Florida Indian Tribes

The following tribes at one time are recorded in history as having resided within the present state of Florida. If the tribe name is in bold, then Florida is the primary location known for this tribe, otherwise we provide the tribes specifics as it pertains to Florida and then provide a link to the main tribal page.

  • Acuera Indians
  • Aguacaleyquen Indians, see Utina.
  • Ais Indians
  • Alabama Indians
    Early in the eighteenth century the Pawokti, and perhaps some other Alabama bands, lived near Apalachicola River, whence they were driven in 1708. After the Creek-American War a part of the Alabama again entered Florida, but they do not seem to have maintained an independent existence for a very long period.
  • Amacano Indians
  • Amacapiras Indians, see Macapiras.
  • Apalachee Indians
  • Apalachicola Indians
    At times some of the Apalachicola Indians lived south of the present Florida boundary line and they gave their name to the great river which runs through the panhandle of that State.
  • Calusa Indians
  • Caparaz Indians
  • Chatot Indians
  • Chiaha Indians
    A few Creeks of this tribe emigrated from their former towns to Florida before the Creek War and after that encounter may have been joined by others. In an early list of Seminole settlements they are credited with one town on “Beech Creek,” and this may have been identical with Fulemmy’s Town or Pinder Town located on Suwanee River in 1817, which was said to be occupied by Chiaha Indians. The Mikasuki are reported to have branched off from this tribe.
  • Chilucan Indians
  • Chine Indians
  • Creek Indians
    see Alabama, Chiaha, Hitchiti, Mikasukee, Muskogee, Oconee, Sawokli, Tawasa, and Yuchi.
  • Fresh Water Indians
  • Guacata Indians
  • Guale Indians
    In relatively late times many of these Indians were driven from their country into Florida.
  • Hitchiti Indians
    The ancient home of the Hitchiti was north of Florida but after the destruction of the earlier tribes of the peninsula, in which they themselves participated, Hitchiti-speaking peoples moved in in great numbers to take their places, so that up to the Creek-American War, the Hitchiti language was spoken by the greater number of Seminole. The later immigration, as we have indicated above, reduced the Hitchiti element to a minority position, so that what we now call the Seminole language is practically identical with Muskogee. True Hitchiti as distinguished from Hitchiti-speaking peoples who bore other names, do not appear to have been very active in this early movement though Hawkins (1848) mentions them as one of those tribes from which the Seminole were made up. The Hitchiti settlement of Attapulgas or Atap’halgi and perhaps other of the so-called Fowl Towns seem to represent a later immigration into the peninsula.
  • Icafui Indians
  • Jeaga Indians
  • Koasati Indians
    Appearance of a “Coosada Old Town” on the middle course of Choctawhatchee River on a map of 1823 shows that a band of Koasati Indians joined the Seminole in Florida, but this is all we know of them.
  • Macapiras Indians
  • Mikasuki Indians
  • Mocogo Indians
  • Mucogo Indians (See Mocogo)
  • Muklasa Indians
    A small Creek town whose inhabitants were probably related by speech to the Alabama and Koasati. They are said to have gone to Florida after the Creek War.
  • Muskogee Indians
    The first true Creeks or Muskogee to enter Florida seem to have been a body of Eufaula Indians who made a settlement called Chuko tcati, Red House, on the west side of the peninsula some distance north of Tampa Bays This was in 1761. Other Muskogee drifted into Florida from time to time, but the great immigration took place after the Creek-American War. The newcomers were from many towns, but more particularly those on the Tallapoosa River. They gave the final tone and the characteristic language to the Florida emigrants who had before been dominantly of Hitchiti connection, and therefore the so-called Seminole language is Muskogee, with possibly a few minor changes in the vocabulary.
  • Ocale Indians
  • Oçita Indians, see Pohoy.
  • Oconee Indians
    After leaving the Chattahoochee about 1750 the Oconee moved into Florida and established themselves on the Alachua Plains in a town which Bartram calls Cuscowilla. They constituted the first large band of northern Indians to settle in Florida and their chiefs came to be recognized as head chiefs of the Seminole. One of these, Mikonopi, was prominent during the Seminole War, but the identity of the tribe itself is lost after that struggle. Another part of them seem to have settled for a time among the Apalachee.
  • Onatheaqua Indians
  • Osochi Indians
    A Creek division thought to have originated in Florida.
  • Pawokti Indians
  • Pensacola Indians
  • Pohoy Indians
  • Pooy Indians, see Pohoy.
  • Posey Indians, see Pohoy.
  • Potano Indians
  • Saturiwa Indians
  • Sawokli Indians
    A division of Creek Indians belonging to the Hitchiti speaking group. Anciently it seems to have lived entirely in Florida, but later it moved up into the neighborhood of the Lower Creeks.
  • Seminole Indians
  • Surruque Indians
  • Tacatacuru Indians
  • Tamathli Indians
    Sometime after 1540, they drifted into Florida and were established in a mission called La Purificaci6n de la Tama on January 27, 1675, by Bishop Calderon of Cuba, in the Apalachee country 1 league from San Luis. In a mission list dated 1680 appears the name of another mission, Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria de in Tama. The Tamathli suffered the same fate as the Apalachee in general when the latter were attacked by Moore in 1704. At least part of these Indians afterward moved to the neighborhood of St. Augustine, where another mission was established for them, but this was attacked by the Creeks on November 1, 1725, while mass was being celebrated. Many Indians were killed and the remainder moved to other missions. In 1738 we hear of a “Tamaxle nuevo,” as the northernmost Lower Creek settlement and a southern division called “Old Tamathle,” and are informed that “in the town of Tamasle in Apalachee [i. e., Old Tamathle] there were some Catholic and pagan families.”
  • Tawasa Indians
  • Tekesta Indians (see Tequesta)
  • Tequesta Indians
  • Timucua Indians (See Utina)
  • Tocobaga Indians
  • Ucita Indians, see Pohoy.
  • Utina Indians
  • Yamasee Indians
    Some tribes affiliated with the Yamasee settled in the Apalachee country in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The great body came to Florida from South Carolina after their war with the English colonists in 1715, and most of them remained in the northeastern part of the peninsula. Their final appearance is as the Ocklawaha band of Seminole. Part of them moved west, however, and settled near Mobile, and either this or a third party lived among the Creeks for a time, after which they seem to have returned to west Florida, where they were represented by the “Yumersee” town of the Seminole. A considerable number of them were captured by the Creek Indians and incorporated with them.
  • Yuchi Indians
    In the seventeenth century a body of Yuchi established themselves west of Apalachicola River, but moved north to join the Upper Creeks before 1761. At a much later date a body of eastern Yuchi joined the Seminole and in 1823 had a settlement called Tallahassee or Spring Gardens 10 miles from Volusia. They probably moved to Oklahoma at the end of the last Seminole war.
  • Yufera Indians
  • Yui Indians
  • Yustaga Indians

Topics:
History,

Collection:
Swanton, John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 145. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. 1953.

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