Coushatta

Coushatta

Alabama-Coushatta boy planting Christmas trees in Texas
Total population
Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana 910 enrolled citizens Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas 1,000 enrolled Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town 380 enrolled
Regions with significant populations
United States (Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma)
Languages
English, Spanish, French, Koasati language
Religion
Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Alabama, other Muscogee peoples

The Coushatta (Koasati: Koasati, Kowassaati or Kowassa:ti) are a Muskogean-speaking Native American people now living primarily in the U.S. states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.

When the Coushatta first encountered Europeans, their Coushatta homelands where in present-day Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. They have long been closely allied and intermarried with the Alabama people, also members of the Creek Confederacy. The Koasati language is related to the Alabama language and mutually intelligible to Mikasuki language.^[1]

Under pressure from European colonization after 1763 and the French defeat in the Seven Years' War, the Coushatta began to move west into Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, which were then under Spanish rule. They settled in these areas by the early 19th century. Some of the Coushatta and Alabama people were removed west to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in the 1830s under Indian Removal, together with other Muscogee peoples.

Today, Coushatta people are enrolled in three federally recognized tribes:

• Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town in Wetumka, Oklahoma
• Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana.
• Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas