Yamasee

For other uses, see Yamasee (disambiguation).
Yamasee
Total population
Extinct as tribe[1]
Regions with significant populations
United States United States (Georgia, northern Florida, and South Carolina[2])
Languages
Yamasee language (extinct)[3]
Religion
Yamasee tribal religion
Related ethnic groups
La Tama, Guale,[4] Seminole, Hitchiti,[2] and other Muskogean tribes

The Yamasees (also spelled Yamassees,[5][6] Yemasees or Yemassees[7]) were a multiethnic confederation of Native Americans[4] who lived in the coastal region of present-day northern coastal Georgia near the Savannah River and later in northeastern Florida. The Yamasees engaged in revolts[8] and wars with other native groups and Europeans living in North America, specifically from Florida to North Carolina.[9]

The Yamasees, along with the Guale, are considered from linguistic evidence by many scholars to have been a Muskogean language people. For instance, the Yamasee term "Mico", meaning chief, is also common in Muskogee.[9]

After the Yamasees migrated to the Carolinas, they began participating in the Indian slave trade in the American Southeast. They raided other tribes to take captives for sale to European colonists. Captives from other Native American tribes were sold into slavery, with some being transported to West Indian plantations. Their enemies fought back, and slave trading was a large cause of the Yamasee War.[10]

  1. ^ Waldman, Carl (15 July 2006). Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. Checkmark Books. p. 323. ISBN 978-0816062744.
  2. ^ a b "Yamasee Indian Tribe History." Access Genealogy. (retrieved 20 Nov 2010)
  3. ^ Campbell, Lyle (21 September 2000). American Indian Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 149. ISBN 978-0195140507.
  4. ^ a b Green et al 13
  5. ^ Michael P. Morris. "Yamassee War." South Carolina Encyclopedia. University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies. 7 July 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  6. ^ Yamassee Nation: Yamassee Indian Tribe of Seminoles website. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  7. ^ Yemassee Indians: Native Americans in SC at SCIWAY.net. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  8. ^ Howard, James H. (August 1960). "The Yamasee: A Supposedly Extinct Southeastern Tribe Rediscovered". American Anthropologist. 62 (4): 681–683. doi:10.1525/aa.1960.62.4.02a00120. ISSN 0002-7294.
  9. ^ a b Sturtevant, William C. (April 1994). "The Misconnection of Guale and Yamasee with Muskogean". International Journal of American Linguistics. 60 (2): 139–148. doi:10.1086/466226. ISSN 0020-7071. S2CID 143736985.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).