Muscogee

Muscogee portraits
Total population
50,000-60,000
Regions with significant populations
United States (Oklahoma, Alabama)
Languages
English, Creek
Religion
Protestantism, other
Related ethnic groups
Muskogean peoples: Alabama, Coushatta, Miccosukee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole

The Muscogee (or Muskogee), also known as the Creek or Creeks, are an American Indian people originally from the southeastern United States.^[1] Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. Modern Muscogees live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Their language, Mvskoke, is a member of the Muscogee branch of the Muscogean language family. They were a part of the Mississippian culture which was located throughout the Mississippi River valley. The early Spanish explorers, according to historian Walter Williams, encountered their antecedents.^[2] In the 19th century, Muscogees were known as one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" because they had integrated numerous cultural and technological practices of their European American colonial neighbors.

In 1795, along with the Seminoles, William Bowles formed a short-lived state in northern Florida known as the State of Muskogee. The Muscogee would be the first Native Americans to be civilized under George Washington's civilization plan. In 1811, the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, with the help of a prophetic comet and earthquake, convinced the Muscogee to resist the efforts of American civilization. The Red Stick War began as a civil war within the Muscogee Nation which would enmesh them in the War of 1812. After removal efforts, the Muscogee Nation would be moved to Oklahoma and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians would eventually be formed in Alabama.

[edit] Culture

Selocta (or Shelocta) was a Muscogee chief.

Muscogee people continue to preserve and share a vibrant tribal identity through events such as annual festivals, stick ball games, and language classes. The Stomp Dance and Green Corn Ceremony are both highly revered gatherings and rituals that have largely remained closed to non-tribal members and thus have maintained their traditional integrity.

[edit] Clans

While families include people who are directly related to each other, clans are composed of all people who are descendants of the same ancestral clan grouping. Each person belongs to the clan of his or her mother, who belongs to the clan of her mother. This is called Matrilineal descent. Fathers are important within the family system; but within the clan, it is the mother’s brother (the mother’s nearest blood relation) who functions as the primary teacher, protector, disciplinarian and role model. Clan members do not claim “blood relation”, but consider each other family due to their membership in the same clan. The same titles are used for both family and clan relations. For example, clan members of approximately the same age consider each other as Brother and Sister, even if they have never met before.

[edit] Clothing

Ancestral Muscogee peoples wore clothing made of woven plant materials or animal skins, depending upon the climate. During the summer, they preferred lightweight fabrics woven from tree bark, grasses or reeds. During the harsh winters, animal skins and fur were used for their warmth.

During the 1600’s the influence of European fashion became apparent in Southeastern clothing styles. Cloth was more comfortable and colorful than buckskin and quickly became a popular trade item throughout the region. Bolts of cloth could be obtained in a variety of patterns and textures, and allowed an individualized style of dress to evolve. Muscogee people were soon incorporating trade novelties and trinkets such as bells, ribbons, beads and pieces of mirror.

[edit] History

[edit] Muscogee's Ancient World

The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in the United States before the arrival of Europeans.

Nearly 12,000 years ago, Native Americans or Paleo-indians appeared in what is today referred to as "The South."^[3] Paleo-Indians in the Southeast were hunter-gatherers who pursued a wide range of animals, including the megafauna, which became extinct following the end of the Pleistocene age.^[3] The early historic Muscogee were probably descendants of the mound builders of the Mississippian culture along the Tennessee River in modern Tennessee^[4] and Alabama, and possibly related to the Utinahica of southern Georgia.

The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500 C.E. At the time the Spanish made their first forays inland from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the political centers of the Mississippians were already in decline, or gone.^[5] 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.

More of a loose confederacy than a single tribe, the Muscogee lived in autonomous villages in river valleys throughout what are today the states of Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama and consisted of many ethnic groups speaking several distinct languages, such as the Hitchiti, Alabama, and Coushatta. Those who lived along the Ocmulgee River were called "Creek Indians" by British traders from South Carolina. Eventually the name was applied to all of the various inhabitants of Muscogee towns, which were divided into the Lower Towns of the Georgia frontier on the Chattahoochee River, Ocmulgee River, and Flint River, and the Upper Towns of the Alabama River Valley. The Mississippian culture is what the earliest Spanish explorers encountered, beginning on April 2, 1513, with Juan Ponce de León's Florida landing and the 1526 Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón expedition in South Carolina.

