Ocute

Ocute was a paramount chiefdom in the Oconee River valley of present-day Georgia. Its alliance of towns formed around 1325, and its rulers fought Cofitachequi across the Savannah River basin. In 1540 Hernando de Soto's expedition entered Ocute and obtained laborers from its chief.

By the seventeenth century Altamaha had become the leading center, and the Spanish called the chiefdom La Tama. Westo slave raids fragmented it in the 1660s; some Ocute people moved toward the Chattahoochee, while others joined the Lower Yamasee towns near the coast.