Tohome
The Tohome or Thomez were a North American Indian people who lived in what is now the southwestern US state of Alabama at the beginning of European contact . They spoke a Choctaw dialect from the Muskogee languages . Their residential area was on the west bank of the Tombigbee River at McIntosh's Bluff, a few miles above its confluence with the Alabama River. The tribe united with the Choctaw in 1771 and was integrated, so that after this point it is no longer mentioned as an independent tribe.
history
According to a geographical name, the Tohome may once have lived on a watercourse formerly called the Oke Thome . Today it is called Catoma Creek and flows into the Alabama River just below Montgomery . At the time of their first contact with Europeans, however, their residential area was on the west bank of the Tombigbee River in Alabama. In the reports of the Spanish explorer Tristán de Luna y Arellano from 1559 and 1560, the Tombigbee River is referred to as Rio Tomé .
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville heard of this tribe in April 1700, of which nothing has previously been read in French records. He sent two messengers there with gifts to visit the Tohome and Mobile villages , which were spread over several small islands in the Mobile River . There was flooding there and these villages were deserted, so that they returned unsuccessfully in May. In 1702 Iberville was accompanied on his third trip by his older brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville . He sent Bienville to a new fort on the Mobile River in what is now known as the Twentyseven Mile Bluff . From there, he found many abandoned settlements of Mobile on the islands in the river, which at Tide were flooded -Hochwasser. A few days later, 32 km further upriver, Iberville discovered inhabited Tohome villages. Both tribes settled the islands, the river banks and small tributaries during this period. They lived there separated by families in groups of four to twelve huts. Most of these dwellings were inundated during floods. There were connecting paths between the individual settlements on the river banks. Iberville estimated the population of both tribes at 350 people each. Historians suggest that the Tohome and Mobile moved south from the Tombigbee River to live on the Mobile River under the protection of the new French fort and the nearby trading post.
From that time on, the Tohome and the Mobile seem to have lived in an alliance. However, there was one serious incident that led to a rift between the two tribes, namely the murder of a Mobile woman by a male Tohome member. A war between the tribes could only be prevented with great difficulty. In 1715 a tohome killed an English trader named Hughes from South Carolina . He was captured by the French and taken to the Mobile, who later released him. Both peoples joined the Choctaw around 1771 and have not existed as separate tribes since.
Individual evidence
- ^ Tohome Indians. Retrieved February 2, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c Mobile Tribe and Tohome Indians. Retrieved February 2, 2017 .