Guale
Guale was a historic Native American chiefdom of Mississippian culture peoples located along the coast of present-day Georgia and the Sea Islands. Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida established its Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic missionary system in the chiefdom in the late 16th century. During the late 17th century and early 18th century, Guale
Guale society was shattered by extensive epidemics of new infectious diseases and attacks by other tribes. Some of the surviving remnants migrated to the mission areas of Spanish Florida, while others remained near the Georgia coast. Joining with other survivors, they became known as the Yamasee, an ethnically mixed group that emerged in a process of ethnogenesis. "Guale" had been cited as one of the possible origins of the name of the Gullah
Gullah people, a distinct Afro American
Afro American ethnic group that emerged and was concentrated in much the same area where the Guale
Guale lived. The alternative name for Gullah, Gullah
Gullah Geechee, has also been connected to the Ogeechee River, part of the Guale
Guale territory. Other scholars have theorized African origins for the words.

Contents

1 Language 2 History

2.1 Prehistory 2.2 European contact 2.3 La Tama
La Tama and Yamasee amalgamation 2.4 Destruction and dispersal 2.5 Emergence of the Yamasee

3 See also 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

Language[edit]

Guale

Region Georgia

Extinct ca. 1700; perhaps became Yamasee

Language family

unclassified

Language codes

ISO 639-3 None (mis)

Linguist List

07u

Glottolog None

Scholars have not reached a consensus on how to classify the Guale language. Early claims that the Guale
Guale spoke a Muskogean language
Muskogean language were questioned by the historian William C. Sturtevant. He has shown that recorded vocabulary, which sources had believed to be Guale, was Creek, a distinct historical Muskogean language.[1] Historical references note that the Jesuit
Jesuit Brother Domingo Agustín Váez recorded Guale
Guale grammar in 1569, but the documents have not been found. The Guale
Guale are believed to have been a Mississippian culture
Mississippian culture group. History[edit] Prehistory[edit] Archaeological studies indicate that the precursors of the historically known Guale
Guale lived along the Georgia coast and Sea Islands, from at least 1150 AD. Archaeologists identify the prehistoric Guale
Guale cultures as the Savannah phase (1150 to 1300 AD) and the Irene phase (1300 to circa 1600). While the prehistoric ancestors to the Guale
Guale shared many characteristics with regional neighbors, they left unique archaeological features that distinguished the "proto-Guale" people from other groups.[2] The prehistoric people were organized into chiefdoms. They built Mississippian-type platform mounds, major earthworks requiring the organized labor of many people, and using highly skilled soil and engineering knowledge. They used the mounds for ceremonial, religious and burial purposes.[3] European contact[edit]

