MoosEYj THK SOUTHERN TRIBES 385 



tho, old trail crossed the rivor about Long-swanip town. All our 

 iiil'oriiiatioii coiiccriuii";' it is traditional, obtained from James Waflord, 

 who hiMird tho storv wlioii a boy, about the year ISla. from an old 

 tra(h>r named Brian ^\'ard. who had witnessed the battle sixty years 

 befoiT. Aecordiny' to his account, it was probably the hardest battle 

 ever fouylit between the two tril)(>s, about tive hundred Cherokee and 

 twice that number of Crei'k warriors beinj;' engaji'ed. The Cherokee 

 were at tirst overmatched and fell back, but rallied again and returned 

 to the attack, driving- the Creeks from cover so that they l)roke and 

 ran. The victory was complete and decisive, and tln' defeated trit)e 

 immediatelj' afterward abandoned the whole upper portion of (ieor- 

 gia and the adjacent part of Alabama to the conquerors. Before 

 this l>attle the Cre(>ks had been accustomed to shift about a good deal 

 from place to place, but thereafter they eoniined themselves more 

 closely to fixed home locations. It was in consequence of this defeat 

 that tliey abandoned their town on Nottely river, below Coosa creek, 

 near the ))resent Blair.sville, Georgia, their old fields being at once 

 occupied by ChtMokee, who moved over from their settlements on the 

 head of Sa\annah river. As has been already stated, a peace was made 

 about 1759, just in time to enable the Creeks to assist the Cherokee in 

 their war with South Carolina. We hear little more concerning the 

 relations of the two tribes until the Creek war of 1S13-14, described 

 in detail elsewhere; after this their histories drift apart. 



The Yuchi or Uchee, called Ani'-Yu'tsi by the Cherokee. wer(> a 

 tribe of distinct linguistic stock and of considerable importance in 

 early days; their territory bordered Savannah river on both sides iuune- 

 diately below the Cherokee country, and extended some distance west- 

 ward into Georgia, where it adjoined that of the Creeks. They were 

 gradually dispossessed by the whites, and were incorporated with the 

 Creeks about the year 1740. but retain their separate identity and 

 language to this day, their town being now the largest in the Creek 

 Nation in Indian Territory. 



According to the testimony of a Cherokee mixed-blood named Cxan- 

 se''ti or Rattling-gourd, who was born on Hiwassee river in 18:^0 and 

 came west with his people in 1838, a mmiber of Yuchi lived, before the 

 Removal, scattered among the Cherokee near the present Cleveland, 

 Tennessee, and on Chickamauga, Cohutta, and Pinelog creeks in the 

 adjacent section of Georgia. They had no separate settlements, but 

 spoke their own language, which he described as " iiard and grunting." 

 Some of them spoke also Cherokee and Creek. T'hey had probably 

 drifted north from the Creek country before a boundary had been 

 fixed between the tribes. When Tahlequah was established as the 

 capital of the Cherokee Nation in the West in 183!t a few Yuchi were 

 found alreiidy settled at the spot, being supposed to have removed 

 from the East with some Creeks after the chief Mcintosh was killed in 



lit KTU~01 25 



