an
attack from the Yazoo and
Chickasaw induced
the Taensa to abandon their settlements and take refuge with the
Bayogoula, whom
they soon after attacked treacherously and almost destroyed.
After they had occupied several different positions along the
Mississippi southward of the Manchac, Bienville invited them to
settle near Mobile and assigned them lands not far from his
post. They remained here many years, giving their name to Tensaw
river; but in 1764, rather than pass under the English, they
removed to Red river, in company with a number of the other
small tribes in their neighborhood. The same year, in company
with the Apalachee
and Pakana, they applied to the French commandant for permission
to settle on Bayou La Fourche; but, though it was granted,
neither they nor the Apalachee appear to have taken advantage of
it. They remained at first on Red river, but in a few years
removed to Bayou Boeuf. About the time when Louisiana passed
under control of the United States they sold these lands also
and moved to the northern end of Grand lake, where a small bayou
bears their name. As an independent tribe they have now
disappeared, though some
Chitimacha
Indians are descended from them. The Taensa were always a
comparatively small tribe. In 1698 De Montigny estimated them at
700, and two years later Iberville placed the number of their
warriors at 300, while in 1702 he assigned them 150 families, a
figure also given by St Cosine the year before. Du Pratz
(1718-34) placed the number of their cabins after their removal
to Mobile at 100, probably an overestimate. The "Little Taensas"
spoken of by Iberville were evidently the Avoyelles. In 1699 a
Taensa. Indian gave Iberville the following list of villages
belonging to his people, but most of the names are evidently in
the Mobilian trade language:
Taensas
Chaoucoula
Conchayon
Couthaougoula
Nyhougoulas
Ohytoucoulas
Talaspa
The Taensa have attained a unique interest in modern
times from an attempt of two French seminarists to introduce a
product of their own ingenuity as a grammar of the Taensa
language. The deception was exposed by Brinton in 1885, but for
a while it gave rise to a heated controversy.
