Appalachee

French Colonizing Expeditions

A small temporary fort was established by Captain Jean Ribault in Port Royal Sound, SC in 1562. Seventeenth Century French maps state that members of this colony traveled to the “gold-bearing mountains of the Apalache,” and claimed the territory for the King of France. Only French maps of the period provide an accurate description of the entire Savannah River system, but no archives have been found that collaborate such a journey. In 1564, after establishing Fort Caroline somewhere in the vicinity of the mouth of the Altamaha River, Captain René Goulaine de Laudonniére dispatched several expeditions up the Altamaha River … Read more

The Migration Legend of the Kashita People

One of the many aspects of the contemporary Creek Indians that non-indigenous anthropologists seldom understand is that the Creeks are an assimilated people, composed of diverse ethnic groups, many of whom were originally enemies.  The Itsate-speaking Creeks were the main players in the mound building business.  However, they were decimated first by European diseases. and then by English sponsored slave raiders. By the early 1700s, the Muskogee-speaking minority were clustered in present day west-central Georgia and east-central Alabama. They were less affected by the holocausts that killed off 90-95% of the Itsate-speaking Creeks. The Muskogees came to dominate an alliance … Read more

Apalachee Tribe

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 … Read more

Hitchiti Indian Tribe

The Hitchiti tribe, of whose language we present an extensive specimen in this volume, also belongs to the southeastern group, which I have called Apalachian. Hitchiti town was, in Hawkins time, established on the eastern bank of Chatahuchi River, four miles below Chiaha. The natives possessed a narrow strip of good land bordering on the river, and had the reputation of being honest and industrious. They obtained their name from Hitchiti creek, so called at its junction with Chatahuchi river, [and in its upper course Ahíki (Ouhe-gee); cf. List] from Creek: ahí-tchita “to look up (the stream).” They had spread … Read more