Southeast Indianmember of any of the Native American peoples of the southeastern United States. The boundaries of this culture area are somewhat difficult to delineate, because the traditional cultures in the Southeast shared many characteristics with those from neighbouring regions. Thus, most scholars define the region’s eastern and southern boundaries as the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, although some assign the southern portion of aboriginal Florida to the circum-Caribbean culture area. To the west the Southeastern peoples merge with those of the southern Plains Indians and the most easterly of the Southwest Indians. To the north the traditions of the Southeast gradually transition to those of the Northeast Indians. When discussed jointly, the Southeast and Northeast culture areas are referred to as the Eastern Woodlands; this term is sometimes confused with that of the Eastern Woodland cultures, a term that describes a group of prehistoric societies rather than a culture area per se.

The Southeast environment is composed of a series of physiographic and ecological zones. A coastal lowland belt broadly encompasses the subtropical zone of southern Florida. To the north, this gives way to the scrub forest, sandy soil, and savanna grassland of the coastal plains, as well as the alluvial floodplains of the Mississippi River. Moving inland, one finds the piedmont, a landscape of rolling hills and major river systems that is predominantly covered with forests of oak and hickory. A third zone is characterized by the portion of the Appalachian Mountains that lies in present-day eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia, and the western Carolinas, a land of high peaks, deeply etched valleys, hardwood forests, and, at high elevations, flora and fauna typical of more-northerly regions.

Traditional culture patterns

Scholarly knowledge of the Southeastern cultures relies on evidence from diverse sources, including artifacts, historical documents, ethnography, linguistics, folklore, and oral history. Many cultural traditions reported by the earliest European explorers, such as the use of ceremonial mounds, the heavy reliance on corn (maize), and the importance of social stratification in some areas, were clearly developed during the Mississippian culture period (c. AD 700–1600). The Mississippians maintained fine craft traditions and also engaged in long-distance trade throughout the Southeast and the surrounding culture areas. The ceremonial centre, Cahokia, was home to many thousands at its climax about AD 1100 (estimates range from 8,000 to 20,000 people). The Natchez are perhaps the best-known members of the Mississippian culture to survive relatively intact into the colonial period.


The indigenous peoples of the Southeast represent members of the Muskogean, Siouan, Iroquoian, and Caddoan language families. The region was also home to several linguistic isolates, or languages that have only tenuous connections to a major language family (see also North American Indian languages).

Muskogean-speaking peoples constituted the largest linguistic group in the aboriginal Southeast and minimally included the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Apalachee, Creek, Seminole, Alabama, Koasati, Hitchiti, and Mikasuki branches.

Four tribes of the lower Mississippi valley—the Natchez, Chitimachas, Tunicas, and Atakapas—spoke languages with a distant affinity to Muskogean. However, their languages show sufficient divergence from the main Muskogean languages and from each other to warrant semi-independent status as linguistic isolates.

The Tutelos, Biloxis, Ofos (Mosopeleas), and Catawbas spoke Siouan languages. These tribes were widely scattered and probably represent different prehistoric penetrations of Siouan speakers into the Southeast. The Yuchi language also demonstrates distant affinities to Siouan but is sufficiently distinctive to be classified as an isolate. Many small piedmont groups were probably Siouan-speaking peoples, but surviving data are insufficient to make definite identifications.

The Cherokees represent the sole speakers of an Iroquoian language in the Southeast, although the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscaroras, Nottaways, and Meherrins, residing on the northerly margin of the region, are included in the Southeast in some culture area maps. The Caddoan speakers on the western boundary of the region belong to a distinctive language family that shows remote relationships to the Siouan and Iroquoian families.

The present status of the language spoken by the Timucuas, once the predominant tribe of northern Florida, is problematic; linguists have suggested that it is related to such diverse groups as the Muskogean, Siouan, Algonquian, and Arawakan families. Mobilian was an important trade language containing many Choctaw components and served as a lingua franca in the Mississippi valley.

Subsistence and material culture

The Southeast was one of the more densely populated areas of native North America at the time of European contact. Most groups resided in the piedmont, where they took advantage of extensive game resources, wild plant foods, and an abundance of arable land. The peoples of south Florida were an exception, as they adjusted to an essentially subtropical maritime way of life.

The primary division of labour was by gender. Women were responsible for cultivating the fields, gathering wild plant foods, cooking and preserving food, taking care of young children and elders, and manufacturing cordage, baskets, pottery, clothing, and other goods. Men assumed duties associated with war, trade, and the hunt; they were often away from the community for extended periods of time. Men also assisted in the harvest, cleared the fields by girdling trees, and constructed houses and public buildings. Both genders manufactured ceremonial objects.

The economic mainstay of the Southeast was corn. Several varieties were grown, including “little corn” (related to popcorn); flint, or hominy, corn; and flour, or dent, corn. Some varieties were baked or roasted on the cob; some were boiled into a succotash, a dish of stewed corn and beans; and still others were pounded into hominy or cornmeal in wooden mortars made of large upright, partly hollowed logs. Domesticated varieties of beans and squash were also important in the diet, as were wild greens. Fields were prepared with mattocks and hoes and planted by punching holes in the ground with digging sticks, inserting seed corn, and covering the holes with earth to form a mound about two feet (one-half metre) in diameter; in some areas the soil was instead hilled into a series of linear mounds or ridges some three feet (one metre) across. Typically, beans and squash were planted adjacent to the corn; the bean vines used corn stalks as trellises, while the broad leaves of squash shaded the soil, minimizing weed growth and conserving moisture. Most fields belonged to individual households, although some tribes also cultivated communal fields. Communally grown produce was given to chiefs for redistribution to the needy and for use in various ceremonies and festivals.

