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The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language; English: ), are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands Transcribed documents Sequoyah Research Center and the American Native Press Archives in the United States. Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, much of Alabama, western Georgia and parts of northern Florida.Fogelson ix
Most of the Muscogee people were forcibly Indian removal to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) by the federal government in the 1830s during the Trail of Tears. A small group of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy remained in Alabama, and their descendants formed the federally recognized Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Another Muscogee group moved into Florida between roughly 1767 and 1821, trying to evade European encroachment,Mahon, pp. 187–189. and intermarried with local tribes to form the Seminole. Through ethnogenesis, the Seminole emerged with a separate identity from the rest of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy. The great majority of Seminole were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory in the late 1830s, where their descendants later formed federally recognized tribes. Some of the Seminole, with the Miccosukee moved south into the Everglades, resisting removal. These two tribes gained federal recognition in the 20th century and remain in Florida.
The respective languages of all of these modern-day branches, bands, and tribes, except one, are closely related variants called Muscogee, Mvskoke and Hitchiti-Mikasuki, all of which belong to the Eastern Muskogean branch of the Muscogean language family. These languages are mostly mutually intelligible. The Yuchi people today are part of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, but their Yuchi language is a linguistic isolate, unrelated to any other language.
The ancestors of the Muscogee people were part of the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere, also known as Mississippian cultures. Between 800 and 1600 CE, they built complex cities with earthwork Mound Builders with surrounding networks of satellite towns and farmsteads. Muscogee confederated town networks were based on a 900-year-old history of complex and well-organized farming and town layouts around plazas, ballparks, and square ceremonial dance grounds.
The Muscogee Creek are associated with multi-mound centers, such as the Ocmulgee, Etowah Indian Mounds, and Moundville sites. Precontact Muscogee societies shared agriculture, transcontinental trade, craft specialization, hunting, and religion. Early Spanish explorers encountered ancestors of the Muscogee in the mid-16th century.
The Muscogee were the first Native Americans officially considered by the early United States government to be "civilized" under George Washington's civilization plan. In the 19th century, the Muscogee were known as one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they were said to have integrated numerous cultural and technological practices of their more recent European American neighbors.
Influenced by Tenskwatawa's interpretations of the 1811 comet and the New Madrid earthquakes, the Upper Towns of the Muscogee, supported by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, actively resisted European-American encroachment. Internal divisions with the Lower Towns led to the Red Stick War (Creek War, 1813–1814). Begun as a civil war within Muscogee factions, it enmeshed the Northern Muscogee bands as British allies in the War of 1812 against the United States, while the Southern Muscogee remained US allies. Once the northern Muscogee Creek rebellion had been put down by General Andrew Jackson with the aid of the Southern Muscogee Creek, the Muscogee nation was forced to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which ceded 22,000,000 acres of land to the US, including land belonging to the Southern Muscogee who had fought alongside Jackson. The result was a weakening of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy and the forced cession of Muscogee lands to the US.
During the 1830s Indian Removal, most of the Muscogee Confederacy were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Kialegee Tribal Town, and Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, all based in Oklahoma, are federally recognized tribes. In addition, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas are federally recognized. Formed in part originally by Muscogee refugees, the Seminole people today have three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Seminole Tribe of Florida, and Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida.
Paleo-Indians in the Southeast were who pursued a wide range of animals, including megafauna, which became extinct following the end of the Pleistocene age. During the time known as the Woodland period, from 1000 BC to 1000 AD, locals developed pottery and small-scale horticulture of the Eastern Agricultural Complex.
The Mississippian culture arose as the cultivation of corn (maize) from Mesoamerica led to agricultural surpluses and population growth. Increased population density gave rise to urban centers and regional chiefdoms. Stratified societies developed, with hereditary religious and political elites. This culture flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500, especially along the Mississippi River and its major tributaries.
The early historic Muscogee were descendants of the Mississippian culture along the Tennessee River in modern Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. They may have been related to the Tama of central Georgia. Muscogee oral history describes a migration from places west of the Mississippi River, in which they eventually settled on the east bank of the Ocmulgee River.William Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws (2nd ed.), London 1794, pp. 52–53 Here they waged war against other bands of Native American Indians, such as the Savanna, Ogeeche, Wapoo, Santee tribe, Yamasee, Northern Utina, Icofan, Patican and others, until at length they had overcome them,William Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws (2nd ed.), London 1794, p. 54 and absorbed some as confederates into their tribe.
In the mid-16th century, when explorers from the Spanish Empire made their first forays inland from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, many political centers of the Mississippians were already in decline, or abandoned.
Muscogee people were gradually influenced by interactions and trade with the Europeans: trading or selling deer hides in exchange for European goods such as muskets, or alcohol. Secondly, the Spanish pressed them to identify leaders for negotiations; they did not understand government by consensus.
