CHOCOCHATTI

The first colony of Muskogee-speaking Upper Creek Indians from Alabama was established nearby in 1767. British surveyor/naturalist Bernard Romans identified the settlement as “New Yufala, planted in a beautiful and fertile plain.” It later became known as Tcuko tcati, or “Chocochatti,” meaning “Red House” or “Red Town.” It was here that the Upper Creek Indians were transformed into Florida Seminoles. The Chocochatti Seminoles were prosperous commercial deer hunters, traders, farmers, and cattlemen. Chocochatti town and prairie was their home for nearly 70 years. The Brooksville region, historically known as the Big Hammock, possessed rich soils for their crops, an abundance of game, and prairies ideal for grazing cattle. Turbulent times came with war in the early 1800s, culminating with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. By 1836, the Chocochatti Seminoles, under the leadership of Fuche Luste Hadjo, “Black Dirt,” chose to emigrate to present-day Oklahoma, at the outbreak of the Second Seminole War. Others chose to resist, eventually being forced into South Florida, where they prosper today as an unconquered people, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, whose character speaks volumes to humankind.