In the 16th century, the Yuchi lived in the eastern Tennessee River valley. By the late 17th century, they had migrated south to Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, settling near the Muscogee Creek people.[2][5] Some also migrated to the Florida panhandle. After suffering heavy losses from epidemic diseases and warfare in the 18th century, the remaining Yuchi bands were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory in the 1830s, alongside their allies, the Muscogee Creek.[2]
The term Yuchi translated to "over there sit/live" or "situated yonder." Their autonym, or name for themselves, Tsoyaha or Coyaha, means "Children of the Sun." Their language is an isolate. The Shawnee called them Tahokale, and the Cherokee call them Aniyutsi.[6]
History
At the time of first European contact, the Yuchi people lived in what is now eastern Tennessee.[5] In 1541, SpanishexplorerHernando de Soto described them as a powerful tribe known as the Uchi, that were also associated with the Chisca tribe.
Both historical and archaeological evidence exists documenting several Yuchi towns of the 18th century. Among these was Chestowee in present-day Bradley County, Tennessee. In 1714, instigated by two English fur traders from South Carolina, the Cherokee attacked and destroyed Chestowee. The Cherokee were prepared to carry their attacks further to Yuchi settlements south on the Savannah River, but the colonial government of South Carolina did not condone this. The Cherokee destruction of Chestowee marked their emergence as a major power in the Southeast.[7][pageneeded]
Yuchi towns were later documented in western South Carolina and northern Georgia, where the tribe had migrated to escape pressure from the Cherokee. "Mount Pleasant" was noted as being on the Savannah River in present-day Effingham County, Georgia, from about 1722 to about 1750. To take advantage of trade, the British established a trading post and small military garrison there, which they called Mount Pleasant.[8]
"Euchee Town" (also called Uche Town), a large settlement on the Chattahoochee River, was documented from the middle to late 18th century. It was located near Euchee (or Uche) Creek, about ten miles downriver from the Muscogee Creek settlement of Coweta Old Town. The naturalistWilliam Bartram visited Euchee Town in 1778. In his letters he ranked it as the largest and most compact Indian town he had ever encountered, with large, well-built houses.[8][9] US Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins also visited the town and described the Yuchi as "more orderly and industrious" than the other tribes of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy. The Yuchi began to move on, some into the Florida panhandle.
Yuchi Town, painting by Martin Pate (1990) of an 18th-century village, based on archaeological data. The site of Yuchi Town is within the area of present-day Fort Moore, Georgia.
In the late 18th century, English colonists noted Patsiliga, a settlement on the Flint River. Other Yuchi settlements may have been those villages noted on the Oconee River near Uchee Creek in Wilkinson County, Georgia, and on Brier Creek in Burke or Screven counties, also in Georgia. A Yuchi town was known to exist from 1746 to 1751 at the site of present-day Silver Bluff in Aiken County, South Carolina, which developed in the later 18th century.[8]
During the 18th century, the Yuchi established an alliance with white settlers in the Southern Colonies, trading deerskins and Indian slaves with them. The Yuchi population plummeted during the 18th century due to Eurasianinfectious diseases, to which they had no immunity, and to war with the Cherokee, who were moving into their territory. After the American Revolution, Yuchi people maintained close relations with the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, into which federally recognized members were later absorbed. In the late 18th century, some Yuchi migrated south to Florida along with the Muscogee, where they became part of the newly formed Seminole people.[10]
During the Creek War of 1813–1814, which overlapped the War of 1812, many Yuchi joined the Red Sticks party, traditionalists opposed to the Muscogee people of the Lower Towns, who had adopted aspects of European-American culture. Euchee Town decayed. The Yuchi tribe became one of the poorest of the Muscogee communities, at the same time gaining a bad reputation.[9] The archaeological site of the town, designated a National Historic Landmark, is within the boundaries of present-day Fort Moore, Georgia.
