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Origins of the Osochi Indians
Source: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors #121
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By nearly all of the living Creeks the Osochi are supposed to be a Muskogee tribe of long standing, and Bartram classifies them with those who in his time spoke the Muskogee tongue.6 Nevertheless Adair gives them as one of the "nations" which had settled among the Lower Creeks.7 In very early times they came to be associated very closely with the Chiaha and when they gave up their own square ground the two combined. An old Osochi whom I met in Oklahoma stated that his mother knew how to speak Hitchiti and he believed that many more of his people had known how to speak that language in earlier times. This would naturally be the case if, as seems to be indicated, the Chiaha were a Hitchiti speaking people, but of course it is possible that the Osochi anciently belonged to the Hitchiti group also. However, whether they ever spoke Hitchiti as a tribe or not, I am strongly of the opinion that they are the descendants of the people known to De Soto and his companions as the Ucachile,1 Uzachil,2 Veachile,3 or Ossachile.4 Veachile is probably a misprint for Ucachile. If this identification is correct the Osochi were evidently a Timucua tribe, which gradually migrated north until absorbed by the Lower Creeks. Confirmatory evidence appears to be furnished by a Spanish official map of the 18th century5 on which at the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers a tribe or post is located with the legend, "Apalache 6 Sachile." Apparently the compiler of the map supposed that the 6 in this name was the Spanish conjunction instead of an integral part of the word. The position assigned to them by him agrees exactly with that of the Apalachicola Indians at that period, and if "6 Sachile" really refers to the Osochi we must suppose either that they had united with some of the Apalachicola or that they were classified with and considered a branch of them. Since the word Timucua often appears as Tomoco or Tomoka in English writings this hypothesis would also explain the Tomoka town westward of the Apalachicola on the map of Lamhatty" and the Tommahees referred to by Coxe in the same region.7 These particular Timucua would be none other than the Osochi. (Swanton)
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