Apalachee Indians

The Apalachee Indians are of Muskhogean stock and linguistically are closely related to the Choctaw. Their first known inhabitation of North America is found around Lake Jackson, Louisiana, where they appeared to have resided from about 1100-1511. Archeologists have studied the mortuary evidence found in the mounds in the Lake Jackson region, and have identified a complex chiefdom of the Apalachee people. When Narváez and De Soto encountered them in the 16th century, they were found in Florida, but there is no evidence that there was a large scale migration of people to the Floridian peninsula. Rather it appears from the archeological remains that there was an abandonment of the political centers of the tribe, both at Lake Jackson and a smaller center at Velda, and a movement of the paramount chief from the Lake Jackson to the Anhaica Apalachee region. In 1608 some of the chiefs of the Apalachee travelled to St. Augustine and pledged allegiance to the Spanish Crown. While there, they "invited" Spanish missionaries to their villages. For several generations the Apalachee people would become slaves to the Spanish authorities... they would lose their religion, their nobility, and their political structure. The Apalachee province once held the region north of the bay now called by the name, from about the neighborhood of Pensacola river to Ocilla river. The chief towns were about the present Tallahassee and St Marks. Soon after the Indian wars and the collapse of the Spanish Missions, the remaining tribe relocated to the Mobile and Louisiana area. A band of Apalachee Indians moved from the neighborhood of Mobile to Louisiana in 1764, remained for a short time on the Mississippi River and then moved up to Red River, where they obtained a grant of land along with the Taensa. Later they sold this land and part of them probably removed to Oklahoma, but others remained in Louisiana and amalgamated with other tribes. Presently, the last surviving band of Apalachee Indians is called the Talimali Band.

Early History and ethnology of the Apalachee Indian Tribe:

• Apalachee Indian History
  A history of the Apalachee Tribe.
• Apalachee Indian Tribe
  An ethnological look into the Apalachee Indian Tribe as they were known to John Swanton in 1953.
• Apalachi Indian Tribe
  Short description of the Apalachee tribe with a brief history.
Written by Albert Gatschet.

• Apalachee in Louisiana (hosted at Archaeology Magazine)

• Mission San Luis de Apalachee

• The Apalachee Trail (hosted at St. Petersburg Times Online)

• Apalachee (hosted at Florida Indian Mounds)

• Apalachee people, alusa & Timucua (hosted at The Pages of Shades)

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