Tamathli

The Tamathli were a Muskogean-speaking people of southwestern Georgia whose name is linked to Tama or La Tama, the Spanish label for the Mississippian chiefdom centered on the Altamaha and Oconee rivers. The de Soto expedition of 1540 found them at Pine Island on the Flint River, a community of perhaps five hundred people.

As Westo and other slave raiders shattered the Georgia chiefdoms, bands of Tamathli drifted south into Spanish Florida, and by 1675 some had been settled at the Apalachee mission of La Purificacion de Tama. Governor James Moore's Carolina raids of 1704 destroyed the missions and nearly wiped the band out.

The survivors took refuge near St. Augustine, only to be attacked by Creek warriors in 1725, after which they scattered. By 1799 the last families had joined the Creeks and Seminoles, their descendants counted among both.