The Yamasee was a tribe of Muskhogean stock, residing formerly near the Savannah River and in Florida. The Spanish missionaries under Fray Antonio Sedeño began to labor among them about 1570, and little trouble arose until a rebellion of the Yamasee was provoked by an attempt of the Spanish civil authorities to send some of them to the West Indies and into slavery. Many of the Indians fled to English territory in South Carolina and settled there.In Carolina on the 15^th of April, 1715, the Yamasee War began. It involved the Apalachee, Creek, Sarraw, Savannah, and Yamasee against the white traders and settlers.

There had developed an extensive trade in deer hides; the Indians used those hides as their currency for trade for European goods. While the Indians became indebted to the traders, their ability to pay diminished as they depleted their source. Competition from increasing numbers of white trappers only made matters worse. The Yamasee had also complained of the traders enslaving their women and children, however, the Carolina authorities were helpless in remedying the ever worsening situation. The war began with an attack on the white traders in Indian towns. The extortion and cruelty of the English traders drove them to take up arms, and a general massacre of white settlers took place.

In June, Carolina forces under Governor Craven defeated the Yamasee at Salkiehatchen and driven back into Florida, where they allied themselves with the Spaniards. The Yamasee captives of the English colonists were shipped to the slave markets in the West Indies. Escaping Yamasee fled south into Spanish Florida. There the Yamasee and Lower Creek continued the struggle along the border. In Carolina, the Upper Creek also continued their attack, almost taking Charles Town.

The Cherokee, a traditional enemy of the Creek, had been at the periphery of this war. When asked by the Creek to help them, the Cherokee instead sided with the British, thus weakening the Creek position.

In 1717, a peace treaty was reached, however this war revealed just how vulnerable Carolina was to the pressures and threats of their Spanish and French neighbors on the other side of the Colony’s southern and western borders.

In 1727 the English destroyed the Yamasee village near St. Augustine and massacred most of them. They were finally incorporated with the Seminole and Hitchiti, although a small body still preserved the name in 1812. The Yamasee have now disappeared.