Southeastern native tradition relates that a race of giants, who were a peaceable people engaged in agriculture, once inhabited Yazoo county and other lands on the Yazoo river.
They were annihilated by the fierce Yazoos, who invaded and took forcible possession of their lands.
There is an oral tradition that the Chickasaw came from the West over the Mississippi river and had waged a war of extermination against the Yazoo and other tribes, and that the Yazoo warriors had fought desperately until the last of their race was slain.
By treaty, the Chickasaw had taken as their share of the conquest all the lands along the Yazoo river and many of the counties east of that river.
The Choctaws were in possession of part of this country when it was first discovered by the white man, though the Yazoos were not exterminated, as their name appears on many of the earliest maps of this part of the country.
French explorer La Salle had named the Yazoo River in 1682 as "Rivière des Yazous" in reference to the Yazoo tribe living near the river's mouth.
The exact meaning of the term is unclear.
One long held belief is that it means "river of death".
Nothing is definitely known concerning the Yazoo language, believed to be related to Tunica, a language isolate.
Father Antone Davion, of the Quebec Seminary of Foreign Missions, had in 1699 established a mission among the Tunica.
He also reached out to allied tribes, such as the Taensa.
The Yazoo, however, were, like the Chickasaw, under the influence of the English traders from Carolina.
Yazoo warriors aid certain of the Koroa in killing Father Nicholas Foucault and three French companions in 1702.
The tribe's leaders have the murderers executed; the seminary temporarily withdraws Father Davion from the area.
