The pristine homes of the Yuchi are not now traceable with any degree of
certainty. The Yuchi are supposed to have been visited by De Soto during
his memorable march, and the town of Cofitachiqui chronicled by him, is
believed by many investigators to have stood at Silver Bluff, on the
left bank of the Savannah, about 25 miles below Augusta. If, as is
supposed by some authorities, Cofitachiqui was a Yuchi town, this would
locate the Yuchi in a section which, when first known to the whites, was
occupied by the Shawnee. Later the Yuchi appear to have lived somewhat
farther down the Savannah, on the eastern and also the western side, as
far as the Ogeechee River, and also upon tracts above and below Augusta,
Georgia. These tracts were claimed by them as late as 1736.
In 1739 a portion of the Yuchi left their old seats and settled among
the Lower Creek on the Chatahoochee River; there they established three
colony villages in the neighborhood, and later on a Yuchi settlement is
mentioned on Lower Tallapoosa River, among the Upper Creek.[99]
Filson[100] gives a list of thirty Indian tribes and a statement
concerning Yuchi towns, which he must have obtained from a much earlier
source: “Uchees occupy four different places of residence--at the head
of St. John’s, the fork of St. Mary’s, the head of Cannouchee, and the
head of St. Tillis” (Satilla), etc.[101]
[Footnote 99: Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, 21-22, 1884.]
[Footnote 100: Discovery, etc., of Kentucky, 1793, II, 84-7.]
[Footnote 101: Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, p. 20.]
_Population._--More than six hundred Yuchi reside in northeastern Indian
Territory, upon the Arkansas River, where they are usually classed as
Creek. Doubtless the latter are to some extent intermarried with them,
but the Yuchi are jealous of their name and tenacious of their position
as a tribe.