Westo

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The Westo were a tribe of indigenous Native Americans who lived on the east coast of what is now the United States until the 17th century . It is not known what language they spoke; it is believed that they communicated with a language from the language family of the Iroquois . The Spanish colonists called the Westo Chichimeco , the European settlers in Virginia called them the Richahecrian . They are first mentioned as a powerful tribe in the documents of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia .

Anthropologist Marvin T. Smith believes that the Westo were a group of Erie Indians who originally lived south of Lake Erie until they were forced to migrate south by the Beaver Wars in 1654-1656. As Virginia expanded, shortly before the founding of South Carolina in 1670 , the Westo migrated south to near Savannah Town on the Savannah River . The Westo were the most important military power in the region until their complete annihilation in 1680.

history

Virginia established a trade relationship with the Westo, and the colonists exchanged firearms for indigenous slaves . When the Westo came to the Savannah River, they quickly became known for their military might and the raids they carried out to rob slaves. Before their demise, the Westo destroyed the Spanish mission provinces of Guale and Mocama . The commercial relationship between the colony and the Westo did not mean, however, that the Indians of the tribe were friendly to the South Carolinians. In 1673 the Westo attacked both Cusabo and the Carolina Colony. By the end of 1674 the colonists relied on the Esaw ('river people'), a group of the later Catawba tribes, as their defenders, and in December some Westo visited Henry Woodward and made peace. After the Westo Woodward welcomed Woodward in their villages, exchanged gifts and affirmed their friendship, an alliance developed from the peace.

Between 1675 and 1680, trade between the Westo and the colony flourished. The Indians provided Carolina with slaves, which they captured with various tribes in the region, including the Guale and Mocama tribes allied with the Spanish colonists; the Settlement Indians , who were under the protection of the Carolina, and likely the Creek , Chickasaw, and other tribes that later evolved into the Creek Confederation .

After the Westo had feuded with almost every tribe in the region, the alliance with the Westo prevented the colony from entering into further alliances with other tribes and peoples. A Shawnee group migrated to the Savannah River area and met with the Westo while Henry Woodward was among them. This group later became known as the Savannah Indians . Woodward witnessed this first encounter between the Shawnee and the Westo. Using sign language , the newcomers warned the Westo of impending attacks by other tribes, thereby gaining the benevolence of the Westo as they prepared to attack.

The Savannah later approached Woodward themselves and built a relationship that ultimately led to the destruction of the Westo. By trading with the Savannah, the Carolinians realized the value of relationships beyond connection with the Westo. When war broke out between the Westo and South Carolina in 1679, the Savannah supported the colony. The Westo were defeated and destroyed in 1680, while the Savannah took over their ancestral settlement and their role as the colony's main Indian trading partner. Most of the surviving Westo were enslaved and shipped to the sugar plantations in the West Indies .

Some of the Westo are believed to have escaped destruction and continued to live in the area. A map of unknown origin from 1715 shows the Indian villages in a period between about 1691 and 1715, just as the early Creek societies moved from the Chattahoochee River to the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers . On the map, a village above the tributary of the Towaliga River into the Ocmulgee is referred to as "Westas". It is one of several villages in a group near the important Lower Creek settlement "Coweta". Westo no longer appears as a name on later maps. Like many other Indian groups of refugees, the surviving Westo are believed to have merged into the newly emerging Creek Confederation.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marvin T. Smith: Archeology of Aboriginal Cultural Change in the Interior Southeast: Depopulation During the Early Historic Period, pp. 131-32 in Ripley P. Bullen: Monographs in Anthropology and History 6 , University Press of Florida, OCLC 15017891
  2. ↑ Catawba ( Memento of January 16, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Alan Gallay: The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South 1670-1717 , Yale University Press, 2002 ISBN 0-300-10193-7
  4. ^ John E. Worth: The Lower Creeks: Origins and Early History in Bonnie G. McEwan: Indians of the Greater Southeast: Historical Archeology and Ethnohistory , University Press of Florida, 2000, ISBN 0-8130-1778-5

literature

See also

List of North American Indian tribes