From 1540 to 1543, de Soto explored through present-day Florida and Georgia, and then westward into the Alabama and Mississippi area. The areas were inhabited by historic Muscogee Native Americans. De Soto brought with him a well-equipped army. He attracted many recruits from a variety of backgrounds who joined his quest for riches in the Americas.
As the de Soto expedition's brutalities became known to the indigenous peoples, they decided to defend their territory. Chief Tuskaloosa led his people in the Battle of Mabila, where the Native Americans were defeated. The victory came at great cost to the Spanish campaign in loss of supplies, casualties, and morale. The expedition never fully recovered.
The Muscogee lived in autonomous villages in river valleys throughout present-day Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, speaking several related Muskogean languages. Muskogee was spoken from the Chattahoochee to the Alabama River. Koasati (Coushatta) and Alabama language were spoken in the upper Alabama River basin and along parts of the Tennessee River. Hitchiti was spoken in several towns along the Chattahoochee River and across much of present-day Georgia. The Muscogee were a confederacy of tribes consisting of Yuchi, Koasati, Alabama people, Coosa chiefdom, Tuskegee, Coweta, Cusseta, Chehaw (Chiaha), Hitchiti, Tuckabatchee, Okfuskee, and many others.
The basic social unit was the town ( Tribal town). Abihka, Coosa chiefdom, Tuckabutche, and Coweta are the four "mother towns" of the Muscogee Confederacy.Isham, Theodore and Blue Clark. "Creek (Mvskoke)." Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved August 20, 2012. Traditionally, the Cusseta and Coweta bands are considered the earliest members of the Muscogee Nation. The Lower Towns, along the Chattahoochee River (before 1690 and after 1715), and farther east along the Ocmulgee River, Oconee River, and Savannah River rivers (between 1690 and 1715), were Coweta, Cusseta (Kasihta), Koloni, Tuskegee, Chiaha, Hitchiti, Oconee, Ocmulgee, Apalachicola, and Sabacola.
The Upper Towns, located on the Coosa River, Tallapoosa River and Alabama River rivers, were Tuckabatchee, Abhika, Coosa chiefdom (Kusa; the dominant people of East Tennessee and North Georgia during the Spanish explorations), Itawa (original inhabitants of the Etowah Indian Mounds), Hothliwahi (Ullibahali), Hilibi, Eufaula tribe, Wakokai, Atasi, Alibamu, Coushatta (Koasati; they had absorbed the Kaski/Casqui and the Tali), and Tuskegee ("Napochi" in the de Luna chronicles). Creek Towns (accessed May 12, 2010).
The most important leader in Muscogee society was the mico or village chief. Micos led warriors in battle and represented their villages, but held authority only insofar as they could persuade others to agree with their decisions. Micos ruled with the assistance of micalgi or lesser chiefs, and various advisers, including a second-in-charge called the heniha, respected village elders, medicine men, and a tustunnuggee or ranking warrior, the principal military adviser. The heles hayv or medicine man officiated at various rituals, including providing black drink, used in purification ceremonies.
The most important social unit was the clan. Clans organized hunts, distributed lands, arranged marriages, and punished lawbreakers. The authority of the micos was complemented by the clan mothers, mostly women elders. The Muscogee had a matrilineal kinship system, with children considered born into their mother's clan, and inheritance was through the maternal line. The Wind Clan is the first of the clans. The majority of micos have belonged to this clan." Creek Indian Leaders ." New Georgia Encyclopedia. Accessed May 12, 2010.
The Spanish and their "mission Indians" burned most of the towns along the Chattahoochee after they welcomed Scottish explorer Henry Woodward in 1685. In 1690, English colonists built a trading post on the Ocmulgee River, known as Ochese-hatchee (creek), where a dozen towns relocated to escape the Spanish and acquire English goods. The name "Creek" most likely derived from a shortening of Ocheese Creek (the Hitchiti name for the body of water known today as the Ocmulgee River), and broadly applies to all of the Muscogee Confederacy, including the Yuchi and Natchez people.Walker 390Incomplete source
In 1704, Irish colonial administrator James Moore led the Carolina militia and Ochese Creek and Yamasee warriors on a series of raids against Spanish missions in the Florida interior during Queen Anne's War. These raids captured thousands of Spanish-allied Indians, primarily Apalachee, who were sold into slavery in Carolina and the West Indies. A decade later, tensions between colonists and Indians in the American Southwest led to the Yamassee War of 1715–17.
The Ochese Creeks joined the Yamasee, burning trading posts, and raiding back-country settlers, but the revolt ran low on gunpowder and was put down by Carolinian militia and their Cherokee allies. The Yamasee took refuge in Spanish Florida, the Ochese Creeks fled west to the Chattahoochee. In 1702, French Canadian explorers founded Mobile as the first capital of Louisiana. In 1717, they took advantage of the war to build Fort Toulouse at the confluence of the Tallapoosa River and Coosa River, trading with the Alabama and Coushatta. Fearing they would come under French influence, the British reopened the deerskin trade with the Lower Creeks, antagonizing the Yamasee, now allies of Spain.
