Update this timeline entry

The Yuchi deserted from the Savannah River

Source: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors #121

Project ID

Chapter

Timeline title

Start date

End date

Filename received

Filename assigned

Content

THE YUCHI

Our history of those tribes constituting the Creek Confederacy will not be complete without some mention of three alien peoples which were incorporated with it at a comparatively recent period. These are the Yuchi, the Natchez, and the Shawnee.

The Yuchi have attracted considerable attention owing to the fact that they were one of the very few small groups in the eastern part of North America having an independent stock language. Their isolation in this respect, added to the absence' of a migration legend among them and their own claims, have led to a belief that they were the most ancient inhabitants of the extreme southeastern parts of the present United States. The conclusion was natural, almost inevitable, but the event proves how little the most plausible theory may amount to in the absence of adequate information. Strong evidence has now come to light that these people, far from being aboriginal inhabitants of the country later associated with them, had occupied it within the historic period.

Dr. F. G. Speck has contributed to the study of southern tribes an invaluable paper on "The Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians," * but he made no special investigation into their history from documentary sources. However, he noted an apparent absence of Yuchi names—with one possible exception—in the narratives of the De Soto expedition, and particularly called attention to the non-Yuchean character of the name of Cofitachequi, which up to that time had generally been considered a Yuchi town.2 I have touched upon this particular point more at length in another place.3

One reason for the general misunderstanding of the place of the Yuchi in aboriginal American history was the fact that the language was generally considered very difficult by other peoples and few learned it, and, although not necessarily resulting from that circumstance, it so happened that they were known to different tribes by different names, never apparently by the term Tsoyaha, "Offspring of the sun," which they apply to themselves.

Regarding the name Yuchi, Speck says:
"It is presumably a demonstrative signifying "being far away" or "at a distance'' in reference to human beings in a state of settlement (yu, "at a distance," (tci, "sitting down")."

It is possible, in attempting an explanation of the origin of the name, that the reply " Yu'tci" was given by some Indian of the tribe in answer to a stranger's inquiry, "Where do you come from?" which is a common mode of salutation in the southeast. AN300 The reply may then have been mistaken for a tribal name and retained as such. Similar instances of mistaken analogy have occurred at various times in connection with the Indians of this continent, and as the Yuchi interpreters themselves favor this explanation it has seemed advisable at least to make note of it.4

I can add nothing except to say that the Creeks have no explanation of the name to offer, and that it appears rather late, little if any before the opening of the 18th century. In the South Carolina archives reference is made to "the Uche or Round Town people," but the second term is probably not intended as a translation of the first.5

Gatschet gives Tahogalewi as the Delaware equivalent of Yuchi,1 and from early maps, where it appears in the forms Tahogale, Tahogaria, Taogria, Tongaria, Tohogalegas, etc., it is evident that it was applied by other Algonquian peoples also. It was used most persistently for a band of Yuchi on Tennessee Kiver, but on the maps of Moll and some other cartographers the Tahogale are placed along Savannah River—a fact which serves to confirm the identification of the term (see pl. 3).

Tohogalega was sometimes abbreviated to Hogologe or Hog Logee. A legend on a map in Jefferys's Atlas at a point on Savannah River several miles above Augusta reads: "Hughchees or Hogoleges Old Town deserted in 1715," 2 and an island in the river at this point is called "Huhgchee I." The form Hughchee is somewhat unusual, but is confirmed as actually intended for Yuchi by numerous references to this island as "Uchee Island" in the Georgia Colonial Documents and elswehere, as well as the existence of a "Uchee Creek" which flows into the Savannah at this point.
(Swanton)