The Mazique Archeological Site (22 AD 502), also known as White Apple Village, is a prehistoric Coles Creek culture archaeological site located in Adams County, Mississippi. It is also the location of the historic period White Apple Village of the Natchez people and the Mazique Plantation. It was added to the NRHP on October 23, 1991, as NRIS number 91001529.
Description
The site is located on the west bank of Second Creek, a tributary of the Homochitto River and consisted of three platform mounds and a central plaza. It was occupied during both the Coles Creek period (700–1000 CE) and the later Plaquemine Mississippian period (1000–1680 CE), when it was recorded in historic times as the White Apple village of the Natchez. Mound A sits directly on the bank of Second Creek and more than half of its mass has been lost due to the creek eroding into it. It is currently in height but was recorded as being in height and in circumference by Montroville W. Dickeson in 1841 and in height and in length on the top by Calvin Brown in 1916. Mound B is located to the southeast and is in height and has a historic cemetery on its summit. It still retains its flat topped shape. Dickeson was the only one to mention the third mound, which he described as smaller than the others and being further reduced by cultivation of its surface. By the time of the other surveys and investigations it is no longer mentioned and its location is still under investigation. The site is named for a local African-American family from southern Adams County who once owned the land.
Excavations
Mazique was visited in 1927 and 1929 by James A. Ford and Moreau B. Chambers, who performed a site survey and surface collection of ceramic fragments of Plaquemine culture pottery. Analysis of these fragments were used to date the site to the Coles Creek period. The first archaeological excavations at the site were in 1940 by the Natchez Historical Association at the instigation of local tourism promoter and entrepreneur Jefferson Davis Dickson Jr. Dickson then had a short-lived "archaeological museum" built on the site during the early 1940s, which caused serious damage. The site was again excavated in 1948 by John L. Cotter and W. P. Lancaster.
White Apple Village
White Apple Village had three different actual sites, which were each occupied at different times. The first was near Washington, Mississippi, the second in Franklin County, Mississippi, and the third at the present location of the Mazique site. By the early 1700s, the Natchez had developed internal pro-British and pro-French factions. The pro-French faction was led by the tribal chief The Great Sun and his brother the Tattooed Serpent, and was based in the Grand Village of the Natchez and supported by the villages of Flour and Tioux. These villages were in the southwestern part of Natchez territory near the Mississippi River and closer to the location of French contact. The pro-English faction's villages lay to the northeast, closer to the Chickasaw and English contact, and further from the river.
The pro-English villages included White Apple, Jenzenaque, and Grigra. When violence broke out between the Natchez and the French, the village of White Apple was usually the main instigator of the hostility. This factional infighting was a holdover of pre-European local politics, when various groups vied for supremacy over the polity. This had caused the main Natchez political leadership to switch amongst various sites throughout the years; at times being located at Anna, Emerald, Foster, Mazique, or the Fatherland sites.
