Alabama (people)
The Alabama are an Indian - tribe of North America. At the time of their first contact with the colonial immigrants, they lived on the upper reaches of the Alabama River , mainly in what is now the US state of Alabama , and partly in Florida , Louisiana and Oklahoma .
The Alabama are divided into the Tawasa and the Pawokti .
Their language, Alabama , belongs to the Muskogee language family .
history
The Alabama made friends with the first French colonialists. In 1717 the French built Fort Toulouse on the Alabama territory. However, the arrival of the French led to migratory movements. From 1763 many Alabama moved with the related and allied Coushatta from Alabama and Mississippi due to the pressure of the European settlers in the area of what is today Texas, where today they together form the 1987 officially recognized Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas with approx. 1137 tribal members and a reservation of approx. 18 km². Those Alabama and Coushatta ( Koasati , Coosauda or Quassarte ) who stayed behind fought as members of the Creek Confederation (also Muskogee) against the USA . They lost all of their land in the Treaty of Fort James Jackson in 1784 . Most of the Alabama and Coushatta accompanied the Muskogee to Oklahoma, where the 350 tribal members still live today as officially recognized people of the Alabama Quassarte Tribal Town .
population
Iberville estimated in 1702 that 400 Alabama families lived in two villages. The English census of 1715 counted 770 Alabama. For 1832 the population is put at 321, but here the Alabama who moved to Louisiana were not counted. The 1910 US census gives 187 Alabama in Texas and 111 in Louisiana. According to the 1990 census, of 500 to 600 Alabama, 256 still spoke their traditional language.
meaning
Not only the Alabama River , but also the state of Alabama was named after this people. A railway station in Oklahoma also took over the tribal name, as did the towns of Alabama City in Alabama and Alabam in Arkansas .
Individual evidence
- ^ Homepage of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas
- ^ Howard N. Martin, "Alabama-Coushatta Indians," Handbook of Texas Online ( http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bma19 ), accessed September 28, 2013. Published by Texas State Historical Association.
- ^ Homepage of the Alabama Quassarte Tribal Town
See also
literature
- John R. Swanton: The Indian Tribes of North America . Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington DC et al. 1952, ( Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 145, ZDB -ID 799398-5 ), (also reprinted: ibid 1969, ISBN 0-87474-179-3 ).