including the colonial governor, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, which led to brief periods of imprisonment. The Natchez Rebellion of 1729 From 1726–28, Dumont was assigned to serve at Fort Rosalie, the French post at Natchez. The rich agricultural lands in this area, on elevated bluffs safe from the annual flooding of the Mississippi River, led to high hopes among the French for tobacco plantations and other development. The local Natchez people were generally welcoming of the French, although skirmishes in 1722–23 showed the tensions of competition for land and food. Dumont wrote that the commandant appointed for the fort in 1727, de Chépart, was a tyrant who mistreated soldiers and claimed Natchez lands for himself. Chépart's provocations led to a rebellion on November 29, 1729, in which the Natchez attacked Fort Rosalie and its surrounding settlements, killing 240 Frenchmen. The lives of women and children and most African slaves were spared, however. Among these prisoners of war was Marie Baron Roussin, whose husband Jean Roussin was killed in the revolt. Dumont had lived on their farm near the Tioux villages south of Natchez. Dumont later wrote in his book Mémoires historiques sur la Louisiane that he left Natchez the day before the revolt. However, in his 1747 memoir, preserved today at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois, Dumont wrote that he left Natchez in January 1729, months before the revolt, after escaping from a detention ordered by Chépart. Looking back at the rebellion 20 years later, Dumont and others saw it as a turning point in the history of the French colony. The Chickasaw Wars Following his escape from Chépart at Natchez, Dumont resigned his commission and took up life on a small farm on the Mississippi downstream from New Orleans. He married the widow Roussin. There, and later on another property within New Orleans, he supported himself as a market gardener. But he returned to a soldier's life as a member of the civilian militia during the Chickasaw Campaign of 1736. The French wished to punish Natchez Indians who had sought refuge among the Chickasaw, and prevent them from allying with the English colonists in the Carolinas. The expedition was not a success, however. In his writings, Dumont criticized the leadership of Bienville in this war as well as in a subsequent expedition in 1739–40. Return to France In 1738, Dumont returned to France, along with his