Creek (American Indians)

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Creek
Flag of the Creek Nation
Opothleyahola, Muscogee Creek Chief, 1830s
Total population

50,000-60,000
Regions with significant populations
United States (Oklahoma, Alabama)
Languages
English, Creek
Religions
Protestantism, other
Related ethnic groups
Muskogean peoples: Alabama, Coushatta, Miccosukee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole

The Creek are an American Indian people originally from the southeastern United States, also known by their original name Muscogee (or Muskogee), the name they use to identify themselves today.[1] Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. Modern Muscogees live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Their language, Mvskoke, is a member of the Creek branch of the Muskogean language family. The Seminole are close kin to the Muscogee and speak a Creek language as well. The Creeks are one of the Five Civilized Tribes.

Contents

[edit] History

Selocta (or Shelocta) was a Muscogee chief.
Selocta (or Shelocta) was a Muscogee chief.

The early historic Creeks were probably descendants of the mound builders of the Mississippian culture along the Tennessee River in modern Tennessee[2] and Alabama, and possibly related to the Utinahica of southern Georgia. More of a loose confederacy than a single tribe, the Muscogee lived in autonomous villages in river valleys throughout what are today the states of Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama and consisted of many ethnic groups speaking several distinct languages, such as the Hitchiti, Alabama, and Coushatta. Those who lived along the Ocmulgee River were called "Creek Indians" by British traders from South Carolina; eventually the name was applied to all of the various natives of Creek towns becoming increasingly divided between the Lower Towns of the Georgia frontier on the Chattahoochee River, Ocmulgee River, and Flint River and the Upper Towns of the Alabama River Valley.

The Lower Towns included Coweta, Cusseta (Kasihta, Cofitachiqui), Upper Chehaw (Chiaha), Hitchiti, Oconee, Ocmulgee, Okawaigi, Apalachee, Yamasee (Altamaha), Ocfuskee, Sawokli, and Tamali. The Upper Towns included Tuckabatchee, Abhika, Coosa (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, Wakokai, Atasi, Alibamu, Coushatta (Koasati; they had absorbed the Kaski/Casqui and the Tali), and Tuskegee ("Napochi" in the de Luna chronicles).

Cusseta (Kasihta) and Coweta are the two principal towns of the Creek Nation to this day. Traditionally the Cusseta and Coweta bands are considered the earliest members of the Creek Nation.[3]

[edit] Revolutionary era

Like many Native American groups east of the Mississippi and Louisiana Rivers, Creeks were divided over which side to take in the American Revolutionary War. The Lower Creeks remained neutral; the Upper Creeks allied with the British and fought the Americans.

This sketch by John Trumbull shows Creek leader Hopothle Mico, probably at the time of the signing of the Treaty of New York in 1790. (more)
This sketch by John Trumbull shows Creek leader Hopothle Mico, probably at the time of the signing of the Treaty of New York in 1790. (more)

After the war officially ended in 1783, the Creeks discovered Great Britain had ceded Creek lands to the new United States. The state of Georgia began to expand into Creek territory. Creek statesman Alexander McGillivray rose to prominence as he organized pan-Indian resistance to this encroachment and received arms from the Spanish in Florida to fight trespassing Georgians. McGillivray worked to create a sense of Creek nationalism and to centralize Creek authority, struggling against village leaders who individually sold land to the United States. With the Treaty of New York in 1790, McGillivray ceded a significant portion of Creek lands to the United States under the administration of George Washington in exchange for federal recognition of Creek sovereignty within the remaining territory. However, McGillivray died in 1793, and Georgia continued to expand into Creek territory.

English adventurer William Augustus Bowles was elected director general of the State of Muskogee by a congress of Creeks and Seminoles in 1799. With both Spain and the USA claiming the land Bowles hoped to be able to create their own independent nation, the State of Muskogee.