The French instigated the Upper Creeks to raid the Lower Creeks. In May 1718, the shrewd Emperor Brim, mico of the powerful Coweta band, invited representatives of Britain, France, and Spain to his village and, in council with Upper and Lower Creek leaders, declared a policy of Muscogee neutrality in their colonial rivalry. In 1718, the Spaniards built the presidio of San Marcos de Apalache on Apalachee Bay. In 1721, the British built Fort King George at the mouth of the Altamaha River. As the three European colonial powers established themselves along the borders of Muscogee lands, the Muscogee strategy of neutrality allowed them to hold the balance of power.
In 1732, the colony of Georgia was created. In 1733, its first settlement, Savannah, was founded on a river bluff where the Yamacraw, a Yamasee band that remained allies of Britain, allowed John Musgrove to establish a fur-trading post. His wife Mary Musgrove was the daughter of an English trader and a Muscogee woman from the powerful Wind Clan, half-sister of 'Emperor' Brim. She was the principal interpreter for Georgia's founder and first Governor Gen. James Oglethorpe, using her connections to foster peace between the Creek Indians and the new colony." Mary Musgrove ", Georgia Encyclopedia Online (accessed May 12, 2010). In 1735, Georgia constructed Fort Okfuskee near Oakfuskee to compete with French trade with the Creeks at Fort Toulouse. The deerskin trade grew, and by the 1750s, Savannah exported up to 50,000 deerskins a year." Creek Indians ", New Georgia Encyclopedia (accessed May 12, 2010).
In 1736, Spanish and British officials established a neutral zone from the Altamaha River to the St. Johns River in present-day Florida, guaranteeing Native hunting grounds for the deerskin trade and protecting Spanish Florida from further British encroachment. Ca. 1750 a group of Hitchiti moved to the neutral zone, after clashing with the Creek language-speaking towns of the Chattahoochee, where they had fled after the Yamasee War.
Led by Chief Secoffee (Cowkeeper), they became the center of a new tribal confederacy, the Seminole, which grew to include earlier refugees from the Yamasee War, remnants of the 'mission Indians,' and escaped African slaves.Forbs, Gerald, " The Origin of the Seminole Indians ", p. 108, Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 15, No. 1, March 1937. Their name comes from the Spanish word cimarrones, which originally referred to a domestic animal that had reverted to the wild. Cimarrones was used by the Spanish and Portuguese to refer to fugitive slaves—"maroon" emerges linguistically from this root as well—and American Indians who fled the Europeans. In the Hitchiti language, which lacked an 'r' sound, it became simanoli, and eventually Seminole.
Under the customs of Muscogee matrilineal society, their children belonged to their mother's clan. With the exception of McGillivray, mixed-raced Muscogee people worked against Muscogee Creek interests, as they understood them. To the contrary, in many cases, they spearheaded resistance to settler encroachment on Muscogee Creek lands. That they usually spoke English as well as Mvskoke, and knew European customs as well, made them community leaders; they "dominated Muskogee politics". As put by Claudio Saunt:
As Andrew Frank writes, "Terms such as mixed-blood and half-breed, which imply racial categories and partial Indianness, betray the ways in which Native peoples determined kinship and identity in the eighteenth- and early-nineteen-century southeast."
During the American Revolution, the Upper Creeks sided with the British, fighting alongside the Chickamauga (Lower Cherokee) warriors of Dragging Canoe, in the Cherokee–American wars, against white settlers in present-day Tennessee. This alliance was orchestrated by the Coushatta chief Alexander McGillivray, son of Lachlan McGillivray, a wealthy Scottish Loyalist fur-trader and planter, whose properties were confiscated by Georgia. His ex-partner, Scots-Irish Patriot George Galphin, initially persuaded the Lower Creeks to remain neutral, but Loyalist Capt. William McIntosh led a group of pro-British Hitchiti, and most of the Lower Creeks nominally allied with Britain after the 1779 Capture of Savannah.Edward Cashin The King's Ranger: Thomas Brown and the American Revolution on the Southern Frontier p. 130
Muscogee warriors fought on behalf of Britain during the Mobile and Pensacola campaigns of 1780–81, where Spain re-conquered British West Florida. Loyalist leader Thomas Brown raised a division of King's Rangers to contest Patriot control over the Georgia and Carolina interior and instigated Cherokee raids against the North Carolina back-country after the Battle of King's Mountain. He seized Augusta in March 1780, with the aid of an Upper Creek war-party, but reinforcements from the Lower Creeks and local white Loyalists never came. Georgia militia led by Elijah Clarke retook Augusta in 1781.Edward Cashin The King's Ranger: Thomas Brown and the American Revolution on the Southern Frontier p. 130 In 1782, an Upper Creek war-party trying to relieve the British garrison at Savannah was routed by Continental Army troops under Gen. Anthony Wayne.
