Natchez — History is rarely rewritten, but Natchez author James Barnett may have done just that.

Barnett’s “The Natchez Indians A History to 1735” is touted as “the most complete and detailed examination of a vanished tribe,” and challenges the long-held belief that the group was ruled by a single, hereditary chief.

The 224 page book combines French, English and Spanish accounts to paint a clear picture of how the Natchez Indians coped with the impact of European contact.

“It seems the Natchez Indians were a group of autonomous villages that had banded together for protection,” Barnett said. “Their ruler, Great Sun, was a monarch without any real political power.”

Barnett refers to the Natchez Indians as a group, rather than a tribe. His book shows the group as a multi-ethnic people who spoke two distinctly different languages.

“Instead of single tribal unity, they were apparently the remnants of earlier societies,” he said.

Barnett began to work on material for the book 10 years ago and in 2004 began to write steadily to put the book together. Barnett said he saw a need for a detailed account of the Natchez Indians and after being contacted by University Press of Mississippi, decided to meet that need.

“The Natchez Indians” is Barnett’s first book-length work, but he has spent the last 25 years working for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians. His work there exposed him to a number of historians, many of whom were crucial to the completion of his book.

Barnett’s book opens with the story of French Canadian commander Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville’s first encounter with the Natchez Indians.

“Now Iberville and his men were entering the territory of the people whom the natives of the region called “Theloel.” Securing the allegiance of their chief was crucial to Iberville’s objective of countering English attempts to befriend the tribes controlling the Mississippi River,” Barnett wrote.

“Iberville’s diplomatic mission in the spring of 1700 helped establish the Theloel, later known to the world as the Natchez Indians, as one of the most important tribes on the Mississippi River. As we will see, the Natchez played a key role in the early eighteenth-century struggle for empire between England and France. Tragically, the Natchez became one of the casualties of that contest between European superpowers and by the mid-1730s, Natchez refugees were driven from their homeland and forced to join other tribes for survival.”

The group’s struggle to survive amid European contact is at the core of Barnett’s book.

“European contact with the Americas completely changed their world in many ways,” he said. “They were almost completely devastated by disease. Banning together for support, the Natchez Indians were able to adapt because they were autonomous villages. This allowed some to ally with French, while others allied with the English.”

“The Natchez Indians A History to 1735” is available through University Press of Mississippi and can be purchased at Turning Pages Books & More in Natchez.