Editing Pascagoula, Mississippi (section)

===Early history===

[[File:Gallica Biloxy map Pascagoula.jpg|thumb|left|Pascagoula Bay, early 18th-century French map]]

The name Pascagoula, which means "bread eater", is taken from the [[Pascagoula]], a group of [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] found in villages along the [[Pascagoula River]] some distance above its mouth. [[Hernando de Soto]] seems to have made the first contact with them in the 1540s, though little is known of that encounter. [[Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville]], founder of the colony of [[Louisiana]], left a more detailed account from an expedition of this region in 1700.<ref name="auto">Goddard, Ives (2005). "The indigenous languages of the Southeast." ''Anthropological Linguistics.'' ''47'' (1): 1–60.</ref><ref name=Cain/>

The first detailed account comes from [[Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville]], younger brother of Iberville, whom the Pascagoula visited at [[Fort Maurepas]] in present-day [[Ocean Springs, Mississippi|Ocean Springs]], shortly after it was settled and while the older brother was away in France. Few details are certain about these people, except that their language seemed not to have shared an [[etymological]] root with the larger native groups to the north, the [[Choctaw]] particularly, who speak a [[Muskogean languages|Muskogean language]]. Some speculation exists that their language may be related to [[Biloxi language|Biloxi]]. The [[Biloxi people]] spoke a now-extinct [[Siouan languages|Siouan language]], which is related to the languages spoken by the [[Sioux]], [[Crow Nation|Crow]], and [[Ho-Chunk]].<ref name="auto"/><ref name=Cain/>

The territory of the Biloxi people seems to have ranged from the areas of what are now called Biloxi Bay to [[Bayou La Batre]] ([[Alabama]]) and {{convert|25|mi}} up the [[Pascagoula River]], and the Pascagoula people's territory seems to have ranged between some distance north of there to the confluence of the [[Leaf River (Mississippi)|Leaf]] and [[Chickasawhay River]]s.<ref name=Cain>Cain, Cyril Edward: ''Four Centuries on the Pascagoula'', Vol. 1 (1953)</ref>{{rp|19–21}} However, the Pascagoula language is completely undocumented; thus, genealogical affiliations from other authors are speculation.<ref name="auto"/>

The first European settlers of Pascagoula were Jean Baptiste Baudreau Dit Graveline, Joseph Simon De La Pointe, and his aunt, Madame Chaumont.