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98-573: The Oconee War was a military conflict in the 1780s and 1790s between European Colonists and the Creek Indians known as the Oconee , who lived in an area between the Apalachee and North Oconee rivers in the state of Georgia . The struggle arose from tensions between competing groups of people as increasing numbers of European Americans entered traditional Oconee territory. Georgia claimed

196-434: 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. 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

294-447: 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

392-401: A Muscogee woman. In Muscogee culture, unmarried Muscogee women had great freedom over their own sexuality compared to European and European-American counterparts. 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

490-477: 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

588-415: A base there in 1567 called Fort San Juan . Expedition documentation and archaeological evidence of the fort and Native American culture both exist. The soldiers were at the fort about 18 months (1567–1568) before the natives killed them and destroyed the fort. (They killed soldiers stationed at five other forts as well; only one man of 120 survived.) Sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts have been recovered from

686-575: 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 , and, in 1800, 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

784-482: A regional ceramic style in the southeast involving surface decorations applied with a carved wooden paddle. By the late 1960s, archaeological investigations had shown the similarity of the culture that produced the pottery and the midwestern Mississippian pattern defined in 1937 by the Midwestern Taxonomic System. In 1967, James B. Griffin coined South Appalachian Mississippian to describe

882-539: A sense of Muscogee nationalism and centralize political authority, struggling against village leaders who individually sold land to the United States. He also 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 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km ) of land claimed by Georgia, and guaranteeing access to

980-899: 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 . 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

1078-456: 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

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1176-585: A tool or ally in long-standing native feuds. In one example, de Soto negotiated a truce between the Pacaha and the Casqui . De Soto's later encounters left about half of the Spaniards and perhaps many hundreds of Native Americans dead. The chronicles of de Soto are among the first documents written about Mississippian peoples and are an invaluable source of information on their cultural practices. The chronicles of

1274-457: A variety of functions. Villages with single platform mounds were more typical of the river valley settlements throughout the mountainous area of southwest North and South Carolina and southeastern Tennessee that were known as the historic Cherokee homelands. In Western North Carolina for example, some 50 such mound sites in the eleven westernmost counties have been identified since the late 20th century, following increased research in this area of

1372-760: 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 mounds 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

1470-487: Is believed that the peoples of this area adopted Mississippian traits from their northwestern neighbors. Typical settlements were located on riverine floodplains and included villages with defensive palisades enclosing platform mounds and residential areas. Etowah and Ocmulgee in Georgia are both prominent examples of major South Appalachian Mississippian settlements. Both include multiple large earthwork mounds serving

1568-731: 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

1666-710: Is the chronological stage, while Mississippian culture refers to the cultural similarities that characterize this society. The term Middle Mississippian is also used to describe the core of the classic Mississippian culture area. This area covers the central Mississippi River Valley, the lower Ohio River Valley, and most of the Mid-South area, including western and central Kentucky, western Tennessee, and northern Alabama and Mississippi. Sites in this area often contain large ceremonial platform mounds, residential complexes and are often encircled by earthen ditches and ramparts or palisades . Middle Mississippian cultures, especially

1764-751: 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. 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

1862-400: Is usually divided into three or more chronological periods. Each period is an arbitrary historical distinction varying regionally. At a particular site, each period may be considered to begin earlier or later, depending on the speed of adoption or development of given Mississippian traits. The "Mississippian period" should not be confused with the "Mississippian culture". The Mississippian period

1960-523: 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

2058-655: The Battle of Mabila , where the Native Americans were defeated. However, the victory came at great cost to the Spanish campaign in loss of supplies, casualties, and morale. The expedition never fully recovered. 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

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2156-678: The Chattahoochee . French Canadian explorers founded Mobile as the first capital of Louisiana in 1702, and took advantage of the war to build Fort Toulouse at the confluence of the Tallapoosa and Coosa in 1717, 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

2254-556: 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, and issuing

2352-601: 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

2450-790: The Hasinai , Kadohadacho , and Natchitoches , which were all linked by their similar languages. The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana . Good examples of this culture are the Medora site (the type site for the culture and period) in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana , and the Anna , Emerald Mound , Winterville and Holly Bluff sites located in Mississippi. Plaquemine culture

2548-647: 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 . Here they waged war against other bands of Native American Indians, such as

2646-753: The Narváez expedition were written before the de Soto expedition; the Narváez expedition informed the Court of de Soto about the New World. After the destruction and flight of the de Soto expedition, the Mississippian peoples continued their way of life with little direct European influence. Indirectly, however, European introductions dramatically changed these native societies. Because the natives lacked immunity to infectious diseases unknowingly carried by