The importance of corn in the Southeast cannot be overemphasized. It provided a high yield of nutritious food with a minimal expenditure of labour; further, corn, beans, and squash were easily dried and stored for later consumption. This reliable food base freed people for lengthy hunting, trading, and war expeditions. It also enabled a complex civil-religious hierarchy in which political, priestly, and sometimes hereditary offices and privileges coincided.

Other cultivated plants included the sunflower, which was processed for its oil; Chenopodium and orache, which produced starchy seeds and spinachlike greens; and tobacco. Many additional plants, such as wild grapes, plums, and perhaps walnut and pecan trees, were in a condition of incipient domestication; indigenous peoples exerted some effect on the propagation of these plants but did not fully domesticate them. Other important plant foods included berries, nuts, acorns, potatoes, zamia roots (similar to turnips), amaranths and smilax (providing shoots and seeds), and maple and honey locust sap. Two species of holly (Ilex cassine and I. vomitoria) were ingredients in a special decoction, the “black drink,” which was used to induce sweating and vomiting in ceremonial and medical contexts. The economic botany of the region also encompassed a vast array of plants used for cordage, clothing, dyes, fish poisons, medicines, building materials, and various tools and utensils.

Before European colonization, the only domesticated animal in the Southeast was the dog. In this region canines were used to a minor extent in hunting and as food but were probably most important as sentinels that warned of approaching strangers. In accounts of the Hernando de Soto expedition (1539–43), there are several references to small, fat, barkless dogs that were served to the Spanish visitors by their indigenous hosts. Some of the 300 or more trail hogs that were transported by de Soto to feed his troops escaped and became the ancestors of the modern razorback hog. The Spanish also brought horses to North America, but their use was primarily confined to the Southwest and Mexico; as a result, the Southeastern peoples generally obtained horses at a much later date, through trade with Plains tribes.

Most of the region teemed with wild game: deer, black bears, a forest-dwelling subspecies of bison, elks, beavers, squirrels, rabbits, otters, and raccoons. In Florida, turtles and alligators played an important part in subsistence. Wild turkeys were the principal fowl taken, but partridges, quail, and seasonal flights of pigeons, ducks, and geese also contributed to the diet. The feathers of eagles, hawks, swans, and cranes were highly valued for ornamentation, and in some tribes a special status was reserved for an eagle hunter.

In both salt and fresh waters a wide variety of fish were taken; fishing equipment included weirs (underwater corrals or pens), traps, dip nets, dragnets, hooks and lines, bows and arrows, and spears. Botanical poisons were administered in ponds and sluggish or dammed streams, creating a rich harvest of stunned, but edible, fish. Coastal groups gathered oysters, clams, mussels, cockles, and crabs, while those residing in the interior collected freshwater mussels and crayfish.

The peoples of the Southeast altered the landscape significantly by girdling trees and by the controlled use of fire. These activities created large areas of secondary growth that favoured certain types of berry bushes and other useful plants. The presence of this secondary-growth flora was essential for supporting the large populations of browsing deer, squirrels, rabbits, and wild turkeys on which people depended for sustenance. These environmental changes, combined with hunting, probably accelerated the decline of the wood bison and in some places other species; in areas with intensive corn cultivation, such as the lower Mississippi, early European explorers reported that game animals were scarce. In the central Southeast, however, native groups maintained an equilibrated balance with nature.


The external relations of this culture area were complex. A lack of geographic barriers to the north and west allowed significant cultural interchange with Northeastern and Plains peoples. There is evidence of overseas cultural connections with the Antilles; the dominant direction of this diffusion seems to have been from the mainland to the islands. Pre-Columbian interaction with Mesoamerican Indians, while indirect, nonetheless introduced corn, beans, and squash to the Southeast. Many scholars maintain that the building of mounds and the use of certain symbolic motifs also derive from Mesoamerica, although some believe these were developed independently by the Mississippians and their predecessors. Culture traits such as the cane blowgun, double-weave basketry, fibre-tempered pottery, and certain musical, ritual, and mythological elements suggest at least limited contact with South American peoples as well.

As each household was fairly self-sufficient, the economic specializations and trade networks that developed tended to centre on subsidiary and luxury items. For instance, as salt deposits were unequally distributed, salt became an important trade item. There was regular trade between the coast and the interior; shells, which were used for beads and pendants and to decorate ritual objects, were exchanged for soapstone, flint, furs, and other inland resources. Pottery made with distinctive types of red clay and artifacts made of native copper suggest important trade connections with the western Great Lakes groups that controlled the locales where these raw materials were found.

Settlement patterns and housing

The basic settlement unit throughout the Southeast was the local village or town. These varied in size and configuration depending on local ecological resources and cultural preferences. Some towns attained populations of more than 1,000 individuals, but the more typical village was home to fewer than 500 residents. Settlement patterns conformed to two basic types. Dispersed hamlets, each of which might contain storage buildings and a special cookhouse in addition to one or more dwellings, were arrayed along the valley bottoms or the course of streams. In contrast were tightly nucleated settlements, often surrounded with protective timber palisades. Usually each group of hamlets was associated with a palisaded town where the community as a whole gathered for celebrations and ritual events.

