The research
for what will be the final novel of my Restoration Chronicles Trilogy, Witch: 1790 (www.deniseweimerbooks.webs.com) has included learning about the
Creek Indians. My Georgia Gold Series featured some late Cherokee history just
prior to the Trail of Tears, but until I moved out of the foothills to the
Georgia Piedmont, I knew little about this area of the state’s early residents.
So who were they? And what were they like? In a series of articles I’ll share
some of my findings on Creek Indian towns, appearance, beliefs, Colonial war in
Piedmont Georgia and the charismatic half-blood Supreme Chief Alexander
McGillivray (by the way, someone needs to write a novel about him). Today’s article will serve as an
introduction.
Musgrove & 3rd husband Rev. Bosomworth negotiating for Creek |
Before the
middle of the 16th Century, the Creek Indians (Muscogee, Muskogee,
or traditional spelling Mvskoke), Mississippian Culture mound-builders,
controlled most all of present-day Georgia. Following the battle of Slaughter
Gap against their neighbors, the Cherokee, the Creek moved past the Etowah
River. Another battle in 1755 determined the later Creek-Cherokee border with
the Creek south of the Chattahoochee River in Georgia and west of the Coosa
River in Alabama. This began the period of referring to the Upper and Lower
Creek tribes. Piedmont or Middle Georgia was the home of the Lower Creek. Mary
Musgrove, daughter of an English trader and a Muscogee woman from the Wind
Clan, helped her husband John run a fur trading post and became the main
interpreter for the first governor of Georgia. Under these favorable
conditions, peace and deerskin trade flourished.
During the
French and Indian War, the Upper Creek sided with the Cherokee against the
English. The peace conference in Augusta, Georgia, in 1763, gave the victorious
English colonies a large section of Indian lands. White settlement began. By
1773, Georgians demanded payment of the trade debts accrued by the Native
Americans. This occurred at a land cessation meeting in Augusta.
Even after
the land cessations, many Creek farms
remained on open-to-settlement land. True Muscogean speakers sometimes looked
down on Yuchi or Hitchiti speaker members of Creek Nation, calling them
“stinkards.” Hitchiti considered Muscogees interlopers from the west in the
past who had moved closer to traders and trapped and hunted year round to
satisfy their desires for white goods. From 1716 on, many Creek Indians fled
the land pressures in Georgia for Florida, becoming Seminole Indians. Seminole
was a corruption of the Spanish word Cimarron,
meaning “runaway” or “wild one.”
On the
eve of the American Revolution, the Spanish to the south, French to the west
and Cherokee and Creek on the frontier placed Georgia in an insecure position.
Even though the Lower Creeks were more a loose confederation of independent
towns than a unified people, they could have overpowered the still randomly
populated state. Supreme Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray, son of a wealthy
Scottish trader and planter whose property had been confiscated by the state of
Georgia, pushed the Upper Creek to ally with the British, fighting alongside
the Chickamauga (Lower Cherokee) warriors of Dragging Canoe. Meanwhile,
McGillivray’s ex-trading partner George Galphin had some success in persuading
the Lower Creeks to remain neutral. However, after the capture of Savannah by
the British, they became nominal allies. Muscogee warriors also fought with the
British in the campaigns of Mobile and Pensacola.
Following
the war, a series of treaties between the new U.S. government or the State of
Georgia and the Creek Nation led to misunderstanding and frustration on both
sides and were not recognized by McGillivray and the main body of Creek
Indians. By 1786, war had been declared on the Georgia frontier, one that would
rage for many years.
I knew a little about the tribes down there and their siding with French or British forces when it suited them, but nothing this in depth. So many fascinating regional history stories out there. I think you should write that book about Supreme Chief Alexander McGillivray!
ReplyDeleteFascinating post, Denise! Thanks for sharing this!
ReplyDelete:) Thank you, Pegg and Carrie!
ReplyDelete