Taensa

The Taensa (also Taënsas, Tensas, Tensaw, and Grands Taensas in French^[1]) were a Native American people whose settlements at the time of European contact in the late 17th century were located in present-day Tensas Parish, Louisiana.^[2] The meaning of the name, which has the further spelling variants of Taenso, Tinsas, Tenza or Tinza, Tahensa or Takensa, and Tenisaw,^[1][3] is unknown. It is believed to be an autonym. The Taensa should not be confused with the Avoyel (or Avoyelles), known by the French as the petits Taensas (English: Little Taensa), who were mentioned in writings by explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699.^[4] The Taensa are more closely related to the Natchez people and both are considered descendants of the late prehistoric Plaquemine culture.^[5]

The Taensa migrated as a result of Chickasaw and Yazoo hostilities, first lower down the Mississippi River. In 1715,^[6] protected by the French, they migrated to lands near the now eponymously named Tensas River near Mobile, Alabama.^[2] When the French ceded Mobile and their other territory east of the Mississippi River to the British in 1763, following their defeat in the Seven Years' War, the Taensa and other small tribes returned to Louisiana, settling near the Red River. They numbered about 100 persons in 1805. They later moved south to Bayou Boeuf and later still to Grand Lake, "after which the remnant disappear[ed] from history."^[2]