SWANTON] INBIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 13 



of the Georgia coast. In the part of the Cherokee country traversed 

 there were far fewer towns than we find later, evidently because the 

 Cherokee had not completed their occupancy of the region. Ex- 

 cept for the disturbance the Spaniards themselves created in the 

 destruction of life at Mabila, Alabama and Mississippi appear to 

 have changed little in distribution of people and their numbers. 

 This even applied to the territory of the Natchez, if, as suspected, 

 the province of Quigualtanqui included the Natchez tribe. In 

 eastern and southern Arkansas, however, and in northeastern Louisi- 

 ana we find a very great change. Here about 30 towns, villages, 

 and provinces are mentioned, some of which are distinctly said to 

 have been the most populous or the best supplied with corn of any 

 the explorers had entered during their journey, except CoQa and 

 Apalachee. But when the French came into this country a hundred 

 and fifty years later, what a contrast! In all Arkansas there were 

 only four Quapaw towns, near the junction of the Arkansas with 

 the Mississippi, which there is reason to suppose represented a later 

 immigration, and one Caddo and one Tunica settlement on the 

 Ouachita. In northeastern Louisiana there were only a few bands 

 of Tunica, Yazoo, and Koroa, whose villages were usually on the 

 other side of the Mississippi, about 800 Taensa on Lake St. Joseph, 

 and the insignificant Avoyel tribe in the parish named after them. 

 The rest had mysteriously disappeared. 



The region about Augusta, Ga., represents a smaller area which 

 had lost the greater part of its population between 1540 and 1670, 

 though many tribes settled there until a late date — Yuchi, Shawnee, 

 Apalachee, Chickasaw. In both of these cases archeology bears out 

 history, particularly as regards the former country. The evacuation 

 of population in this area is approached, though hardly matched, 

 only by that in the Ohio Valley. Archeology also indicates one other 

 displacement, the removal of a former dense population from that 

 part of the Gulf coast between Mobile and Tampa Bays. Apart from 

 Tampa Bay itself we have little direct information regarding the 

 presence of Indian tribes along this part of the coast, but Pineda 

 reported that when he skirted the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico 

 he entered a large river, generally believed to be the Mobile, in order 

 to careen his vessels, and claimed it was lined with 40 towns. While 

 this may have been something of an exaggeration, he is in a measure 

 confirmed by Iberville, who states that there were great numbers of 

 old village sites here when he and his brother Bienville entered 

 to make a permanent establishment in 1702. The region about the 

 mouth of the Apalachicola was found by Moore to be rich in archeo- 

 logical sites from which he culled great quantities of pottery and 

 other remains. It is important to keep this stretch of coast in mind 