[edit] Spanish Expedition (1500)

Hernando de Soto and his men burn Mabila, after a surprise attack by Chief Tuskaloosa and his people, 1540 CE.

After castaway Cabeza de Vaca of the ill-fated Narváez expedition returned to Spain, he described to the Court of Hernando de Soto that the New World 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 later declined his offer because of a payment dispute of a ship.^[6] From 1540–1543, Hernando de Soto travelled through Florida and Georgia, and then down into the Alabama and Mississippi area that would later be inhabited by the Muscogee.

De Soto had the best-equipped army at the time. His successes were well-known throughout Spain, and many people from all backgrounds joined his quest for untold riches to be plundered in the New World. However, the brutalities of the de Soto expedition became known to the Muscogee ancestors, so they decided to defend their country. This battle, known as the Battle of Mabila, was a turning point for the De Soto venture; the battle "broke the back" of the campaign, and they never fully recovered.

The Muscogee were a confederacy of tribes consisting of Yuchi, Koasati, Alabama, Coosa, Tuskeegee, Coweta, Cusseata, Chehaw (Chiaha), Hitchiti, Tuckabatchee, Oakfuskee, and many others.^[7]

[edit] Coalescent from the chiefdoms (1540)

After the breakdown of Mississippian culture, the Native Americans would re-organize themselve into the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Muscogee confederations. Many villages would arise from the meltdown of moundbuilder society and would form new town and new alliances.

The Lower Towns included Coweta, Cusseta (Kasihta, Cofitachiqui), Upper Chehaw (Chiaha), Hitchiti, Oconee, Ocmulgee, Okawaigi, Apalachee, Yamasee (Altamaha), Ocfuskee, Sawokli, and Tamali. The Upper Towns included Tuckabatchee, Abhika, Coosa (Kusa; the dominant people of East Tennessee and North Georgia during the Spanish explorations), Itawa (original inhabitants of the Etowah Indian Mounds), Hothliwahi (Ullibahali), Hilibi, Eufaula, Wakokai, Atasi, Alibamu, Coushatta (Koasati; they had absorbed the Kaski/Casqui and the Tali), and Tuskegee ("Napochi" in the de Luna chronicles).

Cusseta (Kasihta) and Coweta are still the two principal towns of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Traditionally, the Cusseta and Coweta bands are considered the earliest members of the Muscogee Nation.^[1]

[edit] British, French and Spanish Expansion (1600)

Muscogee leader Tomochichi and nephew in 1733.

The Muscogee confederacy was caught in the middle of three competing Old World super powers—Britain, France and Spain. British colonization of the Americas began in the late 16th century, before reaching its peak after colonies were established throughout the Americas. British were one of the most important colonizers of the Americas and their American empire came to rival the Spanish American colonies in military and economic might. Sir Walter Raleigh and John Smith were among the first British explorer in the American Deep South but were unlikely to have made contact with the Muscogee.

French in the 1720s established a fort near present-day Montgomery, Alabama, presented a threat to British interests in the region. British trading network kept the Muscogee allied with them; the French move threatened to wrest these Indians' trade away from the British. These strategic interests made the British government interested in establishing a new colony that would reinforce the British influence in the border country that had been open to Spanish and French penetration.

Spanish presence was minor during that empire's second rule over Florida. Spain offered extremely lucrative free land packages in Florida as a means of attracting settlers, and foreigners came in droves, especially from the United States.

[edit] Yamasee War (1715)

The Yamasee War was one of the most disruptive and transformational conflicts of colonial America. It was one of the American Indians' most serious challenges to European dominance. The war as a conflict between colonial South Carolina and various Native American Indian tribes including the Yamasee, Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and many others.

[edit] Muscogee frontier relations

Yamacraw Creek Native Americans meet with the Trustee of the colony of Georgia in England, July 1734, Notice the Native American boy (in a blue coat) and woman (in a red dress) in European clothing.

