The
Biloxi tribe are
Native Americans of the Siouan language family. They call themselves by the
autonym Tanêks(a) in
Siouan Biloxi language. When first encountered by
Europeans in 1699, the Biloxi inhabited an area near the coast of the
Gulf of Mexico near what is now the city of
Biloxi,
Mississippi. They were eventually forced west into Louisiana and eastern
Texas. The
Biloxi language--
Tanêksayaa ade--has been extinct since the 1930s, when the last known native
semi-speaker, Emma Jackson, died.