Guale
Guale Indian greets early settler

French explorers under Jean Ribault
Jean Ribault contacted the Guale, whom they called the Oade after their chief, during their voyage to the Atlantic coast of North America in 1562. The Guale
Guale maintained good relations with the ephemeral French settlement known as Charlesfort
Charlesfort on Parris Island in what is now South Carolina. When the Spanish later established themselves in St. Augustine in Spanish Florida, they also contacted the Guale. They soon tried to bring them into their mission system. The Guale
Guale territory became one of the four primary mission provinces of Spanish Florida; the Timucua, Mocama, and Apalachee
Apalachee Provinces, also named after the resident tribes of the territories, were the others. The boundaries of the Spanish Guale Province
Guale Province corresponded to the people's territory along the Atlantic coast and Sea Islands, north of the Altamaha River
Altamaha River and south of the Savannah River. It included Sapelo, St. Catherine's, Ossabaw, Wassaw, and Tybee islands, among others. By the mid-17th century, the Spanish had established six Catholic
Catholic missions in Guale
Guale territory. Their largest settlements were probably on St. Catherine's Island. Guale
Guale was the least stable of the four major mission provinces. The first Guale
Guale rebellion, often labeled Juanillo's Revolt, began on October 4, 1597.[4] The Guale
Guale rebelled again 1645, nearly shaking off the missions. They kept up a clandestine trade with French privateers, which provided them with alternate sources of goods.[5] La Tama
La Tama and Yamasee amalgamation[edit] Indians throughout the American southeast were drawn to the Spanish mission provinces for their trade in European manufactured goods. Various non- Guale
Guale Indians settled in or near the Guale
Guale missions during the 17th century. Most were from an Indian province of north-central Georgia called La Tama
La Tama by the Spanish. In the 1660s the well-armed Westo attacked La Tama
La Tama and neighboring regions, dispersing the La Tama in several directions. Some migrated to the lower Chattahoochee River towns of Coweta
Coweta and Cussita, the Apalachee mission
Apalachee mission provinces, and the Guale
Guale province. The La Tama
La Tama spoke a dialect of Hitchiti, a Muskogean language, as did the Coweta, Cussita, and Apalachicola. The Guale language may or may not have been related.[6] In 1675 the Spanish first used the term Yamasee to refer to the newcomer refugees. They thought them similar to the La Tama. In Guale Province, some of the Yamasee joined the existing missions, while others settled on the periphery. Destruction and dispersal[edit] Between 1675 and 1684, the Westo tribe, backed by the British colonial Province of Carolina
Province of Carolina and Colony and Dominion of Virginia, destroyed the Spanish mission system in Guale. Attacks by English-supported pirates also contributed to the breakup of the missions. In 1680 they sacked Mission Santa Catalina de Guale. By 1684 the Spanish and Indians had abandoned all six missions. The La Tama
La Tama Yamasee, Guale, and other refugees scattered in the southeast. Some relocated to new missions in Spanish Florida, but most rejected Spanish authority. They felt Spain had been unable to protect them and resented their failure to provide firearms. The Indians of Guale Province
Guale Province moved mostly to the Apalachee
Apalachee or Apalachicola regions.[7] Emergence of the Yamasee[edit] Around or before 1684, one small group of Yamasee- Guale
Guale refugees, led by Chief Altamaha, moved north to the mouth of the Savannah River. That year, a Scottish colony called Stuarts Town was founded in South Carolina on Port Royal Sound
Port Royal Sound near the Savannah River. Stuarts Town survived only about two years, but during that time the Scots residents formed a strong bond with the Yamasee-Guale. In late 1684, armed with Scots firearms, these Indians raided Timucua Province, devastating the mission Santa Catalina de Afuyca. They returned to Stuarts Town with 22 captives, whom they sold as slaves. Over the next two years, word of similar successes of the Stuarts Town-allied Yamasee- Guale
Guale carried throughout the region. The population of "Yamasee" Indians near Port Royal Sound
Port Royal Sound grew rapidly. Although the Indians became known collectively as "Yamasee", the Guale continued to be a significant portion of the population.[8] Spanish forces destroyed Stuarts Town. In the old Guale
Guale Province, they strongly resisted counterattacks by South Carolina. Nonetheless, the alliance between the Yamasee and colonial South Carolina
South Carolina grew stronger in reaction. The "Yamasee" who migrated in 1685 to the Port Royal area were rebuilding the old La Tama
La Tama chiefdom, but they also included numerous Guale, as well as other Indians of mostly Muskogean stock. The Yamasee lived in South Carolina
South Carolina until they were defeated in the Yamasee War of 1715, after which survivors were widely dispersed and the people disintegrated as a polity. But while they lasted, the Yamasee exhibited multi-ethnic qualities. Their towns were described by the English as being Upper Yamasee or Lower Yamasee towns. The Lower Towns were populated mainly by La Tama
La Tama Indians and included Altamaha (after the chief who lived there), Ocute, and Chechesee (Ichisi). The Guale
Guale were the majority in the Upper Towns, although other ethnicities were incorporated as well. Upper Yamasee Towns with mostly Guale
Guale populations likely included Pocotaligo, Pocosabo, and Huspah. Other Upper Towns, such as Tulafina, Sadketche (Salkehatchie), and Tomatley, were probably mixed, with Guale, La Tama, and others. It is possible that the La Tama
La Tama had spent time in missions and become somewhat Christianized. They may have sought out the similarly missionized Guale.[9] In 1702 when British South Carolina
South Carolina forces invaded Spanish Florida, they destroyed the few "refugee missions" in Guale. By 1733, there were too few Guale
Guale in the area to resist James Oglethorpe's founding of the English colony of Province of Georgia.[10] A similar missionary province called Mocama (named for a Timucuan chiefdom) was situated just south of Guale, on the coast between the Altamaha River
Altamaha River and St. Johns River
St. Johns River in Florida. See also[edit]

Indigenous peoples of North America portal

Santa Catalina de Guale Spanish missions in Georgia Spanish missions in Florida

Notes[edit]