After the colony of Georgia was settled, land was increasingly becoming in short supply. Settlers were reputed to have no respect for law and detested any type of authority. Men were reportedly so mean as to kill or rob a neighbor. Indian haters were found throughout the southern frontier. Benjamin Harrison, who lost an eye in a gouging wrestling match, swore vengeance against every Indian he saw.

The most common form of Muscogee resistance was to attack and harass intruding American settlers. When Benjamin Hawkins first arrived to Muscogee country, the settlers were of American, Scottish, English, Irish, Spanish, German, and French farmers coming from the North.

[edit] American colonies rebel (1776)

Like many Native American groups east of the Mississippi and Louisiana Rivers, the Muscogee were divided in the American Revolutionary War. The Lower Muscogee remained neutral; the Upper Muscogee allied with the British and fought the American Patriots, frequently alongside the Cherokee warriors of Dragging Canoe, but just as frequently alone.

After the war ended in 1783, the Muscogee discovered that Britain had ceded Muscogee lands to the now independent United States. Georgia began to expand into Muscogee territory. Muscogee statesman Alexander McGillivray rose to prominence as he helped organize pan-Indian resistance to this encroachment and received arms from the Spanish in Florida to fight trespassers. McGillivray worked to create a sense of Muscogee nationalism and centralize Muscogee authority. He struggled against village leaders who individually sold land to the United States. By the Treaty of New York in 1790, McGillivray ceded a significant portion of the Muscogee lands to the United States under President George Washington in return for federal recognition of Muscogee sovereignty within the remainder. McGillivray died in 1793, however, and Georgia continued to expand into Muscogee territory.

[edit] 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, they two nations prepared for nearly three months. After a long day long struggle, the Muscogee won the game. A fight broke out and the two nations fought until sun down with nearly 500 dead and much more wounded.

[edit] State of Muskogee & William Bowles (1795)

William Augustus Bowles (1763-1805) was also known as Estajoca, his Muscogee name.

Englishman William Augustus Bowles joined the British Army as a foot soldier at 13 and served with the Maryland Loyalists Battalion as an ensign during the American Revolution. He was officer in Royal Navy by age 15, but was cashiered for dereliction of duty for returning too late to his ship at Pensacola, Florida. Bowles escaped north and found refuge among the Muscogee. He would marry two wives, one Muscogee and the other Cherokee, and become heir to a Muscogee chiefdom. In 1781, a 17-year old Bowles led Muscogee forces in a battle in which Pensacola fell to Spain. After a few months in the Bahamas, Lord Dunmore, the British governor there, sent Bowles back among the Muscogee to establish a trading house among them. Pursuing his idea of an American Indian state after the end of the revolutionary war, he was received by George III as 'Chief of the Embassy for Creek and Cherokee Nations' and it was with British backing that he returned to train the Muscogee as pirates to attack Spanish ships.

In 1795, along with the Seminoles, Bowles formed a short-lived state in northern Florida known as the State of Muskogee. In 1799 he was elected director general of the State of Muskogee by a congress of the Muscogees and Seminoles. At the time they were living in land claimed by both the United States of America and Spain. With no European origin power having full hegemony over their land the Creek and Seminole hoped to be able to create their own independent nation. Bowles hoped to also incorporate the Cherokee into the State of Muskogee. The proposed sovereign nation was to be located in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The capital of Muskogee would have been the Indian village of Mikasuke (near present day Tallahassee).

In 1803, not long after having declared himself 'Chief of all Indians present' at a tribal council, he was betrayed and turned over to the Spanish. He died in prison in Havana, Cuba two years later.

[edit] First to Civilize (1800)

Benjamin Hawkins, seen on his plantation in this 1805 painting, teaches Creeks to use European technology.

George Washington, the first U.S. President, and Henry Knox, the first U.S. Secretary of War, proposed a cultural transformation of the Native Americans.^[8] Washington believed that Native Americans were equals, but that their society was inferior. He formulated a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process, and it was continued under President Thomas Jefferson.^[9] Noted historian Robert Remini wrote "they 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."^[10] 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.^[11] The Muscogee would be the first Native Americans to be civilized under Washington's six-point plan. The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole would follow the Muscogee's efforts to benefit under 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 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, he would meet with chiefs on his porch and discuss matters. He was responsible for the longest period of peace between the settlers and the tribe, overseeing 19 years of peace. When a fort was built, in 1806, to protect expanding settlements, just east of modern Macon, Georgia, it was named Fort Benjamin Hawkins.