After the war ended in 1783, the Muscogee learned that Britain had ceded their lands to the now independent United States. That year, two Lower Creek chiefs, Hopoithle Miko (Tame King) and Eneah Miko (Fat King), ceded of land to the state of Georgia. Alexander McGillivray led pan-Indian resistance to white encroachment, receiving arms from the Spanish Florida to fight trespassers. The bilingual and bicultural McGillivray worked to create a sense of Muscogee nationalism and centralize political authority, struggling against village leaders who individually sold land to the United States. He became a wealthy landowner and merchant, owning as many as sixty black slaves.
In 1784, he negotiated the Treaty of Pensacola with Spain, recognizing Muscogee control over of land claimed by Georgia, and guaranteeing access to the British firm Panton, Leslie & Co. which controlled the deerskin trade, while making himself an official representative of Spain. In 1786, a council in Tuckabatchee decided to wage war against white settlers on Muscogee lands. War parties attacked settlers along the Oconee River, and Georgia mobilized its militia. McGillivray refused to negotiate with the state that had confiscated his father's plantations, but President George Washington sent a special emissary, Col. Marinus Willet, who persuaded him to travel to New York City, then the capital of the U.S., and deal directly with the federal government.
In the summer of 1790, McGillivray and 29 other Muscogee chiefs signed the Treaty of New York, on behalf of the 'Upper, Middle and Lower Creek and Seminole composing the Creek nation of Indians,' ceding a large portion of their lands to the federal government and promising to return fugitive slaves, in return for federal recognition of Muscogee sovereignty and promises to evict white settlers. McGillivray died in 1793, and with the invention of the cotton gin, white settlers on the Southwestern frontier who hoped to become cotton planters clamored for Indian lands. In 1795, Elijah Clarke and several hundred followers defied the Treaty of New York and established the short-lived Trans-Oconee Republic.
In 1781, a 17-year-old Bowles led Muscogee forces at the Battle of Pensacola. After seeking refuge in the Bahamas, he travelled to London. He was received by King George III as 'Chief of the Embassy for Creek and Cherokee Nations'. Tt was with British backing that he returned to train the Muscogee as pirates to attack Spanish ships.
In 1799, Bowles formed the State of Muskogee, with the support of the Chattahoochee Creeks and the Seminoles. He established his capital at Miccosuki, a village on the shores of Lake Miccosukee near present-day Tallahassee. It was ruled by Mico Kanache, his father-in-law and strongest ally. Bowles envisioned the State of Muskogee, with its capital at Miccosuki, encompassing large portions of present-day Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and incorporating the Cherokee, Upper and Lower Creeks, Chickasaw and Choctaw. Bowles' first act was declaring the 1796 Second Treaty of San Ildefonso, which drew the boundary between the U.S. and West Florida, null and void, because the Indians were not consulted.
He denounced the treaties Alexander McGillivray had negotiated with Spain and the U.S., threatening to declare war on the United States unless it returned Muscogee lands. He issued a death sentence against George Washington's Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins, who won the loyalty of the Lower Creeks. He built a tiny navy, and raided Spanish ships in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1800, he declared war on Spain, briefly capturing the presidio and trading post of San Marcos de Apalache before being forced to retreat. Chris Kimball, "W.A. Bowles", Southern History
Although a Spanish force that set out to destroy Mikosuki got lost in the swamps, a second attempt to take San Marcos ended in disaster. After a European armistice led to the loss of British support, Bowles was discredited. The Seminole signed a peace treaty with Spain. The following year, he was betrayed by Lower Creek supporters of Hawkins at a tribal council. They turned Bowles over to the Spanish, and he died in prison in Havana, Cuba two years later. Chris Kimball, "W.A. Bowles", Southern History
Washington's six-point plan included impartial justice toward Indians; regulated buying of Indian lands; promotion of commerce; promotion of experiments to civilize or improve Indian society; presidential authority to give presents; and punishing those who violated Indian rights.
In 1796, Washington appointed Benjamin Hawkins as Principal Temporary Agent for Indian Affairs, dealing with all tribes south of the Ohio River. He personally assumed the role of principal agent to the Muscogee. He moved to the area in Creek country that is now Crawford County in Georgia. He began to teach agricultural practices to the tribe, starting a farm at his home on the Flint River. In time, he brought in slaves and workers, cleared several hundred acres, and established mills and a trading post as well as his farm. The goal was to transform the Natives into "respectable Americans" in the republic, in a way that didn't involve violence.