In general, settlements were semipermanent and located near rich alluvial soil or, in the lower Mississippi region, near natural levees. Such land was easily tilled, possessed adequate drainage, and enjoyed renewable productivity. Fertility was enhanced by burning off any stalks or vines that remained from the previous harvest. The length of the growing season in the Southeast allowed many fields to be planted twice each year. The first planting was done in spring, and some produce was available by midsummer, when a second planting was undertaken. The major harvest time, in late summer and early fall, was a time of plenty during which most of the major ceremonies were celebrated. Many villages emptied somewhat during the winter months, when households took to the woods in search of game; individuals with limited mobility, however, would remain at home. Men also undertook a shorter hunt in late spring and early summer, after the first crops had been planted.

The heart of a town was typically a ceremonial centre consisting of a council house or temple, which in the interior region might be semisubterranean or located on an earthen mound; a central plaza or square, which, among the Muskogean speakers, was usually surrounded by three or four benches or arbours oriented in the cardinal directions; a ball pole or scalp post sometimes topped with a carved animal emblem; the residences of the chief and other important local dignitaries; and sometimes granaries or other structures for storing communal produce.

Considerable variation in house types existed. In much of the region, people built circular, conical-roofed winter “hot houses” that were sealed tight except for an entryway and smoke hole. Summer dwellings tended to be rectangular, gabled, thatch-roofed structures made from a framework of upright poles and walled with wattle and daub. To the south, especially from the early 19th century onward, houses often had raised floors, palmetto-thatched roofs, and open sides. To the west, the Caddoans lived in domed grass houses.

Political organization

The picture of the Southeast that emerges at the time of first European contact is one of intensive cultural change. The final centuries before contact appear to have been a period of cultural leveling marked by considerable population movement, warfare, and the formation of chieftains. Early written reports describe the political organization of the Southeast as including independent villages, autonomous village clusters, and “tribelets,” independent polities that recognized cultural connections with the other groups or polities within the same tribe. Perhaps most analogous to the many independent polities of the California Indians, tribelets generally ranged in size from about a hundred to a few thousand people, depending on the richness of locally available resources.

Generally speaking, each community was fairly autonomous. A village might be linked to others in the same area by ties of kinship, language, and shared cultural traditions; nevertheless, each claimed sovereignty over its locale and was governed by its own religio-political chiefs (during peacetime) and a complementary group of war leaders (during periods of conflict). Superordinate control at the tribal level was generally avoided, although the consolidation of tribelets into larger coalescent groups and even the formation of intertribal confederacies occurred as European settlements spread in the region.

Over most of the Southeast, religio-political chieftainship was hereditary within certain lineages. The degree of chiefly power and authority varied, however, from the almost divine kingship of the Great Sun among the theocratic Natchez to the self-effacing status of the peacemaking, consensus-seeking micos and ukus among the more egalitarian Choctaws, Creeks, and Cherokees. In contrast, war leaders normally achieved their positions on the basis of personal accomplishment. They also tended to be active and assertive personalities and younger, by about a generation, than the hereditary or “peace” chiefs.

The complementarity of peace chiefs and war leaders and the occurrence of competitive activities between neighbouring groups—including ball games, hunting contests, and trading expeditions—imbued traditional social structures with a characteristic dualism. The peace chief held sway in the village, whereas the war leader was ascendant in areas external to the village; he had authority in the village itself only when it was under the threat of imminent attack. Young men adjusted their behaviour according to the context of war or peace; they also prepared for the psychological and physical rigours of battle through extensive rituals in which war and peace were symbolically represented by the colours red and white, respectively.

Dualism was also expressed in the organization of clans, subtribes, and villages into complementary pairs, which in turn were sometimes characterized as red or white. Member towns of the Creek Confederacy were sometimes ranked in terms of their tribal affiliations or on the basis of outcomes of lacrosselike ball games between towns. The Caddos were said to have ranked their clans on the basis of the reputed strength of the totemic animal ancestor, creating a symbolic pecking order.

Social stratification was highly developed in some parts of the Southeast and insignificant in others. Although much has been written about the so-called caste systems among the tribes of the lower Mississippi, the Chitimachas appear to have been the only society to have possessed true castes in the sense of ranked groups that practiced strict endogamy, or marriage within the group. While not a caste system in the strict sense of the term, social stratification was nonetheless highly elaborated among the aboriginal inhabitants of Florida. Among the Timucuas, for instance, the “king” enjoyed an elevated status considerably above that of his followers and was sometimes carried about in a litter. The Natchez social hierarchy included strict rules for marriage and social status (see below Kinship and marriage). In other tribes, such as the Cherokees, stratification was relatively unimportant, although certain clans might possess special ceremonial prerogatives and recruitment to certain offices might be determined on the basis of clan.

Kinship and marriage

Among Southeastern peoples, descent was almost universally matrilineal, or reckoned through the mother. Many societies further organized kinship through matrilineal lineages or clans—extended families in which all members could claim descent from a particular ancestor or totem. For those groups that had them, clans were usually dispersed throughout a tribe or nation rather than limited to a particular village or tribelet. This arrangement provided a kind of social adhesive that crosscut and bound together the larger body politic. For instance, clan members were generally expected to offer hospitality to clan kin from other villages; certain ritual knowledge and ceremonial privileges were also customarily passed down along clan lines. In addition, clans were important as mechanisms of social control, as vengeance for serious crimes was frequently a clan responsibility.

