Guale

Guale called a chiefdom and a North American Indian people who were part of the mission system in the Spanish colonized Florida in the late 16th century. The Guale lived along the coast of the present-day state of Georgia and the Sea Islands, the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina's barrier islands. During the 17th and 18th century, the tribe was scattered. Some of the surviving descendants of the Guale migrated into the Spanish mission areas in Florida, while others remained near the Georgia coast. They connected with other survivors from other tribes. For these compounds the root of the ethnically mixed Yamasee arose.

Language

It is not certain what language spoke the Guale. One option is the assignment to the Muskogean languages ​​, which is, however, doubted by historians Sturtevant, who could prove that the words, which were thought they were Guale, are attributable to the Creek. There is some evidence of recordings of the Guale grammar that was written down in 1569 by the Jesuit Domingo Agustín Vaez, the documents were never found.

History

Pre-and Early History

Archaeological studies suggest that the ancestors of the Guale along the coast of Georgia and the Sea Islands lived. At least from 1150 AD lived the later people of Guale in this region. The prehistoric cultures of the Guale be distinguished by archaeologists in the Savannah phase from 1150 to 1300 and in the Irene phase from 1300 to about 1600. During the prehistoric Guale their neighbors were similar in many ways in the region, there are distinctive archaeological features between the proto- Guale and other groups. They were organized socially in chiefdoms and built hill systems, the so-called Mounds, on the model of the Mississippian culture.

Spanish Mission

The tribal area of Guale became the third province of the Spanish colony of Florida. The first both were the provinces of Timucua and Apalachee, the establishment of a fourth province along the lower reaches of the Chattahoochee River, which became known as Apalachicola province, failed even before a mission station in the area could be built. The mission was Guale province on the Atlantic coast and the Sea Islands and was limited by the Altamaha River in the north and the Savannah River in the south. To the area included, among other islands also Sapelo Iceland, Iceland St. Catherines, Ossabaw Iceland, Iceland Wassaw and Tybee Iceland. Mid-16th century there were six mission stations in the traditional territory of the Guale, the largest settlements were probably on St. Catherines Iceland. Of the three provinces of Guale mission was the most unstable. Although in the 1580s already occupied and conquered rebelled Guale in 1597 and 1645 and made ​​it almost to drive the missions. They operated, though illegal, continues to trade with French privateers.

Fusion of La Tama and Yamasee

Indians from across the Southeast of North America were attracted by the Spanish missions and trade of manufactured goods in Europe. Many Indians from other tribes as the Gualefürstentum covered in the 17th century in the vicinity of the missions in the tribal area of Guale. Most of them came from an Indian province in northwestern Georgia which was described by the Spaniards as " La Tama ". In the 1660ern was both the province of La Tama as well as the adjacent areas target of several raids by the well-equipped and armed Westo. This meant that the La Tama Indians fled in different directions, including in the settlements Coweta and Cussita the lower reaches of the Chattahoochee in the territory of the Apalachee and Guale missions. The La Tama languages, such as the Coweta, Cussita, and Apalachee Hitchiti a dialect of the language family of Muskogee languages. Whether the language of the Guale was also related to this dialect is unknown.

First, the Spaniards used in 1675 the term " Yamasee " to describe the newly arrived refugees from the different tribes and they expect all the group of the La Tama to. In the province of Guale some of these Yamasee joined the existing missions, while others settled in their vicinity.

Destruction and dissolution

Between 1675 and 1684 the Westo, with the support of the provinces of Carolina and Virginia, accompanied by attacks supported by the English pirates destroyed the mission system in the province of Guale. The Mission Santa Catalina de Guale was destroyed and 1680 to 1684 were left all six missions. The La Tama Yamasee and other refugees were scattered, as itself the Guale A moved to other missions at the Spanish- controlled Florida, but most rejected the Spanish authority, in part because it had proved unable to protect them and refused them to provide firearms available. Most Indians of Guale province settled in the areas of Apalachee, or Apalachicola.

Emergence of the Yamasee

A small group of Yamasee - Guale refugees under Chief Altamaha moved shortly before 1684, unlike the other refugees north to the mouth of the Savannah River. In that year, a Scottish colony named Stuart Town in Port Royal Sound, near the Savannah River was established in South Carolina. The colony existed for only two years until its destruction by the Spaniards, but in that time, close links with the Yamasee - Guale had developed.

In late 1684, fell upon these Indians, equipped with Scottish firearms, the Timucua province and destroyed the Mission Santa Catalina de Afuyca. They returned with 22 prisoners back to Stuart Town and sold them as slaves. Similar raids were carried out repeatedly during the following two years. The success of the allied Stuarts Town Yamasee - Guale word spread in the region and the population of the " Yamasee " took too fast. Although the Indians were known as the Yamasee, the Guale remained a significant and independent part of the tribe.

After the destruction of Stuart Town and fierce Spanish resistance apposite counter- attacks on the former Guale province by the South Carolinians, who were supported by the Yamasee, the connections between the colonists and the Yamasee were even closer.

Those " Yamasee " who had moved into the area around Port Royal, were part of a reunion of the original La Tama tribal principality, but also had large shares of the population of the tribe of the Guale, and other essentially derived from the Muskogee groups. The Yamasee lived up to the Yamasee War in South Carolina in 1715, after which they were widely scattered and ultimately ceased to exist as a tribe. However, during its history, the Yamasee showed pronounced multi-ethnic skills. Their settlements were distinguished from the British in " Upper and Lower settlements."

In the Lower settlements mainly lived La Tama Indians who places had names like for example Altamaha (after the chief who lived there), and Ocute Chechesee ( Ichisi ). The Upper settlements were largely occupied by Guale, although other ethnic groups were there also integrated. The places with predominantly originating from the Guale residents included, among other Pocotaligo, Pocosabo and Huspah. The Upper settlements such as Tulafina, Sadketche ( Salkehatchie ) and Tomatley were probably inhabited by a mixed population of Guale, La Tama and others. Possibly originated the La Tama these places from missions and were partially Christianized and felt in the coexistence with the similar Guale missionaries most comfortable.

The few " fugitive emissions " who had survived in the field of Guale, were destroyed during the invasion of the Spanish colony of Florida in 1702. The Guale were finally too few and too helpless by James Oglethorpe to oppose the creation of the province of Georgia in 1733 something.