One of the ways Hawkins did this was that he worked to change the gender roles that had been established in Creek society long before, to how the new American republic considered gender roles. For example, convincing the men to take up things like ranching and planting, and giving up things like hunting and being warriors, and for the women to leave behind their roles in farms and instead participate in "household manufactures". Hawkins also tried to convince the men to take over family property and "assume command over their wives and daughters".
There were many different factors that explained how men and women considered the plan of civilization: "Deep-seated tensions, characterized relations between sexes in the 1700s, rather than static balance; etc." Men and women were separated starting from childhood, including having masculine and feminine versions of the Muscogee language where both genders had different dialects. The men and women would live separated for weeks on end; men hunting and going to war and the women caring for the children, elderly, and making clothes and preparing food. There were many instances where men and women avoided each other in ceremonies due to fear of any type of consequences, like war, childbirth, or menstruation.
Defeat during war was seen as feminine, which was considered negative. Enemies who lost or ceded land would be degraded by being called "old women", and how it was seen as a disgrace and humiliating to be referred to as a woman. Later around the 1760s, there were changes to the deerskin trade that affected the relationship between women and men. European markets had an increased need for raw deerskin which meant that the labor of women who would dress the skins was no longer needed, while before that happened both men and women shared labor from the deerskin trade.
There was also a huge issue with drunkenness, in which the state of being drunk was associated with madness and bravery of warriors as well as distancing themselves from "household-oriented and feminine trade in clothing", because they traded deerskin for sugar-cane liquor. Creek men drank much more than the women did, many young Creek men when drunk thinking they were warriors. The women were against the behavior of how these warriors acted as well as against drinking rum.
Women's labor and manufacturing grew less needed as deerskin trade increased and the clothing was from foreign traders, their main job later being to finish the clothes with beads and gartering, but women had no say in the actual material or use of it. Even most kettles and bowls grew to be from foreign traders. There were also plantations that were started by traders, these plantations were pushing women who farmed and traded produce out of the market.
Creek women didn't agree with the "masculine pursuits" that their male family members had done, including instances of hostility towards women, humiliating enemies and others by calling them "old women", the raping, murder, and mutilation of white women that happened because of how some Creek warriors violently expressed their masculinity, as well as the Creek women thinking of the safety of their own households. The women considered Hawkins "plan of civilization" around 1797 with interest compared to most of the men. The plan didn’t agree with the warrior culture and promised availability of goods like food and clothing. The ranchers and planters also seemed in agreement with Hawkins, while many warriors didn’t agree with his ideas nor liked his plan because they didn’t want to give up hunting or their warrior culture.
The Plan of Civilization wanted them to take up farming, which was seen as women's work and the Creek warriors resisted that because they saw it as their masculinity being taken away. The alcohol consumption among Creek men had increased because of this shift in their gender roles as many of the warriors resisted being farmers, and the violence against women, mainly domestic, also increased.
While the women agreed with many of the changes and reforms that started happening from Hawkins' plan, they refused to submit to the patriarchy, and they used the economic changes to their advantage.
The Creeks had started to gain property of their own, and Hawkins had said that "they had began to know the value of property and the necessity of defending it". From the lead of Hawkins, the Creeks had formed a national police force to force Muscogees to "respect their neighbor's property", also because there were some Creeks who were protective of their land and violent in the defense of the land.
There were different changes in the settlement, those who were going by Hawkins' plan of civilization and those who didn't go along with the plan that was happening under fenced communities in the Deep South. This was causing conflict between the Creek settlements.
For years, Hawkins met with chiefs on his porch to discuss matters. He was responsible for the longest period of peace between the settlers and the tribe, overseeing 19 years of peace. In 1805, the Lower Creeks ceded their lands east of the Ocmulgee River to Georgia, with the exception of the sacred burial mounds of the Ocmulgee Old Fields. They allowed a Federal Road linking New Orleans to Washington, D.C. to be built through their territory. A number of Muscogee chiefs acquired slaves and created cotton plantations, grist mills and businesses along the Federal Road. In 1806, Fort Benjamin Hawkins was built on a hill overlooking the Ocmulgee Old Fields, to protect expanding settlements and serve as a reminder of U.S. rule.
Hawkins was disheartened and shocked by the outbreak of the Creek War, which destroyed his life work of improving the Muscogee quality of life. Hawkins saw much of his work toward building a peace destroyed in 1812. A faction of Muscogee joined the Pan-American Indian movement of Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh, rejecting accommodation with white settlers and adaptation of European-American culture. Although Hawkins personally was never attacked, he was forced to watch an internal civil war among the Muscogee develop into a war with the United States.
On December 16, 1811, the New Madrid earthquake shook the Muscogee lands and the Midwest. While the interpretation of this event varied from tribe to tribe, one consensus was universally accepted: the powerful earthquake had to have meant something. The earthquake and its aftershocks helped the Tecumseh resistance movement by convincing, not only the Muscogee, but other Native American tribes as well, that the Shawnee must be supported.