Marriage was often marked by a symbolic ceremonial exchange whereby the groom presented the bride with game and the bride reciprocated with plant food. Residence after marriage was normally established in the wife’s natal household; the husband was expected to contribute to the economic maintenance of his wife’s family as a form of bride service and to prove his abilities as a provider. After a few years the couple might leave to form their own household. Most tribes permitted (and some encouraged) premarital sexual intimacy. After marriage, however, adultery—especially on the part of the wife—could be severely punished. In contrast, divorce seems to have been a frequent and almost casual event. Polygyny, a form of marriage in which wives share a husband, was permitted in most groups; usually new partners could not join the marriage without the consent of all the extant partners. The levirate, a custom by which a widow marries her deceased husband’s brother, was fairly common. Because it was a method for ensuring that each woman and her children had a male provider, levirate marriages increased with the heightened male mortality that resulted when tribes resisted colonial conquest.

The French described the elaborate rank system of the Natchez as being considerably entwined with marriage and kin customs. Natchez social hierarchy was divided into four groups: three upper classes composed hierarchically of the suns, the nobles, and the honoured people, and a lower class of commoners (whom the early French sources refer to as “stinkards”). Members of the upper classes were required to marry members of the commoner class; many commoners also married other commoners. The offspring of upper-class men would assume a rank one step below that of their fathers; for example, the child of a sun father and commoner mother would become a member of the noble class. The children of upper-class women, however, retained the rank of their mothers. Interestingly, the system described by the French would have been unstable, as all women would have been born into the upper classes after several generations. Many explanations have been advanced to explain this “Natchez paradox,” but the problem probably originated in the inaccuracies or incompleteness of the original French sources.

Socialization and education

Late in a woman’s pregnancy, both she and the father were generally subject to various dietary taboos and restrictions on their activities. Children were nursed for several years, until they self-weaned or the mother again became pregnant. Responsibility for the child’s early education was vested in the mother. As they grew older, girls were trained in duties such as the growing, preserving, and storing of food, receiving instruction from their mothers and other female relatives. Boys received instruction from their fathers and their mother’s brothers; in many systems the mother’s eldest brother, as the senior male in the matrilineage, assumed considerable importance as a disciplinarian, tutor, and sponsor for his sister’s son.

Behaviour considered proper was reinforced with praise and encouragement, as when a boy killed his first deer or a girl completed her first basket. Behaviour considered improper was usually greeted mildly; preferred responses ranged from gentle ribbings, rebukes, and ridicule to shame. Children were rarely subjected to physical punishment. In those few instances in which corporal punishment was deemed necessary, it was generally meted out by someone other than the parents. A popular method of chastisement throughout the Southeast was the raking of the skin with briars or a special pointed scratching instrument, but generally such action was regarded as strengthening or toughening the child rather than as delivering direct retribution for misdeeds. Boys enjoyed considerable permissiveness and spent much of their time with their peers; common activities included wrestling, playing games imitative of adult activities, and stalking rabbits, squirrels, and birds with blowguns or scaled-down bows and arrows. Girls, in contrast, were subject to close surveillance and assumed household responsibilities from an early age.

Puberty rituals were either absent or relatively undeveloped in the Southeast. Girls were secluded at menarche, but this event occasioned no public celebration; all women were provided with a few days of seclusion and rest during menstruation. Similarly, no special rituals attended the transition from boyhood to manhood. A boy might receive instructions from tribal elders in esoteric lore or in preparation for special ritual offices, but the completion of such training was seldom marked by a formal commencement. A young man’s first participation in a war party and the achievement of military honours were, however, given public recognition. Probably the clearest markers of the passage from adolescence to adulthood were marriage and the birth of one’s first child.

Belief systems

The delicate relationship between humans and the natural world is well expressed in what is known of traditional Southeast religions and worldviews. These emphasized animism, a perspective in which humans share the world with a proliferation of spiritual essences of animals, plants, and natural objects or phenomena.

The peoples of this region believed that animals possessed souls. Slain animals sought vengeance against humanity through the agency of their “species chief,” a supernatural animal with great power. The Deer Chief, for instance, was able to exact revenge on humans who dishonoured his people—the deer—during the hunt. Hunting thus became a sacred act and was much imbued with taboo, ritual, and sacrifice. Most disease was attributed to failures in placating the souls of slain animals.

The plant world was considered friendly to humans, and the Cherokees thought that every animal-sent disease could be cured by a corresponding plant antidote. The economic significance of corn was memorialized by the near universality of the Green Corn ceremony, or Busk, throughout the Southeast. This was a major ceremonial suffused with an ethos of annual renewal in which the sacred fire—and often the hearth fires of each home—was rekindled; old debts and grudges were forgiven and forgotten; old clothing and stored food were discarded; and a sense of community was regenerated.

Spiritual power could reside in objects other than plants and animals. Medicine men possessed sacred stones, quartz crystals, and other mystically endowed paraphernalia. Other objects were consecrated to symbolize the collective solidarity of the group. The Cherokees made use of a palanquin or litter within which were placed revered objects; the Tukabahchee Creeks possessed sacred embossed copper plates; and the temples of several Lower Mississippi tribes contained an assortment of idols and icons. Natural objects could be infused with sacred power in a variety of ways, including contact with thunder, as in lightning-struck wood; immersion in a rapidly flowing stream; and exposure to the smoke of the sacred fire or of ritually prepared tobacco.

