140 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 78 
The fact of this removal from Mohile Bay to the upper Alabama 
is confirmed from the Indian side by Stiggins in giving what he 
supposes to be the history of all of the Alabama Indians. He says: 
The first settlement we find in tracing the Alabamas (a branch of the Creek or 
Ispocoga tribe) is at the confluence of the Alabama River and Tensaw Lake, near the 
town of Stockton, in Baldwin County. Their settlements extended up the lake and 
river as far as Fort Mimbs; their town sites and other settlements they called Towassee, 
and at this time they call that extent of country Towassee Talahassee, which is Towas- 
see Old Town. The white settlers of the place call it the Tensaw settlement. The 
Indians say traditionally that at the time of their lesidence there that they were a 
very rude, barbarous set of people and in a frightful state of ignorance; their missile 
weapons for both war and subsistence were bows and arrows made of cane and pointed 
with flint or bone sharpened to a point. With the same weapons they repelled their 
foe in time of war; in the wintertime they got their subsistence in the forest, and they 
made use of them to kill their fish in the shallow parts of the lakes in the summer 
season. They say very jocosely they consider that at this time were they to meet one 
of their ancestors armed in ancient manner, and dressed in full habiliment with buck- 
skin of his own manufacture that it would inspire them with dread to behold his 
savage appearance. They very often make mention of their forefathers of that age 
calling it the time when their ancestors made an inhuman appearance, by which we 
may judge that the then state of their forefathers has been handed down to them as 
a very rude and frightful state almost beyond conception. They do not pretend to 
any traditional account, when or for what they emigrated to this distance. They 
have a tradition that many of the inhabitants of ancient Towassee for some reason 
unknown to them were carried off on shipboard by the French or some other white 
people many years since. It must have been in consequence of said interruption 
when the Towassee settlement was depopulated and earned off on shipboard that 
the remaining part of the tribe removed up the river and made the settlements and 
towns Autauga and Towassee in the bend of the river below the city of Montgomery, 
where they resided to the close of their hostile movements in the year of eighteen 
hundred and thirteen. 1 
From this it appears that Autauga, the Alabama town farthest 
downstream, was settled by the same people. 2 From the records 
available we learn nothing regarding the supposed deportation of 
part of the tribe, but it is quite likely that some members embarked 
on sailing vessels, or Stiggins may have confused the Natchez story 
with this. I have already given my own explanation of the Tawasa 
removal to the upper Alabama/' There is nothing to indicate any 
break in the amicable relations existing between this tribe and the 
French. 
We may infer that their ancient occupancy of this region, as 
evidenced by the De Soto narratives, had something to do in deter- 
mining them to return to it when Fort Toulouse was founded. And 
it is also probable that their language was not very distantly related 
to Alabama. At any rate, from this time on they followed the 
fortunes of the Alabama tribe. Not long after the time to which 
i Stiggins, MS. » See p. 139. 
a Hawkins's description of Autauga in 1799 is on p. 197. 
