Creek

Category: Tribe

Culture area: Southeast

Language group: Muskogean

Primary location: Alabama, Oklahoma

Population size: 809,447 Creek, OK; 2,290 Creek/Seminole joint-use land, OK; 85,283 Cher-O-Creek, AL (2017-2021 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates)

While tribal tradition held that the Creeks, or Muskogees, originally came from west of the Mississippi River, they occupied large areas of Georgia and Alabama by the seventeenth century. The name “Creek” is of English origin and derived from Ochesee Creek, a tributary of the Ocmulgee River. (Ochesee was the name given to the Muskogees by neighboring Indians.) English traders originally referred to the Muskogees as Ochesee Creeks but soon shortened the name to Creeks. The Creeks were not originally a single tribe, and not all Creeks spoke Muskogee. They were instead a collection of groups that included, among others, Muskogees, Alabamas, Hitchitis, Coushattas, Natchez, Yuchis, and even some Shawnees. Those living along the Alabama, Coosa, and Tallapoosa Rivers came to be regarded as Upper Creeks, while those along the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers came to be known as Lower Creeks. Over time, the English (and later American) habit of regarding the Creeks as a single nation and dealing with them as such encouraged more of a sense of overall Creek identity. Few tribes, however, could match the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the Creeks.

Traditional Culture

Despite their diversity, the Creeks did share something of a common culture. At the time of contact with the English, the Creeks were an agricultural people whose major crop was corn. The Green Corn Dance, or busk, was held in July or August. It marked the beginning of the new year and remained the ritualistic focal point of Creek culture.

The Creeks generally lived in towns centered on a square ground. The major towns of the Upper Creeks included Abihka, Atasi, Fus-hatchee, Hilibi, Kan-hatki, Kealedje, Kolomi, Okchai, Pakana, Tali, Tukabachee, Wiwohka, and Wokakai; Coweta, Eufala, Kashita, and Osachi were important Lower Creek towns. Each town (or talwa) had its chief (or micco), as well as its military leader (tastanagi). There was no chief of all the Creeks, though a Creek National Council met annually to discuss matters of common concern. Loyalties to individual towns were strong, and individuals were more likely to think of themselves as Tukabachees or Cowetas than as Creeks.

The social structure in all the towns was based on clans. An individual was born into the clan of his or her mother, but marriage within the clan was strictly forbidden. Since clans transcended town boundaries, the clan system helped to keep the Creek towns united in a rather loose confederacy.

Warfare was an integral part of Creek society as it was through military exploits that males earned the reputations that brought status within the tribe. Traditional enemies included the Cherokees and the Choctaws. Warfare also played a symbolic role in Creek social organization: Towns (and clans) were considered to be either “Red” or “White.” White towns were considered to be more oriented toward peace, and Red towns to war. Over time this distinction lost much of its meaning, but into the nineteenth century it was customary for civil matters to be discussed at councils in White towns, while military affairs were discussed in red towns.

European Impact

Native American and White relations with the English began for this tribe when the Creeks encountered English traders in the seventeenth century. Finding clothes, weapons, and other goods attractive, the Creeks became willing participants in trade, providing deerskins in return. Hunting parties ranged extensively, returning with the hides that allowed them to purchase the English goods that were increasingly deemed necessities. As long as English settlements did not threaten Creek hunting grounds, the trade appeared to benefit both sides.

The commerce in deerskins, however, changed Creek society. Not only did the Creeks become increasingly dependent on European manufactures, but White traders came to live among the Indians, often intermarrying with Creek women. This introduced a mixed-blood element into Creek society that often brought with it increasing acculturation to European ways. Traders also brought their slaves with them, introducing an African influence. Though there was some precedent for slavery in traditional Creek society, the institution took root more slowly among the Creeks than among some of the other southern tribes; African Americans also intermarried with Creeks.

Creeks and European Americans

After the American Revolutionary War, the Creeks felt increasing pressure from White settlers. In the first treaty made by the United States after ratification of the Constitution, Alexander McGillivray and other Creek chiefs ceded some of their lands in Georgia in 1790. As American influence became more intense, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the deerskin trade. Some Creeks looked to Britain for protection, while others believed it wiser to come to terms with the Americans. Increasingly, Creek society was divided. Some of the more acculturated Creeks, often of mixed blood, sought a closer relationship with the United States and followed the advice of Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins, who encouraged the Creeks to take up American-style agriculture and to put away tribal traditions such as the communal ownership of property. The McIntoshes of Coweta prospered by following such advice and became increasingly powerful. Many such Creeks came from Muskogee backgrounds and wanted to see the Creek National Council become a centralized government.

Others, however, resisted and sought to retain the old ways. Many of these were of non-Muskogee backgrounds. They were reluctant to abandon the deer-hunting economy and to see the autonomy of the towns reduced. Traditionalist Creeks were much affected by a religious revival that swept the Indian country in the early 1800s, calling for a return to old tribal ways as a means of restoring order to a disordered world. The traditionalists were also influenced by the pan-Indianism of Tecumseh, and the Shawnee leader (whose mother was a Creek) won many supporters when he visited Creek country in 1811.