The outlines of a formal theology can be discerned from early accounts of some of the stratified societies and from those tribes that survived the immediate ravages of European contact. Most groups possessed origin myths, often involving a primal deluge into which prototypical beings plunged to secure a portion of mud that magically expanded to create the Earth, which was often viewed as an island. The subsequent course of mythological history was frequently related in terms of a cosmic struggle between a celestial culture hero who bestowed boons on humankind and an underworld antihero who became the source of the fatality and misfortune inherent in the human condition. Southeastern myths and folktales are populated by a myriad of nature spirits, monsters, tricksters, giants, and little people (see trickster tale).

Among many tribes, evidence survives that suggests belief in a supreme being, sometimes depicted as the master of breath. This ultimate divinity was frequently associated with the sun and its earthly aspect, fire. In addition, the world was viewed as quadrisected by the cardinal directions; each direction had a presiding spirit and appropriate colour symbolism. Concern with the remote supreme being seems to have rested more with the priesthood than with the everyday activities of the average individual. The life of the latter was more intimately tied up with the proximal spiritual beings who were felt to intervene more directly in human affairs.

In some of the wealthier stratified societies, priests were given specialized training and became full-time religious practitioners responsible for the spiritual health of the community. Priests also assumed the responsibility of conducting the major collective religious rituals that punctuated the calendrical cycle. Complementary to the priesthood were various individual magico-medical practitioners, such as sorcerers, conjurors, diviners, herbalists, and healers, who were generally part-time specialists and catered to individual needs and crises, especially the treatment of illness. Medical therapy was intricately enmeshed in the spiritual view of the world and might include such practical procedures as isolation, sweating, bathing, bloodletting, sucking, the inducement of vomiting, the internal and external application of herbal medicines, and the recitation of ritual chants.

The frequent elaboration of funerary practices, including interring the chiefly dead with great quantities of freshwater pearls and other rare materials, indicates that most groups believed in an afterlife. It was generally thought that the souls of the recently deceased would hover around the community and try to induce close friends and relatives to join them in their journey to eternity; thus, the elaborate funerary rites and the extensive taboos associated with death were as much a protection for the living as a commemoration of the dead. This was especially the case because death was never considered a natural event but was always the result of malevolent animal spirits, witches, or the deadly machinations of sorcerers. If a death had been caused by human agents, the soul of the deceased would never rest until vengeance had been secured by its living relatives. Once appeased, the soul moved to a final resting place, the location of which varied from group to group; typically, this was either in the direction of the setting sun, in the celestial firmament, or in a non-hellish part of the underworld.

Cultural continuity and change
The 16th century: European exploration and conquest

Although permanent colonial settlements were not established in the region until 1565, when the Spanish founded Saint Augustine in present-day Florida, the peoples of the Southeast suffered greatly during the 16th century. The earliest expeditions, by Juan Ponce de Léon (1513, 1521) and Panfilo de Narváez (1528; best known for the narrative produced by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca), were short-lived but exposed indigenous peoples to the devastating effects of European diseases to which they had not been previously exposed. Epidemics soon decimated the native population; mortality rates for these nonimmune populations are estimated to have been as high as 50 to 90 percent (these rates generally combine deaths due directly to disease with those resulting from subsidiary causes, such as famine).

Hernando de Soto, who had proved instrumental in the conquest of the Inca (1532), was eventually commissioned by Spain to conquer La Florida; from 1539 to 1543 his expedition traveled through what are now the states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Some Southeastern tribes greeted de Soto as they would a paramount chief, offering food, tribute of pearls and copper, sexual access to women, and porters. Other towns in de Soto’s path attacked the expedition. However, as the Spanish group included some 600–700 heavily armed professional soldiers, the conquistadors’ counteroffenses left few settlements intact.

By the close of the 16th century, several factors had combined to disrupt traditional life in the Southeast. Thousands of individuals were killed during direct warfare with explorers. European diseases caused thousands more deaths. The subsidiary effects of these losses further devastated the Southeast: groups with too few people to plant and hunt were forced into starvation or refugee status; much practical and ritual knowledge was lost; and indigenous political structures were weakened. The final and perhaps least well-known factor was the trade in indigenous slaves, who were generally captured by rival tribelets and sold to the Spanish for export to New England, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. Many groups on the coast and in the piedmont lost their political or social viability during this period; their surviving members generally became part of larger, more powerful tribes such as the Choctaw, Cherokee, or various member tribes of the Creek Confederacy.

The 17th century: missionization

During the 17th century, trade, particularly in deerskins, grew tremendously, as did indigenous reliance on European firearms and ammunition. European exploration of the inland Southeast generally ceased, and colonial settlement began in earnest on the coasts. The most important development in this century, however, was the establishment of missions and the propagation of Roman Catholicism among native peoples. Jesuits attempted to missionize coastal Georgia and South Carolina in 1565–66 but abandoned those areas after several friars were killed. Spain replaced the Jesuits with Franciscans in 1573; by 1700 more than 100 missions had been established in northern Florida and southern Georgia, particularly among the Timucua, Guale, and Apalachee peoples. Reports to Spain describe these groups as almost entirely Christianized by 1670.