2744-589: 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, and Georgia militia led by Elijah Clarke retook Augusta in 1781. The next year an Upper Creek war-party trying to relieve the British garrison at Savannah was routed by Continental Army troops under Gen. 'Mad' Anthony Wayne . After

2842-506: 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

2940-772: 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 . At least 12,000 years ago, Native Americans or Paleo-Indians lived in what

3038-638: 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

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3136-694: 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

3234-887: 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. 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

3332-485: 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

3430-525: 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

3528-641: 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

3626-595: 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

3724-626: 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

3822-660: The American southwestern frontier were in a panic. Although the Red Sticks won the battle, they had lost the war. Mississippian culture The Mississippian way of life began to develop in the Mississippi River Valley (for which it is named). Cultures in the tributary Tennessee River Valley may have also begun to develop Mississippian characteristics at this point. Almost all dated Mississippian sites predate 1539–1540 (when Hernando de Soto explored

3920-521: 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 latter's strategy of neutrality allowed them to hold the balance of power. The colony of Georgia was created in 1732; its first settlement, Savannah , was founded the following year, on a river bluff where the Yamacraw ,

4018-583: 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

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4116-561: The Cahokia polity located near East St. Louis, Illinois , were very influential on neighboring societies. High-status artifacts, including stone statuary and elite pottery associated with Cahokia, have been found far outside of the Middle Mississippian area. These items, especially the pottery, were also copied by local artists. The term South Appalachian Province was originally used by W. H. Holmes in 1903 to describe

4214-598: The Cherokee homeland. The Caddoan Mississippian area, a regional variant of the Mississippian culture, covered a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma , western Arkansas , northeastern Texas , and northwestern Louisiana . Archaeological evidence has led to a scholarly consensus that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present, and that the Caddo and related Caddo language speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact are

4312-813: The Creek. Creek Indians The Muscogee , also known as the Mvskoke , Muscogee Creek or just Creek , and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( pronounced [məskóɡəlɡi] in the Muscogee language ; English: / m ə s ˈ k oʊ ɡ iː / məss- KOH -ghee ), are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States . Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee , much of Alabama , western Georgia and parts of northern Florida . Most of

4410-425: The Europeans, such as measles and smallpox , epidemics caused so many fatalities that they undermined the social order of many chiefdoms. Some groups adopted European horses and changed to nomadism . Political structures collapsed in many places. At Joara , near Morganton, North Carolina , Native Americans of the Mississippian culture interacted with Spanish colonizers of the Juan Pardo expedition, who built

4508-406: 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. 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

4606-429: 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

4704-454: 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

4802-444: 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

4900-498: 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

4998-410: 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

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5096-401: 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,

5194-551: 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

5292-622: 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,

5390-463: The Muscogee people were forcibly removed 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, and intermarried with local tribes to form

5488-439: 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

5586-473: 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

5684-453: 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. A comet appeared in March 1811. The Shawnee leader Tecumseh , whose name meant "shooting star", traveled to Tuckabatchee , where he told

5782-407: 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. In the mid-16th century, when explorers from the Spanish 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. The region

5880-420: 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

5978-410: 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. That year, the Spaniards built the presidio of San Marcos de Apalache on Apalachee Bay . In 1721,

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6076-415: 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

6174-720: The area), with notable exceptions being Natchez communities. These maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 18th century. A number of cultural traits are recognized as being characteristic of the Mississippians. Although not all Mississippian peoples practiced all of the following activities, they were distinct from their ancestors in the adoption of some or all of these traits. The Mississippians had no writing system or stone architecture. They worked naturally occurring metal deposits, such as hammering and annealing copper for ritual objects such as Mississippian copper plates and other decorations, but did not smelt iron or practice bronze metallurgy . The Mississippian stage

6272-405: The colonial settlements, traveling periodically to Pensacola and the Georgia trading posts to unload their skins and pick up more trade goods. 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." With

6370-582: 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 : These offspring of mixed marriages occupied a different position in the economy of the Deep South than did most Creeks and Seminoles. They worked as traders and factors . ... By virtue of their ancestry and upbringing, they had greater cultural, social, linguistic, and geographic ties to

6468-489: The cultivation of 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

6566-443: 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

6664-413: 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

6762-427: The direct ancestors of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma . The climate in this area was drier than areas in the eastern woodlands, hindering maize production, and the lower population on the plains to the west may have meant fewer neighboring competing chiefdoms to contend with. Major sites such as Spiro and the Battle Mound Site are in the Arkansas River and Red River Valleys, the largest and most fertile of

6860-462: 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

6958-420: The evolving understanding of the peoples of the Southeast. South Appalachian Mississippian area sites are distributed across a contiguous area including Alabama, Georgia, northern Florida, South Carolina, central and western North Carolina, and Tennessee. Chronologically this area became influenced by Mississippian culture later than the Middle Mississippian area (about 1000 as compared to 800) to its northwest. It

