<Li> Grand Village of the Natchez: The main village of the Natchez people, with three mounds . The only mound site to be used and maintained into historic times . </Li> <P> Although the Mississippian culture was heavily disrupted before a complete understanding of the political landscape was written down, many Mississippian political bodies were documented and others have been discovered by research . </P> <P> Mississippian peoples were almost certainly ancestral to the majority of the American Indian nations living in this region in the historic era . The historic and modern day American Indian nations believed to have descended from the overarching Mississippian Culture include: the Alabama, Apalachee, Caddo, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, Guale, Hitchiti, Houma, Kansa, Missouria, Mobilian, Natchez, Osage, Quapaw, Seminole, Tunica - Biloxi, Yamasee, and Yuchi . </P> <P> Scholars have studied the records of Hernando de Soto's expedition of 1539--1543 to learn of his contacts with Mississippians, as he traveled through their villages of the Southeast . He visited many villages, in some cases staying for a month or longer . The list of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition chronicles those villages . Some encounters were violent, while others were relatively peaceable . In some cases, de Soto seems to have been used as a tool or ally in long - standing native feuds . In one example, de Soto negotiated a truce between the Pacaha and the Casqui . </P>

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