SW0119 GARI Archaeologists Excavate, Survey to Locate ’Lost’ Seminole Red Town of Chucochatti

 

Sean Norman, acting director for the Gulf Archaeological Research Institute, returns to the podcast to discuss the history of Chucochatti and what GARI found during their excavations and survey.

 

More than 250 years ago, a displaced group of Muscogee-speaking Upper Creek Indians established a settlement just outside present-day Brooksville, located north of Tampa.

Chucochatti, which means red house or red town, was a prosperous, self-sustaining Native community of deer hunters, traders, farmers and cattlemen. It was one of the first settlements of the Creek people in Florida. The town was so prosperous that Americans erroneously considered Chucochatti the seat of the Seminole Nation. With the American demand for removal, its chief, Blackdirt accepted federal payments and relocated his band to the Oklahoma Territory in 1836. During subsequent removal operations, the U.S. Army burned the abandoned down. Its location vanished into history.

Marker image courtesy of Tampa Bay Tribune

In May 2014, Seminole Tribe of Florida representatives cut a ribbon to unveil a roadside marker on the side of State Road 50 commemorating Chucochatti. In 2019, Brooksville City Council, seeking to pinpoint the exact location of the long-gone town, approved access to the city-owned, 56-acre Griffin Prairie. With support from tribal leaders, the institute and the Historic Hernando Preservation Society secured federal grant to delineate Chucochatti.

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida. 

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