Mississippi Happenings

Welcome to this week's edition of Mississippi Happenings.

My name is David Olds.

I'm your co-host and along with me is my friend and cohort, Mr.

Jim Newman.

Jim, good morning.

Good morning, Mississippi.

How's the broken arm?

You dealing better with that?

It's coming along.

It's still attached.

okay.

Well, we'll just leave it at that.

Jim, got to share something with you that I read.

This is just crazy.

This is crazy.

Okay.

And bear with me a little bit.

A Florida couple is arrested for selling tickets to heaven.

Ah yes.

In Florida, imagine that.

Tito and Amanda Watts.

were arrested a few days ago selling golden tickets to heaven to hundreds of people.

They sell the tickets on the street for $99.99 and they were told the tickets were made of
solid gold and that each ticket reserved them a spot in heaven.

Simply present the ticket at the pearly gates and you are in.

And this this this, this gets better.

Tito Watts in his statement says, I do not care what the police say.

These tickets are solid gold.

And it was Jesus who gave them to me behind the KFC and told me to sell them so I could
get some money to go to outer space.

Also the alien has a name.

And the name of the alien is Stevie, who said, if I got the cash together, he would take
me and my wife on this flying saucer to his planet that is made entirely of entirely of

drugs.

Okey-dokey.

Well, there you go.

There's your story.

Police said they confiscated over $10,000 in cash, drug

paraphernalia and a baby alligator.

I mean, you can't make this up.

Jimmy Fallon couldn't write something like this.

But anyway, ah it's good to be here.

I do want to, ah this week we're going to do something a little bit different.

ah As you know, we always talk about politics and issues of Mississippi.

uh In effect,

you know, the kitchen table issues that affect people in Mississippi.

And we're still on that, but we also want to talk a little bit, a little bit about
Mississippi history.

oh We do criticize, Jim and I do criticize Mississippi a little bit, but we also love
Mississippi.

We are Mississippians.

And there's a lot of Mississippi history that I think seems to be forgotten.

and other people think that's forgotten too, but we have a rich history with the Native
Americans.

And today, joining us, I want to introduce the CEO of the Chickasaw Inkana Foundation.

joining us this day is Mr.

Brady Davis.

Uh, Brady, it's great to have you with us.

And if I mispronounce something, please correct me.

But good to have you for this.

did perfect.

And thank you so much for the invitation.

a privilege to be here.

Good.

In going through, you know, we know what we could find in the history books and on
Wikipedia.

But if you would talk to us a little bit about the history of the Chickasaw tribe in
Mississippi and some of the things, uh basically a little bit about the history and also

about now, what's going on now as well.

Wonderful, yes.

So a great place would be starting with some oral history.

One story being the migration story.

So how do the Chickasaw people believe they came to this area?

And there were two brothers, Chiksa and Chata.

And...

their group lived Pharr in the west and after having interactions, meetings with the Hopi
or the prophets, they were instructed that they would need to move east.

And so,

they were given a sacred pole and I always uh have trouble pronouncing this uh the right
way and it is the Iti Phabasa Phalitopa which is sacred pole in Chickasaw.

and they would set this pole in the ground every evening.

In whichever way the pole was leaning, that's the way that they would travel the next day.

And so they never discuss how long that journey took, but eventually they came to a great
river, and we believe this to be the Mississippi.

And one other interesting part of that story is that they were protected on their travels
by a great white dog, uh Ophi-Tobi-Ishhto.

And that dog is held very...

sacred to the Chickasaw people today it's used in a lot of different media we'll be using
you the Chickasaw Heritage Center and there's also the White Dog Press today but you know

after they crossed the river they set the pole in the ground once more and the next day
there was some disagreement as to which way the pole was leaning

Chiksa and his followers believed that the pole was still leaning to the east while Chata
and his followers believed that the pole was standing straight and that they had found

their new home.

So the group split and Chata and his followers became the Choctaw and Chixa and his
followers became the Chickasaw.

