In early colonial times a portion of the Northern Taensa, driven from
their homes on the Taensa river by the rage of the Chicasa, fled to
the Mobilians. The French settled them on the western side of Mobile
bay, below Fort St. Louis, and thirty miles above Fort Condé, which
stood on the site of the present city of Mobile.[24] The French called
them "les petits Taënsas" in contradistinction to the "great (or
northern) Taënsas," on Mississippi and Taensa rivers. About the middle
of the eighteenth century one hundred of their cabins stood _north_ of
the French fort St. Louis, and also north of the Tohome Indian
settlement. The Taensa were then speaking their native language and,
besides this, a corrupt Chicasa dialect, called the Mobilian language
by the French.[25] Subsequently they must have removed from there to
the eastern channel, for Bartram, Travels, pp. 401. 403, describes
Taensa there as a "pretty high bluff, on the eastern channel of the
great Mobile river, about thirty miles above Fort Condé, or city of
Mobile, at the head of the bay ... with many artificial mounds of
earth and other ruins." During the wars of 1813-15 the adjacent
country is called the "Tensaw country."
[Footnote 24: At that time they were warring unsuccessfully
against the Huma (1713); Pénicaut (in Margry V, 508. 509) saw
them at Manchac.]
[Footnote 25: T. Jefferys, Hist. of French Dominions in America;
London, 1761; I, p. 162, sq.]
It is not unlikely that these Taensa were identical with the "petits
Taënsas" seen by Lemoyne d'Iberville at the Huma town in March 1700,
and described by him as migratory, but living most of the time at
three days' distance west of Huma, and then warring against the
Bayogoulas. They gained their sustenance by hunting, though buffaloes
were scarce in their country, and were men of a fine physique (Margry
IV, 408). In 1702 they defeated the Bayogoulas and burnt their village
on Mississippi river; the Bayogoulas fled to the French fort on that
river, then commanded by Mr. St. Denis. If identical with the Taensa
on Mobile river, these fights of theirs must have occurred during
their passage from the North to the bay of Mobile.