swa.vionI GAEL'S HISTORY OF THE CREEK INDIANS ' 95 
For our first notice we must go back to the very beginning of 
Spanish exploration on the Atlantic coast of North America, to the 
list of "provinces" for which Francisco of Chicora was responsible. 
In this list, as previously noted, 1 we find one province called " Yami- 
scaron," which there is every reason to believe refers to the tribe we 
have under discussion. The peculiar ending suggests a form which 
appears again in Yamacraw and which it is difficult to account for 
in ,i tribe supposed to be Muskhogean and without a true phonetic 
/■ in the language. I can explain it only by supposing that it was 
originally taken from the speech of the Siouan neighbors ot these 
people to the northeasl .-' 
April 4. 1540, De Soto's army came to a province called by Biedma 
"the Province of Altapaha." Elvas gives it as " the town of Alta- 
maca," but Kanjel has the correct form Altamaha. The last men- 
tioned speaks as if the Spaniards did not pass through the main 
town, but they received messengers from the chief, who furnished 
them with food and had them transported across a river. This 
was probably the river which Biedma says encouraged them be- 
cause it flowed east instead of south. Ranjel seems to imply 
that Altamaha, like a neighboring chief called £amumo, was the 
subject of "a great chief whose, name was Ocute" (the Hitchiti). 3 
The significance in this encounter is due to the fact that Altamaha 
afterwards appears as the head town of the Lower Yamasee. From 
Kanjel's statement it would seem that the Yamasee were at this 
time connected with the Hitchiti, whereas the language of the Guale 
people proper was somewhat different. 
The next reference comes in a letter dated November 15, 1633, 
and is as follows: "The Amacanos Indians have approached the 
Province of Apalache and desire missionaries." 4 August 22, 1639, 
Gov. Damian de la Vega Castro y Pardo writes that he has made 
peace between the Apalachee on one side and the "Chacatos [Chatot], 
Apalachocolos [Lower Creeks], and Amacanos." 5 These last refer- 
ences indicate that while the Yamasee may have been theoretically 
in the Province of Guale, they rather belonged to its hinterland and, 
as presently appears, were not missionized or affected much by 
European influences. In 1670 William Owen speaks of them as 
allies of the Spaniards living south of the Cusabo. 6 They come to 
light next in Spanish documents, this time unequivocally, in a letter 
of Gov. Don Pablo de Hita Salazar, dated March 8, 1680. He says: 
It has come to the notice of his honor that some Yamasee Indians, infidels (unos 
yndios Yamasifl ynfielee), who are in the town which was that of San Antonio de 
Anacape, have asked for a minister to teach them our holy Catholic faith. 7 
» See p. 37. -Ibid.; also Serrano y Sanz, Doc. Hist., pp. 
•'But see p. ins. 198-199. 
> Bourne. Narr. of Dr Soto, I, p. 56; n, pp. 10, 'Seep. 67. 
89 90 7 Lowery.MSS. 
i bowery, MSS. 
