The Tallapoosas were a division of the Upper Creeks in the Muscogee Confederacy. [1] Prior to Removal to Indian Territory, Tallapoosa lived along the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. [2]
They are also called the Cadapouches or Canapouches, which was mistakenly considered a synonym for the Catawba of the Carolina. [3]
Spanish explorers described towns along the Tallapoosa as being surrounded by protective wooden palisades. In later years, the palisades were no longer built. [4] They made ceramics using grit as a temper. [5]
Over 30 towns along the Tallapoosa, Coosa, and Chattahoochee Rivers allied to form the Muscogee Confederacy. The Tallapoosa were among these Upper Creeks, [6] who were more culturally and politically conservative than the Lower Creek towns. [7]
The Tallapoosas fought in the siege of Pensacola. Although these warriors proved their effectiveness in combining native tactics and European arms, the English failed to compensate them adequately and seriously underestimated their importance as the key to the balance of power in the southeastern interior. Consequently, by 1716 the Tallapoosas and other tribes had shifted allegiance to the other side and prepared to use what they had learned against South Carolina settlements. [8]
The Tallapoosas were a part of a "Creek traditionalist faction," the Red Sticks, that fought in the Battle of Holy Ground. In the summer of 1813, the Red Sticks built new settlements for "each component of the Upper Creek Nation (Alabamas, Tallapoosas, Abeikas). The Tallapoosas built a new settlement near the town of Autossee, and the Abeikas erected Tohopeka, a fortified encampment at the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River. The Alabamas built Holy Ground, or Econochaca ... on the bluffs above the Alabama River, approximately 30 miles west of present-day Montgomery." [9]
The Tallapoosa were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory with other Muscogee people in the early 19th century.
Tallapoosa name first appears on settlers maps in Georgia
Tallapoosa, Georgia where the Tallapoosa River begins is named after the tribe.
There is a Historical Marker named "Seven Chestnuts" where Creek tribes had council meetings under seven chestnut trees located in Tallapoosa.
Another nearby Historic Marker marks the trail Creek Indians traveled named "Sandtown Trail"
Tallapoosa County, Alabama is named after the tribe.
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States. Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, much of Alabama, western Georgia and parts of northern Florida.
The Creek War was a regional conflict between opposing Native American factions, European powers, and the United States during the early 19th century. The Creek War began as a conflict within the tribes of the Muscogee, but the United States quickly became involved. British traders and Spanish colonial officials in Florida supplied the Red Sticks with weapons and equipment due to their shared interest in preventing the expansion of the United States into regions under their control.
Etowah Indian Mounds (9BR1) are a 54-acre (220,000 m2) archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia, south of Cartersville. Built and occupied in three phases, from 1000–1550 CE, the prehistoric site is located on the north shore of the Etowah River.
The Coosa River is a tributary of the Alabama River in the U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia. The river is about 280 miles (450 km) long.
Alexander McGillivray, also known as Hoboi-Hili-Miko, was a Muscogee (Creek) leader. The son of a Muscogee mother and a Scottish father, he was literate and educated, and understood the "white" European world and merchandise trading well. These gave him prestige, especially with European Americans, who were glad to finally find a Creek leader they could talk to and deal with. He used his role as link between the two worlds to his advantage, not always fairly, and became the richest Creek of his time.
The Yuchi people are a Native American tribe based in Oklahoma, though their original homeland was in the southeastern United States.
Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, Southeastern cultures, or Southeast Indians are an ethnographic classification for Native Americans who have traditionally inhabited the area now part of the Southeastern United States and the northeastern border of Mexico, that share common cultural traits. This classification is a part of the Eastern Woodlands. The concept of a southeastern cultural region was developed by anthropologists, beginning with Otis Mason and Franz Boas in 1887. The boundaries of the region are defined more by shared cultural traits than by geographic distinctions. Because the cultures gradually instead of abruptly shift into Plains, Prairie, or Northeastern Woodlands cultures, scholars do not always agree on the exact limits of the Southeastern Woodland culture region. Shawnee, Powhatan, Waco, Tawakoni, Tonkawa, Karankawa, Quapaw, and Mosopelea are usually seen as marginally southeastern and their traditional lands represent the borders of the cultural region.
Tuskaloosa was a paramount chief of a Mississippian chiefdom in what is now the U.S. state of Alabama. His people were possibly ancestors to the several southern Native American confederacies who later emerged in the region. The modern city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is named for him.
The Cape Fear Indians were a small, coastal tribe of Native Americans who lived on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina.
The Kichai tribe was a Native American Southern Plains tribe that lived in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Their name for themselves was K'itaish.
Hitchiti was a tribal town in what is now the Southeast United States. It was one of several towns whose people spoke the Hitchiti language. It was first known as part of the Apalachicola Province, an association of tribal towns along the Chattahoochee River. Shortly after 1690, the towns of Apalachicola Province moved to the central part of present-day Georgia, with Hitchiti joining most of those towns along Ochese Creek. In 1715, most of the towns on Ochese Creek, including Hitchiti, moved back to the Chattahoochee River, where the town remained until its people were forced to move to Indian Territory as part of the Trail of Tears.
The Cheraw people, also known as the Saraw or Saura, were a Siouan-speaking tribe of Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, in the Piedmont area of North Carolina near the Sauratown Mountains, east of Pilot Mountain and north of the Yadkin River. They lived in villages near the Catawba River.
The Cusabo were a group of American Indian tribes who lived along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in what is now South Carolina, approximately between present-day Charleston and south to the Savannah River, at the time of European colonization. English colonists often referred to them as one of the Settlement Indians of South Carolina, tribes who "settled" among the colonists.
Abihka was one of the four mother towns of the Muscogee Creek confederacy. Its precise location is presently unknown.
Fort Toulouse and Fort Jackson are two forts that shared the same site at the fork of the Coosa River and the Tallapoosa River, near Wetumpka, Alabama.
Hickory Ground, also known as Otciapofa is an historic Upper Muscogee Creek tribal town and an archaeological site in Elmore County, Alabama near Wetumpka. It is known as Oce Vpofa in the Muscogee language; the name derives from oche-ub,"hickory" and po-fau, "among". It is best known for serving as the last capital of the National Council of the Creek Nation, prior to the tribe being moved to the Indian Territory in the 1830s. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 10, 1980.
Coweta was a tribal town and one of the four mother towns of the Muscogee Confederacy in what is now the Southeast United States, along with Kasihta (Cusseta), Abihka, and Tuckabutche.
The Taskigi Mound or Mound at Fort Toulouse – Fort Jackson Park (1EE1) is an archaeological site from the South Appalachian Mississippian Big Eddy phase. It is located on a 40 feet (12 m) bluff at the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers where they meet to form the Alabama River, near the town of Wetumpka in Elmore County, Alabama.
Sophia Durant was a Koasati Native American plantation owner who served as the speaker, interpreter, and translator for her brother, Alexander McGillivray, a leader in the Muscogee Confederacy.
Sehoy, or Sehoy I, was an 18th-century matriarch of the Muscogee Confederacy and a member of the Wind clan.