In August, 1777, William Bartram visited an Alabama village on the Mississippi 2 miles above the Manchac. He describes it as "delightfully situated on several swelling green hills, gradually ascending from the verge of the river." A friend accompanying him purchased some native baskets and pottery from the inhabitants. In 1784 Hutchins found them in about the same place." It will be noticed that Sibley does not mention a previous sojourn of either of the parties of Alabama described by him on the Mississippi River, and we are in the dark as to whether they had separated after coming into Louisiana or before. If they came separately it would seem most likely that the Opelousas band was the one settled on the Mississippi. This at any rate was in accordance with the belief of John Scott, the late chief of the Alabama now residing in Texas and the oldest person among them. He informed the writer in 1912 that the name of the old Alabama town on the Mississippi River was Aktcabehåle. From there they moved to "Mikiwi'l" close to Opelousas, and from there to the Sabine River, where they formed a new town which received no special name. There was an Alabama village in Texas called Fenced-in-village a short distance west by south of a mill and former post office called Mobile, Tyler County, Texas. Next they settled in what is now Tyler County, Texas, at a town which they called Tak'o'sha-o'la ("Peach-tree Town"). This was about 2 miles due north of Chester or 20 miles north of Woodville, Texas. Their next town was 3 miles from Peach-tree Town and contained a "big house" (i' sa tcuba) and a dance ground, but was unnamed. After a time the Alabama chief decided to move to Pat'ala'ka (said to mean "Cane place") where the Biloxi and Pascagoula lived, and some other Indians went with him. Part, however, returned to Louisiana, where they remained three years. At the end of that time they came back to Texas and formed a village which took its name from a white man, Jim Barclay. They moved from there to the village which they now occupy, which is called Big Sandy village from the name of a creek, although it took some time for the families scattered about in Texas to come in. According to some white informants the Alabama settled on Red River, moved to Big Sandy village, and perhaps both parties finally united there. A few families, however, still remain in Calcasieu and St. Landry Parishes, Louisiana. The language of all of the Texas Alabama is practically uniform, but the speech of some of the Tapasola clan is said to vary a little from the normal. The Alabama who had remained in their old country took a prominent part in the Creek war. Indeed Stiggins says that "they did more murder and other mischief in the time of their hostilities in the year 'Bartram, Travels, p. 427. 2 Hutchins, Narr., p. 44. After the treaty of Fort 1813 than all the other tribes together." Jackson, in 1814, by which all of the old Alabama land was ceded to the whites, the same writer says that part of them settled above the mouth of Cubahatche in a town called Towassee, while the rest moved to a place on Coosa River above Wetumpka. He states that the town belonging to this latter division was Otciapofa, but he is evidently mistaken, because Otciapofa has been pure Creek as far back as we have any knowledge of it. Perhaps the Coosa settlement was that called Autauga in the census of 1832, or it may have contained the Okchaiutci Indians, whose history will be given presently. I have suggested elsewhere that the names of these towns seem to show the part of the tribe which remained with the Creeks to have been the Tawasa. Speaking of the Alabama Indians in his time Stiggins says that, while their chiefs were admitted to the national councils on the same terms as the others, they seldom associated with the Creeks otherwise. After their removal the Alabama settled near the Canadian, but some years later went still farther west and located about the present town of Weleetka, Okla. A small station on the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad just south of Weleetka bears their name. While a few of these Indians retain their old language it is rapidly giving place to Creek and English. They have the distinction of being the only non-Muskogee tribe incorporated with the Creeks, exclusive of the Yuchi, which still maintains a square ground. As already noted, one Alabama town received the name, Okchaiutci, "Little Okchai," which suggests relationship with the Okchai people, but the origin of this the Indians explain as follows: At one time the Alabama (probably only part of the tribe) had no square ground and asked the Okchai to take them into theirs. The Okchai said, "All right; you can seat yourself on the other side of my four backsticks and I will protect you." They did so, and for some time afterwards the two tribes busked together and played on the same side in ball games. Later on, however, a dispute arose in connection with one of these games and the Alabama separated, associating themselves with the Tukabahchee and hence with the opposite fire clan. Afterwards those Alabama formed a town which they called Okchaiutci, and to this day Okchaiutci is one of the names