In the 1830s, the US government forcibly removed the Yuchi, along with the Muscogee, from Alabama and Georgia to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma), west of the Mississippi River. The Yuchi settled in the north and northwestern parts of the Muscogee Nation. Three tribal towns which the Yuchi established there in the 19th century continue today: Duck Creek, Polecat, and Sand Creek.[2][10]
From 1890 to 1895, the Dawes Commission considered the Yuchi in Indian Territory to be an autonomous tribe. It registered tribal members preparatory to allotment of communal tribal lands in Indian Territory to individual households of members. Some 1200 tribal members were registered in those years. The Dawes Commission later decided to legally classify the Yuchi as part of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, in an effort to simplify the process of land allotment. But this decision interrupted the autonomy of the people and their record of historical continuity as a recognized tribe.[13]
In the 1990s, the Yuchi Tribal Organization based in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, petitioned the US federal government to gain federal recognition as an independent tribe. In 2000, the Bureau of Indian Affairs denied the petition.[15]
As of 1997, the Yuchi tribe had a formal enrollment of 249 members. Other Yuchi descendants are already enrolled in other tribes, such as the Muscogee. Most Yuchi are of multi-tribal descent; some are citizens of other tribes, such as the Shawnee.[citation needed]
The Euchee Tribe of Indians, while not federally recognized, has their headquarters in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Their tribal chairmen are co-chairs Felix Brown Jr. and Clinton Sago.[16]
James Anaya, United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, visited the Yuchi community. Tracie Revis (Yuchi) gave a speech defining the importance of federal recognition. He acknowledged the declaration by the UN on the Rights of Indigenous People that states "that we have the right of self-determination and by virtue of that right- we may freely determine our political status and freely pursue our economic, social and cultural development."[17]
An estimated 2,000 persons are ethnically Yuchi. They are descendants of some 1,100 persons recorded by the Indian Claims Commission in 1950, which was settling compensation claims dating from allotments.[18]
The Yuchi continue their important ceremonies, such as the Green Corn Ceremony of late summer. They maintain three ceremonial grounds in Oklahoma. Some members belong to the Native American Church and Methodist congregations.[2]
In 2008, the Yuchi tribe received a grant from President George W. Bush's administration for a Native Americans Comprehensive Community Survey and Plan. The grant was used to developed the Tribal History Project, which began in October 2010.[18]
The Human Genome Project acknowledged the importance of the Yuchi's distinct culture and language and approached the Yuchi in order to collect genetic data (DNA).[19] The Yuchi tribe declined to participate in the Project due to cultural conflict and uncertainty among members over the uses of government ownership of tribal DNA.[19]
Yuchi language
Sisters Maxine Wildcat Barnett (left) and Josephine Wildcat Bigler; two among the elderly speakers of Yuchi, visiting their grandmother's grave in a cemetery behind Pickett Chapel in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. According to the sisters, their grandmother had insisted that Yuchi be their first language.
The Yuchi language is a linguistic isolate, not known to be related to any other language.[2] In 2000 the estimated number of fluent Yuchi speakers was 15, but this number dwindled to 7 by 2006.[20] According to a 2011 documentary on the Yuchi language, the number of first-language speakers had declined to five by 2011.[21]
Young Yuchi people have learned the language in recent years and are continuing to do so.[22] Yuchi language classes are being taught in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, in an effort led by Richard Grounds and the Euchee Language Project.[20] As of 2011, the Administration for Native Americans awarded the Yuchi tribe a grant for the years 2011 to 2014 in an effort to provide after-school programs for youth to improve proficiency in their native language and develop a young generation of speakers.[23]
The Yuchi people and language are featured in a chapter in Mark Abley's Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages (2003), a book on endangered languages.
The Cherokee people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama consisting of around 40,000 square miles.
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.
Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation-state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans and their enslaved African Americans within that were ethnically cleansed by the United States government.
The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by the United States government in the early federal period of the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminoles. White Americans classified them as "civilized" because they had adopted attributes of the Anglo-American culture.
The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, as well as independent groups. The Seminole people emerged in a process of ethnogenesis from various Native American groups who settled in Spanish Florida beginning in the early 1700s, most significantly northern Muscogee Creeks from what are now Georgia and Alabama.
Alice Brown Davis was the first female Principal Chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, and served from 1922 to 1935, appointed by President Warren G. Harding. She was of Seminole and Scots descent. Her older brother John Frippo Brown had served as chief of the tribe and their brother Andrew Jackson Brown as treasurer.
