A History of the Yamasee Indians: Ethnogenesis, Strategic Diaspora, and Resurgence

FAIN: FA-233519-16

Denise I. Bossy
University of North Florida (Jacksonville, FL 32224-7699)

A book-length study of the history of the Yamasee Indian tribe.

From the very beginning of their ethnogenesis in the mid-seventeenth century, the Yamasee Indians developed two innovative strategies to survive the chaos wrought by European colonialism: migration and the dispersal of their communities across the Southeast. While tempting to read such population movements as purely diasporic, the Yamasees actively used dispersal to preserve their families and created a cultural identity that was both connected to particular homelands yet not dependent on a particular locale. Through deliberate migrations in and out of Indian, European, and American communities, the Yamasees crafted an expansive network of kinship and communication that not only explains their survival but also their relative invisibility to outsiders. Scholars continue to overlook the Yamasees. I seek funding to complete the first book on the Yamasees that examines the history of this community from their origins to the present.

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