Before it was New Orleans, it was Tchoutchouma, a likely form of “Tcukka Uma,” meaning Houma village.
Old newspapers from the late 1800s and early 1900s repeatedly mention the same thing: the city of New Orleans was founded on the site of an Indigenous village called Tchoutchouma. Writers of that era understood it as a Houma settlement, with some even translating it as “the village of the Oumas or Houmas.”
In our language, that idea matches what we know today:
Tcukka Uma translates to “Houma village.”
Multiple articles describe Bienville choosing the site for New Orleans because the land was already cleared by an Indian village along the river. Others note that if the Native name had survived, the city might have been known as “the City of the Sun,” instead of being named after a French duke.
Whether every detail in those clippings is perfect or not, the message is clear:
New Orleans did not begin as an empty place. It began as an Indigenous one.
Through renamed land, erased villages, and rewritten history, the memory of Tchoutchouma / Tcukka Uma still rises from the archives, reminding us that Indigenous presence isn’t a footnote to New Orleans, but part of its foundation.
📰Times Picayune May 20, 1901
📰Times-Democrat Feburary 6, 1880
📰New Orleans Weekly Democrat February 17, 1877
