The Bayagoula were a Native American tribe from what is now called

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

in the southern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Due to transcription errors amongst cartographers who mistakenly rewrote the tribe's name as their name is erroneously assumed to translate as " bayou people"; further corruptions of the tribe's name into the two-word led most later 19th and 20th century cartographers to mistakenly assume the annotation referred not to a tribe but to a bayou near present day

Donaldsonville, Louisiana Donaldsonville (historically french: Lafourche-des-Chitimachas) is a city in, and the parish seat of Ascension Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located along the River Road of the west bank of the Mississippi River, it is a part of the ...

named after some tribe known simply as the "Goula", or to the name of a settlement named after that nonexistent bayou. The Bayagoula were a part of the peoples who spoke

Muskogean Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the Muskogean languages are generally div ...

languages. The

Houma people The Houma () are a historic Native American people of Louisiana on the east side of the Red River of the South. Their descendants, the Houma people or organization "The United Houma Nation", have been recognized by the state as a tribe since 1 ...

were recorded as attacking them around 1699–1700. They lived with another tribe, the

Mougoulacha The Mougoulacha were a Native American tribe that lived near Lake Pontchartrain. Population In 1699 Iberville said that the Bayagoula and Mougoulacha together had about 180-250 warriors and an estimated 1,250 people. Language The Mougoulacha lan ...

, in 1700. In the early 18th-century the Bayagoula killed many Mougoulacha, almost exterminating the entire tribe. This was triggered by a fight between the two tribes' chiefs. The Tonica tribe moved into the community soon thereafter. In 1706 the Tonica

ambush An ambush is a long-established military tactic in which a combatant uses an advantage of concealment or the element of surprise to attack unsuspecting enemy combatants from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind mo ...

ed the Bayagoula and almost killed all of them. By 1721, the rest of the tribe had suffered many deaths from

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

, a new infectious disease carried by the French and other Europeans, among whom it was endemic. The remaining Bayagoula are believed to have moved to the area of the present-day

Ascension Parish Ascension Parish (french: Paroisse de l'Ascension, es, Parroquia de Ascensión) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 126,500. Its parish seat is Donaldsonville. The parish was created ...

. Some likely joined nearby villages of the Houma and

Acolapissa The Acolapissa were a small tribe of Native Americans of North America, who lived in the Southeast of what is the present-day United States. They lived along the banks of the Pearl River, between present-day Louisiana and Mississippi. They are beli ...

who lived in the area, whilst others likely intermarried with neighbouring French, Spanish, and German colonists.

References

Further reading