swanton] i.aki.y HISTORT? OF THE CREEK IXMAXs 107 
thus describes the ->ii< v on St. Johns Riyer of what he forms "the 
last decisive battle": 
In the morning I found I had taken up my lodging on the border of an ancient 
burying ground, containing sepulchres or tumuli of the Yamasees, who were here 
slain by the (reeks in the last decisive battle, the Creeks having driven them into 
the point, between the doubling of the river, where few of them escaped the fury of 
the conquerors. These graves occupied the whole grove, consisting of two or three 
acres of ground. There were nearly thirty of these cemeteries of the dead, nearly of 
an i'<|iial size and form, being oblong, twenty feet in length, ten or twelve feet in 
width, and three or four feet high, now overgrown with orange trees, live oaks, laurel 
magnolias, red bays, and other trees and shrubs, composing dark and solemn shades. 1 
He saw Yamasee slaves living among the Seminole; 2 but from 
other data it is evident that free bands, in whole or in part Yamasee, 
still existed. One of these will be mentioned later. Several writers 
on the Seminole state that the Oklawaha band was said to be de- 
scended from this tribe, 3 and it appears probable since that band 
occupied the region in which most maps of the period immediately 
preceding place the Yamasee. According to the same writers 
their complexion was somewhat darker than that of the other Semi- 
nole. The noted leader Jumper is said by some to have been of 
Yamasee descent, 4 but Cohen sets him down as a refugee from the 
Creeks. 5 In the long war with the Americans which followed, what- 
ever remained of the tribe became fused with one of the larger 
bodies, very likely with the Mikasuki, whose language is supposed 
to have been nearest to their own. We do not know whether those 
Yamasee who went to Pensacola and Mobile with the Apalachee re- 
mained with them or returned to east Florida, but the former sup- 
position is the more likely. 
Another part of the Yamasee evidently settled among the Creeks, 
though for our knowledge of this fact we are almost entirely depend- 
ent upon maps. The late Mr. H. S. Halbert was the first to call my 
attention to the evidence pointing to such a conclusion. On the 
Covens and Mortier map compiled shortly after the Yamasee war 
the name appears in the form "Asassi" among the Upper Creeks. 
An anonymous French writer, of the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury or earlier, adds to his enumeration of the Creek villages this 
statement: 
There are besides, ten leagues from this last village fa Sawokli town], two villages 
of the lamase" nation where there may be a hundred men, but this nation is attached 
to the Spaniards of St. Augustine. 6 
On the Mitchell map of 1755 we find "Massi," probably intended 
for the same tribe, placed on the southeast bank of the Tallapoosa 
River between Tukabahchee and Holiwahali. 7 The name appears also 
> Bartram, Travels, p. 137. e Cohen, Notices of Florida, p. 237. 
2 Ibid., pp. 183-184, 390. « MS., Aver Lib. 
3 See Cohen, Notices of Florida, p. 33. » See plate 6. 
* Williams, Terr, of Florida, p. 272, 1837. 