The Muscogee who joined Tecumseh's confederation were known as the Red Sticks. Stories of the origin of the Red Stick name varies, but one is that they were named for the Muscogee tradition of carrying a bundle of sticks that mark the days until an event occurs. Sticks painted red symbolize war. "The Creeks." War of 1812 People and Stories. (retrieved December 5, 2009)
Allied with the British, they opposed white encroachment on Muscogee lands and the "civilizing programs" administered by Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins, and clashed with many of the leading chiefs of the Muscogee Nation, most notably the Lower Creek Mico William McIntosh, Hawkins' most powerful ally. Before the Muscogee Civil War began, the Red Sticks attempted to keep their activities secret from the "old chiefs" of the Creek national government. They were emboldened when Tecumseh rallied his followers and joined with a British invasion to capture Fort Detroit in August 1812.
In February 1813, a small party of Red Sticks, led by Little Warrior, was returning from Detroit when they killed two families of settlers along the Duck River, near Nashville. Hawkins demanded that the Muscogees turn over Little Warrior and his six companions. Instead of handing the marauders over to the federal agents, Big Warrior and the old chiefs decided to execute the war party. This decision was the spark which ignited the civil war among the Muscogee.Adams, 777–778
The first clashes between Red Sticks and the American whites took place on July 21, 1813, when a group of American soldiers from Fort Mims (north of Mobile, Alabama) stopped a party of Red Sticks who were returning from West Florida, where they had bought munitions from the Spanish governor at Pensacola. The Red Sticks fled the scene, and the U.S. soldiers looted what they found, allowing the Red Sticks to regroup and retaliate with a surprise attack that forced the Americans to retreat. The Battle of Burnt Corn, as the exchange became known, broadened the Creek Civil War to include American forces, and was interpreted as a good omen, showing that in fact the Creeks could defeat the whites.
On August 30, 1813, Red Sticks led by Red Eagle William Weatherford attacked Fort Mims, where white settlers and their Indian allies had gathered. The Red Sticks captured the fort by surprise, and carried out a massacre, killing men, women, and children. They spared only the black slaves whom they took as captured booty. After the Indians killed nearly 250–500 at the fort, settlers across the American southwestern frontier were in a panic. Although the Red Sticks won the battle, they had lost the war.
The Fort Mims Massacre was followed two days later by the smaller Kimbell-James Massacre.
The only explanation of this catastrophic event is that the Upper Creek leaders thought that fighting the United States was like fighting another Creek tribe, and taking Fort Mims was an even bigger victory than the Battle of Burnt Corn had been.
The Red Stick victory spread panic throughout the southeastern United States, and the cry "Remember Fort Mims!" was popular among the public wanting revenge. With Federal troops tied up on the northern front against the British in Canada, the Tennessee, Georgia, and the Mississippi Territory militias were commissioned and invaded the Upper Creek towns. They were joined by Indian allies, the Lower Creek under William McIntosh and the Cherokee under Major Ridge.
Outnumbered and poorly armed, much too far from Canada or the Gulf Coast to receive British aid, the Red Sticks put up a desperate fight. On March 27, 1814, General Andrew Jackson's Tennessee militia, aided by the 39th U. S. Infantry Regiment and Cherokee and Lower Creek warriors, crushed the Red Sticks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. Though the Red Sticks had been soundly defeated and about 3,000 Upper Muscogee died in the war, the remnants held out several months longer.
Many Muscogee refused to surrender and escaped to Florida. They allied with other remnant tribes, becoming the Seminole. Muscogee were later involved on both sides of the in Florida.
It soon came to be called the 'Negro Fort' by Southern planters, and it was widely known among enslaved blacks by word of mouth – a place nearby where blacks were free and had guns, as in Haiti. The white pro-slave holding planters correctly felt its simple existence inspired escape or rebellion by the oppressed African-Americans, and they complained to the US government. The maroons had not received training in how to aim the Fort's cannons. After notifying the Spanish governor, who had very limited resources, and who said he had no orders to take action, U.S. General Andrew Jackson quickly destroyed the Fort, in a famous and picturesque, though tragic, incident in 1816 that has been called "the deadliest cannon shot in American history" (see the Battle of Negro Fort).
The Seminole continued to welcome fugitive black slaves and raid American settlers, leading the U.S. to declare war in 1817. In 1818, General Andrew Jackson invaded Florida with an army that included more than 1,000 Lower Creek warriors; they destroyed Seminole towns and captured Pensacola. Jackson's victory forced Spain to sign the Adams–OnÃs Treaty in 1819, ceding Florida to the U.S. In 1823, a delegation of Seminole chiefs met with the new U.S. governor of Florida, expressing their opposition to proposals that would reunite them with the Upper and Lower Creek, partly because the latter tribes intended to enslave the . Instead, the Seminoles agreed to move onto a reservation in inland central Florida.