Hawkins was dis-heartened and shocked with the Creek War which destroyed his life work of improving Muscogee quality of life. Hawkins saw much of his work toward building a peace destroyed in 1812. A group of Muscogee, led by Tecumseh were encouraged by British agents to resistance against increasing settlement by whites. Although he personally was never attacked, he was forced to watch an internal civil war among the Muscogee, the war with a faction known as the Red Sticks, and their eventual defeat by Andrew Jackson.

[edit] A comet, earthquakes, and Tecumseh (1811)

The Great Comet of 1811, as drawn by William Henry Smyth

A comet appeared in March 1811. The Shawnee leader Tecumseh, whose name meant shooting star, told the Muscogee that the comet signaled his coming. McKenney reported that the Tecumseh would prove that the Great Spirit had sent him by giving the Muscogee a sign. Shortly after Tecumseh left the American Deep South, the sign arrived as promised in the form of a earthquake.

On December 11, 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. For many Muscogee it meant that the Shawnee must be supported.

The New Madrid Earthquake was interpreted by the Muscogee to support the Shawnee's resistance.

The earthquake and its aftershocks helped Tecumseh resistance movement by convincing, not only the Muscogee, but other Native American tribes as well.

Although stories of the origin of the Red Stick name varies, they may have taken their name from a "magical" red wand which Tecumseh had carried on his tour to unite Native Americans.

[edit] Red Stick rebellion

A faction of Muscogees known as Red Sticks sought aggressively to return their society to a traditional way of life. Red Stick leaders such as William Weatherford (Red Eagle), Peter McQueen, and Menawa, who were allies of the British, violently clashed with other chiefs within the Muscogee Nation over white encroachment on Creek lands and the civilization efforts administered by Benjamin Hawkins. Before the Muscogee Civil War began, the Red Sticks attempted to keep their activities secret from the old chiefs.

In February 1813, a small party of Red Sticks, led by Little Warrior, were returning from Detroit when they killed two families of settlers along the Ohio River. Hawkins demanded that the Muscogees turn over Little Warrior and his six companions. Instead of handing the marauders over to the federal agents, the old Chiefs decided to execute the war party themselves. This decision was the spark which ignited the civil war between the Muscogees.

[edit] Fort Mims Massacre (1813)

Charles Bird King's portrait of William McIntosh.

On August 30, 1813, Red Sticks led by Red Eagle William Weatherford attacked the American outpost of Fort Mims near Mobile, Alabama, where white settlers and their Indian allies had gathered. The Red Sticks captured the fort by surprise, and a massacre ensued, as prisoners — including women and children — were killed. Nearly 250 died, and panic spread across the American southwestern frontier.

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 fiery eloquence of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh and their own religious leaders, Muscogee from the Upper Towns, known to the Americans as Red Sticks, sought to aggressively resist white immigration and the "civilizing programs". Red Stick leaders violently clashed with the Lower Creeks led by William McIntosh, who were allied with the Americans.

The first clashes between Red Sticks and the American whites took place when a group of American soldiers stopped a party of Red Sticks who were returning from Spanish Florida on July 21, 1813. The Red Sticks had received munitions from the Spanish governor at Pensacola. The Red Sticks fled the scene, and the soldiers looted what they found. The Creeks, who saw the Americans looting, retaliated with a surprise attack. The Battle of Burnt Corn, as the exchange became known, broadened the Creek Civil War to include American forces.

Tennessee, Georgia, and the Mississippi Territory sent militia units deep into Muscogee territory. Although outnumbered and poorly armed, the Red Sticks put up a desperate fight from their strongholds. On March 27, 1814, General Andrew Jackson's Tennessee militia, aided by the 39th U. S. Infantry Regiment plus Cherokee and Creek allies, finally crushed Red Stick 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.