And one interesting point of that also is that the language, you all southeastern

Indians speak a dialect of the Muskegon language family and the Chickasaw and Choctaws
language is extremely similar where they can nearly speak to each other and understand

each other quite well.

Well, when they were told to leave, I assume it was the US government.

Oh, this is in time in memoriam, oh well, very, long in the past.

You know, there's some that oh speak more than 10,000 years ago.

There's no set time of when uh that group moved from the West to the East and found their
new homeland.

So did the Chickasaw come back across the Mississippi River?

from east to west or west.

So they came across during the migration they came from the west to the east.

crossed what we believe is the Mississippi River into today, well, what is today
Mississippi.

And once they crossed into what is today Mississippi, uh Chiksa and his followers believed
that the pole was still leaning, so they continued to travel and became the Chickasaw.

And Chahta's followers believed that they had found their homeland, and so they stayed
there.

And this was...

here in Tupelo.

story.

Eventually they made their way.

So my house here in Tupelo is probably sitting on what was Native American soil.

yes, without a doubt.

Today's Tupelo, Mississippi is the heart of the historic Chickasaw homeland.

All your major settlements, uh Chucalissa, uh Kunwha, Chokka' Falaa' Longtown, Iyanaka,
which is just to the

to the south of us, all those major settlements were right here in this area from the mid
1600s through removal.

The Chickasaw are actually the first tribe that was encountered by the Desoto expedition
in the winter of 1540-1541.

as they crossed the Tombigbee River, that was a little further to the south.

We're not sure exactly where that took place, somewhere between Aberdeen, Columbus, uh
Starkville, that triangle, and between contact with the Spanish during that time in the

mid 1600s, the Chickasaw migrated up the Blackland Prairie, which is an endangered
ecological zone that ran in a crescent from part of Tennessee through northeast

Mississippi into Alabama.

And so it's known for its rolling hills, open prairie, and

home to a lot of uh unique plain species, both animals and plants.

And today it's an endangered uh ecosystem because most of it's been destroyed by
agriculture and development.

And so actually one of the largest visible areas of Blackland Prairie today that the
public can see is the Chickasaw Village site on the Natchez Trays.

Just north of Tupelo, I guess maybe 30 miles or so, an Indian burial mountains.

so Pharr Mounds is located around 30 miles to the north of Tupelo.

That is a middle woodland uh mound site.

uh Middle woodland would be somewhere around 480.

Gosh, yeah.

um ancestors to the contemporary Chickasaw.

And there's a lot of those mound sites.

uh Mississippi, if we switch gears from oral history to the archaeological record, what is
today the state of Mississippi had one of the largest, late prehistoric Mississippian

populations uh east of the Mississippi, the Mississippi Delta.

uh

had many large, late prehistoric mound sites.

And there were some in Northeast Mississippi as well.

have Owl Creek Mounds, which is down by Davis Lake.

have, of course, the Middle Woodland Complex at Pharr You have a couple of others as you
head south.

um

And then that's, once you get down to Natchez, you know, that's where you had the Natchez
Indians.

And what's unique about the Natchez Indians is that they're a language isolate.

They spoke a language unlike any of the other Musquegan languages.

And they were one of the last tribes in the Southeast practicing that late prehistoric
Mississippian tradition of mound building.

when the French encountered them.

So there's some writings out there about observations of that culture.

It's really unique.

oh

One thing we haven't tell us about your education.

mean, I know what it is, for our audience, ah how are you?

Absolutely.

uh And so I was always interested in history.

uh My grandfather would tell me stories and take me out in the woods.

And when I went to college, I discovered anthropology, specifically archaeology.

And so I studied uh

anthropology, history and political science at Middle Tennessee State University and then
moved to Mississippi in 2009 and finished my master's at uh University of Southern

Mississippi.

To the top, got a plug, Southern.

uh

There I did uh bioarchaeology, uh archaeology, some forensic anthropology that I'd also
done up in Tennessee.

