many entries between 1704 and 1717, after that date there is a considerable falling off. When Fort Toulouse was founded, about 1715, the Tawasa Indians, formerly neighbors of the Apalachee, settled near it among the Alabama. It is probable that some Apalachee accompanied them. At any rate a few known to be of Apalachee descent are still living among the Alabama near Weleetka, Oklahoma. At a considerably later date we find two Apalachee towns in the territory which the tribe formerly occupied. Gov. Dionisio de la Vega, to whom we are indebted for information regarding these, represents them as Apalachee which had been left after the destruction of the province. Writing August 27, 1728, he says: The entire province of Apalaçhe became reduced to two towns. The one called Hamaste, distant two leagues from the fort [of San Marcos], had about sixty men, forty women, and about the same number of children who were being taught the doctrine. The other one, named San Juan de Guacara, which was its old name, had about ten men, six women, and four children, all Christians.2 San Juan de Guacara was, however, originally a Timucua town, and the above settlement may have been Timucua miscalled "Apalache" by the governor, or they may have been Apalachee settled on the site of a former Timucua town. Hamaste was very likely the town established by Juan Marcos. De la Vega adds that these towns had revolted March 20, 1727, but he had learned that some of the Indians had "returned to their obedience," while those still hostile had apparently withdrawn from the neighborhood of the fort. Most of those Apalachee who remained in Florida evidently gravitated at last to the vicinity of Pensacola, where they could also be near the Mobile band. We will now revert to these last. As already stated, Bienville placed those Apalachee who sought his protection near the Mobile Indians, but their settlement was broken up by the Alabama and they took refuge near the new Fort Louis. Afterward Bienville assigned them lands on the River St. Martin, a league from the fort. "This," says Hamilton, "would be at our Three Mile Creek, probably extending to Chickasabogue, the St. Louis." He adds that "The cellar of the priest's house still exists behind a sawmill near Magazine Point."3 Some time before 1733 they made another change, perhaps because so many had gone to Pensacola. Says Hamilton: We know that at some time they moved over across the bay from the city, where the eastern mouth of the Tensaw River still preserves their name. They seem to have lived in part on an island there, for in Spanish times it is mentioned as only recently abandoned. . . . Their main seat was at and above what we now know as Blakely. Bayou Solimé probably commemorates Salome, so often named in the baptisma.1 1 Hamilton, Colonial Mobile, pp. 109-111. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 109. 4 Ibid., p. 111. The last Apalachee baptismal notice in the registers of the parish church at Mobile is under date of 1751.1 In his report of 1758 De Kerlerec says under the heading "Apataches," which is of course a misprint for Apalaches: This nation of about 30 warriors is situated on the other (i. e., east) side of Mobile Bay. They are reduced to this small number on account of the quantity of drink which has been sold to them in trade at all times; they are Christians and have a curacy established among them administered by a Capuchin, who acquits himself of it very poorly. This nation has been attached to us for a long time. It is divided into two bands, one of which is on Spanish territory, a dependence of Pensacola. The warriors who are allied with us (dependent de nous) are equally of great use in conveying the dispatches of Tombigbee and the Alabamas, especially this latter, where we send soldiers as little as possible on account of the too great ease with which they can desert and pass to the English.2 In 1763 all Spanish and French possessions east of the Mississippi passed under the government of Great Britain. This change was not at all to the liking of most of the small tribes settled about Mobile Bay, and a letter of M. d'Abbadie, governor of Louisiana, dated April 10, 1764, informs us that the Taensas, Apalachee and the Pakana tribe of the Creeks had already come over to Red River in his province, or were about to do so. We know that such a movement did actually take place. Probably the emigrant Apalachee included both the Mobile and the Pensacola bands. Sibley, in his "Historical sketches of several Indian Tribes in Louisiana, south of the Arkansas River, and between the Mississippi and River Grand," written in 1806, has the following to say regarding this tribe: Appalaches, are