[edit] Red Stick War

The Creek War of 1813-1814, also known as the Red Stick War, began as a civil war within the Creek Nation, only to become enmeshed within the War of 1812. Inspired by the fiery eloquence of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh and their own religious leaders, Creeks from the Upper Towns, known to the Americans as Red Sticks, sought to aggressively resist white immigration and the "civilizing programs" administered by U.S. Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins. Red Stick leaders William Weatherford (Red Eagle), Peter McQueen and Menawa violently clashed with the Lower Creeks led by William McIntosh, who were allied with the Americans.

On August 30, 1813, Red Sticks led by Red Eagle attacked the American outpost of Fort Mims near Mobile, Alabama, where white Americans and their Indian allies had gathered. The Red Sticks took the fort, and a bloody clash ensued, as prisoners — including women and children — were killed. Nearly 250 people were killed, spreading panic throughout the American southwestern frontier.

In response to the massacre at Fort Mims, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Mississippi Territory sent armies deep into Creek country. Outnumbered and poorly armed, the Red Sticks put up a desperate fight from their wilderness strongholds. On March 27, 1814, General Andrew Jackson's Tennessee militia, aided by the 39th U. S. Infantry Regiment and Cherokee and Creek allies, finally crushed Red Stick resistance at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River.

Though the Red Sticks had been crushed — altogether, about 3,000 Upper Creeks died in the war — the remnants of the Upper Creek resistance held out for several months. In August 1814, exhausted and starving, they surrendered to Jackson at Wetumpka (near the present city of Montgomery, Alabama). On August 9, 1814, the Creeks were forced to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which ended the conflict and required them to cede some 20 million acres (81,000 km²) of land—more than half of their ancestral territorial holdings—to the United States. Even those Creek who had fought alongside Jackson were compelled to cede territory, because Jackson held them responsible for allowing the Red Sticks to rise up. The state of Alabama was carved out of this domain and was admitted to the United States in 1819.

Some of the Creeks migrated to Florida in the aftermath of the war, where some of them allied with the Seminoles and British against the Americans. They were involved in both sides of the Seminole War in Florida.

[edit] Removal to the West

After the War of 1812, some Creek leaders such as William McIntosh signed treaties that ceded more land to Georgia. Eventually, the Creek Confederacy enacted a law that made further land cessions a capital offense. Nevertheless, on February 12, 1825, McIntosh and other chiefs signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, which gave up most of the remaining Creek lands in Georgia. [4]

Menawa visited Washington, D.C. in 1826 to protest the Treaty of Indian Springs. Painted by Charles Bird King.
Menawa visited Washington, D.C. in 1826 to protest the Treaty of Indian Springs. Painted by Charles Bird King.

McIntosh was a cousin of Georgia Governor George Troup, who saw the Creeks as a threat to white expansion in the region and had been elected for the Democratic party on a platform of Indian removal. McIntosh's motives have been variously interpreted. Some believed he had been bribed to sell out his people; others insisted he had realized that the Creeks were going to lose their lands eventually and that he got the best possible deal for them. After the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, McIntosh was assassinated on May 13, 1825, by Creeks led by Menawa. (Major Ridge of the Cherokees later made the same choices as McIntosh and paid the same price.)

The Creek National Council, led by Opothle Yohola, protested to the United States that the Treaty of Indian Springs was fraudulent. President John Quincy Adams was sympathetic, and eventually the treaty was nullified in a new agreement, the Treaty of Washington (1826). [5] Writes historian R. Douglas Hurt: "The Creeks had accomplished what no Indian nation had ever done or would do again — achieve the annulment of a ratified treaty."[6]

However, Governor Troup of Georgia ignored the new treaty and began to forcibly remove the Indians under the terms of the earlier treaty. At first, President Adams attempted to intervene with federal troops, but Troup called out the militia, and Adams, fearful of a civil war, conceded. As he explained to his intimates, "The Indians are not worth going to war over."

Although the Creeks had been forced from Georgia, with many Lower Creeks moving to the Indian Territory, there were still about 20,000 Upper Creeks living in Alabama. However, the state moved to abolish tribal governments and extend state laws over the Creeks. Opothle Yohola appealed to the administration of President Andrew Jackson for protection from Alabama; when none was forthcoming, the Treaty of Cusseta was signed on March 24, 1832, which divided up Creek lands into individual allotments. [1] Creeks could either sell their allotments and received funds to remove to the west, or stay in Alabama and submit to state laws. Land speculators and squatters began to defraud Creeks out of their allotments, and violence broke out, leading to the so-called "Creek War of 1836." Secretary of War Lewis Cass dispatched General Winfield Scott to end the violence by forcibly removing the Creeks to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.

