Continued European Expansion in the Americas

Spain, France and England each competed for their stake in the new world. Although the Chickasaws did not actually encounter other Europeans exploration parties until Marquette and Joliet (1673) and later LaSalle (1682) European culture, trade, and diseases had already begun to affect the Chickasaw way of life. 

Throughout the 17th century, itinerant French fur traders (coureurs de bois) ranged down from the Canadian settlements, as did undocumented British adventurers from Virginia. The Spanish had been present in Florida at their mission towns since the early 1600s.