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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

Early history

Revolutionary era

Red Stick War

Removal to the West

Muscogees today

Famous Creek

See also

References

Notes

External links

Early history

The early historic Creeks were probably descendants of the mound builders of the Mississippian culture along the Tennessee River in modern Tennessee Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition, , John R., Finger, Indiana University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-253-33985-5 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.^[1]

Revolutionary era

Like many Native American groups east of the Mississippi River, the 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 colonial rebels.

After the rebellion 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.

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 of 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, as Jackson held them responsible for allowing the Red Sticks to rise up. The State of Alabama was carved out of this domain and 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 would later be involved in both sides of the Seminole War in Florida.

Removal to the West

After the War of 1812, some Creek leaders such as William McIntosh signed a number of treaties that ceded more and 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. [1]

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 (31 May 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). [2] 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." The Indian Frontier, 1763-1846 (Histories of the American Frontier), , R. Douglas, Hurt, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002, ISBN 0826319661
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 24 March 1832, which divided up Creek lands into individual allotments. [3] 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.'' [4]

Muscogees today

Most Muscogees were removed to Indian Territory, although some remained behind. There are a number of Muscogees in Alabama living near Poarch Creek Reservation in Atmore (northeast of Mobile), as well as a number of 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 Nation's historic old Council House, built in 1878 and located in downtown Okmulgee, was completely restored in the 1990's and now serves as a museum of tribal history.

Famous Creek

★ Acee Blue Eagle, artist.

★ Cytherea, adult film actress.

★ Johnnie Diacon, artist, Thlopthlocco Tribal Town (Raprakko Etvlwv), Deer Clan (Ecovlke).

★ Joy Harjo, Native American poet.

★ Retha Gambaro, Native American Artist.

★ Suzan Shown Harjo

★ Jim Pepper, jazz musician.

★ Will Sampson, film actor, noted for his performance in ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1975).

★ Carrie Underwood, Grammy-award-winning American country music singer, has Creek ancestry.^[3]

★ Greg T. Walker, bassist and vocalist for Southern rock band Blackfoot.

See also

★ Creek language

★ Creek mythology

★ Ocmulgee National Monument

★ Opothleyahola

References

★ Rivers of History-Life on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba and Alabama'', , Harvey H. III, Jackson, The University of Alabama Press, 1995,

Notes

1. Transcribed documents Sequoyah Research Center and the American Native Press Archives
2. Transcribed documents Sequoyah Research Center and the American Native Press Archives
3. Creek Nation tribal member Carrie Underwood wins 2 Grammy Awards, ''Red Lake Net news'', Retrieved on 2007-03-10.

External links

★ Perdido Bay Tribe of Creek Indians

★ Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma (official site)

★ Creek Nation Indian Territory Project

★ LostWorlds.org | Ocmulgee Mounds: Creek/Muskogee Origins

★ Creek (Muskogee) by Kenneth W. McIntosh -- Encyclopedia of North American Indians

★ History of the Creek Indians in Georgia

★ Poarch Creek Indians in Alabama

★ Poarch Band of Creek Indians

★ Comprehensive Creek Language materials online

★ Southeastern Native American Documents, 1763-1842.