The Koroa were one of the groups of Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands who lived in the Mississippi Valley before French colonization. The Koroa lived in the Yazoo River basin in present-day northwest Mississippi.
Language
The Koroa are believed to have spoken a dialect of
Tunica language. However, French missionaries described the Koroa (which they spelled Courouais) as speaking the same language as the Yazoo but a different tongue from the Tunica. They may have described a distinct dialect or a related Tunican language.
Name
Jacques Marquette referred to this tribe by the name
Akoroa.
[Swanton. Indians of the Southeastern United States p. 147]
History
15th century
The Koroa may be the tribe identified by Hernando de Soto's expedition as the
Coligua or
Cologoa. They may have met the Spanish expedition in 1541 near present-day Little Rock, Arkansas.
[Swanton, John R. The Indians of the Southeastern United States. (United States Government Printing Office: Washington, 1946) p. 147]
17th century
The Koroa lived on both sides of the Mississippi River when the French encountered them in the late 17th century. At least one of their villages was on the river's east bank.
[Swanton. Indians of the Southeastern United States. p. 147] In 1682, La Salle visited a Koroa village on the Western side of the Mississippi twice, both on the descent and the return journey. His party was feasted there, and saw
, whom they described as the Koroa's allies, living in the village.
A 1698 French missionary expedition also found them living in the same area as the Tunica, Yazoo, and Ofo people, and Father Antoine Davion was assigned to missionize them.[
]
18th century
In 1702, a French Catholic missionary named Nicolas Foucault was killed while serving among the Koroa. The tribe's leaders had the murderers executed.
See also
-
List of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition
Sources
-
Gibson, Arrell M. "The Indians of Mississippi," in McLemore, Richard Aubrey, ed. A History of Mississippi (Hattiesburg: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1973) vol. 1