[edit] Muscogee diaspora (1814)

Depiction of Red Eagle's surrendering to Andrew Jackson after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Jackson was so impressed with Weatherford's boldness that he let him go.

In August 1814, exhausted and starving, 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, which ended the war and required them to cede some 20 million acres (81,000 km²) of land—more than half of their ancestral territorial holdings—to the United States. Even those 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 carved largely out of their domain and was admitted to the United States in 1819.

Many Muscogee refused to surrender and escaped to Florida. Some allied themselves with Florida Indians (who eventually become collectively called the Seminole) and the British against the Americans. They were involved on both sides of the Seminole War in Florida.

Menawa visited Washington, D.C. in 1826 to protest the Treaty of Indian Springs. Painted by Charles Bird King.

[edit] Removal (1834)

Most Muscogee were removed to Indian Territory during the Trail of Tears in 1834, although some remained behind. There are Muscogee in Alabama living near Poarch Creek Reservation in Atmore (northeast of Mobile), as well as Muscogee in essentially undocumented ethnic towns in Florida. The Alabama reservation includes a casino and 16 story hotel and holds an annual powwow on Thanksgiving. Additionally, Muscogee descendants of varying degrees of acculturation live throughout the southeastern United States.

[edit] American Civil War (1861)

Members of the Creek Nation in Oklahoma around 1877. Notice the European and African ancestry members.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Opothleyahola refused to form an alliance with the Confederacy, unlike many other tribes, including many of the Lower Creeks. Runaway slaves, free blacks, Chickasaw and Seminole Indians began gathering at Opothleyahola's plantation, hoping to remain neutral in the conflict between the North and South. On August 15, 1861, Opothleyahola and tribal chief Micco Hutko contacted President Abraham Lincoln to request help for the loyalists. On September 10, they received a positive response stating the United States government would indeed assist them. The letter directed Opothleyahola to move his people to Fort Row in Wilson County, Kansas, where they would receive asylum and aid.^[14]

[edit] Treaties

Ceded area as deemed by the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814.

Land was the most valuable asset Native Americans held in collective stewardship. Muscogee land was systematically obtained through treaties, legislation, and warfare. Treaties, like the Treaty of San Lorenzo, indirectly affected the Muscogee. The treaties were:

[edit] Muscogee tribes today

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is a federally recognized Indian Nation. Their headquarters is in Okmulgee, Oklahoma and their current Principal Chief is A. D. Ellis.^[15] The tribal government operates a budget in excess of $106 million, has over 2,400 employees, and maintains tribal facilities and programs in eight administrative districts. The nation operates several significant tribal enterprises, including the Muscogee Document Imaging Company; travel plazas in Okmulgee, Muskogee and Cromwell, Oklahoma; construction, technology and staffing services; and major casinos in Tulsa and Okmulgee. The tribal population is fully integrated into the larger culture and economy of Oklahoma, with Muscogee Nation citizens making significant contributions in every field of endeavor. The Nation's historic old Council House, built in 1878 and located in downtown Okmulgee, was completely restored in the 1990s and now serves as a museum of tribal history.

Three Muscogee tribal towns are federally recognized tribes: Alabama-Quassarte, Kialegee, and Thlopthlocco. Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town is headquartered is Wetumka, Oklahoma and its chief is Tarpie Yargee.^[16] Kialegee Tribal Town is also headquartered in Wetumka, and Jennie Lillard is the current mekko or chief.^[16] The Thlopthlocco Tribal Town is headquartered in Okemah, Oklahoma. Vernon Yarholar is the tribe's mekko.^[17] The Coushatta in the State of Louisiana are another tribe of Muscogee, descended from the Koasati.

The Muscogee Nation has recently founded a tribal college, College of the Muscogee Nation, in Okmulgee. CMN is a two-year institution, offering associate degrees in Gaming, Tribal Services, Police Science, and Native American Studies. They offer Mvskoke language classes as well. In 2007, 137 students enrolled and the college has plans for expansion.^[18]

[edit] Muscogee in Alabama

Eddie L. Tullis led the Poarch Creek Indians in their petitioning the United States government to recognize a government-to-government relationship. On August 11, 1984, these efforts culminated in the United States Government, Department of Interior, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs acknowledging that the Poarch Band of Creek Indians exists as an "Indian Tribe." The Tribe is the only Federally recognized Tribe in the State of Alabama. On November 21, 1984, 231.54 acres (0.9370 km²) of land were taken into trust. On April 12, 1985, 229.54 acres (0.9289 km²) were declared a Reservation.

