16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



historic period the great tribes of the section, the Creeks, Choctaw, 

 and Chickasaw, lived inland, the first mentioned along the fall line, 

 the two others on the red lands of the Coastal Plain in the present 

 Mississippi. Exclusive of the peninsula of Florida, the shores were 

 but slenderly inhabited throughout most of this period, but when 

 French and Spanish navigators first appeared upon the coast of 

 Georgia and that part of South Carolina below Charleston there was 

 a heavy population there consisting partly of Muskogee or Creeks 

 and partly of tribes of the Hitchiti-speaking branch of the family 

 afterward united with them. A rebellion against the Franciscan 

 Spanish missionaries in the year 1597 and subsequent secessions and 

 depletions due to the attacks of northern tribes, reduced the number 

 of Indians here rapidly and increased those living inland. A similar 

 shift toward the interior seems to have taken place at an earlier 

 period along the northern shores of the Gulf, as may be inferred 

 from the reports of Pineda and Bienville. Archeological evidence 

 testifying to a similar movement may be adduced from the Pensacola, 

 Choctawhatchee, and St. Andrews Bay districts. It is probable that 

 there was at the same time a considerable inland population, but it 

 appears likely that at the end of the sixteenth century it was not 

 much bigger than that on the coast. 



In northern Florida there is again a striking superiority of the in- 

 land tribes, the most powerful being the Apalachee of the great 

 rise about Tallahassee and Utina and Potano of the northern lake 

 region. The west coast north of Tampa Bay was almost devoid 

 of population in historic times, but abundant archeological remains 

 show that it was once thickly settled like the Gulf coast west of 

 it. On the Atlantic side, the coast north of the St. Johns seems 

 to have been quite well populated, while the proximity of the 

 latter river to the seacoast gave the river tribes almost all of the 

 advantages to be derived from the coast itself. The most exposed 

 part of the coast of this peninsula is on the southeast upon the At- 

 lantic. Here are narrow lagoons, protected by offshore barrier 

 islands, which enabled a number of small tribes to maintain a pre- 

 carious existence, but there were no deep bays or long rivers giving 

 ready access to the hinterland, the principal drainage being toward 

 the Gulf, and as the Gulf side was also better protected from the 

 stronger waves and currents of the Atlantic, it was natural that it 

 should be better populated than the eastern side of the peninsula 

 and that its people should exercise a dominant influence. In fact, 

 when the Spaniards touched upon this coast in the sixteenth century 

 they found it occupied by a powerful tribe called the Calusa, which 

 seems to have been under one government and to have exerted a 

 measure of control over a number of small towns scattered about 

 Lake Okeechobee. 



