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Yamacraw settled at Savannah
Source: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors #121
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Connected intimately with the Yamasee were a small tribe found on the site of what is now Savannah by Governor Oglethorpe in 1733, when he founded the colony of Georgia. They are called Yamacraw by the historians of the period, and their town was on a bluff, which still bears their name, in what is now the western suburb of the city. This name is a puzzle, since no r occurs in the Muskhogean tongues. It suggests Yamiscaron, the form in which the tribal name of the Yamasee first appears in history through Francisco of Chicora, but as I have shown elsewhere there is every reason to believe that the ending -ron is Siouan.4 Its first definite appearance is in the later (1680) name of the Florida mission Nombre de Dios de Amacarisse, also given as Macarisqui or Macarizqui. We may safely assume that the leaders of the later Georgia Yamacraw came from this place, but the name itself remains as much of a mystery as before. ...From the conference which Oglethorpe held with these people and the Creeks and the speeches delivered at that conference we obtain some further information regarding the history of the town. It was settled in 1730 by a body of Indians from among the Lower Creeks, numbering 17 or 18 families and 30 or 40 men, under the leadership of a chief named Tomochichi. These are said to have been banished from their own country for some crimes and misdemeanors. Tomochichi himself had "tarried for a season with the Palla-Chucolas " before settling there, and it must be remembered that before the Yamasee war the Apalachicola tribe had been located upon Savannah River some 50 miles higher up. It is therefore likely that he belonged to some refugee Yamasee among the Apalachicola, and his occasion for settling in this place may have been as much because it was the land of his ancestors as because he had been "outlawed." Indeed he says as much in his speech to Oglethorpe. (Swanton)
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