likewise emigrants from West Florida, from off the river whose name they bear; came over to Red River about the same time the Boluxas did, and have, ever since, lived on the river, above Bayau Rapide. No nation have been more highly esteemed by the French inhabitants; no complaints against them are ever heard; there are only fourteen men remaining; have their own language, but speak French and Mobilian.4 From the papers on public lands among the American State Papers we know that they and the Taensa Indians settled together on a strip of land on Red River between Bayou d'Arro and Bayou Jean de Jean. This land was sold in 1803 to Miller and Fulton, but only a portion of it was allowed them by the United States commissioners in 1812 on the ground that the sale had not been agreed to by the Apalachee. Nevertheless it is probable that the Apalachee did not remain in possession of their lands for a much longer period, though they appear to have lived in the same general region and to have 1 Hamilton, op. cit., p. 112. 2 Internat. Congress Am., Compte Rendu, XV Sess., 1, p. 86. 3 Am. Antiq., XIII, 252-253, Sept., 1891. Sibley in Ann. of Cong., 9th Cong., 2d sess., 1085. died out there or gradually lost their identity. At the present time there are said to be two or three persons of Apalachee blood still living in Louisiana, but they have forgotten their language and of course all of their aboriginal culture.1 THE APALACHICOLA There has been considerable confusion regarding this tribe, because the name was applied by the Spaniards from a very early period to the Lower Creeks generally, Coweta and Kasihta in one account being mentioned as Apalachicola towns. It is used in its general sense in the very earliest place in the Spanish records in which the name occurs, a letter dated August 22, 1639, and in the same way in letters of 1686 and 1688.3 On the other hand, in the letter of 1686 the name "Apalachicoli" is distinctly applied also to a particular town, and inasmuch as it is clearly the name of a tribe and town in later times it is probable that its original application was to such a tribe among or near the Lower Creeks. From this the Spaniards evidently extended it over the whole of the latter. That the town was considered important is shown by the Creek name which it bears, Tålwa łako, "Big Town, and from Bartram's statement that it was the leading White or Peace town. In one Spanish document we read that Oconee was "under Apalachicolo," and at a council between the Lower Creeks and Spaniards at San Marcos about 1738 Quilate, the chief of this town, spoke for all. Replying to a speech of John Stuart, the British Indian agent, delivered in the Chiaha Square, September 18, 1768, a Lower Creek speaker says: "There are four head men of us have signed our Names in the presence of the whole lower Creeks as you will see: Two of us out of the Pallachicolas which is reckoned the Head Town of upper & lower Creeks and two out of the Cussitaw Town, which are friend Towns, which two towns stand for in behalf of the upper and lower Creeks." It is probable that this speaker wishes to exaggerate the representative character of the chiefs of these two towns, but the important position assigned to Apalachicola was not a mere invention on his part. Ten years later we find John Stuart writing, without the same bias as that which the speaker quoted above may be supposed to have had, 1 Information from Dr. Milton Dunn, Colfax, La. 'It appears in two forms, Apalachicoli and Apachicolo, the first of which is evidently in the Hitchiti dialect, the second in Muskogee. Apalachicola is a compromise term. Lowery, MSS.; Serrano y Sanz, Doc. Hist., pp. 199-201, 219–221. The latter has made an unfortunate blunder in dating the letter of 1686 as if it were 1606. that this town "is considered as the Mother & Governing Town of the whole Nation." 1 It is quite probable, as we shall see later, that it was a tribe of considerable size, often scattered among several settlements. In spite of the resemblance which its name bears to that of the Apalachee I am inclined to think that there was only a remote relationship between the two peoples, although the meanings of the two words may have been something alike. The ending of the name resembles okli, the Hitchiti word for "people." Judge G. W. Stidham told Dr. Gatschet that he had heard the name was derived from the ridge of earth around the edge of the square ground made in sweeping it." In recent times Apalachicola has always been classed by the Creeks as a Hitchiti-speaking town, while the fragment of Apalachee that has come down to us shows that language to have been an independent dialect. 