The Southeastern missions drew (or were assigned) fewer Spanish soldiers and civilians than missions in other areas; their absence allowed the friars to proceed with their work unhindered by the rapes, kidnappings, and beatings that such individuals commonly visited upon native peoples elsewhere. The indigenous power structures of the region had been weakened, and the surviving hereditary chiefs and war leaders had proved incapable of ending the losses caused by disease, warfare, and slavery. As they were accustomed to accepting leadership that combined religion and politics, many people realized that allying themselves with the Franciscans would afford a measure of protection against further military and slaving raids; they may have also hoped that the presence of a new deity would bring some relief from disease. Finally, the friars themselves were careful to limit their mandate to those aspects of culture that were overtly religious, such as baptism and attendance at mass; other aspects were left alone and might incorporate Christianity (or not) depending upon the wishes of a given community. Among the Apalachee, for instance, the late-summer Busk quickly incorporated celebrations of the feast day of San Luis Rey, which occurred at the same time of year.

In 1706 the last missions were abandoned because of the conflicts that were arising between Europe’s imperial powers. However, the friars’ work was enduring; during the 20th century, many indigenous groups from the Southeast persisted in practicing more or less syncretic religions that combined indigenous and Catholic practices, as well as preparing the ground for later conversion to Protestant sects.

The 18th century: international turmoil

By the late 17th century the indigenous peoples of the Southeast (and the Northeast) found themselves increasingly drawn into foreign struggles over the control of Europe and North America. Local theatres of war and their instigating European conflicts included King William’s War (1689–97) and Europe’s War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97); Queen Anne’s War (1702–13) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14); King George’s War (1744–48) and the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48); and the French and Indian War (1754–63) and the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). The American Revolution (1775–83), in which France, Spain, and The Netherlands supported the colonies in their fight against England, was yet another conflict with at least some origins in European politics.

By the early 18th century many smaller indigenous groups had merged with larger tribes, and especially with major groups such as the Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Cherokees. Each of these large polities engaged in alliances with the European powers, and they often found themselves pitted against one another. Indigenous communities soon realized that trade and diplomatic relations with Spain, France, and England were intertwined and could be manipulated to their advantage; the Creeks found it especially profitable to set the three imperial powers against one another.

By mid-century, however, the Southeastern Indians’ ascendancy in trade, military might, and diplomacy was being overshadowed by an increasing mass of European immigrants. Many were fleeing homelands torn by war; some were fleeing religious persecution; and others sought to escape depressed economies or were transported as punishment for petty crimes. The colonizing population in the Southeast alone had grown from perhaps 50,000 Europeans in 1690 to approximately 1,000,000 individuals by 1790; the enslaved African population in the region grew from about 3,000 to 500,000 during the same period.

Previous colonizers had built most of their settlements near the swampy, malarial wetlands of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts; most Southeastern peoples found these locations relatively undesirable. As coastal locales could not support the enormous increase in European and African populations, an inland development boom ensued. This ultimately proved more dangerous to the Southeastern tribes than epidemics or war.

The early 19th century: forced removal

During the first 300 years of colonization, the Southeastern peoples had adopted what new practices they found useful without completely altering their traditional cultures. This was a very successful strategy, and they often became the owners of large, prosperous farms and plantations. As the pressure to cede land to settlers increased, the tribes opted to negotiate with the nascent United States in the belief that treaties and other agreements would be enforced by this government, as they had by Spain, England, and France.

The land hunger of the burgeoning Euro-American population was fierce. Tensions were heightened by the envy that those building new farms had for those with established operations; the latter were almost all members of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, or Chickasaw tribes, who with the Seminoles became known as the Five Civilized Tribes. The Seminoles were a multiethnic group that included Creek and other native refugees who had fled the mid-18th century conflicts, as well as Africans and African Americans who had escaped slavery.

The settlers’ desire for more land and their envy at indigenous prosperity caused them to agitate for oppressive Indian policies. Violence eventually erupted in the form of the Seminole Wars. The first war (1817–18) was fought in part to defend individuals of African descent from capture and a return to enslavement. American forces led by Andrew Jackson invaded northern Florida, kidnapped a few individuals, and destroyed many Seminole settlements. In response, the tribe moved south and rebuilt their society.

The Cherokees preferred to use legal strategies to maintain their property and the political independence guaranteed them by treaty. Sequoyah’s 1821 invention of a syllable-based writing system for the Cherokee language enabled the wide circulation of a draft Cherokee constitution; tribal members voted to adopt the new constitution in 1827. At the same time, settler agitation regarding the primacy of state versus tribal sovereignty was accelerated by the discovery of gold within the Cherokee Nation lands, and the Georgia legislature in turn passed a law extending state authority to tribal lands; many Euro-Americans felt that tribes should not be allowed to maintain separate governments within state boundaries. Instead, they proposed that tribal members choose between regular citizenship or tribal sovereignty; Indians could either give up the protections provided by treaty agreements or remove themselves to territories outside the states. The Cherokees saw this as a vacuous argument, as their sovereign status was very clearly delineated in the treaties they had negotiated with the federal government. They chose to file suit against the state in federal court.

While the Cherokee lawsuit moved through the judicial system, the United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act (1830). This enabled the government to designate as Indian Territory land in the trans-Mississippi West; it created a process through which land in the new territory would be exchanged for tribal land in the East and provided funds for the transportation of tribes to the new domain.