And from there I was hired by Chickasaw Nation tribal government as an archaeologist and a
site manager to preserve uh

a village called Chisha' Talla'a or Post Oak Grove just west of Tupelo near County Line
Road where we're into Pontotoc.

And I was the second Chickasaw Nation employee hired in Mississippi.

Myself and one other were hired at the same time in 2012.

There was already one, an archaeologist named Dr.

Brad Lieb lives in Jackson.

And, you know, we took care of Chisha' Talla'a for a few years, but our program

began to grow exponentially.

And today there's, we have nearly 20 Chickasaw Nation employees and Inkana Foundation
employees here in the state.

And so, yes, we are building the Chickasaw Heritage Center and there's a whole history,
just with the development of

of that center itself, uh we can talk a little bit more about history or we can go into
the Inkana Foundation and the CHC if you like, whatever direction y'all want to go.

well, we do wanna go in that direction and maybe get away from the history a little bit
because I think what you're leading to is all of this is pretty history and what we could

find out.

ah Political science and anthropology, ah that's kind of, you have a wide range of uh
experience and education on this.

mean, that's, you know.

You normally don't put political science and anthropology together, but I love the way
that you did that.

Yeah, let's go ahead and talk about the uh Heritage Center and what's going on now instead
of what's in the past.

Okay, great.

Well, before we hit the Chickasaw Heritage Center, I want to just mention the Chickasaw
and Inkana Foundation for just a moment and really just kind of pick up from where I left

off with coming to Tupelo.

uh So the Chickasaw and Inkana Foundation was started in 2014.

with a mission to preserve, protect, and interpret Chickasaw history and culture here in
the historic Chickasaw homeland, which is quite large actually, all of North East

Mississippi, West Tennessee, Pharr northwestern Alabama, and just a little sliver of
southwestern Kentucky.

But as I mentioned earlier, the heart of that homeland where the majority of Chickasaws
lived up until removal is right around today's Tupelo, Mississippi.

There were some groups out towards

Holly Springs and some up in Florence, Alabama after a time.

But until about 1800, most lived in this area.

And so, as I mentioned, I started working in in Tupelo in 2012 and we were already working
on

the beginnings of a Chickasaw Heritage Center.

Now that story goes back over 40 years and I'll hit on that in a moment.

But the Chickasaw and Inkana Foundation was a vision by Chickasaw Nation's Governor
Anoatubby, to have a grassroots organization in the homeland.

that was dedicated to the preservation and protection of Chickasaw history and culture,
but also uh lead the development of a Chickasaw Heritage Center.

And so the board of the Chickasaw Onkana Foundation is made up of many Mississippi
residents as well as members in the leadership of Chickasaw Nation.

And we've worked together for a number of years.

to raise money and develop the Chickasaw Heritage Center.

The Chickasaw and Inkana Foundation, not only is spearheading the Chickasaw Heritage
Center, but we also do a lot of education and outreach programming, and we preserve and

protect endangered archaeological sites.

So we have three sites that we own and protect.

and we have multiple programs throughout the year that we put on, a lot by request.

We do some work in Shiloh, put on a little Chickasaw festival up there.

We've done small Chickasaw celebrations in cities such as Tupelo, Pontotoc, Amory, towards
Memphis.

over the years and we have multiple events that we put on in Tupelo each year, one being
Piominko Day, which oh as Jim mentioned earlier, there is a statue of Piominko, a very

famous Chickasaw leader just outside of City Hall here in Tupelo.

And what's interesting is that across the field, the plaza there, there's a statue of
Elvis as well and the statue of

Piominko was placed there before the statue of Elvis.

And so every year we do a wreath-laying ceremony and have a program.

we've recently expanded that into uh almost a small Chickasaw festival with information
tables, tools and weapons, stickball, uh crafts.

some talks and food trucks come and we've really turned it into a half a day event instead
of a two hour program.

And so we're really excited about that.

It brings a lot of families out because it's on what people traditionally call Columbus
Day, but what many first American groups call Indigenous Peoples Day.

But since 2008, the Chickasaw Nation has referred to it as Piominko Day.