7056-550: 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

7154-458: 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 General Superintendent of Indian Affairs dealing with all tribes south of the Ohio River . He personally assumed

7252-427: The first U.S. president, and Henry Knox , the first U.S. Secretary of War, proposed a cultural transformation of the Native Americans. 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

7350-574: The groups ended. The European Americans wanted to settle the land, and they demanded the government relocate the Creek, which contributed eventually to passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 , setting policy and implementation of removal of all the southeastern tribes to west of the Mississippi River . The war catalyzed Georgia voters' ratifying the United States Constitution , in order to gain federal help to fight

7448-514: The land had been ceded by the Creeks based on the treaties of Augusta and Galphinton, but the local Creek did not recognize the validity of those treaties and asserted their control starting in 1785. The conflict delayed the opening of the University of Georgia , planned as part of the new state's institutions. The European Americans prevailed over the Creek, and a tradition of coexistence between

7546-696: The majority of the American Indian nations living in this region when European trade began. The historic and modern day American Indian nations believed to have descended from the overarching Mississippian culture include: the Alabama , Apalachee , Arikara , Caddo , Chickasaw , Catawba , Choctaw , Muscogee Creek , Guale , Hitchiti , Ho-Chunk , Houma , Iowa , Kansa , Koroas , Missouria , Mobilian , Natchez , Omaha , Osage (possibly), Otoe , Pawnee , Ponca , Quapaw (possibly), Seminole (broad origins), Taensas , Tunicas , Yamasee , Yazoos , and Yuchi . Scholars have studied

7644-512: The many Caddoan languages . These languages once had a broad geographic distribution, but many are now extinct. The modern languages in the Caddoan family include Caddo and Pawnee . Hernando de Soto led an expedition into the area in the early 1540s, he encountered several native groups now thought to have been Caddoan. Composed of many tribes, the Caddo were organized into three confederacies,

7742-462: 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

7840-514: The new colony. 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

7938-509: The records of Hernando de Soto 's expedition of 1539–1543 to learn of his contacts with Mississippians, as he traveled through their villages of the Southeast. He visited many villages, in some cases staying for a month or longer. The list of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition chronicles those villages. Some encounters were violent, while others were relatively peaceful. In some cases, de Soto seems to have been used as

8036-537: The role of principal agent to the Muscogee. He moved to the area 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. For years, Hawkins met with chiefs on his porch to discuss matters. He

8134-530: The short-lived Trans-Oconee Republic . 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. William Augustus Bowles

8232-477: The site, marking the first European colonization in the interior of what became the United States. By the time more documentary accounts were being written, the Mississippian way of life had changed irrevocably. Some groups maintained an oral tradition link to their mound-building past, such as the late 19th-century Cherokee . Other Native American groups, having migrated many hundreds of miles and lost their elders to diseases, did not know their ancestors had built

8330-663: 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

8428-467: 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. George Washington ,

8526-530: 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 800 square miles (2,100 km ) of land to the state of Georgia. Alexander McGillivray led pan-Indian resistance to white encroachment, receiving arms from the Spanish in Florida to fight trespassers. The bilingual and bicultural McGillivray worked to create

8624-525: The waterways in the Caddoan region, where maize agriculture would have been the most productive. The sites generally lacked wooden palisade fortifications often found in the major Middle Mississippian towns. Living on the western edge of the Mississippian world, the Caddoans may have faced fewer military threats from their neighbors. Their societies may also have had a somewhat lower level of social stratification . The Caddoan people were speakers of one of

8722-411: 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

8820-611: 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

8918-598: Was broken into pieces; and most of the Indians thought that the Great Spirit, angry with the human race, was about to destroy the world. 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 Creek War of 1813–1814, also known as

9016-557: Was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture at the Cahokia site near St. Louis , Missouri. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez and Taensa Peoples. Although the Mississippian culture was heavily disrupted before a complete understanding of the political landscape was written down, many Mississippian political bodies were documented and others have been discovered by research. Mississippian peoples were ancestral to

9114-455: 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

9212-557: 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 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

9310-656: 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

9408-496: 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

9506-695: 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. The Lower Towns , along the Chattahoochee River (before 1690 and after 1715), and farther east along the Ocmulgee , Oconee , and Savannah River rivers (between 1690 and 1715), were Coweta, Cusseta (Kasihta), Koloni, Tuskegee, Chiaha , Hitchiti , Oconee, Ocmulgee, Apalachicola, and Sawokli . The Upper Towns, located on

9604-581: 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 Indians were filled with great terror ... the trees and wigwams shook exceedingly; the ice which skirted the margin of the Arkansas river

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