The native peoples of the Southeast responded in different ways to the realpolitik of this event. The Choctaw agreed to removal relatively quickly, hoping to leave the conflict behind them. Federal corruption and incompetence ensured that their journey was poorly provisioned, however; inadequate food, sanitation, shelter, and transport caused many deaths.

In the meantime, Cherokee NationGeorgiaNation v. Georgia had made its way to the United States Supreme Court. In 1831 the court decided that indigenous peoples living within the United States were no longer independent nations and that as a domestic sovereign nation—in other words, one that depended upon the United States to uphold its political independence—the Cherokees had no right to sue in the federal court system.

A related suit, WorcesterGeorgia Worcester v. Georgia, involved a Euro-American missionary who refused to take a state loyalty oath and visited native property without the necessary state permit. The Supreme Court decision, made in 1832, stated that the right to regulate tribal affairs was exclusive to the federal government—states had no similar right to extend their laws to the tribes. President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the Worcester decision. This allowed the states to enact further legislation damaging to the tribes. Notably, these two cases have formed the basis for most subsequent Indian law in the United States.

The Creeks agreed to removal in 1832, but delays in their departure resulted in great hardship on their journey westward. A few Seminole leaders signed an agreement of removal in 1832, but the majority of tribal members declared that the agreement was not binding and refused to go; this provoked the Second Seminole War (1835–42), a conflict that the Seminoles eventually lost, with many being forcibly removed to the west.

Learning of the hardships suffered by other indigenous groups, most of the Chickasaw tribelets took matters into their own hands. Many of these groups sold their land at a profit and moved west in the late 1830s. Having for the most part planned, provisioned, and paid for the journey themselves, they fared better than other tribes. Their journey was difficult nonetheless, and they suffered many casualities from smallpox and malnourishment.

Most Cherokees refused to depart, and many were forced from their homes at gunpoint beginning in 1837. In the most infamous of the forced relocations conducted under the Removal Act, some 15,000 Cherokee were evicted and marched westward on a harrowing journey causing the deaths of some 4,000 of their people.

The Removal Act was enforced throughout the Eastern Woodlands, and very few native individuals remained there after 1840, with some notable exceptions: groups of Seminoles in Florida; the Eastern band of Cherokees in North Carolina; some Catawbas and many Lumbees in the piedmont area of North and South Carolina; the Poarch Creeks in eastern Alabama; the Mississippi Choctaws; the Tunicas and Chitimachas of Louisiana; small remnant groups in the coastal Carolinas; and, scattered throughout the Southeast, innumerable unrecognized groups claiming Indian descent. In all, historical demographers estimate that some 100,000 people from the Eastern Woodlands were forced from their homelands and that some 15,000 died while on what has become known as the Trail of Tears.

The late 19th century and beyond: fighting to regain sovereignty

Once in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), the Five Civilized Tribes worked to rebuild their economies. Most individuals focused on farming, with some providing other services such as blacksmithing. Economic revitalization was very successful, but it was later interrupted by the Civil War. Surrounded by states committed to the war, Indian Territory became a crossroads of conflict. Many residents suffered at the hands of the Union and Confederate armies; people were assaulted, farms and outbuildings burned, and crops and livestock stolen, destroyed, or dispersed. After the war, the tribes worked to rebuild their communities yet again. The United States, having allowed indigenous owners to retain slaves during removal, now insisted that all former slaves be freed and recognized as official members of the tribes of their owners; known as freedmen, this population experienced various phases of acceptance and rejection from others in the Native American community, and their status remained controversial in the early 21st century.

During Reconstruction (1865–77), conflicts in the West resulted in the movement of a large number of displaced Plains tribes and others from their traditional homelands to Indian Territory. The United States took land assigned to groups already resident in the territory and transferred it to the newcomers. By the 1890s, continued Euro-American land hunger had resulted in allotment, a federal policy under which land held in common by tribes was divided into parcels and dispersed. Each indigenous head of household was assigned a parcel, as were orphans and a few other categories of individuals. The remaining land was made available to settlers, railroads, and others for development. Although the Five Civilized Tribes were immune from the initial enforcement of the new policy because they held clear title to their property, an act of Congress brought them under allotment jurisdiction in 1898. Like the other indigenous residents of the territory, they lost tens of thousands of acres.

Under policies initiated in 1906, indigenous peoples lost the right to elect their own tribal governments, which were replaced by federally appointed chiefs and tribal councils. The administration of schools and other institutions formerly managed by the tribes of Indian Territory also devolved to the United States. With allotment, these policies paved the way for Euro-American settlement of the territory and thus for statehood. In 1907 Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory combined to become the new state of Oklahoma.

These and other pressures on traditional culture were clear abrogations of tribal sovereignty, but tribes from the Southeast culture area saw just as clearly that fighting them head-on would prove unproductive. As a result, many engaged in passive resistance. Families refused to sign up for or receive their allotments; former tribal council members revitalized traditional governance and ritual activities away from the geographic seats of power; and children were schooled at home. Ironically, the United States’ efforts to complete the assimilation of the Southeastern peoples had resulted in a grassroots movement that strengthened traditional cultures considerably.