The Creek War

The increasing divisions in Creek society led to bloodshed in 1812 when the traditionalists retaliated against the National Council’s attempt to punish Creeks involved in attacks against settlers. A Creek civil war erupted, with Red Sticks (as the traditionalists were called) launching attacks on the towns of Creeks friendly to White settlers. In 1813, the Creek War expanded to include the United States, which was itself at war with Britain. Despite early successes, notably at the Battle of Fort Mims, an aroused United States inflicted a crushing defeat on the Red Sticks. In the Treaty of Fort Jackson (1814), Creek chiefs were forced to agree to the cession of roughly one-half the tribe’s remaining lands. Some Red Sticks escaped into Florida, where they joined their Seminole kinsmen. There they kept up resistance until they were defeated in the First Seminole War (1817–18).

Removal

The influx of settlers into former Creek lands spelled the end of the deer-hunting economy and made it increasingly difficult for Creeks to live as Indians. As Whites eyed remaining tribal lands, some of the more acculturated leaders were receptive to suggestions that the Creeks move west. In 1825, William McIntosh signed a treaty ceding away all that was left of Creek lands in Georgia. His subsequent assassination was evidence that many Creeks disagreed. McIntosh’s heirs and some others voluntarily departed for the Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma).

Though most Creeks remained in the South, President Andrew Jackson’s removal policy proved inescapable. In 1832, a new treaty was signed that paved the way for removal. Though some traditionalists resisted in the spring of 1836, the bulk of the tribe left peacefully for the Indian Territory under the leadership of Opothleyaholo. The Trail of Tears was less dramatic for the Creeks than for the Cherokees, in part because most of the Lower Creeks moved by water, but at least 10 percent of the tribe perished en route, and as many died in the first year in their new homeland.

Creeks in Indian Territory

Once in Indian Territory, the Creeks attempted to recreate the social order they had known in the South. New towns were founded, often bearing the names of ones left behind, and sacred fires kindled from ashes brought from Alabama burned in the square grounds. Settling largely along the Canadian and Arkansas Rivers, the Creeks adjusted to their new surroundings as one of the Five Civilized Tribes of transplanted southern Indians. The Creeks were slower than the other tribes to organize a tribal government, however; not until 1867 was a constitution drafted and a national government created with its capital at Okmulgee.

By this time, internal division had reappeared. During the Civil War the more acculturated Creeks, led by the sons of William McIntosh, committed the tribe to an alliance with the Confederacy. The traditionalists, led by Opothleyaholo, were pro-Union. Another Creek civil war resulted, in which the pro-South faction gained the upper hand. The eventual Union victory brought an imposed treaty that cost the tribe half of its Oklahoma lands and required that the Creeks incorporate their former slaves within the tribe.

The life of the Oklahoma Creeks continued to be marked by division—one reason, perhaps, for the organization of the country’s first tribal police force (the Creek Lighthorse) in 1877. Though the more acculturated Creeks generally controlled the nation’s government, traditionalists periodically attempted to oust them, sometimes by force. The most serious conflict arose in the Green Peach War (1882), when Isparhecher and his followers fought with the tribal government. Around the end of the nineteenth century, Chitto Harjo (Crazy Snake) led a religious revival among traditionalists that sought to stem the tide of acculturation.

Twentieth Century Changes

By 1900, the Creeks were again coming under pressure from the outside. The Five Civilized Tribes had been exempted from the General Allotment Act (1877). The desirability of their land, however, and the assimilationist thrust of government policy led to passage of the Curtis Act (1898), which provided legal authority to allot the lands of the Five Civilized Tribes and to dissolve their governments. In 1901, the Creeks agreed to allotment, with each individual receiving 160 acres. Though some traditionalists resisted by refusing to take up their allotments, they acted in vain. By 1936, fewer than 30 percent of Creeks still held their allotments. In preparation for Oklahoma statehood, the tribal governments of all Five Civilized Tribes were abolished on March 6, 1906.

Under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act (1936), Indians in the state were allowed to organize governments again and to hold land communally. Creeks initially responded to the act at the town level, and in 1939 three towns adopted constitutions. In 1970, Congress allowed the election of principal chiefs in the Five Civilized Tribes, and the Creeks adopted an updated constitution that restored tribal government with elected legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Resurgent population growth made the Creeks the country’s tenth largest tribe by 1990.

The twentieth century also saw a revival among the descendants of the small number of Creeks who evaded removal in the 1830s. Though largely acculturated, several hundred individuals maintained a Creek identity in southern Alabama. After several decades of struggle, they received federal recognition as the Poarch Band of Creeks in 1984.

Bibliography

Green, Michael D. The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis. University of Nebraska Press, 1982. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 30 June 2016.

Hudson, Charles M., Robbie Franklyn Ethridge, and Marvin T. Smith. The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540–1760. University Press of Mississippi, 2002. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 30 June 2016.

Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. Africans and Creeks: From the Colonial Period to the Civil War. Greenwood Press, 1979.

Martin, Joel W. Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees’ Struggle for a New World. Beacon Press, 1991.

Owsley, Frank L., Jr. Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands: The Creek War and the Battle of New Orleans, 1812–1815. University Presses of Florida, 1981.

Paredes, J. Anthony, ed. Indians of the Southeastern United States in the Late Twentieth Century. University of Alabama Press, 1992. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 30 June 2016.

United States. Census Bureau. 2010 Census CPH-T-6. American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2010. United States Census Bureau. 2013, www.census.gov/history/pdf/c2010br-10.pdf. Accessed 22 Mar. 2023.

Wright, James Leitch, Jr. Creeks and Seminoles: The Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogulge People. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 30 June 2016.