Mississippi Roads; Foster's Mound

All right. OK. Look my name is Jim Barnett and I work for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History as the director of the historic properties division that I live in elections. My name is Jim Barnett I work for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and I'm the head of the historic properties division and I live in Naches. That. Would do it again. When your car coming up it is OK. Where at Foster's mound on Foster's now on the road in Adams County the mound over the shoulder is is named for the foster family they were early settlers in the naturist area.

The. The mound was built by the ancestors of the Natchez Indians around A.D. thirteen hundred although there has never been a modern archaeological dig at the site. We we know about when these Indians occupied it because of pottery pieces that were picked up on the ground. You want to hang out. We're on fosters now on the road in Adams County looking at Foster's mound over my shoulder in the mound was was built by the ancestors of the Natchez Indians the the best guess we have is to when it was built around a thirteen hundred eighty Thirteen fifty. The date is based upon pottery pieces that are going to pick up around the ground on the ground up around the side. There has not yet been a modern archaeological dig at Foster's mound the

site was probably occupied by these people continuously throughout the 13 hundreds until the time of historic contact in the next or Syria which was like 16 hundreds already seventeen hundreds. Fosters mailand is identified. In the archaeological literature as being the location of the so-called white Apple village which was a subdivision of the Natchez Indian tribe. One interesting note about the Whitechapel village is that in the mid 17th 20s this particular part of the Natchez tribe was probably pro English. In other words they were aligned with the English traders who were working in the area here and as such were not as friendly with the French as the rest of the naturist tribe was.

In the the late 17th twenties the naturist rebelled against the French colony. The Naturist rebellion of the 17 20's may have have been instigated from the Foster's mouth area this this part of the naturist tribe was aligned with the English traders who were working in this area whereas other factions of the naturist tribe were were very staunchly pro French. In the late seventies and twenties there were the Naches attacked the French colony. The.

The Naches rebellion 1729 put an end for all intents and purposes to the French colony in the naturist area. The rebellion had multiple causes but one one cause of the rebellion was probably that the pro-English faction of the naturist tribe was able to convince the rest of the tribe to rebel against the French and that pro-English faction. We believe was centered here at the Foster's mound area which was called the Whitechapel village. During that in some of the early French documents from that period. OK now I was on. The mound functioned as a ceremonial center the mound is is a

flat topped mound it was built for ceremonial purposes. And the way the Naches tribe operated with their mounds the naturist people lived scattered on family farms and the Naches tribe was was subdivided into into settlement areas and there was a settlement area around. Around here we're not very far with just a few hundred yards now from St. Catherine Creek which is was was. Source of water and of the nachos people settled along that creek. The settlement areas were served by local ceremonial centers and the ceremonial centers were were manned by relatives of the the chief of the tribe. The people lived on family farms scattered around the area they didn't live

packed together in villages but they would come together at ceremonial centers like fosters and out here or like the Grand village of the Natchez Indians. Just a few miles away in Natchez they would come together at these sites for religious and social events and those took place all during the year. I mean manned by some of the relatives I did know people that the the people who lived at Foster's mound though there were probably only a few high ranking tribal officials that lived actually lived on the mountainside there and probably there were more mounds out here at that time than just the one mound that we see today. It's a busy road. If.

The situation here it fosters nown would have been would probably have been similar to the one at the Grand village of the Natchez Indians where you had one mound that served as the base for for a religious building or a temple and another mound that served as the base for the the actual House side of a chief or a high ranking official. And then there may have been two or three other houses near the mound for the lower ranking travel officials. As I mentioned earlier most of the people in the tribe lived some distance from here own family farms scattered out over the area. Were any of the. The mountains were not. Give me a chance to thank him.

It fosters man was not a burial mound it was it's classified as a ceremonial mound it was built up with a flat top on it to serve as the base for a religious building. Indian MTs changed the purposes their purposes and the way they were built changed over time. Earlier in time say about two thousand years ago burial mounds were being built but by the time this man was built. By the time fosters man was built which was less than a thousand years ago burial mounds had given away that the training given way to flat top ceremonial

mounds there would be the nexus Indians had to. The Natchez Indians had two ways of treating their dead depending upon whether you were a chief or a high ranking official or a common person in the tribe. If you were a common person tribe you were buried in a cemetery type Cemetery situation except there were no headstones but and you were buried there with possibly some of the the tools you hunted with. Therefore with some pottery or something like that if you were a chief or a high ranking official you were buried near or possibly in the mound itself. And then after a certain time. If you were a chief or a high ranking tribal official you were buried possibly in the

mound or nearby and left there just temporarily and someone in the tribe would would dig up your skeleton clean off those bones and keep them in a basket or a box in the the temple building that was that stood on the mountain so the Naches in that way kept the bones of their chiefs as part of their tribal religion. OK. If you would just tell the history of the house in one day. First of all just in general why you imagine people build that kind of thing and structure what might it might be and then. OK there that's I mean listen OK let's build up

the house will she go she's going to you know recognize for you Clark Clark Burkett and they know the people who live there I had a chance to talk to him about this. Some Sometimes I believe that that houses were located on Indian mounds because of the because we choose locations to live in the same way the Indians chose locations. A good piece of high ground with water nearby well drained ground. Truck. This is a busy road I realize I just must try to.

