Coushatta

For the town in Louisiana, see Coushatta, Louisiana.

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Coushatta

Total population
Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana 650 enrolled members Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas 500 enrolled Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town 370 enrolled
Regions with significant populations
United States (Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma)
Languages
English, Koasati language
Religion
Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Alabama, Creek, other Muskogean-speaking peoples

The Coushatta (also Koasati in their own language) are a historic Muskogean-speaking Native American people living primarily in the U.S. state of Louisiana. When first encountered by Europeans, they lived in the territory of present-day Georgia and Alabama. Under pressure from Anglo-American colonial settlement, after 1763 and the French defeat in the Seven Years War, they began to move west into Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, then under Spanish rule, where they were resettled by the early nineteenth century. Some of the Coushatta and closely allied Alabama were removed west to Oklahoma in the 1830s under Indian Removal, together with other Muscogee peoples.

Today there are three federally recognized tribal governments and centers of population: the largest is the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana on 685 acres (2.77 km²) of reservation land in Allen Parish. This is just north of the town of Elton, Louisiana. The new Leatherwood Museum in Oakdale, the largest community in Allen Parish, features an exhibit on the Coushatta.

Other federally recognized Coushatta tribes are the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, with a reservation near Livingston, Texas; and the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town in Wetumka, Oklahoma.

History

The Coushatta were traditionally agriculturalists, growing a variety of maize, beans and squash, and supplementing their diet by hunting game and fish. They were known for their skill at basketry. Nearly all the Spanish expeditions (including the 1539-1543 Hernando de Soto Expedition) into the interior of Spanish Florida recorded encountering the original town of the tribe.^[1] They referred to them as Coste, with their nearby neighbors being the Chiaha, Chiska, Yuchi, Tasquiqui, and Tali. Their town was most likely in the Tennessee River Valley. (Click here for a list of towns encountered by the Hernando de Soto Expedition.)

Under pressure from new European settlers in the 17th-18th centuries, the Coushatta made treaties and ceded land, and they migrated west into present-day Alabama. Along the way they established their town at Nickajack (Ani-Kusati-yi, or Koasati-place, in Cherokee) in the current Marion County, Tennessee. Later they founded a major settlement at the north end of Long-Island-on-the-Tennessee, which is bisected by the present-day Tennessee-Alabama stateline. By the time of the American Revolution, they had moved many miles down the Tennessee River where their town is recorded as Coosada. In the 18th centuries, some of the Coushatta (Koasati) joined the emerging Creek Confederacy, where they became known as part of the "Upper Creek". They were closely related to the Alabama Indians. Once part of the Creek Confederacy, the Coushatta tribe split and went to South Louisiana.

Notable chiefs among the Coushatta were the successive Long King and Colita, who led the people settled in present-day Polk County, Texas in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Colita's Village preceded the European-American development of Livingston.^[2]

20th century to present

The Coushatta language, in the Muskogean family, is still spoken by some 400 people. In the early 21st century, fewer young people are learning it.

In 1972, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana achieved state recognition as a tribe, and in 1973 achieved federal recognition. They have acquired 685 acres (2.77 km²) of reservation, which is held in trust by the Department of Interior.^[3] In the twentieth century, the Coushatta people in Louisiana began cultivating rice and crawfish on tribally owned farms. This is where most of the contemporary population resides.

In the 1990s, the Coushatta of Louisiana hired the lobbyist Jack Abramoff to assist them in pursuing establishing gambling on their reservation. They were taken advantage of in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal. They have established gaming on their reservation, as well as tax-free sales of certain items. The initiatives have raised significant revenues for the tribe and region, but the state filed suit to stop the specific class of gaming. Litigation is underway.

The Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town in Wetumka, Oklahoma achieved federal recognition in 1939, following passage of the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936. In addition, its people have dual citizenship in the federally recognized Muscogee Creek Nation. It has an enrolled population of 370. The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas achieved federal recognition in 1987 and has a 4,600-acre (19 km²) reservation near Livingston, Texas. It has 500 enrolled members.

Film

• Rediscovering America: The Legends and Legacy of Our Past, part 2: Indians Among Us (1992). Produced and directed by Jonathan Donald; written by Roger Kennedy. Discovery Communications, Inc.

References

1. ^ Hudson, Charles M. (1997). Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun. University of Georgia Press. 
2. ^ http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/AA/bma19.html "Alabama-Coushatta Indians"], Texas Handbook Online
3. ^ Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, accessed 25 Apr 2010

Encyclopedia Pages 21-78

External links

• Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, Official site
• Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, Official site
• Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Official site

[Category:Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands]]