While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Yuchi. Significance unknown,
but perhaps, as suggested by Speck (1909), from a native word meaning
"those far away," or "at a distance," though it is also possible that it
is a variant of Ochesee or O eese, which was applied by the Hitchiti and
their allies to Indians speaking languages different from their own. Also
called:
Ani'-Yu'tsl, Cherokee name.
Chiska, probably a Muskogee translation of the name of one of their
bands.
Hughchee, an early synonym.
Round town people, a name given by the early English colonists.
Rickohockans, signifying "cavelanders" (Hewitt, in Hodge, 1907),
perhaps an early name for a part of them.
Tahogalewi, abbreviated to Hogologe, name given them by the
Delaware and other Algonquian people.
Tamahita, so called by some Indians, perhaps some of the eastern
Siouans.
Tsoyaha, "People of the sun," their own name, or at least the name
of one band.
Westo, perhaps a name applied to them by the Cusabo Indians of
South Carolina though the identification is not beyond question.
Connections. The Yuchi
constituted a linguistic stock, the Uchean, distinct from all others,
though structurally their speech bears a certain resemblance to the
languages of the Muskhogean and Siouan families.
Location. The earliest
known location of the Yuchi was in eastern Tennessee, perhaps near
Manchester, but some of them extended still farther east, while others
were as far west as Muscle Shoals. On archeological grounds Prof. T. M. N.
Lewis believes that one main center of the Yuchi was on Hiwassee River. We
find settlements laid down on the maps as far north as Green River,
Kentucky. In later times a part settled in West Florida, near the present
Eucheeanna, and another part on Savannah and Ogeechee Rivers. (See also
Alabama,
Florida, Oklahoma,
Tennessee, and
South Carolina.)
Subdivisions. There
appear to have been three principal bands in historic times: one on
Tennessee River, one in West Florida, and one on Savannah River, but only
a suggestion of native band names has survived. Recently Wagner has heard
of at least three subdivisional names, including the Tsoyaha, or "Sun
People" and the Root People.
Villages
Most of their settlements are
given the name of the tribe, Yuchi, or one of its synonyms. In early times
they occupied a town in eastern Tennessee called by the Cherokee Tsistu'yǐ,
"Rabbit place," on the north bank of Hiwassee River at the entrance of
Chestua Creek in Polk County, Tenn., and at one time also that of
Hiwassee, or Euphasee, at the Savannah Ford of Hiwassee River. The
Savannah River band had villages at Mount Pleasant, probably in Screven
County, Ga., near the mouth of Brier Creek, 2 miles below Silver Bluff on
Savannah River in Barnwell County; and one on Ogeechee River bearing the
name of that stream, though that was itself perhaps one form of the name
Yuchi. Hawkins (1848) mentions former villages at Ponpon and Saltketchers
in South Carolina, but these probably belonged to the Yamasee.
The following Yuchi settlements
were established after the tribe united with the Lower Creeks:
Arkansaw River, in Oklahoma.
Big Pond Town, Polecat Creek, and Sand Creek, in and near Creek
County,
Okla.
Blackjack Town.
Deep Fork Creek, Okla.
Duck Creek Town.
Intatchkålgi, on Opilthlako
Creek 28 miles above its junction with Flint River,
probably in Schley County, Ga.
Padshilaika, at the junction of
Patchilaika Creek with Flint River, Macon
County, Ga.
Red Fork, location uncertain.
Snake Creek, location uncertain.
Spring Garden Town, above Lake George, Fla.
Tokogalgi, on Kinchafoonee Creek, an affluent of Flint River, Ga.
