Alabama Indian Tribes
See Creek
Confederacy and Muskogee.
Perhaps
connected with the native word "albina," meaning "to
camp," or alba amo, "weed gatherer," referring to the
black drink. See Alabama
Location
A part of
this tribe lived for a time among the Lower Creeks and
perhaps in this State. Another section settled near
Mobile and remained there until West Florida was ceded
to Great Britain when they crossed the Mississippi. A
few seem to have joined the Creeks and migrated with
them to Oklahoma. (See
Florida.)
Very
early this tribe lived on the Apalachicola and
Chattahoochee Rivers, partly in Alabama. Sometime after
1715 they settled in Russell County, on the
Chattahoochee River where they occupied at least two
different sites before removing with the rest of the
Creeks to the other side of the Mississippi. (See
Georgia.)
A
division or sub-tribe of the Muskogee.
This
tribe settled near Mobile after having been driven from
Florida and moved to Louisiana about the same time as
the Apalachee. (See
Florida.)
In the
latter part of the eighteenth century some Cherokee
worked their way down the Tennessee River as far as
Muscle Shoals, constituting the Chickamauga band. They
had settlements at Turkeytown on the Coosa, Willstown on
Wills Creek, and Coldwater near Tuscumbia, occupied
jointly with the Creeks and destroyed by the Whites in
1787. All of their Alabama territory was surrendered in
treaties made between 1807 and 1835. (See
Tennessee.)
The
Chickasaw had a few settlements in northwestern Alabama,
part of which State was within their hunting
territories. At one time they also had a town called
Ooe-asa (Wi-aca) among the Upper Creeks. (See
Mississippi.)
This
tribe hunted over and occupied, at least temporarily,
parts of southwestern Alabama beyond the Tombigbee. (See
Mississippi.)
Creek
Confederacy
This name
is given to a loose organization which constituted the
principal political element in the territory of the
present States of Georgia and Alabama from very early
times, probably as far back as the period of De Soto. It
was built around a dominant tribe, or rather a group of
dominant tribes, called Muskogee. The name Creek early
became attached to these people because when they were
first known to the Carolina colonists and for a
considerable period afterward the body of them which the
latter knew best was living upon a river, the present
Ocmulgee, called by Europeans "Ocheese Creek." The
Creeks were early divided geographically into two parts,
one called Upper Creeks, on the Coosa and Tallapoosa
Rivers; the other, the Lower Creeks, on the lower
Chattahoochee and Ocmulgee. The former were also divided
at times into the Coosa branch or Abihka and the
Tallapoosa branch and the two were called Upper and
Middle Creeks respectively. Bartram ( 1792) tends to
confuse the student by denominating all of the true
Creeks "Upper Creeks" and the Seminole "Lower Creeks."
The dominant Muskogee gradually gathered about them--and
to a certain extent under them--the Apalachicola,
Hitchiti, Okmulgee, Sawokli, Chiaha, Osochi, Yuchi,
Alabama, Tawasa, Pawokti, Muklasa, Koasati, Tuskegee, a
part of the Shawnee, and for a time some Yamasee, not
counting broken bands and families from various
quarters. The first seven of the above were for the most
part among the Lower Creeks, the remainder with the
Upper Creeks. (For further information, see the separate
tribal names under Alabama,
Georgia and
Florida.)
A
division or sub-tribe of the Muskogee.
A
division of the Muskogee.
A
division or sub-tribe of the Muskogee.
This
tribe lived for considerable period close to, and at
times within, the present territory of Alabama along its
southeastern margin. (See
Georgia.)
A division of the Muskogee.
A division of the Muskogee.
Meaning unknown; often given as
Coosawda and Coushatta, and sometimes abbreviated to Shati.
A division of the Muskogee.
Meaning unknown, but Halbert (
1901) suggests that it may be from Choctaw moeli, "to paddle," since Mobile is
pronounced moila by the Indians. It is the Mabila, Mauilla, Mavila, or Mauvila
of the De Soto chroniclers. See
Mobile Location
Meaning in Alabama and Choctaw,
"friends," or "people of one nation."
Connections.
Since the Muklasa did not speak Muskogee and their name is from the Koasati,
Alabama, or Choctaw language, and since they were near neighbors of the two
former, it is evident that they were connected with one or the other of them.
Location.
On the south bank of Tallapoosa River in Montgomery County. (See
Florida and
Oklahoma.)
History.
When we first hear of the Muklasa in 1675 they were in the position above given
and remained there until the end of the Creek-American War, when they are said
to have emigrated to Florida in a body. Nothing is heard of them afterward,
however, and although Gatschet (1884) states that there was a town of the name
in the Creek Nation in the west in his time, I could learn nothing about it when
I visited the Creeks in 1911-12.
Population.
