Precontact , was part of a precontact
Mississippian culture site, occupied by ancestors of the Muscogee people from –1550 CE, in
Cartersville, Georgia At least 12,000 years ago, Native Americans or
Paleo-Indians lived in what is today the Southern United States. Paleo-Indians in the Southeast were
hunter-gatherers who pursued a wide range of animals, including
megafauna, which became extinct following the end of the
Pleistocene age. 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. Here they waged war against other bands of Native American Indians, such as the Savanna, Ogeeche, Wapoo,
Santee, Yamasee,
Utina, Icofan, Patican and others, until at length they had overcome them, and absorbed some as confederates into their tribe. The region is best described as a collection of moderately sized native
chiefdoms (such as the
Coosa chiefdom on the
Coosa River), interspersed with completely autonomous villages and tribal groups. The earliest Spanish explorers encountered villages and chiefdoms of the late
Mississippian culture, beginning on April 2, 1513, with
Juan Ponce de León's landing in Florida. The 1526
Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón expedition in
South Carolina also recorded encounters with these peoples. 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.
Spanish expedition (1540–1543) , 2008 After
Cabeza de Vaca, a castaway who survived the ill-fated
Narváez expedition, returned to Spain in 1537, he told the Court that
Hernando de Soto had said that America was the "richest country in the world". Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and
conquistador who led the first expedition into the interior of the North American continent. De Soto, convinced of the "riches", wanted Cabeza de Vaca to go on the expedition, but Cabeza de Vaca declined his offer because of a payment dispute. 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.
Rise of the Muscogee Confederacy Because of endemic
infectious diseases carried unknowingly by the Europeans, but new to the Muscogee, the Spanish expedition resulted in epidemics of smallpox and measles, and a high rate of fatalities among the
Indigenous peoples. These losses were exacerbated by the
Indian slave trade that colonists conducted in the Southeast during the 17th and 18th centuries. As the survivors and descendants regrouped, the Muscogee Creek Confederacy arose as a loose alliance of Muskogee-speaking peoples. 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
Alibamu 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,
Coosa,
Tuskegee,
Coweta,
Cusseta,
Chehaw (Chiaha),
Hitchiti,
Tuckabatchee,
Oakfuskee, and many others. The basic social unit was the town (
idalwa).
Abihka,
Coosa,
Tuckabutche, and
Coweta are the four "mother towns" of the Muscogee Confederacy. Traditionally, the Cusseta and Coweta bands are considered the earliest members of the Muscogee Nation. , occupied during the mid-1500s The Upper Towns, located on the
Coosa,
Tallapoosa and
Alabama rivers, were
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). 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 maker 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.
British, French, and Spanish expansion Britain, France, and Spain all established colonies in the present-day Southeastern woodlands. Spain established
Jesuit missions and related settlements to influence Native Americans. The British and the French opted for trade over conversion. In the 17th century,
Franciscan friars in
Spanish Florida built
missions along
Apalachee Bay. In 1670, English colonists from
Barbados founded
Charles Town, modern-day Charleston, the capital of the new
colony of Carolina. Traders from Carolina went to Muscogee settlements to exchange
firearms, gunpowder, axes, glass beads, cloth and West Indian rum for
white-tailed deer pelts (as part of the
deerskin trade) and
Indian slaves. 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. leader
Tomochichi and nephew in 1733 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 and
Coosa, 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 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. In 1736, Spanish and British officials established a neutral zone from the
Altamaha 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
Ochese moved to the neutral zone, after clashing with the
Muskogee-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. 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.
Intermarriage Many Muscogee Creek leaders, due to intermarriage, have British names:
Alexander McGillivray,
Josiah Francis,
William McIntosh,
Peter McQueen,
William Weatherford, William Perryman, and others. These reflect Muscogee women having children with British colonists. For instance,
Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins married a Muscogee woman.
American Revolutionary War With the end of the
French and Indian War (also known as the
Seven Years' War) in 1763, France lost its North American empire, and British-American settlers moved inland. Indian discontent led to raids against back-country settlers, and the perception that the royal government favored the Indians and the deerskin trade led many back-country white settlers to join the
Sons of Liberty. Fears of land-hungry settlers and need for European manufactured goods led the Muscogee to side with the British, but like many tribes, they were divided by factionalism, and, in general, avoided sustained fighting, preferring to protect their sovereignty through cautious participation. 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. 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. 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.
Muscogee and Choctaw land dispute (1790) In 1790, the Muscogee and
Choctaw were in conflict over land near the
Noxubee River. The two nations agreed to settle the dispute by ball-play. With nearly 10,000 players and bystanders, the two nations prepared for nearly three months. After a day-long struggle, the Muscogee won the game. A fight broke out and the two nations fought until sundown with nearly 500 dead and many more wounded.
State of Muskogee and William Bowles (1763–1805) was also known as Estajoca, his Muscogee name.
