Muskogean

Washa Tribe

Washa Indians. A small tribe, probably of Muskhogean stock, which, when first known to Europeans, inhabited the lower part of Bayou Lafourche, Louisiana, and hunted through the country between that river and the Mississippi. In 1699 Bienville made an unsuccessful attempt to open relations with them, but in 1718, after the close of the Chitimacha War, they were induced to settle on the Mississippi 3 leagues above New Orleans, and they appear to have remained near that place to the time of their extinction or their absorption by other tribes. They were always closely associated with another small tribe called … Read more

Mobile Tribe

Mobile Indians (meaning doubtful). A Muskhogean tribe whose early home was probably Mauvila, or Mavilla, supposed to have been at or near Choctaw Bluff on Alabama river, Clark County, Alabama, where DeSoto, in 1540, met with fierce opposition on the part of the natives and engaged in the most obstinate contest of the expedition. The town was then under the control of Tascalusa  probably an Alibamu chief. If, as is probable, the Mobile tribe took part in this contest, they must later have moved farther south, as they are found on Mobile bay when the French began to plant a … Read more

Muscogee Indian Chiefs and Leaders

Big Warrior, a man of much prudence and shrewdness, was a native of Alabama, and a pure-blood Indian. He was peaceably disposed towards the whites, and sided with them in the war of 1813. He died in Washington in 1825, while in attendance there with a delegation of his tribe.   Leclerc Milfort was a Frenchman who lived from 1776 to 1796 among the Muscogees. He married a sister of McGillivray, and often led the warriors of the nation against the Georgians. Returning to France, he was made a general of brigade by Napoleon, and wrote an account of his … Read more

Bayogoula Tribe

Bayogoula Indians (Choctaw: Báyuk-ókla ‘Bayou people’). A Muskhogean tribe which in 1700 lived with the Mugulasha in a village on the west bank of the Mississippi, about 64 leagues above its mouth and 30 leagues below the Huma town. Lemoyned’ Iberville gives a brief description of their village, which he says contained 2 temples and 107 cabins; that a fire was kept constantly burning in the temples, and near the door were kept many figures of animals, as the bear, wolf, birds, and in particular the choucoüacha, or opossum, which appeared to be a chief deity or image to which … Read more

Hitchiti Tribe

Hitchiti Tribe, Hitchiti Indians (Creek: ahítchita, ‘to look upstream’). A Muskhogean tribe formerly residing chiefly in a town of the same name on the east bank of Chattahoochee River, 4 miles below Chiaha, and possessing a narrow strip of good land bordering on the river, in west Georgia. When Hawkins visited them in 1799 they had spread out into two branch settlements, one, the Hitchitudshi, or Little Hitchiti, on both sides of Flint river below the junction of Kinchafoonee Creek, which passes through a country named after it; the other, Tutalosi, on a branch of Kinchafoonee creek , 20 miles … Read more

Black-Indian History

The first black slaves were introduced into the New World (1501-03) ostensibly to labor in the place of the Indians, who showed themselves ill-suited to enforced tasks and moreover were being exterminated in the Spanish colonies. The Indian-black inter-mixture has proceeded on a larger scale in South America, but not a little has also taken place in various parts of the northern continent. Wood (New England’s Prospect, 77, 1634) tells how some Indians of Massachusetts in 1633, coming across a black in the top of a tree were frightened, surmising that; ‘he was Abamacho, or the devil.” Nevertheless, inter-mixture of … Read more

Creek Tribe

Yoholo-Micco. A Creek Chief, from History of the Indian Tribes of North America

Creek Indians. A confederacy forming the largest division of the Muskhogean family. They received their name form the English on account of the numerous streams in their country. Where did the Creek Indian tribe live? During early historic times the Creek occupied the greater portion of Alabama and Georgia, residing chiefly on Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, the two largest tributaries of the Alabama river and on the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. They claimed the territory on the east from the Savannah to St. Johns river and all the islands, thence to Apalachee Bay, and from this line northward to the … Read more

Choctaw Genealogy

Choctaw Eagle Dance, George Catlin, 1845-8

Think you have Choctaw in your ancestry? This page will provide some background history and locations the tribe resided in as well as the rolls and census they were enumerated on.

Chickasaw Tribe

Chickasaw Indians. An important Muskhogean tribe, closely related to the Choctaw in language and customs, although the two tribes were mutually hostile. Aside from tradition, the earliest habitat traceable for the Chickasaw is north Mississippi. Their villages in the 18th century centered about Pontotoc and Union counties, where the headwaters of the Tombigbee meet those of Yazoo river and its affluent, the Tallahatchie, about where the De Soto narratives place them in 1540, under the name Chicaza. Their main landing place on the Mississippi was at Chickasaw Bluffs, now the site of Memphis, Tennessee, whence a trail more than 160 … Read more

Notes On Creek History

1775 Mousons Map

To offer a history of the Creek tribe from its discovery down to our epoch to the readers does not lie within the scope of this volume, and for want of sufficient documents illustrating the earlier periods it could be presented in a fragmentary manner only. But a few notes on the subject, especially on the Oglethorpe treaties, will be of interest to the reader. In the year following their departure from the West Indies (1540), the troops led by H. de Soto traversed a portion of the Creek territory, taken in its extent as known to us from the … Read more

List Of Creek Towns

In this alphabetic list of ancient Creek towns and villages I have included all the names of inhabited places which I have found recorded before the emigration of the people to the Indian Territory. The description of their sites is chiefly taken from Hawkins “Sketch” one of the most instructive books which we possess on the Creeks in their earlier homes. Some of these town names are still existing in Alabama and Georgia, although the site has not infrequently changed. I have interspersed into the list a few names of the larger rivers. The etymologies added to the names contain … Read more

The Creek Settlements

The towns and villages of the Creeks were in the eighteenth century built along the banks of rivers and their smaller tributaries, often in places subject to inundation during large freshets, which occurred once in about fifteen years. The smallest of them contained from twenty to thirty cabins, some of the larger ones up to two hundred, and in 1832 Tukabatchi, then the largest of all the Creek settlements, harbored 386 families. Many towns appeared rather compactly built, although they were composed of irregular clusters of four to eight houses standing together; each of these clusters contained a gens (“clan … Read more