With Christmas fast approaching, it is interesting to consider the first Christmas celebrated in Mississippi by Europeans. That first Christmas was celebrated with religious services and probably a barbecue. It occurred 482 years ago, probably at or near present-day Starkville.

In 1540 a ragged army of almost 500 Spanish adventurers, soldiers, horses, war dogs, pigs and some priests, women and free Blacks entered what is now Mississippi near the present site of Columbus. Recent archaeological finds of European artifacts associated with 16th Century proto-Chickasaw ceramics in the Starkville area indicate Chickasaw and European contact during the 1500s. Hernando De Soto was the only European known to have ventured into what is now north Mississippi during the 1500s.

On December 14, 1540, de Soto, having been traveling west from the Warrior River, reached the Tombigbee, which the Spanish called the River of the Chicasa. The river was described as “flowing out of its bed” when the Spaniards arrived, and that would have dictated their crossing point. Because of the high water, de Soto had his men construct a large piragua or raft to cross the river. On Dec. 16, 1540, the expedition of Hernando de Soto crossed the Tombigbee River with the best evidence indicating the crossing location being between Buzzard’s Island, about seven river miles south of downtown Columbus, and Waverly, about seven river miles to the north.

In 1817, John Pitchlynn had pointed out to Capt. Hugh Young, who was surveying the route for Military Road, that the mouth of Moore’s Creek (the foot of Main Street in Columbus) was the place on the river that the Indians used as their high water crossing. Other high water crossings were at Buzzards Island where an ancient trail intersected the river, at Plymouth Bluff, Waverly and Barton’s Ferry. Above that point the Buttahatchee flood plain would have been encountered.

After crossing the Tombigbee on rafts, de Soto’s force marched to an abandoned Chickasaw village, called Chicasa, arriving that night.

There, the Spanish established their winter camp of 1540-41. That village appears to have been in the Starkville area. The Chickasaws brought food and blankets to the Spanish, and the large number of Europeans probably greatly depleted the Indians’ winter food supply. As a supplemental food source, the Spanish had been driving a herd of over 300 hogs across the South. These hogs were only butchered for food when no other source of food was available or for a special feast.

In December 1540, possibly on the Feast of St. Lucy or the Feast of St. Nicolas or most likely at the major feast of Christmas, de Soto would have ordered the slaughter and cooking of some of the hogs as a special or celebratory meal. That Spanish meal would have been the first pork barbecue ever held in Mississippi. It also gives Starkville a strong claim as the birthplace of Mississippi pork barbecue. This month is the 482nd anniversary of barbecue in Mississippi, with the first Christmas feast being a pork barbecue.

Barbecue or bar-b-que is derived from a Spanish term for meat roasted over an open fire. The Spanish term baracoa is said to have originated in the Caribbean and derived from a word for the cooking practices of Indians there. It was in 1697 that we see the first use of “barbecue” in English. That was by William Dampier, an English buccaneer. The word buccaneer was first used in referring to Europeans who dried and smoked fish in the manner of Indians in the Caribbean. Since many of those were French or English pirates preserving meat for their voyages, buccaneer became another word for pirate.

The earliest local account usage that I have seen is in an 1825 copy of the Virginia House-Wife that has been passed down in the Billups family in Columbus. It is:

TO BARBECUE SHOTE
This is the name given in the southern states to a fat young hog, which, when the head and feet are taken off, and it is cut into four quarters, will weigh six pounds per quarter. Take a fore quarter, make several incisions between the ribs, and stuff it with rich forcemeat; put it in a pan with a pint of water, two cloves of garlic, pepper, salt, two gills of red wine, and two of mushroom catsup. Bake it and thicken the gravy with butter and brown flour; it must be jointed and the ribs cut across before it is cooked, or it can not be carved well, lay it in the dish with the ribs uppermost; if it be not sufficiently brown, add a little burnt sugar to the gravy.

Newspaper accounts during the early 1800s show that pork continued to be a popular Christmas serving. On Dec. 21, 1843, it was reported in Columbus that “Several droves of hogs are now in Town. Those persons of the county who desire pork can be accommodated. Brains and ribs are fine for Christmas.” A newspaper account of a celebratory dinner held near Canton on December 21, 1846, described the dinner as a barbecue.

A more recent recipe for a historic southern barbecue sauce was recorded by Eudora Welty about 1939. She told of Aberdeen’s famous barbecue parties given by James Acker at his home, The Magnolias. His barbecue sauce recipe was: Heat together: 4 ounces vinegar, 14 ounces catsup, 3 ounces Worcestershire sauce, the juice of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons salt, red and black pepper to taste and 4 ounces butter. Baste the meat constantly while cooking.

An old family cookbook from 1901, “The New Dixie Recipe Book,” provides a traditional southern menu for Christmas dinner which included “roast young pig.”

I recall from my childhood having yearly Christmas dinner with my great aunt and uncle, Dr. and Mrs. John Richards, where the meal was always the same: ham, roast turkey, Greenberg smoked turkey, dressing, English peas, mashed honey carrots, mashed potatoes with gravy, homemade rolls, cranberries and pickled peaches. Aunt Martie, as we called her, also always served what she called a “pear salad”. It was simply a pear half filled with Dukes mayonnaise and grated cheese on top.

It is interesting to note that roast pork or barbecue which was first served here 482 years ago was a long time traditional Southern Christmas meal. Actually, barbecue at Christmas is not a bad idea.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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