Mississippian shatter zone
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The Mississippian shatter zone describes the period from 1540 to 1730 in the southeastern part of the present United States. During that time, the interaction between European explorers and colonists transformed the Native American cultures of that region. In 1540 dozens of chiefdoms and several paramount chiefdoms were scattered throughout the southeast. Chiefdoms featured a noble class ruling a large number of commoners and were characterized by villages and towns with large earthen mounds and complex religious practices. Some chiefdoms, known as paramount chieftains, ruled or influenced large areas. The chiefdoms were ravaged by the de Soto and other Spanish exploratory missions in the 1540s through the 1560s and their decline began.
The chiefdoms all disappeared by 1730. The most important factor in their gradual disappearance was the chaos induced by slave raids and the enslavement of tens of thousands of Indians. Other factors included epidemics of diseases of European origin and wars among themselves and with European colonists. The trade in slaves was stimulated by the demand of British colonists for slaves and the demand of the Indians for guns and other manufactured products. Some tribes, especially the Westo (of Iroquoian origin), specialized in capturing Indians to be enslaved. English and Indian raids on Spanish colonies in Florida and Georgia resulted in a larger number of captured Indians who became slaves. Indian slaves usually ended up working on plantations in the U.S. or were exported to islands in the Caribbean Sea. The city of Charleston, South Carolina was the most important slave market.
The Indian population in the southeast decreased from an estimated 500,000 in 1540 to 90,000 in 1730. The chiefdoms were replaced by simpler coalescent tribes and confederacies made up of survivors and refugees from the fragmenting chiefdoms, plus migrants from other areas who fled wars with the English and the Iroquois. These included tribes prominent in 18th and 19th U.S. history such as the Muscogee Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Yuchi, Yamassee, and Catawba.