The Bluffs were Chickasaw: Piomingo, Ugulayacabé and four paper flags
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenDisputed: argued, often by a hostile witness
Year: 1682 · Places: Virginia, Tennessee, Gulf Coast, Caribbean, Europe
SUMMARYThe Bluffs were Chickasaw: Piomingo, Ugulayacabé and four paper flags (Nov 8, 2026; TANASI line research)
RECORD (Founders Online, "Piomingo to George Washington, 30 October 1789," editorial note)the letter itself has not been found; Washington's summary says it spoke of "the long friendship which has subsisted between the United States & his Nation, the Chicasaws"; the editors call Piomingo a Chickasaw war chief who helped negotiate a Virginia–Chickasaw friendship treaty at French Lick (Nashville) and signed the 1786 Treaty of Hopewell
RECORD (Wikipedia, "Piomingo")c. 1750–c. 1799, born at Chokkilissa' (present Lee County, Mississippi); "-minko; -mingo" was "a title of respect and leadership"; his statue stands in Tupelo, not Memphis
RECORD (Chickasaw Nation, Chickasaw.tv, "La Salle")"In the spring of 1682, La Salle fell ill at the Chickasaw Bluffs, near present-day Memphis"; "His crew built a small fort, Fort Prudhomme, on Chickasaw soil as a depot."
RECORD (Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Fort Assumption," Perre Magness)Bienville's fort on "the fourth Chickasaw Bluff" was "finished on August 15, 1739," to "eradicate the Chickasaws"; the French withdrew by March 31, 1740, after the campaign failed
RECORD (Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Fort San Fernando de las Barrancas," John E. Harkins)founded "May 1795" by Gayoso, sent "to secure the Chickasaws' consent"; lasted less than two years
RECORD (StoryBoard Memphis, Steve Masler, Nov. 11, 2022)the Bluffs-side Chickasaw leader Ugulayacabé told Blount in spring 1792 "the Spanish [are] my Whites" (no primary source named)
PATTERNFrench (1682, 1739), Spanish (1795) and U.S. (1818 treaty, P167 and the 1818 treaty notes in the library) each planted paper on the bluff; each needed Chickasaw consent or failed without it
DISPUTEDthe line sheet ties Piomingo to the Bluffs; the sources opened tie him to the Mississippi towns and the U.S. alliance, and tie Ugulayacabé to the Bluffs and Spain. Use "THE BLUFFS WERE CHICKASAW" as the shirt line; name Ugulayacabé alongside Piomingo
LENS (WW9)Piomingo's birthplace Chokkilissa' and the Memphis mound town Chucalissa ("abandoned house" in Chickasaw, P866) carry the same kind of name (Lens, not Record)
OPENthe Chickasaw-language name of the fourth Bluff; Gayoso's 1795 treaty text (Spanish, AGI Papeles de Cuba); Bienville's 1739 letters (French, ANOM C13A); Founders Online Knox–Piomingo 1792 papers. Connects: P166, P167, P866, P869.