In the late 1810s and early 1820s, McIntosh helped create a centralized police force called 'Law Menders,' establish written laws, and form a National Creek Council. Later in the decade, he came to view relocation as inevitable. In 1821, McIntosh and several other chiefs, including Chief Shelocta, signed away Lower Creek lands east of the Flint River at the first Treaty of Indian Springs. As a reward, McIntosh was granted at the treaty site, where he built a hotel to attract tourists to local hot springs.
The Creek National Council responded by prescribing the death penalty for tribesmen who surrendered additional land. Georgian settlers continued to pour into Indian lands, particularly after the discovery of gold in northern Georgia. in 1825 McIntosh and his first cousin, Georgia Governor George Troup, a leading advocate of Indian removal, signed the second Treaty of Indian Springs at his hotel. Signed by six other Lower Creek chiefs, the treaty ceded the last Lower Creek lands to Georgia, and allocated substantial sums to relocate the Muscogee to the Arkansas River. It provided for an equally large payment directly to McIntosh.
In April, the old Red Stick Menawa led about 200 Law Menders to execute McIntosh according to their law. They burned his upper Chattahoochee plantation. A delegation of the Creek National Council, led by the speaker Opothleyahola, traveled to Washington D.C. to protest the 1825 treaty. They convinced President John Quincy Adams that the treaty was invalid, and negotiated the more favorable Treaty of Washington (1826). The tribe ceded their lands to Georgia in return for $200,000, although they were not required to move west. Troup ignored the new treaty and ordered the eviction of the Muscogee from their remaining lands in Georgia without compensation, mobilizing state militia when Adams threatened federal intervention.
Andrew Jackson was inaugurated president of the United States in 1829, and with his inauguration the government stance toward Indians turned harsher.
At Jackson's request, the United States Congress opened a fierce debate on an Indian Removal Bill. In the end, the bill passed, but the vote was close. The Senate passed the measure 28 to 19, while in the House it squeaked by, 102 to 97. Jackson signed the legislation into law June 30, 1830.
Following the Indian Removal Act, in 1832 the Creek National Council signed the Treaty of Cusseta, ceding their remaining lands east of the Mississippi to the U.S., and accepting relocation to the Indian Territory. Most Muscogee were removed to Indian Territory during the Trail of Tears in 1834, with additional removals following the Creek War of 1836, although some remained behind.
Because many Muscogee Creek people did support the Confederacy during the Civil War, the US government required a new treaty with the nation in 1866 to define peace after the war. It required the Creek to emancipate their slaves and to admit them as full members and citizens of the Creek Nation, equal to the Creek in receiving annuities and land benefits. They were then known as Creek Freedmen. The US government required setting aside part of the Creek reservation land to be assigned to the Freedmen. Many of the tribe resisted these changes. The loss of lands contributed to problems for the nation in the late 19th century.
The Loyalists among the Creek tended to be traditionalists. They formed the core of a band that became known as the Snakes, which also included many Creek Freedmen. At the end of the century, they resisted the extinguishing of tribal government and break-up of communal tribal lands enacted by the US Congress with the Dawes Commission of 1892. These efforts were part of the US government's attempt to impose assimilation on the tribes, to introduce household ownership of land, and to remove legal barriers to the Indian Territory's achieving statehood.
Members of the Creek Nation were registered as individuals on the Dawes Rolls. The Commission separately registered intermarried whites and Creek Freedmen, whether or not they had any Creek ancestry. This ruined their claims to Creek membership later, even for people who had parents or other relative who were Creek. The Dawes Rolls have been used as the basis for many tribes to establish membership descent. European-American settlers had moved into the area and pressed for statehood and access to some of the tribal lands for settlement.
Biological fathers are important within the family system but must come from another clan than the mother. But, within the clan, it is the mother's brother (the mother's nearest blood relation) who functions as the primary teacher, protector, disciplinarian and role model for children, especially for boys. Clan members do not claim "blood relation" but consider each other as family due to their membership in the same clan. This is expressed by their using the same kinship titles for both family and clan relations. For example, clan members of approximately the same age consider each other "brother" and "sister", even if they have never met before.
Because of this system, the Muscogee Creek children born of European fathers belonged to their mother's clans and were part of their tribal communities. High-ranking daughters of chiefs often found it advantageous to marry European traders, who could provide their families with goods. Muscogee Creek believed young men who became educated in European ways could help them manage under the new conditions related to colonialism, while preserving important Muscogee Creek cultural institutions.