In 1760 the Muklasa are said to have had 50 men, in 1761, 30, and in 1792, 30.
These are the only figures available regarding their numbers.
Meaning
unknown, but perhaps originally from Shawnee and having
reference to swampy ground. To this tribe the name
Creeks was ordinarily applied. See
Muskogee Location
If
connected with Choctaw Napissa, as seems not unlikely,
the name means those who see, or those who look out,
probably equivalent to frontiersmen.
Connection. They belonged
to the southern division of the Muskhogean proper, and
were seemingly nearest to the Choctaw.
Location. Along Black
Warrior River.
History. The tribe appears
first in the account of an attempt to colonize the Gulf
States in 1559 under Don Tristan de Luna. A part of his
forces being sent inland from Pensacola Bay came to
Coosa in 1560 and assisted its people against the
Napochi, whom they claimed to have reduced to allegiance
to the former. After this the Napochi seem to have left
the Black Warrior, and we know nothing certain of their
fate, but the name was preserved down to very recent
times among the Creeks as a war name, and it is probable
that they are the Napissa spoken of by Iberville in
1699, as having recently united with the Chickasaw.
Possibly the Acolapissa of Pearl River and the
Quinipissa of Louisiana were parts of the same tribe.
Population. Unknown.
Connection in which they have
become noted. The only claim the Napochi have to
distinction is their possible connection with the
remarkable group of mounds at Moundville, Hale County,
Ala.
One
section of the Natchez Indians settled among the the
Abihka Creeks near Coosa River after 1731 and went to
Oklahoma a century later with the rest of the Creeks.
(See
Mississippi.)
A
division of the Muskogee.
A Creek
tribe and town of the Hitchiti connection. (See
Georgia.)
Meaning
unknown. See
Osochi Location
A
division of the Muskogee.
This
tribe moved from Florida to the neighborhood of Mobile
along with the Alabama Indians and afterward established
a town on the upper course of Alabama River. Still later
they were absorbed into the Alabama division of the
Creek Confederacy. (See
Florida.)
A
division of the Creeks, probably related to the
Muskogee, and possibly a division of the Okchai.
Possibly
meaning "raccoon people," in the Hitchiti language, and,
while this is not absolutely certain, the okli undoubtedly
means "people."
In 1716 a
band of Shawnee from Savannah River moved to the
Chattahoochee and later to the Tallapoosa, where they
remained until early in the nineteenth century. A second
band settled near Sylacauga in 1747 and remained there
until sometime before 1761 when they returned north.
(See
Tennessee.)
This
tribe was moved from Louisiana in 1715 and given a
location about 2 leagues from the French fort at Mobile,
one which had been recently abandoned by the Tawasa,
along a watercourse which was named from them Tensaw
River. Soon after the cession of Mobile to Great
Britain, the Taensa returned to Louisiana. (See
Louisiana.)
Said by
Iberville to mean "little chief," but this is evidently
an error. See
Tohome Location
One of
the four head tribes of the Muskogee.
Meaning
unknown, but apparently containing the Alabama term
taska, "warrior." See
Tuskegee
Location
A division or sub-tribe of the
Muskogee.
A division of the Muskogee made
up from several different sources. (See
Muskogee.)
There was a band of Yamasee on
Mobile Bay shortly after 1715, at the mouth of Deer River, and such a band is
entered on maps as late as 1744. It was possibly this same band which appears
among the Upper Creeks during the same century and in particular is entered upon
the Mitchell map of 1755. Later they seem to have moved across to Chattahoochee
River and later to west Florida, where in 1823 they constituted a Seminole town.
(See
Florida.)
A band of Yuchi seems to have
lived at a very early date near Muscle Shoals on Tennessee River, whence they
probably moved into east Tennessee. A second body of the same tribe moved from
Choctawhatchee River, Fla., to the Tallapoosa before 1760 and established
themselves near the Tukabahchee, but they soon disappeared from the historical
record. In 1715 the Westo Indians, who I believe to have been Yuchi, settled on
the Alabama side of Chattahoochee River, probably on Little Uchee Creek. The
year afterward another band, accompanied by Shawnee and Apalachicola Indians,
established themselves farther down, perhaps at the mouth of Cowikee Creek in
Barbour County, and not long afterward accompanied the Shawnee to Tallapoosa
River. They settled beside the latter and some finally united with them. They
seem to have occupied several towns in the neighborhood in succession and there
is evidence that a part of them reached the lower Tombigbee. The main body of
Yuchi shifted from the Savannah to Uchee Creek in Russell County between 1729
and 1740 and continued there until the westward migration of the Creek Nation.
(See
Georgia.)
Resources:
Notes About the Book:
Source: The Indian Tribes of North America, by John R. Swanton, 1953, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 145, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and then ocr'd. Minimal editing
has been done, and readers can and should expect some errors in the textual
output.
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