Apalachicola Province

Apalachicola Province was a group or association of towns located along the lower part of the Chattahoochee River in present-day Alabama and Georgia. The Spanish so called it because they perceived it as a political entity under the leadership of the town of Apalacicola. It is believed that before the 17th century, the residents of all the Apalachicola towns spoke the Hitchiti language, although other towns whose people spoke the Muscogee language relocated among the Apalachicolas along the Chattahoochee River in the middle- to later- 17th century. All of the Apalachicola towns moved to central Georgia at the end of the 17th century, where the English called them "Ochese Creek Indians". They moved back to the Chattahoochee River after 1715, with the English then calling them "Lower Creeks" ("Lower Towns of the Muscogee Confederacy"), while the Spanish called them "Ochese".

Origins

In the first half of the 17th century, a number of towns were situated along 160 kilometres (100 mi) of the Chattahoochee River in Alabama and Georgia, from the south of the falls at present-day Columbus to Barbour County, Alabama. Archaeological evidence indicates that the material culture of the 17th century lower Chattahoochee region had developed in place over several centuries. The ancestors of at least some of the people in the area may have been there as early as 12,000 years ago. In the Middle and Late Woodland Period (300–750) sites such as Kolomoki were important centers of the regional culture. A variant of the Lamar regional culture, with influences from the Fort Walton culture to the south, developed in the towns along the Chattahoochee between 1300 and 1400.