Yamasee - History

History

The Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540 traveled into Yamasee territory, including the village of Altamaha.

In 1570, Spanish explorers established missions in Yamasee territory. The Yamasee were later included in the missions of the Guale province. Starting in 1675 the Yamasee were mentioned regularly on Spanish mission census records of the missionary provinces of Guale (central Georgia coast) and Mocama (present-day southeastern Georgia and northeastern Florida). The Yamasee usually did not convert to Christianity and remained somewhat separated from the Christian Indians of Spanish Florida.

Pirate attacks on the Spanish missions in 1680 forced the Yamasee to migrate again. Some moved to Florida. Others returned to the Savannah River lands, safer after the destruction of the Westo.

In 1687, Spaniards attempted to send Yamasees to the West Indes as slaves, so the tribe revolted against the Spanish missions and their Native allies, and the tribe moved into the British colony of the Province of South Carolina (present day South Carolina). They established several villages, Pocotaligo, Tolemato, and Topiqui, in Beaufort County, South Carolina. A 1715 census conducted by John Barnwell counted 1,220 Yamasee living in ten villages in near Port Royal, South Carolina.

For years, the Yamasee and the Carolinian colonists conducted slave raids upon Spanish-allied Indians and attacked St. Augustine, Florida. In 1715, the Yamasee joined an intertribal war against the British, triggering the Yamasee War, which lasted until at least 1717. Many tribes allied themselves with the Yamasee. British Governor Charles Craven defeated the Yamasee at Salkechuh (Saltketchers, Salkehatchie) on the Combahee River. The tribe was driven across the Savannah River back into Spanish Florida.

The Yamasee then migrated south to the area around St. Augustine and Pensacola, where they allied with the Spanish against the British. In 1727, the British attacked the tribe's settlement and slaughtered most of them. Some survivors joined the Seminole tribe and some joined the Hitchiti people and disappeared from the historical record.