The Fus-hatchee Tribe

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The descriptive name of the Fus-hatchee and their intimate relations with Kolomi, Kan-hatki, and Atasi lead me to believe that they were a comparatively late branch of one of these. They appear first on the De Crenay map of 1733, in which they are placed on the south side of the Tallapoosa.¹ They are also in the lists of 1738, 1750, 1760, and 1761.² James Germany was their trader in the last mentioned year. In 1797 the trader was Nicholas White.³ The name is in the lists of Bartram⁴ and Hawkins,⁵ and is evidently the ''Coosahatchies" of Swan.⁶ In his list of Creek traders, made in May, 1797, Hawkins assigns none to this town; but in a second, dated the following September, he gives the name of William McCart, who had formerly been a hireling of Abraham M. Mordecai at Holiwahali.⁷ Hawkins describes the town as follows:

Foosce-hōt-che; from foo-so-wau, a bird, and hot-che, tail.⁸ It is two miles below Ho-ith-le-wau-le [Holiwahali] on the right bank of Tal-la-poo-sa, on a narrow strip of flat land; the broken lands are just back of the town; the cornfields are on the opposite side of the river, and are divided from those of Ho-ith-le-wau-le by a small creek, Noo-coose-che-po. On the right bank of this little creek, half a mile from the river, is the remains of a ditch which surrounded a fortification, and back of this for a mile is the appearance of old settlements, and back of these, pine slashes.

The cornfields are narrow, and extend down, bordering on the river.⁹

This was one of those towns which went to Florida after the Creek-American war, and consequently we find no mention of it in the census list of 1832. A small band is noted in northern Florida as early as 1778.¹⁰ It was accompanied by Kan-hatki, and after the Seminole war the two moved westward together and formed a single settlement in the southern part of the Seminole Nation. There they constituted one district, known as Fus-hatchee. and were so represented in the Seminole council. Their square ground was, however, known as Liwahali, because the leaders in forming it are said to have been Holiwahali Indians.

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Footnotes:

1. Plate 6; also Hamilton, Col. Mobile, p. 190.
2. MSS., Ayer Lib.; Miss. Prov. Arch., I, p. 94; Ga. Col. Docs., VIII, p. 523.
3. Ga. Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, p. 168.
4. Bartram, Travels, p. 461.
5. Ga. Hist. Soc. Colls., in, p. 25.
6. Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, V, p. 262.
7. Ga. Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, pp. 168, 195.
8. This is erroneous. It should be fuswa, bird, and håtci, river or stream.
9. Ga. Hist. Soc. Colls., III, p. 33.
10. Copy of MS. in Lib. Cong.

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Notes About Book:

Source: Swanton, John R., Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors. Pub. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 73. Washington, 1922.

Notes about Online Publication: This manuscript has been ocr'd and heavily edited. Many of the Native American words have been reproduced as clearly as online publication will allow us, but not all are exactly the way they were in the original work. The structure of this manuscript has been changed to allow better online presentation.

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