3 According to Creek legend the Apalachicola were found in possession of southwestern Georgia when the Muskogee invaded that section. In 1680 two Franciscans were sent into the Province of Apalachicola to begin missionary work, but the Coweta chief would not allow them to remain, and the effort was soon abandoned.* A great deal of light has been thrown upon the ethnographical complexion of the region along Apalachicola River by the discovery by Mr. D. I. Bushnell, Jr., of an old manuscript already alluded to (p. 13), preserved among the Ludwell papers in the archives of the Virginia Historical Society.5 This gives the account of an Indian named Lamhatty, who was captured by a band of "Tusckaroras," in reality probably Creeks, and who, after having been taken through various Creek towns, was sold to the Shawnee. Later he came northward with a hunting party of Shawnee, escaped from them, and reached the Virginia settlements. As much of his story as he was able to communicate was taken down by Robert Beverly, the historian, and on the reverse side of the sheet containing it was traced a map of the region through which Lamhatty had come, as Lamhatty himself understood it. In his narrative this Indian represents himself as belonging to the Tawasa, or, as he spells. it, "Towasa," people, which he says consisted of 10 "nations." In the year 1706, however, the "Tusckaroras" (or Creeks?) made a descent upon them and carried off three of the "nations." In the spring of 1707 they carried off four more, and two fled. The narrative says "the other two fled," but that would leave one still to be accounted for. It is difficult to know just what Lamhatty means by the 10 "nations." On his map there are indeed 10 towns laid down on and near the 1 English Transcriptions, Lib. Cong. 2 Creek Mig. Leg., 1, p. 127. 3 Ibid., p. 250. 4 Lowery, MSS. Published in Amer. Anthrop., n. s. vol. x, pp. 568-574. Neverthe lower Apalachicola, but only one is marked "Towasa." less it appears likely that the 10 towns are the "nations" to which Lamhatty refers, especially as what he says regarding their fate may be made to fit in very well with other information concerning them. The names of these 10 towns are given as: Towasa, Poúhka, Sowólla, Choctóuh, Ogolaúghoos, Tomoóka, Ephippick, Aulédly, Socsósky, and Sunepáh. Towasa is of course the well-known Tawasa tribe. The five following may probably be identified with the Pawokti, Sawokli, Chatot, Yuchi, and a band of Timucua. This last and the Poúhka are the only ones the identification of which is uncertain. With the remaining four nothing can be done. Of the first six, the Tawasa and Chatot are known to have taken refuge with the French and may have been the two that Lamhatty says fled on the occasion of the second attack. The band of Yuchi evidently remained in this country much longer and may have been the "nation" left out of consideration. The three others identified always remained separate, and we are reduced to the conclusion that the four unidentified towns represented the people afterwards called Apalachicola. They were perhaps those carried off on the last raid. Be that as it may, the next we hear of the Apalachicola they were settled upon Savannah River at a place known for a long time as Palachocolas or Parachocolas Fort, on the east or southeast side, almost opposite Mount Pleasant, and about 50 miles from the river's mouth. In 1716, after the Yamasee war, the Apalachicola, and part of the Yuchi and Shawnee, abandoned their settlements on the Savannah and moved over to the Chattahoochee. chief at that time was named Cherokee Leechee.2 by a manuscript map preserved in South Carolina. at the junction of the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers, at a place known long afterwards as Apalachicola Fort. Later they abandoned this site and went higher up; in fact, they probably moved several times. The Apalachicola Some early Spanish documents treat Apalachicola and Cherokee Leechee as distinct towns. Thus in the directions given to a Spanish emissary about to set out for the Lower Creek towns he is informed that he would encounter these towns in the following order: "Tamaxle, Chalaquilicha, Yufala, Sabacola, Ocone, Apalachicalo, Ocmulque, Osuche, Chiaja, Casista, Caveta." This was evidently due to the removal of a large part of the Apalachicola Indians from the forks of Chattahoochee River to the position later occupied by the entire tribe, while some still remained with their chief in the district first settled. Later information shows, however, that the Chatot must have fled after the first attack, for they had gone to Mobile before July 28, 1706 (see pp. 123–124). "Cherokee killer" in Creek. Brinton, Floridian Peninsula, p. 141. |