And so we put on uh a first American veterans program and we also have an annual gala,
which is a major fundraiser for the Chickasaw Heritage Center.

And that's coming up in November.

uh So I believe October 13th is Piominko Day, so the second Monday in October.

And then the gala will be September, Thursday, September 13th.

oh And so to talk a little bit about the Chickasaw Heritage Center, which has been 40
years in the making.

In 1980, there was a group of individuals in the Tupelo area.

uh One being Miss Jamie Joiner, another being Miss Doyce Deas

and Jack Reed Sr.

uh made up three of the members of that group and they wanted to find a way to build a
Chickasaw museum here in the homeland and they were able to receive some money that

brought down an archaeologist from Harvard for two years and identified uh many Chickasaw
sites.

but nothing ever came out of that.

uh So the project has kind of ebbed and flowed over time.

It picked back up in 1990 when the city of Tupelo was looking at providing some land for a
Chickasaw Heritage Center in East Tupelo.

And that never materialized either.

uh

there was a large Chickasaw site unearthed in 1994 where the Pain Management Center is for
North Mississippi Medical Center.

And at that point, there were 22 burials located at that site.

And that culminated in the first repatriation of

Chickasaw ancestors to the homeland.

Those were reburied in 96 with a large ceremony.

And Governor Anoatubby provided a quote at that time mentioning that around eight years
ago, they had discussed a Chickasaw Heritage Center and that was still on the agenda and

that it's time for the Chickasaw people to have a presence in the homeland.

And so it kind of

you know, fell off a little bit for a while after that, but in the early 2000s, after the
acquisition of Chishitala by the Archaeological Conservancy, which is now managed by

Chickasaw Nation, the desire to build a Chickasaw Heritage Center uh came back up to the
surface and uh the late uh Senator Thad Cochran was able to appropriate a couple million

dollars to the Department of the Interior for some feasibility studies.

So there was a working with Department of the Interior, Chickasaw Nation, we were looking
at building a small interpretive center

that was likely going to be at the Chickasaw Village site on the Natchez Trace, which is
between McCulloch Boulevard and Jackson Street here in Tupelo.

And so that project went from around 2012 to 2015, but there was no funding ever provided
for construction.

And I remember I started my first day.

Working with the tribe was my birthday, August 12th, 2012.

uh And so not long after that, I was in some of the first meetings with the National Park
Service and the tribe discussing those plans.

and around 2015 it was decided, this is a year after the Inkana Foundation was started, in
2015 it was decided that

the Chickasaw Nation and Department of the Interior would go their separate ways and we
would look at another way of developing the Heritage Center.

And so the Chickasaw and Inkana Foundation purchased 163 acres behind the Chickasaw
Village site.

So, Gun Club Road neighborhood near the airport.

And so we purchased 163 acres.

and began the process of developing uh our own Heritage Center.

And at that time, the Department of the Interior also provided a right of way so the
access point to the Heritage Center would be off the Natchez Trace itself, which is a

rarity uh to have access to a facility such as this uh off a national park.

And so that began the

the fundraising effort and the planning for what we are seeing being constructed today
that started in 2016.

And I was over the Homeland Affairs, tribal government offices here until 2019, moved over
to the foundation in 2019 to help.

push the continued development and the fundraising for the Chickasaw Heritage Center.

We received our first $50,000 in 2019 and since then we've raised over $44 million of the
$60 million dollar project.

So we still have a little ways to go in terms of fundraising, but we have everything that
we need for phase one of the project.

so construction is broken up into two phases.

Phase one is a 10,000 square foot exhibit hall, an art gallery, gift shop, multi-purpose
room, uh a beautiful lobby atrium with very tall windows that looks to the east uh as

traditional Chickasaw structures did.

And we're restoring over 30 acres of Blackland Prairie uh right out of that window next to
a uh large open plaza there that...

Yes.

go back to where you were talking about the windows looking out east as traditional.

I didn't quite understand that.

yes, so traditional Chickasaw structures, the opening faced to the east.

Faces to the east.