Muscogee clans are as follows:
During the 17th century, the Muscogee adopted some elements of European fashion and materials. As cloth was lighter and more colorful than deer hide, it quickly became a popular trade item throughout the region. Trade cloth in a variety of patterns and textures enabled Muscogee women to develop new styles of clothing, which they made for both men, women, and children. They incorporated European trade items such as bells, silk ribbons, glass beads, and pieces of mirror into the clothing.
in 1836, following the Creek War, the Treaty of Fort Jackson, the Treaty of Washington (1826), the Second Creek War and the removal to Oklahoma, Indian Affairs reported 17,894 Creeks already removed to Oklahoma, while an estimated 4,000 remained east of the Mississippi. In 1841, according to Indian Affairs, the number of Creeks in Oklahoma, removed west of the Mississippi, was 24,549, while 744 still remained in the east. In 1857, Henry Schoolcraft reported the Creek population at 28,214 people. It appears that Creek population declined during the subsequent years. Enumeration published in 1886 estimated only around 14,000 Creeks in Oklahoma (Indian Territory) as of 1884. In 1910, Indian Affairs reported 11,911 in Oklahoma. The census of 1910 counted 6,945 Creeks.
The Creek population has rebounded in the 20th and 21st centuries. In 2020 there were 107,370 Creeks, including 50,168 in Oklahoma.
Three Muscogee tribal towns are federally recognized tribes: Alabama-Quassarte, Kialegee, and Thlopthlocco. Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town is headquartered in Wetumka, Oklahoma and its chief is Wilson Yargee.Oklahoma Indian Affairs. 2008 Pocket Pictorial:17 Kialegee Tribal Town is headquartered in Wetumka. Jeremiah Hoia is the current mekko or chief. "Oklahoma's Tribal Nations." Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission. 2010 (retrieved April 10, 2010) The Thlopthlocco Tribal Town is headquartered in Okemah, Oklahoma. George Scott is the mekko.
On November 21, 1984, the US government took of land into trust for the tribe as a communal holding. On April 12, 1985, were declared a reservation.
Notes
Further reading
Clothing
Ancestral Muscogee peoples wore clothing made of woven plant materials or animal hides, depending upon the climate. During the summer, they preferred lightweight fabrics woven from tree bark, grasses, or reeds. During the harsh winters, they used animal skins and fur for warmth.
Language
The Muscogee language is a member of the Muskogean family and was well known among the frontiersmen, such as Gideon Lincecum, of the early 19th century. The language is related to the Choctaw language, with some words being identical in pronunciation. The following table is an example of Muscogee text and its translation:
Treaties
Land was the most valuable asset, which the Native Americans held in collective stewardship. The southern English colonies, US government and settlers systematically obtained Muscogee land through treaties, legislation, and warfare. Some treaties, such as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, indirectly affected the Muscogee. The treaties were:
? ? ? All lands east of the Oconee River ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Indian Appropriations Act of 1871
In 1871, Congress added a rider to the Indian Appropriations Act to end the United States' recognizing additional Indian tribes or nations, and prohibiting additional treaties.
Population history
Early estimates of the Creek probably did not cover the whole nation but just parts of the population. James Seagrove, an ambassador for the US to the Creek Nation and merchant who lived in southern Georgia, estimated the Creek population in 1794 at 10,000 warriors, and therefore around 50,000 people. In 1789, Henry Knox wrote that the Creek lived in at least 100 towns and villages. A census taken in 1832 reported 22,700 Creeks and 900 Black slaves.
Muscogee tribes today
The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana are a tribe of Muscogee people, descended from the Koasati, as are the Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas.
Federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is a federally recognized Indian Nation. Their headquarters is in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Their current Principal Chief is David W. Hill.
Federally recognized tribes in Alabama
Eddie L. Tullis led the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in their petitioning the United States government to recognize a government-to-government relationship. On August 11, 1984, these efforts culminated in the United States Government, Department of Interior, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs acknowledging that the Poarch Band of Creek Indians existed as an "Indian Tribe". The tribe is the only federally recognized tribe in the state of Alabama.
Expansion of reservation
The United States Supreme Court issued their ruling for McGirt v. Oklahoma on July 9, 2020. The Court recognized a large part of eastern Oklahoma as part of the state's Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation. The ruling also opened the possibility for Native Americans to have more power to regulate alcohol and casino gambling.
Notable historical Muscogee people
Muscogee people from the 20th and 21st centuries will be listed under their respective tribes.
In popular culture
See also
External links
Categories: Muskogean Tribes, South Appalachian Mississippian Culture, Native American Tribes In Alabama, Native American Tribes In Florida, Native American Tribes In Georgia, Native American Tribes In Louisiana, Native American Tribes In Oklahoma, Native American Tribes In Tennessee, Native American People In The American Revolution, Negro Fort, Tribal Confederacies Of Indigenous Peoples Of North America, Indigenous Peoples Of North America
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