Do this very much. OK. The mound the mound probably offered up an irresistible prominence for the builders of the house. Of course the people who built the house on fosters now didn't think about it as as being a ceremonial or sacred place although they probably knew that it was once an Indian Mound. So that.

Magic in there in their eyes there was nothing wrong with building a house on a promise like that. That's a good point. Not. Yet. The the Foster's mound house was probably built in the 19th century and that was a long time before archaeologists. Had worked out the. Chronology. I guess I covered this. OK. Yeah.

The House on Foster's mound was probably built the 19th century and at that time. What we should've done was you cannot here and shoot the thing in them interview them in the office. The House on Foster's mail was probably built before any archaeological information had come out about how the mound was or even what it was used for for the people who who who first lived there might never know that they were living all the sacred side. And it's only been probably in the last in the last 25 30

years that archaeologists have gathered together enough information about the mounds in the lower Mississippi River Valley too to know what they were used for and have some idea of how they were used. And more important than that the time periods of that they date back to the grid even though they are very much about 9. Is there anything general that you can tell me. Which is where they are already in mind even if it's general very much as we know now. I'm afraid I don't know anything about the anough to talk about it. You probably should talk to Keith Bach. The house isn't as far as I know is no longer occupied by the family that that built it and I think it's probably changed hands a few

times since then. The as I mentioned earlier that there never has been an archaeological dig at the mound and when the house was built obviously they had to do some excavation to build the house it would been a good time to to see what was there but that was. Many years ago so I don't know whether we'll ever have a scientific archaeological excavation at Foster's mound in Oregon. It reminds you that you know you really don't know much about architecture. Oh. Now building very

well. Regarding Indian mounds in general in the lower Mississippi River Valley. At one time there were thousands of mounds in this in the valley and all the way from St. Louis on down to the Gulf of Mexico. Most of those mounds have been destroyed now due to development clearing farming in that sort of thing. Very few mounds have been saved. Fosters man seems to have survived because there happened to be a house built on top of it. If the house hadn't been there perhaps the man would have been leveled for farming purposes. And she's going away. It was very very active building on it

right there. Yeah. And. How many. Women. We don't know for sure how many melons were here originally because of the the very development of the Naches area has led to the destruction of some mounds and and soil erosion has taken some of the males to the levels that people can see in the Naches area include the grand village of the Natchez Indians which is a national historic landmark side and it's a park open to the public and emerald mound which is on the Natchez Trace Parkway just a few miles from Natchez. And in addition to enrollment of the grand village of the Natchez Indians

one could take a drive up Foster's mountain road and see Foster's mountain. There have been very extensive archaeological excavations at the Grand village of the Natchez Indians. Three major dig there conducted by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History at Emerald Island. There was there was an excavation team there in the early 1970s that was done by the National Park Service. Yeah. Artifacts that were found at the Grand village of the Natchez Indians included the

pottery and stone tools of the naturist. Do you have any other place where you live. That. Fosters male and is named after the foster family they were or were prominent early settlers in the naturist area and for instance part of the land that that Jefferson College was built on was was originally owned by the foster family. Jefferson College is only about three miles from where we are. Here. Is there any way out there in a war to tell it on the hill over there or wherever is there in the hill country around Natchez and I use the term

loosely hill country around here. It is hard to tell what's an Indian and what's not. Sometimes it takes a visit by an archaeologist to tell you to learn if a rise or a no lives is a real Indian male an artificially built artificially constructed or just a natural Hiller or bluff remnant you know about the origins of it and you know what you're right. But I want you to OK. Size wise this is probably an average sized amount for the Natchez area it's it's much smaller than emerald mound and larger than the than any of the lands of the grand village. So it's a mid size Indian ceremonial Now

that would embolden them much the same people for different. Camel mount is much larger than this man because it was probably constructed as a ceremonial center. To serve the entire Naches tribe whereas the fosters mound was built to serve just a local area out here. You know emerald emerald mound is is much larger than Foster's mound. Emerald mound on the Natchez Trace is much larger than Foster's now because emerald was probably constructed as a ceremonial Center for the entire naturist tribe

whereas Foster is now and most likely served one of these local subdivisions of the tribe. They would run the pattern seems to be that the naturist tribe had one main ceremonial center and then a series of outlying smaller ceremonial centers to serve the outlying areas. Foster was probably one of those outlying ceremonial centers.