Yuchi Indian Histories Before the Removal Era

6. “They Look upon the Yuchis as Their Vassals”: An Early History of Yuchi-Creek Political Relations

 Standard historical sources provide good evidence that the historical Yuchi tribe has continuously been part of the political system of the Creek Confederacy since the 18th century. . . . A core of the Yuchi ethnic group, based on the evidence reviewed, is in some ways, socially and culturally distinct from other members of the Creek Nation, but does not form a separate, politically autonomous tribe. The mcn [Muscogee Creek Nation] is the continuation of the Creek Confederacy formed in the 17th and 18th centuries in the Southeast as a confederation of tribes of varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The Yuchi tribe has participated politically in the Creek Confederacy since that time.—u.s. department of the interior, 1995 Since the early eighteenth century, interlopers into the American Deep South have regarded the Yuchis—as the Yuchis have generally regarded themselves—as a subgroup closely affiliated with, yet in many ways culturally distinct from the tribes who made up the Creek Confederacy. In spite of the evidence for Yuchi cultural distinctiveness , generations of colonial governors, Indian agents, ethnographic writers, and Bureau of Indian Affairs staffers, for the purposes administrative expediency, have viewed the Yuchis as part 6. “They Look upon the Yuchis as Their Vassals” An Early History of Yuchi-Creek Political Relations steven c. hahn hahn 124 of the Creek Nation. As a consequence the Yuchis have historically found it difficult to identify themselves politically as something other than Creek. As it stands even now, the Yuchis “do not exist” in the eyes of the U.S. government, rendering them a “politically disadvantaged minority within the Creek Nation.”1 Though scholars have compiled strong evidence for an ongoing, distinct Yuchi ethnic identity, little has yet been done to investigate the early history of their political relationship with the Creeks. If we are to understand the origins of that relationship, we must begin in the early eighteenth century, when the Yuchis made their first recorded appearance among the Creeks. A time of great transformation , the rise of the trade in deerskins and slaves, imperial warfare, and Creek political and territorial assertiveness provided the context for the emerging Yuchi-Creek relationship. Many simple questions concerning it have yet to be asked: How did the Yuchis and the Creeks conceive of their political relationship during the early to mid-eighteenth century? To what extent did the state of Yuchi and Creek political affairs govern their day-to-day intercourse ? How did they get along? Did their political relationship change over time? In answering these questions, a brief survey of the records suggests that the Yuchis’ struggle to remain masters of their own destiny is nothing new. Since the early eighteenth century the Lower Creeks have generally regarded the Yuchis as their subordinates and have attempted to impose an asymmetrical relationship upon them that European observers likened to “vassalage.” This perception, it seems, took root because of the Creeks’ tendency to stake claims to Yuchi lands and to relegate the Yuchis to a subordinate role in politics . However, the Yuchis found ways to assert themselves politically when opportunities arose, the best of which came when they distanced themselves physically from the Creek Nation. Thus we see a rather complicated relationship emerge, one that oscillated between friendship and hostility and between political isolation and inclusion . Whether the Yuchis were forced or deliberately chose to remain outsiders remains inconclusive. But the fact remains that for “They Look upon the Yuchis as Their Vassals” 125 the Yuchis, coping with what might be called Lower Creek hegemony was a consistent feature of life in the early eighteenth century. The title of this essay takes inspiration from a comment issued in July 1750 by William Stephens, president of Georgia Assistants, in a letter to Georgia Secretary Benjamin Martyn. At issue was Yuchi land along the Savannah River above the town of Ebenezer, which the local Salzburg inhabitants were pressuring the Georgia government to annex. Stephens’s letter suggested that the Georgia government had little to fear from the “few Indians called Euchees” still living there, as most of that nation had already abandoned the area. The Georgia Assistants, though, did fear drawing the wrath of the Creeks. Negotiating with the Yuchis for the Ebenezer lands, Stephens argued, “would induce the Creeks to make Pretentions to them [the Ebenezer lands] likewise.” The reason, Stephens explained, was that the Creeks “look upon the Euchees as their vassals.” Georgia of...