swanton] EARL? HISTOR1 OF THE CREEK INDIANS 139 
Nation." 1 Neither La Harpe nor Penicaut, however, drops a hint 
about the time or manner of their leaving Mobile. Hamilton has the 
following to say of them in addition to what Penicaut tells us: 
Tli ily mention of them aoticed in the church registers is where, in 1716, Huve 
baptized Marguerite, daughter of a savage, Blave of Commissary Duclos, and a free 
Taouache woman. The godmother was Marguerite Le Sueur. What became of them 
we do not certainly know, bu1 it would seem probable that as early as 1713 they had 
made Bome change of residence. The creek Toucha, emptying into Bayou Sara some 
distance easl of Cleveland's Station on the M. A: B. 11. R., or, according to some, into 
Mobile River ai Twelve Mile Island, would seem even yet to perpetuate this location, 
which corresponds nearly with l>elisle's map. and one of 1744. As Tonacha, it occurs 
a number of times in Spanish documents. 2 
Hamilton's belief that the tribe had made some change of residence 
as early as 171'! is evidently founded on Penicaut's statement that 
the Taensa were brought to Mobile that year and given "the planta- 
tion [habitation] where the Chaouachas [Tawasa] had formerly been 
Located, within two leagues of our fort." 3 However, we know that 
this event must have taken place in the year 1715. 4 
The removal of the Tawasa I believe to have been due to the estab- 
lishment of Fort Toulouse, or the Alabama Fort as it is also called, 
at the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa. Penicaut sets this 
down among the events of the year 1713, 5 but some of the other hap- 
penings recorded by him for the same year, such as the removal of 
the Taensa noted above and the outbreak of the Yamasee war, 
belong properly to 1715. I can not avoid the conclusion that the 
establishment of this post took place in the year 1715, Bienville 
having taken advantage of the Yamasee uprising to strengthen him- 
self in that quarter. At any rate it must have been between 1713 
and 1715, and it is an important point that just at this time the 
Tawasa disappear. The mention of a Tawasa in the baptismal records 
of 1 7 1 G need not t rouble us, 2 for the woman there referred to, although 
free, had married a slave and probably remained behind when her 
people migrated to their new settlement. Their name occurs again in 
the French census of 1760, when two bodies are given, one settled with 
the Fus-hatchee Indians on the Tallapoosa, 4 leagues from Fort Tou- 
louse, the other forming an independent body 7 leagues from that post. 6 
When next we hear of them it is from Hawkins in 1799, and they are 
on Alabama River below the old French post, and are reckoned as 
one of the four towns of the Alabama Indians. 7 
1 La Harpe, Jour. Hist., p. 108. 
" Hamilton, Col. Mobile, pp. 112-113. 
3 Margry, Dec., v, p. 509. 
* La Harpe, op. cit., pp. 118-119. 
• Margry, op. cit.. p. 511. 
« Miss. I'rov. Arch., I, pp. 94-9.'.. 
T Hawkins's description of the Tawasa town as it existed in 1799 is given, along with descriptions of the 
other Alabama towns, on pp. 197-19S. 
