page_title: Yuchi
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Yuchi / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Yuchi Town. The archeological sites on Fort Benning, U.S.A., include both prehistoric and historic Native American sites. There is evidence of occupation or use as far back as approximately 12,000 years before present (BP). The most recent sites represent the last homes of the Muscogee (Creek) Tribe and the Yuchi (or Euchee) Tribe, both removed to what is now the state of Oklahoma, along the "Trail of Tears" in 1836. The Site of Yuchi Town, portrayed above (artist: Martin Pate, Yuchi Town, 1776, commissioned by the National Park Service) has recently been designated a National Historic Landmark. Artifacts such as glass trade beads, firearms, plus other trade and locally produced items have been recovered from the site by archeologists from the Smithsonian Institute and Fort Benning.
context_page_description: The Yuchi people, spelled Euchee and Uchee, are people of a Native American tribe who historically lived in the eastern Tennessee River valley in Tennessee in the 16th century. The Yuchi built monumental earthworks. In the late 17th century, they moved south to Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Some also migrated to the panhandle of Florida. After suffering many fatalities from epidemic disease and warfare in the 18th century, several surviving Yuchi were removed to Indian Territory in the 1830s, together with their allies the Muscogee Creek.
  Today, the Yuchi live primarily in the northeastern Oklahoma area, where many are enrolled as citizens in the federally recognized Muscogee Nation. Some Yuchi are enrolled as members of other federally recognized tribes, such as the Absentee Shawnee Tribe and the Cherokee Nation, also originally from the Southeast.
context_section_description: At the time of first European contract, the Yuchi people lived in what is now central Tennessee. In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto described them as a powerful tribe known as the as Uchi, that were also associated with the Chisca tribe.
  Both historical and archaeological evidence exists documenting several Yuchi towns of the 18th century. Among these was Chestowee in present-day Bradley County, Tennessee. In 1714, instigated by two English fur traders from South Carolina, the Cherokee attacked and destroyed Chestowee. The Cherokee were prepared to carry their attacks further to Yuchi settlements on the Savannah River, but the colonial government of South Carolina did not condone the attacks. The Cherokee held back. The Cherokee destruction of Chestowee marked their emergence as a major power in the Southeast.
  Yuchi towns were documented in Georgia and South Carolina, where the tribe had migrated to escape pressure from the Cherokee.  "Mount Pleasant" was noted as being on the Savannah River in present-day Effingham County, Georgia, from about 1722 to about 1750. To take advantage of trade, the British established a trading post and small military garrison there, which they called Mount Pleasant.
  "Euchee Town" (also called Uche Town), a large settlement on the Chattahoochee River, was documented from the middle to late 18th century. It was located near Euchee (or Uche) Creek, about ten miles downriver from the Muscogee Creek settlement of Coweta Old Town. The naturalist William Bartram visited Euchee Town in 1778. In his letters he ranked it as the largest and most compact Indian town he had ever encountered, with large, well-built houses. US Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins also visited the town and described the Yuchi as "more orderly and industrious" than the other tribes of the Creek Confederacy. The Yuchi began to move on, some into the Florida panhandle.
  During the Creek War of 1813–1814, which overlapped the War of 1812, many Yuchi joined the Red Sticks party, traditionalists opposed to the Muscogee people of the Lower Towns, who had adopted more European ways. Euchee Town decayed. The tribe became one of the poorest of the Creek communities, at the same time gaining a bad reputation. The archaeological site of the town, designated a National Historic Landmark, is within the boundaries of present-day Fort Benning, Georgia.
  Colonists noted Patsiliga, a settlement on the Flint River, in the late 18th century. Other Yuchi settlements may have been those villages noted on the Oconee River near Uchee Creek in Wilkinson County, Georgia, and on Brier Creek in Burke County, Georgia or Screven County, Georgia. A Yuchi town was sited at present-day Silver Bluff in Aiken County, South Carolina from 1746 to 1751.
  During the 18th century, the Yuchi consistently allied with the British, with whom they traded deer hides and Indian slaves. Yuchi population plummeted in the 18th century due to Eurasian infectious diseases, to which they had no immunity, and to war with the Cherokee, who were moving into their territory. After the American Revolution, Yuchi people maintained close relations with the Muscogee Creek Confederacy. Some Yuchi migrated south to Florida along with the Creek, where they became part of the newly formed Seminole people.
  In the 1830s, the US government forcibly removed the Yuchi, along with the Muscogee Creek, from Alabama and Georgia to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma), west of the Mississippi River. The Yuchi settled in the north and northwestern parts of the Creek Nation. Three towns which the Yuchi established in the 19th century continue today: Duck Creek, Polecat, and Sand Creek.
caption: Yuchi Town, painting by Martin Pate (1990) of 18th-century village, based on archaeological data. Yuchi Town within the area of present-day Ft. Benning, Georgia.
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