Yuchi or Euchee is the language of the Tsoyaha, also known as the Yuchi people, now living in Oklahoma. Historically, they lived in what is now known as the southeastern United States, including eastern Tennessee, western Carolinas, northern Georgia, and Alabama, during the period of early European colonization. Many speakers of the Yuchi language became allied with the Muscogee Creek when they migrated into their territory in Georgia and Alabama. They were forcibly relocated with them to Indian Territory in the early 19th century.
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.
The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles, are an ethnic group of mixed Native American and African origin associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and escaped former slaves, who allied with Seminole groups in Spanish Florida. Many have Seminole lineage, but due to the stigma of having mixed origin, they have all been categorized as slaves or Freedmen in the past.
The Coushatta are a Muskogean-speaking Native American people now living primarily in the U.S. states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Florida. Together with the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, it is one of three federally recognized Seminole entities.
Thlopthlocco Tribal Town is both a federally recognized Native American tribe and a traditional township of Muscogee Creek Indians, based in Oklahoma. The tribe's native language is Mvskoke, also called Creek.
The Alabama–Quassarte Tribal Town is both a federally recognized Native American tribe and a traditional township of Muskogean-speaking Alabama and Coushatta peoples. Their traditional languages include Alabama, Koasati, and Mvskoke. As of 2014, the tribe includes 369 enrolled members, who live within the state of Oklahoma as well as Texas, Louisiana, and Arizona.
The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the largest of the three federally recognized Seminole governments, which include the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Its citizens are descendants of the approximately 3,000 Seminoles who were forcibly removed from Florida to Indian Territory, along with 800 Black Seminoles, after the Second Seminole War. The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is headquartered in Wewoka within Seminole County, Oklahoma. Of 18,800 enrolled tribal citizens, 13,533 live in Oklahoma. The tribe began to revive its government in 1936 under the Indian Reorganization Act. While its reservation was originally larger, today the tribal reservation and jurisdictional area covers Seminole County, Oklahoma, within which it has a variety of properties.
The Cherokee people of the southeastern United States, and later Oklahoma and surrounding areas, have a long military history. Since European contact, Cherokee military activity has been documented in European records. Cherokee tribes and bands had a number of conflicts during the 18th century with Europeans, primarily British colonists from the Southern Colonies. The Eastern Band and Cherokees from the Indian Territory fought in the American Civil War, with bands allying with the Union or the Confederacy. Because many Cherokees allied with the Confederacy, the United States government required a new treaty with the nation after the war. Cherokees have also served in the United States military during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Cherokee history is the written and oral lore, traditions, and historical record maintained by the living Cherokee people and their ancestors. In the 21st century, leaders of the Cherokee people define themselves as those persons enrolled in one of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, The Cherokee Nation, and The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.
Uchee Billy or Yuchi Billy was a chief of a Yuchi band in Florida during the first half of the 19th century. Uchee Billy's band was living near Lake Miccosukee when Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida during the First Seminole War and attacked the villages in the area. Yuchi Billy and his band then moved to the St. Johns River. During the Second Seminole War, Uchee Billy was an ally of the Seminoles, and was one of the principal war chiefs who fought the U.S. Army.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Jackson, Jason Baird. "Yuchi (Euchee)."Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
↑ Clark, Patricia Roberts (21 October 2009). Tribal Names of the Americas: Spelling Variants and Alternative Forms, Cross-Referenced. McFarland. p.11. ISBN978-0-7864-5169-2.
↑ Gallay, Alan (2002). The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South 1670-1717. Yale University Press. ISBN0-300-10193-7.
↑ Mahon, John K. (1985) [1967]. History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842 (Reviseded.). Gainesville: University Presses of Florida. pp.6, 212. ISBN0813001544. OCLC12315671.
↑ Army and Navy Chronicle, Volumes 4-5, edited by Benjamin Homans, pp. 203-4
Jackson, Jason Baird. "Yuchi." Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast. Eds. William C. Sturtevant and Raymond D. Fogelson. Volume 14. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. ISBN0-16-072300-0.
Further reading
Mark Abley, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
Jason Jackson, Yuchi Ceremonial Life: Performance, Meaning, and Tradition in a Contemporary American Indian Community, University of Nebraska Press, 2003.
Jason Baird Jackson (ed.), Yuchi Indian Histories Before the Removal Era. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
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