Yes, that's correct.

Is that a?

ah

or lack of a better word, a religious thought.

of the rising sun.

So beginnings.

But yes, so with the restoration of the Blackland Prairie, that'll connect to the Natchez
Trace Parkway's Blackland Prairie restoration as well.

Phase two of the facility will be a full cafe and a theater.

playground and we're working on the athletic field stickball field right now.

There'll also be trails throughout the entire property that will eventually connect to the
National Scenic Trail of the Natchez Trace Parkway and if you've heard about the potential

Greenway project in the city of Tupelo we'll have uh our own access off of the Greenway
trail as well.

But one of the most interesting and personally, I believe the most vital theme of the
Chickasaw Heritage Center is that it will tell the history and culture of the Chickasaw

people through their lens, through their experience.

And so it's a heritage center.

You can call it a museum as well.

But you're learning about not only Chickasaw history, but Chickasaw culture.

Who the Chickasaw people are.

and how they see themselves in the world and their traditions.

And of course, most of that is pre-removal history and culture, uh oral histories, uh
information about...

uh

elements of culture, language.

uh

I'm trying to think of a couple of specifics.

uh Language, different types of activities and why those were important culturally.

Our warriors.

uh Different treaties.

And then also a little bit about Chickasaw dances.

And then information about how life changed through time from the

late prehistoric through the historic period.

And of course, it'll also discuss some more difficult topics such as removal itself.

But one of the interesting exhibits that I'm excited about is Chickasaw people today.

And so when people think about first Americans, they immediately think about the past.

They don't think about who these people are today.

And the unconquered and unconquerable Chickasaw Nation is a very successful tribe today
with a vibrant contemporary culture and they understand the importance of their past as

well.

One of the neat things is there's a Rosetta Stone Chickasaw.

uh And so uh there's a language revitalization program.

There's the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Oklahoma.

uh And in terms of economic developments, they have Chickasaw Nation Industries.

And of course, they have the Chickasaw Nation Department of Commerce.

And so the Chickasaw Nation itself has made great strides in

and economic development uh in Oklahoma uh where they were removed to and also beyond.

And I encourage people to do some research into Chickasaw Nation industries.

It's very interesting.

uh

concentration of Chickasaw Native Americans?

In Oklahoma?

Yeah.

North of Tulsa.

No, south of Oklahoma City.

South of Oklahoma City.

okay.

today's Chickasaw Nation runs from around Norman south to the border of Texas.

So it takes up a...

I familiar with the Indian population there.

the Muskogee Creeks are there, absolutely.

uh Yes.

earlier in the conversation, you did mention when the foundation started roughly 40 years
ago.

I think you mentioned Jack Reed Senior as one of the uh founding members, is that correct?

Yes, and uh Jack Reed Jr.

is a member of our board today.

Good.

Okay, good.

That's good to know.

We had a great conversation with Jack Reed Jr.

when we were talking about desegregation in Mississippi and how Jack Sr.

was so involved in that and the 13, 14 years it took to get desegregation in Mississippi.

So.

Jamie Joyner, who was also in that 1980s group, she is our current chairperson.

And so there's a lot of continuity through time in the families and individuals that have
been interested in helping create this center.

They say it sounds like they've just really dug in and stayed in, is uh admirable that's
for sure.

ah So you give us the 40 year history and what's going on, let me, mean, and I may have
misunderstood.

So the heritage, the Chickasaw Heritage Center,

It's up and running.

that what I just did?

okay.

Okay, thank you.

ground in June of 24.

And just a few weeks ago, the concrete pad is nearly finished and we have structural steel
framing in the phase one facility.

So we're very excited about the progress that we've made.

We'll be opening phase one in November 26.

Okay.

And one of the neat things that I haven't mentioned yet about the Heritage Center, in
terms of economic development, we're looking at $5.66 million annual economic impact,

upwards of 100,000 visitors a year.

We're creating around 25 jobs.

uh give or take one or two for phase one and we still were not 100 % sure how many will be
created throughout the whole project.