History. The
chroniclers of the De Soto expedition mention the Yuchi under the name
Chisca, at one or more points in what is now Tennessee. In 1567 Boyano, an
officer under Juan Pardo, had two desperate encounters with these Indians
somewhere in the highlands of Tennessee or North Carolina, and, according
to his own story, destroyed great numbers of them. In 1670 Lederer (1912)
heard of people called Rickohockans living in the mountains who may have
been Yuchi, and two white men sent from Virginia by Abraham Wood visited a
Yuchi town on a head stream of the Tennessee in 1674. About this time
also, English explorers and settlers in South Carolina were told of a
warlike tribe called Westo (probably a division of Yuchi) who had struck
terror into all of the coast Indians, and hostilities later broke out
between them and the colonists. At this juncture, however, a band of
Shawnee made war upon the Westo and drove them from the Savannah. For a
time they seem to have given themselves up to a roving life, and some of
them went so far inland that they encountered La Salle and settled near
Fort St. Louis, near the present Utica, Ill. Later some were located among
the Creeks on Ocmulgee River, and they removed with them to the
Chattahoochee in 1715. Another band of Yuchi came to live on Savannah
River about 20 miles above Augusta, probably after the expulsion of the
Westo. They were often called Hogologe. In 1716 they also moved to the
Chattahoochee but for a time occupied a town distinct from that of the
other Yuchi. It was probably this band which settled near the Shawnee on
Tallapoosa River and finally united with them. Still later occurred a
third influx of Yuchi who occupied the Savannah between Silver Bluff and
Ebenezer Creek. In 1729 a Kasihta chief named Captain Ellick married three
Yuchi women and persuaded some of the Yuchi Indians to move over among the
Lower Creeks, but Governor Oglethorpe of Georgia guaranteed them their
rights to their old land until after 1740, and the final removal did not,
in fact, take place until 1751.
A still earlier invasion of southern territories by
Yuchi is noted by one of the governors of Florida in a letter dated 1639.
These invaders proved a constant source of annoyance to the Spaniards.
Finally they established themselves in West Florida not far from the
Choctawhatchee River, where they were attacked by an allied Spanish and
Apalachee expedition in 1677 and suffered severely. They continued to live
in the same region, however, until some time before 1761 when they moved
to the Upper Creeks and settled near the Tukabahchee. Eucheeanna in Walton
County, Fla. seems to preserve their name.
A certain number of Yuchi remained in the neighborhood
of Tennessee River, and at one time they were about Muscle Shoals. They
also occupied a town in the Cherokee country, called by the latter tribe
Tsistu'yl, and Hiwassee at Savannah Ford. In 1714, the former was cut off
by the Cherokee in revenge for the murder of a member of their tribe,
instigated by two English traders. Later tradition affirms that the
surviving Yuchi fled to Florida, but many of them certainly remained in
the Cherokee country for a long time afterward, and probably eventually
migrated west with their hosts.
A small band of Yuchi joined the Seminole just before
the outbreak of the Seminole War. They appear first in West Florida, near
the Mikasuki but later had a town at Spring Garden in Volusia County.
Their presence is indicated down to the end of the war in the Peninsula,
when they appear to have gone west, probably reuniting with the remainder
of the tribe.
The Yuchi who stayed with the Creeks accompanied them
west and settled in one body in the northwestern part of the old Creek
Nation, in Creek County, Okla.
Population. For the year
1650 Mooney (1928) makes an estimate of 1,500 for the Yuchi in Georgia,
Alabama, and Tennessee, but this does not include the "Westo," for whom,
with the Stono, he allows 1,600. The colonial census of 1715 gives 2 Yuchi
towns with 130 men and 400 souls, but this probably takes into
consideration only 1 band out of 3 or 4. In 1730 the band still on
Tennessee River was supposed to contain about 150 men. In 1760, 50 men are
reported in the Lower Creek town and 15 in one among the Upper Creeks. In
1777 Bartram (1792) estimated the number of Yuchi warriors in the lower
town at 500 and their total population as between 1,000 and,1,500. In 1792
Marbury (1792) reports 300 men, or a population of over 1,000, and Hawkins
in 1799 says the Lower Creek Yuchi claimed 250 men. According to the
census of 1832—33 there were 1,139 in 2 towns known to have been occupied
by Indians of this connection. In 1909 Speck stated that the whole number
of Yuchi could "hardly exceed five hundred," but the official report for
1910 gives only 78. That, however, must have been an underestimate as the
census of 1930 reported 216. Owing to the number of Yuchi bands, their
frequent changes in location, and the various terms applied to them, an
exact estimate of their numbers at any period is very difficult. In the
first half of the sixteenth century they may well have numbered more than
5,000.
Connection in which they have
become noted. The Yuchi have attained an altogether false reputation
as the supposed aborigines of the Gulf region. They were also noted for
the uniqueness of their language among the Southeastern tongues. The name
is preserved in Euchee, a post hamlet of Meigs County, Tenn.; Eucheeanna,
a post village of Walton County, Fla.; Euchee (or Uchee) Creek, Russell
County, Ala.; Uchee, a post station of Russell County, Ala.; Uchee Creek,
Columbia County, Ga.; and an island in Savannah River near the mouth of
the latter. Yufera. (See Florida.)
