SWANTON] INDIANS OP THE SOUTHEASTEiRN UNITED STATES 169 



trict and near the site of the present city of Opelousas, and here they 

 remained as long as we have any separate notice of them. In 1805 

 we learn that their village was 15 miles west of Opelousas. The last 

 representatives of this tribe probably joined the Atakapa, to whom 

 they are supposed to have been related. 



Opeloicsa population. — ^About 1725 Bienville estimated that the 

 number of Opelousa warriors might be nearly 130. In 1805 Sibley 

 gave 40, and in 1814 their entire population was said to be reduced 

 to 20. In his study of the aboriginal population north of Mexico, 

 Mooney gives a figure of 1,400 for this tribe, the Chawasha, and the 

 Washa together, but he confounds the Okelousa and Opelousa. My 

 own estimate of Opelousa population is between 400 and 500. 



OSOCHI 



There is reason to think that the origin of this tribe is to be sought 

 in Florida and that the De Soto narratives (1539) contain our first 

 references to it under the forms U^achile, Ossachile, etc. In 1656 

 a great rebellion of Timucua Indians against the Spanish govern- 

 ment broke out. It is said that some "rebels" fled from the country, 

 and shortly afterward we find references to a separate body of Timucua 

 on or near Apalachicola Kiver. The original Florida name also seems 

 to be preserved in a Spanish official map dated 1765, which places the 

 "Apalache 6 Sachile" at the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint. 

 However, they were located on the Chattahoochee as early as 1675. 

 After this time we find the Osochi laid down on maps or given in tables 

 of population as a tribe or town between the two rivers last mentioned, 

 but farther north, and before 1794 they were on or near the Flint, 

 since Hawkins tells us that during that year they moved from this 

 region to the west bank of the Chattahoochee and settled above the 

 Chiaha in the great bend of the river. A considerable part of them 

 continued to camp east of the river, and they and the Chiaha together 

 founded the town of Hotalgi-huyana. After the removal to Oklahoma 

 they first settled on the north side of Arkansas River, some distance 

 above the present city of Muskogee. Later, in consequence of the 

 so-called Green Peach War and in order to be near the Hitchiti, part 

 of them went to Council Hill. They have now disappeared as a 

 distinct element in the Creek Nation. 



Osochi population. — Estimates made in 1738 and 1761 give 120 

 hunters or warriors in this town, Chiaha, and Okmulgee together. 

 In 1750, 30 are given in Osochi alone, and in 1760, 50. The enumera- 

 tion of 1832-33 returned a total population of 539, but one of the two 

 towns called by the name may have been Okmulgee. 