And I mentioned that this is 160 acre plus campus.

This is going to be an anchor.

not only for cultural heritage tourism, but an anchor for the community.

The property itself will be free to access.

The cost will be associated with the exhibit hall.

And then once we have the theater and the cafe, if you want something to eat.

But.

If you can name me another place in Northeast Mississippi that sits on a hundred plus
acres that will have trails, a playground, a cafe, a theater, and also an immersive

educational experience about First American history and culture, you know, it doesn't
exist.

This will be a place where

regional families, people in Tupelo, Shannon, Nettleton, Booneville, Holly Springs and
beyond come on a Saturday morning to play, to walk trails, to see an educational video, to

walk through the exhibit halls, to experience the reconstructed Chickasaw village
overlooking the Blackland Prairie.

uh I have two children.

They're 10 and 11 years old and we'll be at that site often.

one of the neat things that the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Oklahoma does is
they have a big, huge theater there, but they do Sundays, $5 for a drink and popcorn and

do a movie.

And while our theater will be smaller than that, we'll be able to put on programming like
that as well too.

And so I always, when I'm pitching this to people, I'll say, you know, my kids are 10 and
11 in the playground.

But, you know, once you get into December, when we're still wearing shorts in early
December, you can come walk the trails, get something to eat.

And, you we might have a Christmas story playing on a Sunday afternoon.

So, you you and your family can come enjoy the Chickasaw Heritage Center, learn about
Chickasaw history and culture.

enjoy a traditional meal or a contemporary meal as our cafe will have traditional
Chickasaw dishes as well as other contemporary American fare and then, you know, buy a

ticket, get a drink and some popcorn and watch a Christmas story with your family.

And so we'll be able to provide an abundance of activities, not only associated with
Chickasaw history and culture, but

family activities and areas of the center will be rentable for corporate and family
events.

And so that brings me back around to this anchor for the community, a place where families
and individuals and others can come and have a good experience.

Well, I'm excited and I live in Olive Branch, so I'm north of you, but I can see this as
number one, I'd love to bring my six grandkids to there.

know that they would enjoy it as well.

So I could see people all over Mississippi, you know, and of course, Tennessee, coming to
your facilities.

mean, it's...

It sounds like a tremendous opportunity, number one, for education.

And also, you know, to have a good time.

We all need walking trails, so.

tourism is booming in the state of Mississippi and we have civil rights, civil war, the
blues, rock and roll.

A lot of times that first American history and the depth of that history is overlooked.

so now, know, the Choctaws down in Philadelphia, they have a cultural center and they have
some other uh

amenities as well and Mississippi's two museums when that was built, you know, they have a
section on First American history too, but the Chickasaw Heritage Center will be the first

of its kind uh in terms of size and what it'll offer.

And so we're just looking to be another piece in that puzzle of cultural heritage tourism
for the state of Mississippi.

would tell us a little bit about the Chickasaw Inkana Foundation.

Yes, so the Chicksaw Inkana Foundation was started in 2014.

with a mission to preserve, protect, and interpret Chickasaw history and culture in the
historic homeland.

And of course that homeland is northeast, north Mississippi, northwest Alabama, western
Tennessee, and Pharr southwestern Kentucky.

And we preserve endangered archaeological sites.

We provide uh public outreach and education.

And then we also are pushing the Chickasaw Heritage Center.

This cultural center, Brady, just, I'm so impressed and grateful for people that have
vision uh and dreams.

And I can see that even in my own education in Kansas City, there was so much about the
Native American ah experience that was never taught.

And with this cultural center, I can see busloads of high school students weekly coming.

to learn about.

that real history of Mississippi.

I'm willing to bet that 99 % of the people don't realize that, ah I don't know if it came
up as Pharr as Tupelo, but it came awfully close, that the Gulf of Mexico extended all the

way up.

past Jackson and almost to Tupelo.

We have so much history that is not taught.

And I think that that is part of the problem we're facing today.