During the remainder of the 20th century, Southeastern peoples were affected by a number of events of global importance, such as the oil boom of the 1920s; the Great Depression; the World Wars and the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf wars; and the advent of the civil rights and counterculture eras of the 1960s. In 1968 three Southeastern groups that had long been in bureaucratic limbo allied themselves to gain greater traction with the federal government. They included groups that had escaped removal—Cherokee communities in North Carolina and Seminole groups in Florida—as well as a tribelet of Choctaw that had traveled only as far as the state of Mississippi during removal. Having avoided removal and undertaken efforts to escape governmental scrutiny, they had seen many of their rights as native peoples abridged; their efforts eventually led to federal recognition of their status as tribes.

During the 1970s the federal government relinquished the right to appoint tribal governments; the Southeastern tribes quickly reinstated their constitutions and held elections. From that point into the early 21st century, the Southeast nations emphasized economic development, the revenues of which were used to support programs ranging from education to health care to cultural preservation. For instance, Chickasaw Nation Industries and Choctaw Management Services Enterprise, each owned by its constituent tribe, included firms providing construction, information technology services, and professional recruiting. The Florida Seminole instituted ecotourism programs that acquainted visitors with the state’s wetlands. Many tribes also turned to casino-based gaming (see Native American gaming); these operations often included hotel and restaurant facilities that generated income and provided employment to tribal members. Casino revenue, sometimes referred to as “the new buffalo,” lifted many tribes above the poverty line and encouraged a revival of traditional cultural practices.See also Native American: History; Native American: Developments in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Regional syntheses of the traditional cultures of the Southeast are in John R. Swanton, The Indians of the Southeastern United States (1946, reprinted 1979); Fred B. Kniffen, Hiram F. Gregory, and George A. Stokes, The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana: From 1542 to the Present (1987); Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians (1976, reissued 1992); Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast (2001); and Raymond D. Fogelson (ed.), Southeast (2004), vol. 14 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. by William C. Sturtevant.

Descriptions of particular cultures include Frank G. Speck, The Creek Indians of Taskigi Town (1907, reprinted 1974), and Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians (1909, reprinted 1980); Alexander Spoehr, Camp, Clan, and Kin Among the Cow Creek Seminole of Florida (1941, reprinted 1976), and The Florida Seminole Camp (1944, reprinted 1976); Angie Debo, The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic, 2nd ed. (1961); Douglas Summers Brown, The Catawba Indians (1966); Charles M. Hudson, The Catawba Nation (1970); Karen I. Blu, The Lumbee Problem: The Making of an American Indian People (1980); Duane H. King, The Cherokee Indian Nation (1979); William Harlen Gilbert, Jr., The Eastern Cherokees (1943, reprinted 1978); James H. Merrell et al., The Cherokees: A Population History (1990); and John H. Hann, A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions (1996).

Discussions of particular historical periods include Verner W. Crane, The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732 (1929, reissued 1981); R.S. Cotterill, The Southern Indians: The Story of the Civilized Tribes Before Removal (1954, reissued 1983); David H. Corkran, The Cherokee Frontier: Conflict and Survival, 1740–62 (1962), and The Creek Frontier, 1540–1783 (1967); John R. Finger, The Eastern Band of Cherokees, 1819–1900 (1984); William G. McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic (1986, reissued 1992), a history of relations between Cherokees and Euro-Americans, 1789–1833; James H. Merrell, The Indians’ New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact Through the Era of Removal (1989); Joel W. Martin, Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees’ Struggle for a New World (1991), covering the period from the 17th to the early 19th century; and Michelene E. Pesantubbee, Choctaw Women in Chaotic World: The Clash of Cultures in the Colonial Southeast (2005), a text that explores the roles of Choctaw women from the contact period through the 20th century.

The profound impact of removal on the Southeastern tribes is illuminated in a variety of works, including Grant Foreman, The Five Civilized Tribes (1934, reissued 1989), and Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians, new ed. (1972, reissued 1989); Angie Debo, And Still the Waters Run (1940, reprinted 1984); Walter L. Williams (ed.), Southeastern Indians Since the Removal Era (1979); J. Leitch Wright, Jr., The Only Land They Knew: The Tragic Story of the American Indians in the Old South (1981); Samuel J. Wells and Roseanna Tubby (eds.), After Removal: The Choctaw in Mississippi (1986); James H. Howard and Willie Lena, Oklahoma Seminoles: Medicines, Magic, and Religion (1984); Thurman Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 2nd ed. rev. (1986); and William L. Anderson (ed.), Cherokee Removal: Before and After (1991), a collection of interdisciplinary essays.

Life in the 20th and 21st centuries is discussed in John R. Finger, Cherokee Americans: The Eastern Band of Cherokees in the Twentieth Century (1991); Duane Champagne, Social Order and Political Change: Constitutional Governments Among the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, and the Creek (1992); J. Anthony Paredes (ed.), Indians of the Southeastern United States in the Late 20th Century (1992); Jack M. Schultz, The Seminole Baptist Churches of Oklahoma: Maintaining a Traditional Community (1999); Samuel R. Cook, Monacans and Miners: Native American and Coal Mining Communities in Appalachia (2000); David La Vere, Contrary Neighbors: Southern Plains and Removed Indians in Indian Territory (2000); Circe Sturm, Blood Politics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (2002); Jason Baird Jackson, Yuchi Ceremonial Life: Performance, Meaning, and Tradition in a Contemporary American Indian Community (2003); Christopher Arris Oakley, Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North Carolina, 1885–2004 (2005); and Valerie Lambert, Choctaw Nation: A Story of American Indian Resurgence (2007).