Nearly 500 years later, they are still a continuing and surviving people. The Poarch Band members descend from Muscogee Creek Indigenous peoples who were first contacted by Spanish conquistadors in 1540, notably Hernando de Soto. Most of the members of the Poarch Band continue to reside in Alabama and Florida. They are one of eight federally recognized tribes whose members are descended from the Creek Confederacy of the Southeast, lands to which they have deep ancestral connections. In the mid-20th century, they were known as the Creek Nation East of the Mississippi. As Mvskoke people, they speak the Muscogee language. The Poarch Band of Creek Indians ( / p ɔː r tʃ/ PORCH ) are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans with reservation lands in lower Alabama. Other Muscogee Creek tribes, Alabama Creole people