You've got a degree in political science, you may agree or disagree, but I think if we
don't teach where we have been, we are bound to repeat it.

And that's not always good.

I'm with you 100 % uh as a lover of history and a lover of culture.

If we don't look back on what has happened in the past, it's very hard for us to see where
we're going.

And so, and not to make the same mistakes.

Yeah, were the Chicksaws a peace-loving nation?

uh The Chickasaw people were known uh for their great ability to defend themselves.

Well.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

ah

so, you know, one of the things in the Heritage Center that you'll learn about are the
French conflicts uh in 1736 that happened here in Tupelo where the Chickasaw defeated the

French uh and their Choctaw allies twice.

One battle being the uh Battle of

Chucalissa or the battle of Okla Chitoka that's in Choctaw which took place over off
Brooks Road around the TVA service center and then one two months later that happened

behind the middle school and what's today Lee Acres.

uh And so those two major battles against the French really weakened uh their ability to
take control of

land this Pharr up close to the Mississippi River.

Of course, those conflicts began in 1699 when the French landed in the Gulf of Mexico and
eventually started trading with inland tribes, specifically the Choctaw.

And so you had the English that were making their way west from the colonies.

Had been trading with the Chickasaw for a while.

You the French coming up from the south and Trading with the Choctaw and the French wanted
control of the trade and the English wanted to maintain You their their control of the

trade.

So the French became quite aggressive uh in trying to

have more influence.

And so, you know, the French began encouraging consistent aggravation, which eventually
culminated in the battle of 1736.

It seems to me that the Tupelo area, and it's probably all the other areas in the country,
but I am really impressed with the amount of history that the Tupelo area provides ah in

the development of the northern half of Mississippi.

I'm just astounded by it, the more I learn.

and the placard ah back by the middle school.

I've read it several times, but can you tell us a little bit about that battle with the
French?

What was it over?

So that was the second of two battles.

The first one took place March 25th, 1736, and that was the one over by the TVA Service
Center.

And then on May 26th, 1736, the Battle of Hikki'ya took place.

And that's the marker that you're talking about.

And so Governor Bienville, who

was over the French colonies, uh wanted to destroy the Chickasaw, partially because of the
1729 revolt at Fort Rosalie in Natchez, where the Natchez Indians revolted against the

French, and that began the French Natchez War, in which the Natchez were defeated.

But there were

contingents of Natchez that the Chickasaw took in and brought to this area and that
infuriated the French even further so they decided that they needed to uh annihilate the

Chickasaw and so they made their way up uh the Tombigbee River and met with around 800
Choctaws around Amory and started making their way towards what's today Tupelo.

At the same time, Pierre D'Artaguiette and a contingent of uh allied First Americans and
French made their way down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and landed at Chickasaw

Bluffs, which is today Memphis.

So that group traveled from Memphis to what is today Tupelo.

And they were on time.

Bienville and the others coming up to Tombigbee were running late.

And so...

the first battle, it was meant for both groups to coalesce and then attack the Chickasaw
villages together, but it didn't happen that way, fortunately.

so Pierre D'Artaguiette and his group were defeated in that first battle in March.

And then uh two months later, Bienville and his group are late.

And they're making their way to what is today Tupelo and the Choctaw uh lead them to the
southern villages instead of the northern villages because there was a battle a couple

years before that where a Choctaw leader had been killed.

so the Choctaw wanted to attack the southern villages first.

so

Bienville didn't really have much of a choice.

And so the goal was to attack and defeat Ackia and then move on to where the French were
defeated two months ago.

But of course, that didn't work out for the French too well.

No, no.

So they, around three o'clock in the afternoon on May 26th, the battle began.

and French forces and others were making their way up the ridge line to attack the forts
and they were caught in a crossfire uh between two different forts and uh they lost around

70 soldiers very quickly and it turned into uh the French being hunkered down behind some
uh scattered

houses and structures and they had these very early forms of grenades at this time where
they had to put the wick in and then they had to light it and they had to throw it but the

the French were leaving the wicks too long and so the the Chickasaws were just picking
them up and throwing them throwing them back.

The entire battle didn't last too long.

A retreat was ordered

and the Choctaw were on a ridge just behind there, you know, giving volleys to help the
French retreat.

uh And so, you know, neither battle ended well ah for the French.

And there's a lot of interesting history there that I encourage people to look into.

There's a great book ah by a man named uh

Jim Atkinson, who was an archaeologist and worked for the National Park Service for years.

He was really ahead of his time uh in terms of preserving Chickasaw history and culture.

He was very vocal about preserving that.

He actually is the one that drove by where the Pain Management Center was being built and
knew that there was a Chickasaw village there.

and went up there and saw the work was being done, saw that they had found a village and
actually had the work stopped, or Mississippi Department of Archives and History had to

come in and contract with Mississippi State to do the excavations.

uh And so he wrote a book called Splendid Land, Splendid People, Chickasaw History to
Removal.

And it was a fantastic, fantastic book that gives a glimpse into uh

early Chickasaw history.

It was supposed to be two volumes and around 800 pages, but the University of Alabama
Press condensed it into about 321 pages.

And the full manuscript is actually down at Mississippi State uh in their archives.

And the name of the book is...

splendid lands, splendid people, uh Chickasaw Indians to remove.

This has been so very educational.

And I think this is what our podcasts are about, educating people, whether it's politics
or history or whatever.

But.

Absolutely.

think I'm safe to say that nobody in our listening audience has heard any of this history
of the Chickasaws, let alone, yeah, it's not taught in the schools, ah in high school

anyway.

ah I guess you get it when you get in college and you get into anthropology.

ah

history but

are we are looking at changing that.

So Chickasaw Nation has developed curriculum that is shared with schools in Oklahoma.

And we've been sharing it with schools here in Mississippi.

We actually have uh programming where some individuals from Chickasaw Nation will come out
with some educators and provide curriculum and an education on teaching that curriculum.

and we've done that in Memphis and we'll be doing it in uh Tupelo later this year.

And so we're working on it.

We're working on getting that history and that culture uh included into Mississippi
history curriculum.

Absolutely.

whatever we could do to help you, would be, you just, you know where you are and you know
how to find us.

So yes, this has been tremendous and we appreciate it.

Now I do, yes.

let me interrupt you for a second.

ah Brady, if somebody's interested in more information about the Inconna Foundation, how
do they go about joining it or finding information about it?

Yes, so you can go to incana.org and learn about the Chickasaw and Inkana Foundation and
you can join the Chickasaw and Inkana Foundation as well.

And then to learn more about the Chickasaw Heritage Center, you can go to
chickasawheritagecenter.com and learn about what we're doing there.

We have a new website that we're going to be releasing here in the next couple of months.

And so the old one is up right now and you can actually become a charter member.

of the Chickasaw Heritage Center and so you can find out ways to join that and help us uh
finish the center.

Join our journey.

The capital campaign is the journey home and we want everyone to feel like they can uh
join us and join this journey to help complete the Chickasaw Heritage Center.

What does it cost to join the journey?

So charter membership starts at $250 and you get a beautiful limited edition medallion and
certificate, but there are levels that go you know upwards through corporate level giving

with different different perks that you can learn about on the website.

But if people are interested but don't have $250 but can afford like $25 a month, is there
a payment plan?

Absolutely.

You know, you can provide whatever donation you can to the Chickasaw Heritage Center.

then like I mentioned as well, uh you can join the Chickasaw and Inkana Foundation.

We provide different programs and then we also uh send out newsletters and updates for
what we're doing.

living here in Tupelo, I am really excited about this and have been, and I'm glad to know
now that I can join the Encada Foundation and become part of making history continue to

live on.

Okay, all right.

Well, this has been Mississippi Happenings.

We do appreciate you listening, please.

Questions, comments, suggestions, you can reach us at mshappenings1 at gmail.com.

That's mshappenings1 at gmail.com.

As always, may we never become indifferent to the suffering of others.

Thanks, bye.

add one?