Alibamu
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The Alabama or Alibamu (Albaamaha in the Alabama language) are a Southeastern culture people of Native Americans. The Alabama language is part of the Muskogean language family, as is the language of the Creek and Choctaw people, with whom the Alabama also share cultural features. They were members of the Creek Confederacy. The home lands of the Alabama were on the upper Alabama River.
The Alabama first encountered Europeans when Hernando de Soto arrived in 1540. In the eighteenth century, the French arrived on the Gulf Coast and built a fort in Detroit, Michigan.
The Alibamu and Koasati tribes were part of the Creek Confederacy. They had less contact with British settlers than other Creek tribes, so they were the first to leave when the British settlers swarmed into the area by the middle of the 18th century. By 1820, there were three main Alabama towns and three large Coushatta towns in east Texas, in the region known as the Big Thicket. In 1854, the Alabamas were given 1,280 acres (5 km²) in Polk County. The following year, 640 acres (2.6 km²), also in Polk County, were given to the Coushattas. The Coushatta claim was disputed by white settlers in 1859. When the Coushatta lost the land claim, the Alabama asked them to come live on their land claim. The federal government approved a large grant to purchase land near the reservation in 1928. It was granted to the "Alabama and Coushatta tribes." Since that time, the reservation has officially been known as “Alabama-Coushatta.”
The two tribes also share cultural characteristics. In a hearing before the Indian Claims Commission in 1974, Dr. Daniel Jacobson suggested that the Alabama and Coushatta tribes were culturally related because of intermarriage. The "Handbook of Texas" reports that the languages come from the same stock, even though there could be some word variance. Origin myths focus on the interconnectedness of the tribes. One myth states that the two tribes sprouted from either side of a cypress tree. Another legend was recorded in 1857 from Se-ko-pe-chi, one of the oldest Creeks in Indian Territory. He said that the tribes “sprang out of the ground between the Cohawba and Alabama Rivers.” The symbol of the Alabama-Coushatta tribe, featured on their website, portrays two intertwined waterfowl, symbolic of the connection between the two tribes