William Augustus Bowles was born into a wealthy
Maryland Tory family, enlisting with the
Maryland Loyalists Battalion at age 14 and becoming an ensign in the
Royal Navy by age 15. Cashiered for dereliction of duty after returning too late to his ship at
Pensacola, Bowles escaped north and found refuge among the Lower Creek towns of the
Chattahoochee basin. He married two wives, one
Cherokee and the other a daughter of the Hitchiti Muscogee chieftain
William Perryman, and later used this union as the basis for his claim to exert political influence among the Creeks. 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'. It 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. 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 in August 1802. 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. Washington believed that Native Americans were equals as individuals but that their society was inferior. He formulated a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process, and it was continued under President
Thomas Jefferson. Noted historian Robert Remini wrote, "[T]hey presumed that once the Indians adopted the practice of private property, built homes, farmed, educated their children, and embraced Christianity, these Native Americans would win acceptance from white Americans." 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. The Muscogee would be the first Native Americans to be "civilized" under Washington's six-point plan. Communities within the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes followed Muscogee efforts to implement Washington's new policy of civilization. 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. traveled to
Tuckabatchee, where he told the Muscogee that the comet signaled his coming. McKenney reported that Tecumseh would prove that the
Great Spirit had sent him by giving the Muscogee a sign. Shortly after Tecumseh left the Southeast, the sign arrived as promised in the form of an earthquake. 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.
Red Stick rebellion was one of the principal leaders of the Red Sticks. After the war, he continued to oppose white encroachment on Muscogee lands, visiting Washington, D.C., in 1826 to protest the
treaty of Indian Springs. Painted by
Charles Bird King, 1837. The Creek War of 1813–1814, also known as the
Red Stick War, began as a civil war within the Muscogee Nation, only to become enmeshed within the
War of 1812. Inspired by the
Shawnee leader
Tecumseh (to whom 19th-century writers attributed fiery speeches that he "must have said") and their own religious leaders, and encouraged by British traders, Red Stick leaders such as
William Weatherford (Red Eagle),
Peter McQueen, and
Menawa won the support of the Upper Creek towns. 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. 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.
Muscogee diaspora (1814) In August 1814, the Red Sticks surrendered to Jackson at
Wetumpka (near the present city of
Montgomery, Alabama). On August 9, 1814, the Muscogee nation was forced to sign the
Treaty of Fort Jackson. It ended the war and required the tribe to cede some of land—more than half of their ancestral territorial holdings—to the United States. Even those who had fought alongside Jackson were compelled to cede land, since Jackson held them responsible for allowing the Red Sticks to revolt. The state of Alabama was created largely from the Red Sticks' domain and was admitted to the United States in 1819. 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
Seminole Wars in Florida.
Seminole War The Red Stick refugees who arrived in Florida after the
Creek War tripled the Seminole population, and strengthened the tribe's Muscogee characteristics. In 1814, British forces landed in
West Florida and began arming the Seminoles. The British had built a strong fort on the
Apalachicola River at
Prospect Bluff, and in 1815, after the end of the
War of 1812, offered it, with all its ordnance (
muskets, cannons, powder, shot, cannonballs) to the locals: Seminoles and
maroons (escaped slaves). A few hundred maroons constituted a uniformed
Corps of Colonial Marines, who had had military training, however rudimentary, and discipline (but whose English officers had departed). The Seminole only wanted to return to their villages, so the maroons became owners of the Fort. (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–Onís 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
Black Seminoles. Instead, the Seminoles agreed to move onto a reservation in inland central Florida.
Treaties of Indian Springs 's portrait of
William McIntosh Mico William McIntosh led the Lower Creek warriors who fought alongside the U.S. in the
Creek War and the
First Seminole War. The son of the
Loyalist officer of the same name who had recruited a band of
Hitchiti to the British cause, McIntosh never knew his white father. He had family ties to some of Georgia's planter elite, and after the wars became a wealthy cotton-planter. Through his mother, he was born into the prominent Wind Clan of the Creek; as the Creek had a
matrilineal system of descent and inheritance, he achieved his chieftainship because of her. He was also related to
Alexander McGillivray and
William Weatherford, both mixed-race Creek. 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.
Removal (1834) In the aftermath of the
Treaty of Fort Jackson and the
Treaty of Washington (1826), the Muscogee were confined to a small strip of land in present-day east central
Alabama. Andrew Jackson was inaugurated president of the United States in 1829, and with his inauguration the government stance toward Indians turned harsher. Jackson abandoned the policy of his predecessors of treating different Indian groups as separate nations. They became known as Loyalists, and many were members of the traditional Snake band in the latter part of the century. 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.
Today Some Muscogee in Alabama live near the federally recognized
Poarch Creek Reservation in
Atmore northeast of
Mobile, Alabama, and Muscogee live in essentially undocumented ethnic towns in Florida. The Alabama reservation includes a
casino and 16-story hotel. The Creek tribe holds an annual
powwow on
Thanksgiving. Additionally, Muscogee descendants of varying degrees of acculturation live throughout the southeastern United States. The majority of the Muscogee citizens live in Oklahoma, where the Muscogee Reservation is located. The Muscogee Nation is headquartered out of the nation's capital
Okmulgee. The Muscogee Nation has over 100,000 citizens as of 2024, The Muscogee Nation has increased in popularity due to the television series
Reservation Dogs, which follows the lives of four Creek teens in Oklahoma. ==Culture==