[edit] Influential Muscogee leaders

• Mary Musgrove (c. 1700-1765) served as a cultural liaison between colonial Georgia and her Native American community.
• Alexander McGillivray (1750–1793) was a leader of the Muscogee during the American Revolution.
• James McHenry (1753-1816), Confederate Major, Methodist minister, and important Creek leader.
• William Augustus Bowles (1763-1805), also known as Estajoca, was a Maryland-born English adventurer and organizer of Native American attempts to create their own state outside of Euro-American control.
• Menawa (c. 1765-1836) was one of the principal leaders of the Red Sticks during the Creek Wars.
• William McIntosh (c. 1775-1825) led part of the pro-American forces that dealt with the Red Sticks.
• William Weatherford (c. 1781-1824) led the Creek War offensive against the United States. He was also known as Red Eagle.
• Opothleyahola (c. 1798-1863) fought against the United States government during Seminole Wars and for the Union during the American Civil War.
• Ernest Childers (1918-2005) was a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army and the first Native American to receive World War II Medal of Honor.
• Suzan Shown Harjo (b. 1945), (Muscogee-Cheyenne) activist, policymaker, journalist, and poet

[edit] Famous Muscogee

• Fred Beaver (1911-1980), (Muscogee) painter and muralist
• Samuel Benton Callahan (1833-1911), represented the Creek and Seminole nations in the Second Confederate Congress
• Acee Blue Eagle (1909-1959), (Muscogee-Pawnee-Wichita) artist, actor, author, and director of art at Bacone College
• Joy Harjo (b. 1959), (Muscogee-Cherokee) Native American poet and jazz musician
• Joan Hill (b. 1930), (Muscogee-Cherokee) artist
• Blackhawk Walters (b.1951), (Muscogee-Cherokee-Choctaw) Four Time World Kickboxing Champion, 8th Degree Black Belt, musician, singer-songwriter, author, actor.
• Jack Jacobs (1919-1974), football player
• William Harjo LoneFight (b. 1966), author, President of Native American Services, languages and cultural activist
• Jim Pepper (1941-1992), jazz musician
• Will Sampson (1933-1987), film actor, noted for his performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Cynthia Leitich Smith (b. 1967), children's book author noted for Jingle Dancer
• Carrie Underwood (b. 1983), country singer^[19][20]
• Micah Ian Wright (b. 1974), film, television and video game writer, chair of the Writers Guild of America's American Indian Writers Committee

[edit] See also

• Cherokee
• African-Native Americans
• Creek language
• Creek mythology
• Native American tribe
• Native Americans in the United States
• Gallery of Native Americans with facial hair
• Ocmulgee National Monument
• One-Drop Rule
• Opothleyahola
• List of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition
• Chickamauga wars
• Battle of Burnt Corn