The official website of the Muscogees describes the next phase in their history:

In the new nation the Lower Muscogees located their farms and plantations on the Arkansas and Verdigris rivers. The Upper Muscogees re-established their ancient towns on the Canadian River and its northern branches. The tribal towns of both groups continued to send representatives to a National Council which met near High Springs. The Muscogee Nation as a whole began to experience a new prosperity. [7]

[edit] Present

A Creek U.S. Army soldier preparing frybread during a 2004 pow-wow in Iraq.
A Creek U.S. Army soldier preparing frybread during a 2004 pow-wow in Iraq.

Most Muscogees were removed to Indian Territory, although some remained behind. There are Muscogees in Alabama living near Poarch Creek Reservation in Atmore (northeast of Mobile), as well as Creeks in essentially undocumented ethnic towns in Florida. The Alabama reservation includes a bingo hall and holds an annual powwow on Thanksgiving. Additionally, Muscogee descendants of varying degrees of acculturation live throughout the southeastern United States.

The tribal government operates a budget in excess of $106 million, has over 2,400 employees, and maintains tribal facilities and programs in eight administrative districts. The nation operates several significant tribal enterprises, including the Muscogee Document Imaging Company; travel plazas in Okmulgee, Muskogee and Cromwell, Oklahoma; construction, technology and staffing services; and major casinos in Tulsa and Okmulgee. The tribal population is fully integrated into the larger culture and economy of Oklahoma, with Muscogee Nation citizens making significant contributions in every field of endeavor, while continuing to preserve and share a vibrant tribal identity through events such as annual festivals, ball-games, and language classes. The Stomp Dance and Green Corn Ceremony are both highly revered gatherings and rituals that have largely remained non public and not by coincidence "Pure". The Nation's historic old Council House, built in 1878 and located in downtown Okmulgee, was completely restored in the 1990s and now serves as a museum of tribal history.

[edit] Famous Creek

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Transcribed documents Sequoyah Research Center and the American Native Press Archives
  2. ^ Finger, John R. (2001). Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition. Indiana University Press, p. 19. ISBN 0-253-33985-5. 
  3. ^ Transcribed documents Sequoyah Research Center and the American Native Press Archives
  4. ^ INDIAN AFFAIRS: LAWS AND TREATIES. Vol. 2, Treaties
  5. ^ INDIAN AFFAIRS: LAWS AND TREATIES. Vol. 2, Treaties
  6. ^ Hurt, R. Douglas (2002). The Indian Frontier, 1763-1846 (Histories of the American Frontier). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, p. 148. ISBN 0826319661. 
  7. ^ History
  8. ^ Background of Thunder Mountain Monument, thundermountainmonument.com, Retrieved on 2007-11-26.

[edit] References

  • Braund, Kathryn E. Holland (1993). Deerskins & Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685-1815, Indians of the Southeast. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. OCLC 45732303. 
  • Jackson, Harvey H. III (1995). Rivers of History-Life on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba and Alabama. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817307710. 
  • Swanton, John R. (1922). Early History of the Creek Indians and their Neighbors, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 73. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. OCLC 18032096. 
  • Swanton, John R. (1928). "Social Organization and the Social Usages of the Indians of the Creek Confederacy", Forty-Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 23-472. OCLC 14980706. 
  • Walker, Willard B. (2004). "Creek Confederacy Before Removal", in Raymond D. Fogelson (ed.): Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 14: Southeast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 373-392. OCLC 57192264. 
  • Worth, John E. (2000). "The Lower Creeks: Origins and Early History", in Bonnie G. McEwan (ed.): Indians of the Greater Southeast: Historical Archaeology and Ethnohistory. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 265-298. OCLC 49414753. 

[edit] External links

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Five Civilized Tribes