Yamasee (Amerind tribe)

Other sources, such as Oviedo, Navarrete, Barcia, and Documentos Ineditos list additional provinces derived from Francisco de Chicora, some of which have been tentatively identified by Swanton and other researchers, including the Yamiscaron: the Yamacraw or Yamasee tribe (Guale).

The Orixa are a Cusabo subtribe on the Edisto River.

The Coçayo is the "Coosa" subtribe of the Cusabo, who live on the upper South Carolina rivers.

These "Coosa" are probably not related to the Muskogean-speaking Coosa chiefdom that Hernando de Soto will encounter some fifteen years later in present-day northern Georgia.

The Pasqui, which Pardo will call the Pasque, live inland near the Siouan Waxhaw tribe, native to what are now the counties of Lancaster, in South Carolina; and …

…Union and Mecklenburg in North Carolina, around the area of Charlotte.

The Waxhaw were related to other nearby Southeastern Siouian tribes, such as the Catawba and Sugeree.

Some scholars suggest the Waxhaw may have been a tribe of the Catawba rather than a separate people, given the similarity in what is known of the language and customs.

A distinctive custom that they share is flattening of the forehead of individuals.

Flattening of the head gives the Waxhaw a distinctive look, with wide eyes and sloping foreheads.

They start the process at birth by binding the infant to a flat board.

The wider eyes are said to give the Waxhaw a hunting advantage.

The typical Waxhaw dwellings are similar to those of other peoples of the region.

They are covered in bark.

Ceremonial buildings, however, are usually thatched with reeds and bullgrass.

The people hold ceremonial dances, tribal meetings and other important rites in these council houses.

Aymi is possibly the Hymahi of de Soto and Pardo, placed by Hudson (1990) on the Congaree River, near where it joins the Santee.

Early European observers and later American scholars theorize the Congaree were likely of the Siouan language family, given their geographic location and characteristics of neighboring tribes.

Since the late twentieth century, scholars more widely agree that the people were non-Siouan.

Their language is distinct from the Siouan language, and not intelligible to their immediate Siouan neighbors, the Wateree.

The Sona are possibly a Cusabo subtribe on the Stono River.

The Yenyohol are the Winyaw of Winyah Bay; the identification of the Anica, Xoxi, Huaque, Anoxa is uncertain.

There has been discontent among Carolina's settlers, mostly immigrants from Barbados, with the Lords Proprietors during the first decade of the colony.

Charles Town is the principal seat of government for the entire province.

The northern and southern sections of the proprietary colony operate more or less independently, however, due to their remoteness from each other.

The Charles Town settlement has grown by 1680, joined by others from England, Barbados, and Virginia, and relocated to its current peninsular location.

It is the center for further expansion and the southernmost point of English settlement during the late seventeenth century.

Periodic assaults from Spain and France, who still contested England's claims to the region, are combined with resistance from natives, as well as pirate raids.

While the earliest settlers primarily come from England, colonial Charleston is also home to a mixture of ethnic and religious groups.

French, Scottish, Irish, and Germans have migrated to the developing seacoast town, representing numerous Protestant denominations, as well as Roman Catholicism and Judaism.

The governor offers Chief Blunt leadership of the entire Tuscarora Nation if he will assist in defeating Chief Hancock.

Blunt subsequently succeeds in capturing Hancock, who is tried and executed by the government of southern Carolina.

Fort Neoheroka (or just Neoheroka, Neyuherú·kęʼ in Tuscarora) is the name of a stronghold constructed in what is now modern day Greene County, North Carolina by the Tuscarora tribe during the Tuscarora War of 1711-1715.

The fort is besieged in March 1713 hand ultimately attacked by a colonial force consisting of an army from the neighboring Province of South Carolina, under the command of Colonel James Moore and made up mainly of natives, including Yamasee, Apalachee, Catawba, Cherokee, and many others.

The 1713 siege lasts for more than three weeks, from around March 1 to March 22, 1713.

Hundreds of men, women and children are burned to death in a fire that destroys the fort.

Approximately one hundred and seventy more are killed outside the fort while approximately four hundred are taken to southern Carolina where they are sold into slavery.

The defeat of the Tuscaroras, once the most powerful indigenous nation in the North Carolina Territory, opens up North Carolina’s interior to further expansion by European settlers.

After defeat in the battle of 1713, about fifteen hundred Tuscarora flee to New York to join the Iroquois Confederacy, while as many as fifteen hundred additional Tuscarora seek refuge in the colony of Virginia.

Although some accept tributary status in Virginia, the majority of the remaining Tuscarora will ultimately return to North Carolina.

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

Spanish explorers in 1570 had established missions in Yamasee territory.

The Yamasee were later included in the missions of the Guale province.

Starting in 1675, the Yamasee are 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 do not convert to Christianity and remain somewhat separated from the Christian natives of Spanish Florida.

While often described as a tribe, the Yamasee are an amalgamation of the remnants of earlier tribes and chiefdoms, such as the Guale and groups originating in the provinces of Tama and Ocute in interior Georgia (Worth 1993:40–45).

The Yamasee had emerged during the seventeenth century in the contested frontier between South Carolina and Spanish Florida.

At first allied with the Spanish, pirate attacks on the Spanish missions in 1680 had forced the Yamasee to migrate again.

Some had moved to Florida.

Others had returned to the Savannah River lands, safer after the destruction of the Westo.

Spaniards had attempted in 1687 to send Yamasees to the West Indies as slaves, so the tribe had revolted against the Spanish missions and their native allies, and the tribe had moved into the British colony of the Province of South Carolina, establishing several villages, Pocotaligo, Tolemato, and Topiqui, in Beaufort County, and had soon become South Carolina's most important native ally.

The Yamasee and the Carolinian colonists have for years conducted slave raids upon Spanish-allied natives and attacked St. Augustine, Florida.

A 1715 census conducted by John Barnwell counts twelve hundred and twenty Yamasee living in ten villages in near Port Royal, South Carolina.

The Yamasee have long profited from their relation with the British, but by 1715 find it difficult to obtain the two trade items most desired by the British—deerskins and enslaved natives.

In fact, some historians have suggested that the census taken by the British the same year had fueled Yamasee fears of enslavement.

With the deerskin trade booming over an ever-larger region, deer have become rare in Yamasee territory.

Slave-raiding opportunities are limited after the Tuscarora War.

The Yamasee have become increasingly indebted to the British traders, who supply them with trade goods on credit.

Rice plantations had begun to thrive in South Carolina by 1715, and much of the accessible land good for rice has been taken up.

The Yamasee had been granted a large land reserve on the southern borders of South Carolina, and settlers have begun to covet their land, which they deem ideal for rice plantations.

Historians have not determined if the Yamasee were leaders in fomenting native unrest and plans for war.

The Ochese Creeks (later known as the Lower Creeks) may have been more instrumental in gaining support for war.

Each of the native tribes that joins in the war has its own reasons, as complicated and deeply rooted in the past as the Yamasee's.

Although the tribes do not act in carefully planned coordination, the unrest increases, and intertribal communication begins about the possibility of war.

Rumors of growing native support for war is by early 1715 troubling enough that some friendly natives warn colonists of the danger.

They suggest the Ochese Creek are the instigators.