150 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOOY [Bull. 137 



entire Illinois Confederation. In 1778 they and the Peoria together 

 numbered 170. 



MIKASUKI 



A prominent Seminole tribe composed of Indians speaking the 

 Hitchiti language but, according to their own tradition, an offshoot 

 of the Chiaha. Since they seem to have belonged to the Red divi- 

 sion of Creeks and Seminole, this origin is more likely than another 

 which traces them to the Sawokli. They first receive historical men- 

 tion toward the end of the eighteenth century. Hawkins enters them 

 in a list of Seminole towns made in 1799, and their first settlement 

 seems to have been at Old Mikasuki near the lake which bears their 

 name in Jefferson County, Fla. In 1817 their town, consisting of 

 300 houses, was burned by Andrew Jackson. They proved to be 

 among the most bitter opponents of white intrusion in Florida, sus- 

 tained more than their fair share of the brunt of the Seminole War, 

 and a part retain their identity to the present day as the Big Cypress 

 band. Another part moved to the west and retained a Square Ground 

 of their own in the Seminole Nation as late as 1912. 



Mikasuki population. — The population of this tribe was estimated 

 at 1,400 by Captain Young about the year 1817. This figure would 

 seem to be decidedly too high. 



MOBILE 



Mobile Bay was first visited, so far as we know, by Alonso Alva- 

 rez de Pineda, who found a large town near its entrance and 40 vil- 

 lages along the bay and river. In 1528 Narvaez met Indians in this 

 neighborhood, and while De Soto was in the Apalachee country, 

 Maldonado, who was in charge of his fleet, may have visited it, 

 though that is uncertain. It is also somewhat uncertain whether 

 the Indians living about the bay at that time belonged to the Mo- 

 bile tribe, though they probably were related. De Soto entered the 

 territory of the latter on October 6, 1540, when he came to a small 

 town known as Caxa (Kasha), on the east bank of Alabama River. 

 On October 10 the Spaniards reached the residence of the famous 

 chief Tascalusa, in a "new" town called Athahachi near Alabama 

 River. They left this place accompanied by Tascalusa on the 12th 

 and next day reached another town called Piachi or Piache, which 

 Garcilaso represents as the capital, and there they crossed the river. 

 Afterward they marched to a small fenced town on a plain which 

 bore the name Mabila, Manilla, or Mavila. Here Tascalusa at- 

 tempted to surprise and destroy his unwelcome guests, thereby pre- 

 cipitating the famous battle of Mabila, fought October 18, 1540. At 

 least 3,000 Indians are said to have been killed and few Spaniards 



