South Carolina – Indians, Native Americans – Yemassee

Name, Language

• Alternate spellings: Yamasee
• Possible meanings: ?
• Language family: Muskogean

Current Status

• Extinct - though some of their descendants remain in South Carolina others may have formed the Oklawha band of the Seminole in Florida
  

SC Location, Territory

• Traditional: Near the mouth of the Savannah River in Beaufort and Jasper counties. Altamaha Town along the Okatie River was the principal settlement
  

Related SC Names

• Towns of Pocotaligo and Okatee (now spelled Okatie) in Beaufort County and Yemassee which is located in both Hampton and Beaufort Counties
  

Population Estimates

• 1650: 2000 approximately
• 1715: 1215

History

• Offended by the Spanish Governor from 1684 to 1685 in their home of Georgia, the Yemassee moved to South Carolina and were given land at the mouth of the Savannah River.

• 87 warriors fought with the colonists in the Tuscarora War of 1712.

• Angered by unfair trade practices, slavery and whipping of Indians, and encroachment on their land, the Yemassee and several other Indian tribes rose against the British and killed approximately 100 settlers in 1715. They were defeated by Governor Craven and fled to Florida. The uprising becomes known as the Yemassee War.

Dwellings

• Huts made of logs with thatched, palmetto roofs. Round community building or town house in the center of town.
  

Food

• Farming: ?
• Fishing: native species
• Hunting: deer, bear

Beliefs and Practices

• Indian mounds used as burial sites

Related Yemassee Indian Resources

• Altamaha Town Unearthed - article detailing history and archaeologists' findings
  
• Yemassee nation composed of two separate nations - outlines history and locations tribe settled
  
• County spends $3.1M to protect Yemassee Indian site - area now called Altamaha Town Heritage Preserve
  
• Hudson, Charles. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976.
• Hudson, Charles and Carmen Chaves Tesser. The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994.
• Milling, Chapman J. Red Carolinians. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969.
• Swanton, John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Instition Press, 1984.
• Wright, James Leitch. The Only Land They Knew: The Tragic Story of the American Indians in the Old South. New York: The Free Press, 1981.