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the Yuchi and Westo settled neighboring towns

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

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The earliest historical name for the Yuchi was Chiska or Chisca. I assert this confidently on the basis of information contained in very early Spanish documents, both published and unpublished, and on the very strongest of circumstantial evidence, although as yet no categorical statement of the identity has been found. The circumstantial evidence is as follows: First, the term Chiska occurs in the same list, or on the same map, as the term Yuchi very rarely, and then when we know, or have good reason to believe, that more than one band of Yuchi were in the region covered. Secondly, the Spaniards, who use it principally, apply the term not to an obscure tribe but to a powerful people, and they mention in the same connection all of the leading tribes of the Southeast with the conspicuous exception of the Yuchi. Thirdly, the term occurs persistently in three different areas, in the region of the Upper Tennessee, on the Savannah [Note: There is but one application to Savannah River, it is true, but this is of considerable importance as tending to settle an otherwise puzzling problem. It is in the version of the Creek migration legend given by Hawkins in which his native informant says that after they had crossed what is now the Chattahoochee River the Creeks spread out eastward to the Ocmulgee, Oconee, and Ogecbee Rivers, and to "Chis-ke-tollo-fau-hatche" ("Chiska town river"). In the published version (Oa. Hist. Soc. Colls., m, p. 83) this is spelled "Chic-ko-tallo-fau-hat-che," but the original in the Library of Congress has it in the form just given.], and near the Choctawhatchee, where we know on independent evidence that just so many Yuchi bands had settled.

Some time ago I attempted a further identification of this tribe with a people settled upon the Savannah River at the time when South Carolina was colonized by the whites, and called by the latter Westo [Note: See article "Westo" in Handbook of American Indians. I did not, however, make an elaborate exposition of my views at the time when this article was written.]. Prof. Verner W. Crane, who has made some important historical discoveries in this region, to be mentioned presently, has, however, taken strong exception to it. The resulting discussion between Professor Crane and myself has appeared in the American Anthropologist, which the reader may consult,1 but it will not be profitable to cover the same ground again. I will merely incorporate a short statement of my present views on the subject and the reasons which lead me still to adhere to my original opinion.

My studies of southeastern tribes have clearly demonstrated that the Yuchi once inhabited some territory in the neighborhood of the southern Appalachian Mountains, from which a large part of them moved during the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth centuries, invading the low countries to the south of them and settling in several different places. Two or three such waves of migration can be made out with certainty, the first resulting in a settlement on Choctawhatchee River, in the western part of the present State of Florida; a second giving birth to the Yuchi settlement on Savananh River above the site of the present Augusta, later removed to the Chattahoochee River and then to the Tallapoosa; and a third, probably subsequent to the Yamasee war, which brought about a Yuchean colonization of the lower Savannah, and later became consolidated into the well-known Yuchi town among the Lower Creeks.

Furthermore, distinct names are often applied to these several bands, and sometimes they appear upon the same map under the distinct names. The first name appears in history as "Chisca," but later we find them called, successively, Hogologe and Yuchi; the second are called both Hogologe and Yuchi; while the last appears as Yuchi almost invariably. On numerous maps we find the Hogologe (or Hogolege) and Yuchi entered as if they were distinct tribes, and Romans includes the two in his enumeration of the principal Lower Creek towns.2

So far as the Yuchi are concerned, then, the concurrent use of two or more distinct names does not prove that the people so called were unrelated. There can be no question that the Westo constituted for a long period a body of Indians distinct from those just mentioned. They were not a part of the same tribal organization. The question is, Were they or were they not a Yuchean tribe? Did they speak a Yuchean dialect?

In the first place, attention should be called to the fact that in the immediate neighborhood of the southern Appalachians the Yuchi are the only people known to have moved southward in any considerable numbers in the early historic period. Again, after the Yamassee war and the later removal of those people to whom the term Yuchi is commonly applied to the Chattahoochee River, the Yuchi and Westo towns were established a very few miles apart, where the two may readily have united. It is evident that a sufficiently large body of Westo Indians continued to exist in this neighborhood to have attracted the attention of those traders and explorers from whom accounts have come down to us if they were as different from the Creeks generally as there is every reason to believe, unless they were confused with another people which did attract such attention. And it is a matter of record that practically all earlier writers upon the Lower Creeks make particular mention of the Yuchi and comment upon their distinct language and peculiar customs.

In his last communication Professor Crane cites a new piece of evidence which he thinks renders it necessary for us to reject the Yuchean connection of the Westo. This is the reference in Woodward's Westo Narrative ' to a report brought by two Shawnee Indians to the effect that "ye Cussetaws, Checsaws, and Chiskers were intended to come downe and fight ye Westoes." If the Chiska and Westo were both Yuchi, Professor Crane argues that they would not be fighting each other. This, however, by no means follows. Many instances may be cited of tribes related by language at bitter enmity with one another and allied on each side with peopled having no connection with them whatever. Besides, Woodward says regarding these Shawnee, "There was none here y' understood them, but by signes they intreated freindship of ye Westoes showeing," and so on as above. One may well hesitate to place entire confidence in information obtained in this manner.
(Swanton)