[edit] Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Transcribed documents Sequoyah Research Center and the American Native Press Archives
2. ^ Walter, Williams. "Southeastern Indians before Removal, Prehistory, Contact, Decline". Southeastern Indians: Since the Removal Era. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. p. 7-10. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Prentice, Guy (2003). "Pushmataha, Choctaw Indian Chief". Southeast Chronicles. http://www.nps.gov/history/seac/SoutheastChronicles/NISI/NISI%20Cultural%20Overview.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-11. 
4. ^ Finger, John R. (2001). Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition. Indiana University Press. pp. 19. ISBN 0-253-33985-5. 
5. ^ About North Georgia (1994-2006). "Moundbuilders, North Georgia's early inhabitants". Golden Ink. http://ngeorgia.com/history/early.html. Retrieved 2008-05-02. 
6. ^ Gentleman of Elvas. "Chapter II, How Cabeza de Vaca arrived at court". Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida as told by a Knight of Elvas. Kallman Publishing Co. (1968), Translated by Buckingham Smith. ASIN B000J4W27Q. 
7. ^ Ethridge, Robbie. "Chapter 5 "The People of Creek Country"". Creek Country, The Creek Indians and their World. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 93. ISBN 0807854956. 
8. ^ Perdue, Theda. "Chapter 2 "Both White and Red"". Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South. The University of Georgia Press. p. 51. ISBN 082032731X. 
9. ^ Remini, Robert. ""The Reform Begins"". Andrew Jackson. History Book Club. p. 201. ISBN 0965063107. 
10. ^ Remini, Robert. ""Brothers, Listen ... You Must Submit"". Andrew Jackson. History Book Club. p. 258. ISBN 0965063107. 
11. ^ Miller, Eric (1994). "George Washington And Indians". Eric Miller. http://www.dreric.org/library/northwest.shtml. Retrieved 2008-05-02. 
12. ^ Steve Canerossi. "[http://www.canerossi.us/ftmims/massacre.htm Ft. Mims Massacre Baldwin County, Alabama August 30, 1813]". http://www.canerossi.us/ftmims/massacre.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-04. 
13. ^ Paul Burke. "Treaty with The Creeks". First People. http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Treaties/TreatyWithTheCreeks1814.html. Retrieved 2009-10-04. 
14. ^ Woodson County history
15. ^ American Indian Cultural Center & Museum. Oklahoma Tribes
16. ^ ^{a b} Oklahoma Indian Affairs. 2008 Pocket Pictorial:17
17. ^ American Indian Cultural Center & Museum. Oklahoma Tribes
18. ^ College of the Muscogee Nation Frequently Asked Questions
19. ^ La Bella, Laura. Carrie Underwood. New York: Rosen Publishing, 2008: 15. ISBN 978-1404213708. (retrieved through Google Books, 5.April.2009)
20. ^ Creek Nation Tribal Member Carrie Underwood Wins Grammy. Free Press. 14.Feb.2007 (retrieved 5.April.2009)

[edit] Suggested Media

• First Frontier, Docu-drama, Auburn University Educational Television, 1987. The docu-drama covers the encounter with Hernando DeSoto to the era of Indian Removal; the film focuses on the Creek peoples.
• Creek Country: The Creek Indians and Their World. Robbie Ethridge, 2003, The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807854956

[edit] References

• Braund, Kathryn E. Holland (1993). Deerskins & Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685-1815. Indians of the Southeast. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. OCLC 45732303. 
• Jackson, Harvey H. III (1995). Rivers of History-Life on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba and Alabama. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817307710. 
• Swanton, John R. (1922). Early History of the Creek Indians and their Neighbors. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 73. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. OCLC 18032096. 
• Swanton, John R. (1928). "Social Organization and the Social Usages of the Indians of the Creek Confederacy". Forty-Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. pp. 23–472. OCLC 14980706. 
• Walker, Willard B. (2004). "Creek Confederacy Before Removal". in Raymond D. Fogelson (ed.). Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 14: Southeast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 373–392. OCLC 57192264. 
• Worth, John E. (2000). "The Lower Creeks: Origins and Early History". in Bonnie G. McEwan (ed.). Indians of the Greater Southeast: Historical Archaeology and Ethnohistory. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. pp. 265–298. OCLC 49414753. 

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Muscogee

• Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma (official site)
• Creek Nation Indian Territory Project
• LostWorlds.org | Ocmulgee Mounds: Creek/Muskogee Origins
• Creek (Muskogee) by Kenneth W. McIntosh -- Encyclopedia of North American Indians
• History of the Creek Indians in Georgia
• Poarch Creek Indians in Alabama
• Poarch Band of Creek Indians
• Comprehensive Creek Language materials online
• Southeastern Native American Documents, 1763-1842.
• New Georgia Encyclopedia entry
• Encyclopedia of Alabama article
• Lewis and James McHenry
• "Fife Family Cemetery," Southern Spaces -- a short film on Creek Christian burial practices
• Perdido Bay Tribe of Creek Indians, unrecognized Creek organization
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Creek
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Creek, Lower