Acolapissa
(Aqueloupissa, Cenepisa, Colapissa, Coulapissa, Equinipicha, Kinipissa, Kolapissa, and Mouisa)

Location

Originally, both sides of the lower Pearl River which is the current eastern border of Louisiana with Mississippi. During 1702 the Acolapissa left their original location and moved a short distance west to Bayou Costine on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain. By 1718 they relocated once again, this time to the east bank of the Mississippi just above the new French settlement at New Orleans.

Pressured by the expansion of French settlement during the next few years, the Acolapissa were absorbed by the Houma and moved upstream with them to Ascension Parish (Donaldsonville, La.). The Houma remained in this area until they sold their land in 1776 and moved to Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes southwest of New Orleans. Their descendants still live in this area and have provided the name for present-day Houma, Louisiana.

History
(short version, for complete history please visit the First Nations site)

The Acolapissa did not have to meet the Spanish to be affected by them. The epidemics and destruction left by De Soto (1539-43) brought about the collapse of the large Mississippian chiefdoms which had dominated the Southeast before 1539.

The new diseases passed from tribe to tribe until they had spread across the entire Southeast, and by 1680 the native population in the area was less than half (some sources would say a quarter) of what it had been in 1500. After 150 years of this holocaust, the area was occupied by much smaller tribes which had, for the most part, retained the Mississippian concept of defined tribal territories. However, the area was too attractive to remain empty, and tribes from areas less affected - Alabama, Cherokee, Coushatta, Tukabatchee, and Yuchi - moved south to fill the voids. Unfortunately, their arrival added to tension and rivalries.

Despite the French and Spanish moving all about them, by 1690 the Acolapissa, because of their location 75 miles east of the Mississippi River, had yet to meet their first white man. It was the activity of British traders from Charleston, South Carolina (600 miles to east) that set in motion the forces which would finally end the isolation of the Acolapissa and their neighbors. By 1685 Charleston traders had a permanent trading post among the Upper Creeks in Alabama and had visited the Chickasaw villages in northeast Mississippi.

Deerskins were a major item of this trade, but because of the demand for large amounts of labor to operate the Carolina and West Indies plantations, the British traders from Charleston were more interested in acquiring Native American slaves and willing to provide firearms to tribes willing to do their dirty work for them.

The Yamasee and many Creeks found this type of "business" attractive and began raiding the tribes near the Spanish missions in northern Florida.

Farther west in the lower Mississippi Valley, the Chickasaw were being pressed by their more numerous Choctaw cousins, and the British offer of firearms proved irresistible. Chickasaw slave raids began during the early 1690s and ultimately carried thousands of Native Americans to the slave docks at Charleston. The Choctaw were the main target, but they were organized into a large confederacy and, even without firearms, continued to be a dangerous opponent. The Natchez were also powerful and somewhat immune to predation, and Chickasaw raiders often bypassed them to attack the small, independent tribes (such as the Acolapissa) along the Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi River.

France had emerged from the King William's War (1688-97) in a dominant position in North America and was ready to reassert its claim to Louisiana. Spain claimed the entire Gulf Coast and, up to this point, had defended it against French attempts at settlement.

The French were not the only Europeans with plans to colonize the lower Mississippi.

The British blockade of Canada during the King George's War (1744-48) cut the supply of French trade goods to Louisiana as well. When this happened, some of the Choctaw turned to the British traders for their needs, and by 1746 this most-loyal of the French allies had divided into pro-French and pro-British factions. Civil war followed during which pro-British Choctaw warriors attacked French settlements on the German Coast north of New Orleans during the spring of 1747. A second raid occurred that November. Still loyal to the French, the Acolapissa, Houma, and Bayougoula (together with the Biloxi and Pascagoula) provided warriors to defend the area until the pro-French faction finally triumphed and a peace was signed in 1749. A similar blockade during the French and Indian War (1754-63) cut the supply of trade goods once again, but this time the pro-French Choctaw were firmly in control. The Choctaw remained French allies throughout the war, but there was little fighting in the area. Although the war did not officially end until 1763, the French were finished in North America following the British capture of Quebec in September, 1759. In a secret treaty at Fontainebleau in November, 1762, France ceded Louisiana to Spain to keep it from falling to the British.

Spain did not actually take administrative control until 1765. In the meantime, thousands of French and their former allies had moved west of the Mississippi to escape the British. Louisiana became a crowded "melting pot," a situation that grew worse when more French settled in Louisiana when it was under Spanish rule than had when it had belonged to France.

The Acolapissa disappeared as a separate tribe during this period, and their subsequent history is identical with the Houma with whom they merged.

From First Nations, for complete history and much more information, please visit the First Nations site