#apalachee

The Apalachee are a Native American people who historically lived in the Florida Panhandle. They lived between the Aucilla River and Ochlockonee River, at the head of Apalachee Bay, an area known to Europeans as the Apalachee Province. They spoke a Muskogean language called Apalachee, which is now extinct.

The Apalachee occupied the site of Velda Mound starting about 1450 CE, but had mostly abandoned it when Spanish started settlements in the 17th century. They first encountered Spanish explorers in the 16th century, when the Hernando de Soto expedition arrived. Traditional tribal enemies, European diseases, and European encroachment severely reduced their population. The survivors dispersed, and over time many Apalachee integrated with other groups, particularly the Creek Confederacy, while others relocated to other Spanish territories, and some remained in what is now Louisiana. About 300 descendants in Rapides and Natchitoches parishes assert an Apalachee identity today.

Villages and towns were often situated by lakes, as the natives hunted fish and used the water for domestic needs and transport. The largest Apalachee community was at Lake Jackson, just north of present-day Tallahassee. This regional center had several mounds and 200 or more houses. Some of the surviving mounds are protected in Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park,

The Apalachee grew numerous varieties of corn, pumpkins and sunflowers. They gathered wild strawberries, the roots and shoots of the greenbrier vine, greens such as lambsquarters, the roots of one or more unidentified aquatic plants used to make flour, hickory nuts, acorns, saw palmetto berries and persimmons. They caught fish and turtles in the lakes and rivers, and oysters and fish on the Gulf Coast. They hunted deer, black bears, rabbits, and ducks.

Colt Gray, the teen accused of fatally shooting two students and two teachers in 2024 at Apalachee High School in Georgia, will appear in court for a “non-negotiated” plea hearing later this month, court documents show. The documents, filed Friday in Barrow County Superior Court in Winder, Georgia, indicate Gray is set to change his plea when the parties are ordered to appear before the court on…

The jury has found Colin Gray, the man whose teenage son is accused of killing two students and two teachers in a shooting at Georgia’s Apalachee High School, guilty of second-degree murder and all other charges. On Tuesday, after just a few hours of deliberating and two weeks of witness testimony, the jury announced that they had come to a verdict. Gray was charged with 29 counts, including…