^ Sturtevant, William C. (1994). "The Misconnection of Guale
Guale and Yamasee with Muskogean". International Journal of American Linguistics. 60 (2): 139–48. doi:10.1086/466226. JSTOR 1265616.  ^ Saunders (2000), The Guale
Guale Indians of the Lower Atlantic Coast, p. 27 ^ Saunders (2000), The Guale
Guale Indians of the Lower Atlantic Coast, p. 30 ^ Spencer C. Tucker; James R. Arnold; Roberta Wiener (30 September 2011). The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. p. 954. ISBN 978-1-85109-697-8. Retrieved 13 April 2013.  ^ Oatis (2004), A Colonial Complex, p. 24 ^ Oatis (2004), A Colonial Complex, p. 25 ^ Oatis (2004), A Colonial Complex, pp. 25–26 ^ Oatis (2004), A Colonial Complex, p. 27 ^ "The Foundation, Occupation, and Abandonment of Yamasee Indian Towns in the South Carolina
South Carolina Lowcountry, 1684–1715", National Register Multiple Property Submission, Dr. Chester B. DePratter. ^ Floyd, Joseph (2013). "Ghosts of Guale: Sugar Houses, Spanish Missions, and the Struggle for Georgia's Colonial Heritage". Georgia Historical Quarterly. 97 (4): 387–410. Retrieved 14 February 2018. 

References[edit]

Library resources about Guale

Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries

Oatis, Steven J. (2004). A Colonial Complex: South Carolina's Frontiers in the Era of the Yamasee War, 1680–1730. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-3575-5.  Saunders, Rebecca (2000). "The Guale
Guale Indians of the Lower Atlantic Coast: Change and Continuity". In Bonnie G. McEwan (ed.). Indians of the Greater Southeast: Historical Archaeology
Archaeology and Ethnohistory. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1778-5. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)

External links[edit]

Guale
Guale Village at Seven-Mile Bend historical marker

v t e

Mississippian and related cultures

List of Mississippian sites Timeline of Mississippi valley

Middle Mississippian

American Bottom and Upper Mississippi

Aztalan Big Eddy Cahokia

Monks Mound Mound 34 Mound 72 Woodhenge

Cloverdale Dickson Mounds Emerald Acropolis Emmons Cemetery Horseshoe Lake John Chapman Kuhn Station Larson Lunsford-Pulcher McCune Mitchell Orendorf Sleeth Steed-Kisker culture Sugarloaf Mound

Lower Ohio River and Confluence area

Adams Dogtooth Bend Kincaid Mounds Marshall Millstone Bluff Orr-Herl Rowlandton Mound Towosahgy Turk Twin Mounds Ware Wickliffe Mounds

Middle Ohio River

Angel Mounds Angel Phase Annis Mound Bone Bank Caborn-Welborn culture Ellerbusch Hovey Lake-Klein Hovey Lake District Murphy Prather Slack Farm Tolu Welborn Village Yankeetown

Tennessee and Cumberland

Backusburg Beasley Mounds Brentwood Library Brick Church Castalian Springs Dunbar Cave Fewkes Group Mound Bottom Riverview Sellars Obion Old Town Swallow Bluff

Central and Lower Mississippi

Belle Meade Boone's Boyd Campbell Carson Chucalissa Eaker Janet's Menard-Hodges Murphy Nodena

Nodena Phase

Owl Creek Parkin Tipton Phase Tunica

Koroa Yazoo

Walls Phase

South Appalachian Mississippian

Adamson Avery Beaverdam Creek Bell Field Mound Bessemer Bussell Island Chauga Chiaha Chota Citico Coosa Dallas Phase Dyar Etowah Garden Creek Hoojah Branch Irene Jere Shine Joara Joe Bell King Lamar Lamar Phase Liddell Little Egypt Long Swamp Mabila Mandeville McMahan Moccasin Bend Moundville Mouse Creek Phase Mulberry Muscogee (Creek) Nacoochee Nikwasi Ocmulgee Park Mound Pisgah Phase Punk Rock Shelter Rembert Roods Landing Rucker's Bottom Savannah Shiloh Sixtoe Summerour Tomotley Toqua Town Creek Waddells Mill Pond Wilbanks

Fort Walton culture

Anhaica Apalachee Apalachee
Apalachee Province Cayson Corbin-Tucker Fort Walton Mound Lake Jackson Leon-Jefferson Culture Letchworth Velda Yon

Pensacola culture

Bottle Creek Dauphin Island Fort Walton Hickory Ridge Cemetery Naval Live Oaks Cemetery Pensacola people

Plaquemine Mississippian

Anna Atchafalaya Basin Emerald Fitzhugh Flowery Fosters Ghost Glass Grand Village of the Natchez Holly Bluff Jaketown Jordan Julice Mangum Mazique Medora Mott Natchez

Taensa

Pocahontas Routh Scott Place Sims Transylvania Venable Winterville

Caddoan Mississippian

Battle Belcher Blue Spring Shelter Bluffton Caddo Caddoan Mounds Gahagan Hughes Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village Keller Spiro

Upper Mississippian cultures

Oneota

Beattie Park Mound
Park Mound Group Blood Run Hartley Fort State Preserve Roche-a-Cri Petroglyphs

Fort Ancient
Fort Ancient culture

Alligator Effigy Mound Clover Dodge Leo Petroglyph Serpent Mound SunWatch Indian Village

Culture

Agriculture

Beans Chenopodium Little barley Maize Marshelder Pumpkin Squash Sunflower Three Sisters Tobacco

Artwork

Emmons mask Copper plates

Rogan plates Spiro plates Wulfing cache

Long-nosed god maskette Mill Creek chert Pottery Shell gorget Stone statuary

Languages

Caddoan Central Algonquian Cherokee Mobilian Jargon Muskogean Natchez

Taensa

Siouan Timucuan Tunican Yuchi

Religion

Ballgame (Southeastern)

Northern

Black drink Burial mound Ceremonial pipe

Chanunpa

Chunkey Earth/fertility cult Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Platform mound Red Horn Sacred bundle

Village bundle

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stone box grave Thunderbird Underwater panther

Related topics Chevron bead Clarksdale bell Mound Builder de Soto Expedition

v t e

Pre-Columbian North America

Periods Lithic Archaic Formative Classic Post-Classic

Archaeological cultures

Adena Alachua Ancient Beringian Ancient Pueblo (Anasazi) Baytown Belle Glade Buttermilk Creek Complex Caborn-Welborn Calf Creek Caloosahatchee Clovis Coles Creek Comondú Deptford Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Walton Fremont Glacial Kame Glades Hohokam Hopewell

List of Hopewell sites

La Jolla Las Palmas Leon-Jefferson Mississippian

List of Mississippian sites

Mogollon Monongahela Old Cordilleran Oneota Paleo-Arctic Paleo-Indians Patayan Plano Plaquemine Poverty Point Red Ocher Santa Rosa-Swift Creek St. Johns Steed-Kisker Tchefuncte Tocobaga Troyville

Archaeological sites

Angel Mounds Anzick Clovis burial Bandelier National Monument Blue Spring Shelter The Bluff Point Stoneworks Cahokia Candelaria Cave Casa Grande Chaco Canyon Coso Rock Art District Crystal River Archaeological State Park Cuarenta Casas Cueva de la Olla Eaker El Fin del Mundo El Vallecito Effigy Mounds National Monument Etowah Indian Mounds Eva Folsom Site Fort Ancient Fort Center Fort Juelson Four Mounds Site Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument Glenwood Grimes Point Holly Bluff Site Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Huápoca Kimball Village Kincaid Mounds Kolomoki Mounds L'Anse aux Meadows Marksville Marmes Rockshelter Meadowcroft Rockshelter Mesa Verde Moaning Cavern Moorehead Circle Morrison Mounds Moundville Mummy Cave Nodena Site Ocmulgee National Monument Old Stone Fort Orwell Site Paquime Parkin Park Pinson Mounds Portsmouth Earthworks Poverty Point Pueblo Bonito Recapture Canyon Rock Eagle Rock Hawk Russell Cave National Monument Salmon Ruins Serpent Mound Sierra de San Francisco Spiro Mounds SunWatch Taos Pueblo Toltec Mounds Town Creek Indian Mound Turkey River Mounds Upward Sun River site West Oak Forest Earthlodge Winterville Wupatki National Monument

Human remains

Anzick-1 Arlington Springs Man Buhl Woman Kennewick Man La Brea Woman Leanderthal Lady Minnesota Woman Spirit Cave mummy

Miscellaneous

Aridoamerica Black drink Ceremonial pipe Chunkey Clovis point Container Revolution Eastern Agricultural Complex Eden point Effigy mound Falcon dancer Folsom point Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Kiva Medicine wheel Metallurgy Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing Mound Builders N.A.G.P.R.A. Norse colonization of North America Oasisamerica Piasa Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stickball Three Sisters agriculture Thunderbird Underwater panther Water glyphs

Related Genetic history Portal
Portal of Indigenous peoples of North America