Galen and Marion Williams will be presenting an informative program on the Alabama-Coushatta people at the Columbia Historical Museum on Saturday, October 25, 2025. Their presentation will last from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. and it is free to anyone who would like to attend.
The Alabama-Coushatta Indian Tribe are one of eight federally recognized tribes whose citizens are descended from the Muscogee Confederacy of the Southeast. According to Wikipedia, four tribes are located in Oklahoma, where most of the Muscogee were forcibly removed from the Indigenous Muscogee homeland in Alabama and western Georgia in the 1830s during the Trail of Tears. One tribe is in Louisiana, where another band of Muscogee fled European encroachment in two waves in the late 18th century and the early 19th century. Another tribe comprises the Poarch Band of Creeks, which remained in Alabama. The Seminole Indian Nation in Florida also includes many descendants of the Creek Confederacy who relocated there and merged with another tribe.
Under pressure from European American settlement, the ancestors of this tribe were Alabama and Coushatta peoples who migrated from Alabama and the Southeast into Louisiana and finally East Texas when it was under Spanish rule in the late 18th century. They settled in an area known as the Big Thicket and adapted their culture to the environment of forests and waters.
When the area began to be settled by European Americans from the United States, the tribes established friendly relations and traded with the new settlers. Sam Houston, the first president of the Republic of Texas who was sworn into office in Columbia in 1836, helped protect them during years of conflicts with other Native Americans in the area. After the annexation of Texas by the United States, settlements increased and the tribes were under pressure again. They appealed to the state to set aside land for their exclusive use.
The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe’s reservation is located near Livingston, Texas.
The Columbia Historical Museum is located at 247 East Brazos Avenue in downtown West Columbia. For more information about the October 25th presentation, contact the museum at (979) 345-6125. West Columbia’s museum is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