given the Alabama Indians in set speeches at the time of the busk. According to my informant, himself an Okchai Indian, the date of this separation was as late as 1872-73, but he must be much in error since we find Okchaiutci in existence long before the removal to Oklahoma. Okchaiutci appears first, apparently, in the census list of 1750, though the diminutive ending is not used. In 1761 the trader located 1 Stiggins, MS. Still they may have occupied the site of Otciapofa for a time. This place and Little Tulsa were so close together that they were often confounded. there was William Trewin.' It is not separately mentioned by Bartram nor certainly by Swan, but is probably intended by the town which he calls "Wacksoyochees." " Hawkins gives the following description: Hook-choie-oo-che, a pretty little compact town, between O-che-au-po-fau and Tus-kee-gee, on the left bank of Coosau; the houses join those of Tus-kee-gee; the land around the town is a high, poor level, with high-land ponds; the corn fields are on the left side of Tallapoosa, on rich low grounds, on a point called Sam-bul-loh, and below the mouth of the creek of that name which joins on the right side of the river. They have a good stock of hogs, and a few cattle and horses; they formerly lived on the right bank of Coosau, just above their present site, and removed lately, on account of the war with the Chickasaws. Their stock ranges on that side of the river; they have fenced all the small fields about their houses, where they raise their peas and potatoes; their fields at Sam-bul-loh, are under a good fence; this was made by Mrs. Durant, the oldest sister of the late General McGillivray, for her own convenience.3 This town does not appear in the census list of 1832, unless it is one of the two Fishpond towns there given, "Fish Pond" and "Tholl thlo coe." After the removal to Oklahoma it is said to have maintained its separate square for a short time, and, as has been said, its name is retained as a busk designation of all the Alabama. THE KOASATI The Koasati Indians, as shown by their language, are closely related to the Alabama. There were at one time two branches of this tribe-one close to the Alabama, near what is now Coosada station, Elmore County, Ala., the other on the Tennessee River north of Langston, Jackson County. These latter appear but a few times in history, and the name was considerably garbled by early writers. There is reason to believe, however, that it has the honor of an appearance in the De Soto chronicles, as the Coste of Ranjel,* the Coste or Acoste of Elvas," the Costehe of Biedma," and the Acosta of Garcilasso." The omission of the vowel between s and t is the only difficult feature in this identification. It is evident also that it was at a somewhat different point on the river from that above indicated, since it was on an island. The form Costehe, used also by Pardo, tends to confirm our identification, since it appears to contain the Koasati and Alabama suffix -ha indicating collectivity. Ranjel gives the following account of the experience of the explorers among these "Costehe:" On Thursday [July 1, 1540] the chief of Coste came out to receive them in peace, and he took the Christians to sleep in a village of his; and he was offended because some soldiers provisioned themselves from, or, rather, robbed him of, some barbacoas of corn · Ga. Col. Docs., vш, p. 524. Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v, p. 262. Ga. Hist. Soc. Colls., III, p. 37. Bourne, Narr. of De Soto, II, p. 109. Ibid., 1, p. 78. Ibid., II, p. 15. 7 Garcilasso in Shipp, De Soto and Fla., p. 373. against his will. The next day, Thursday,' on the road leading toward the principal village of Coste, he stole away and gave the Spaniards the slip and armed his people. Friday, the 2d of July, the governor arrived at Coste. This village was on an island in the river, which there flows large, swift, and hard to enter. And the Christians crossed the first branch with no small venture, and the governor entered into the village careless and unarmed, with some followers unarmed. And when the soldiers, as they were used to do, began to climb upon the barbacoas, in an instant the Indians began to take up clubs and seize their bows and arrows and to go to the open square. The governor commanded that all should be patient and endure for the evident peril in which they were, and that no one should put his hand on his arms; and he began to rate his soldiers and, dissembling, to give them some blows with a cudgel; and he cajoled the chief, and said to him that he did not wish the Christians to make him any trouble; and they would like to go out to the open part of the island to encamp. And the chief and his men went with him; and when they were at some distance from the village in an open place, the governor ordered his soldiers to lay hands on the chief and ten or twelve of the principal Indians, and to put them in chains and collars; and he threatened them, and said that he would burn them all because they had laid hands on the Christians. From this place, Coste, the governor sent two soldiers to view the province of Chisca, which was reputed very rich, toward the north, and they brought good news. There in Coste they found in the trunk of a tree as good honey and even better than could be had in Spain. In that river were found some muscles that they gathered to eat, and some pearls. And they were the first these Christians saw in fresh water, although they are to be found in many parts of this land.2 In one of the accounts of Juan Pardo's expedition of 1567 we are told that he turned back because he learned that the Indians of Carrosa, Costehe, Chisca, and Cosa had united against him. This is the last mention of such a tribe by the Spaniards, and what we hear of the northern body of Koasati at a later period is little enough. We merely know that there was a Koasati village on the Tennessee River in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The "Cochali" of Coxe is probably a misprint for the name of this town. They were said to live on an island in the river just like the Costehe,^ and Sauvolle, who derived his information from a Canadian who had ascended the Tennessee in the summer of 1701 with four companions, says that "the Cassoty and the Casquinonpa are on an island, which the river forms, at the two extremities of which are situated these two nations." They also gave their name to the Tennessee River. In the map reproduced in plate 3 we find "Cusatees 50 in 2 villages" laid down on a big island in the "Cusatees" or "Thegalegos River," just below the "Tohogalegas" (Yuchi), and between the two a French fort. According to Mr. O. D. Street, Coosada was the name of a mixed settlement of Creeks and Cherokees established about 1784 on the south bank of the Tennessee "at what is now called 1 Probably Friday. 2 Bourne, Narr. of De Soto, II, pp. 109-111. 3 Ruidiaz, La Florida, п, pp. 271–272. 4 French, Hist. Colls. La., 1850, p. 230. ♪ MS. in Lib. La. Hist. Soc., Louisiane, Correspondence Générale, pp. 403-404. Mr. W. E. Myer, the well-known student of Tennessee archeology, thinks that this was Long Island. 991 Larkin's Landing in Jackson County." Either this was a new settlement by the people we are considering or 1784 marks the date when Cherokee came to live there. The former alternative may very well have been the true one, because the earlier settlement appears not to have been on the mainland. We do not know whether these Koasati were finally absorbed into the Cherokee or whether they emigrated. 2 The southern Koasati settlement seems to be mentioned first in the enumeration of 1750, where the name is spelled "Couchati," and in the census of 1760 where it appears as "Conchatys." It occurs often on maps, however, and in approximately the same place. The first allusion to the tribe in literature is probably by Adair, who speaks of "two great towns of the Koo-a-sah-te" as having joined the Creek Confederacy. In the list of towns made out in 1761 in order to assign them to traders "Coosawtee including Tomhetaws" is enumerated as having 125 hunters, but is not assigned to anyone on account of its proximity to the French fort. Shortly after this list was made out occurred the cession of Mobile to England and the movement of so many Indian tribes across the Mississippi. This occasioned the Koasati removal thus referred to by Adair: Soon after West-Florida was ceded to Great Britain, two warlike towns of the Koo. a-sah te Indians removed from near the late dangerous Alabama French garrison to the Choktah country about twenty-five miles below Tombikbe a strong wooden fortress, situated on the western side of a high and firm bank, overlooking a narrow deep point of the river of Mobille, and distant from that capital one hundred leagues. The discerning old war chieftain of this remnant perceived that the proud Muskohge, instead of reforming their conduct towards us, by our mild remonstrances, grew only more impudent by our lenity; therefore being afraid of sharing the justly deserved fate of the others, he wisely withdrew to this situation; as the French could not possibly supply them, in case we had exerted ourselves, either in defence to our properties or in revenge of the blood they had shed. But they were soon forced to return to their former place of abode, on account of the partiality of some of them to their former confederates; which proved lucky in its consequences, to the traders, and our southern colonies: for, when three hundred warriors of the Muskohge were on their way to the Choktah to join them in a war against us, two Kooasâhte horsemen, as allies, were allowed to pass through their ambuscade in the evening, and they gave notice of the impending danger. These Kooasâhte Indians annually sanctify the mulberries by a public oblation, before which they are not to be eaten; which, they say, is according to their ancient law.5 They were accompanied in this movement by some Alabama of Okchaiutci, and apparently by the Tamahita. In 1771 Romans passed their deserted fields on the Tombigbee, which he places 3 miles below the mouth of Sucarnochee River." Not many years later the lure of the west moved them again and a portion migrated into Louisiana. Pub. Ala. Hist. Soc., 1, p. 417. MS., Ayer Lib.; Miss. Prov. Arch. 1, p. 94. 4 Ga. Col. Docs., vin, p. 524. Romans, Nat. Hist. of E. & W. Fla., pp. 326–327. |