Part 2: Expansion and Removal of the Creeks Begins

Read Part 1 and Part 3 of our 3-part Historical Overview of the Southeastern Creek Tribes and Creek Nation. 

The political state of the new Union

The American Revolutionary War began when the North American Colonies declared their independence from Great Britain as “The independent Unified States of America” in 1775 and lasted until 1783. In 1778 France was eager for revenge following its defeat in the Seven Year War and signed an alliance with the new American nation. The conflict then escalated to a European-American war with Great Britain combating France, Spain and the Netherlands in a global conflict.

In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded roughly by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west. France gained its revenge, retained its North American land west of the Mississippi, while Spain acquired Britain’s Florida Colonies.  In 1789 the new nation became the United States of America.

The goal of the United States government of expansion began. In the 1790s the United States began to formulate plans for keeping the British out of the United States and removing the French and Spanish from ownership or control of land in North America. It was also the time when plans would begin for the elimination, extermination or removal of Indians from the eastern United States.

Nearly all native groups had allied with the British and served as Loyalists during the American Revolutionary War. But when the British negotiators agreed upon the terms of the 1783 peace treaty, Great Britain offered no protection to their former Indian allies. In addition, most whites in the new American republic saw no reason to treat the Native Americans well after the war.  White settlers claimed ownership of all Indian lands west of the Appalachians by rights of the 1783 Peace Treaty and the U.S. government did little or nothing to stop them. The Indians quite rightly rejected these claims.   

Removal Begins

In 1798 the U.S. government formed the Mississippi Territory. This land was an organized incorporated territory of the United States which included most of the land in what are the present day states of Mississippi and Alabama. The State of Georgia had maintained a claim over most of the area until it surrendered its claim following the Yazoo land scandal. Thomas Jefferson was elected President in 1800 and by 1803 he had initiated a plan for removal of the Indians east of the Mississippi to the newly acquired land of the Louisiana Purchase, land west of the Mississippi River. In 1805 the Treaty of Mount Dexter between the U. S. government and the Choctaw tribe, the Choctaw ceded 4,142,700 acres of fertile Mississippi area land in exchange for cancellation of $48,000 trading debt, a scheme set up by Jefferson. The removal of Indians east of the Mississippi had begun.

The greatest challenge was ahead for the U.S. government:  How to remove or eliminate the Creek Indian Nation. The Creek Nation encompassed much of the present States of Georgia and Alabama, lands very attractive to new white settlers.

During the deerskin trade era the southeastern Indians had been a necessary and integral part of the global economy. After the American Revolution the Creeks and all of the southeastern interior area Indian societies found themselves not only unnecessary to the American economy, but, in fact, they became impediments to the system. Ensuing wars, battles and worthless treaties would drive the southeastern Indians from their homelands. The favorable position held by the Creek Tribes at the turn of the century eroded for a number of reasons – decline in the population of white-tailed deer in the southeast, disruption of southeastern Indian trade during the American Revolution and the fact that the southeastern Indians were no longer needed for maintaining claimed frontier borders, and finally the introduction of the cotton gin in 1793 led to a worldwide boom in cotton; cotton farming became a very profitable enterprise and land in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi was coveted for cotton plantations. 

During this time the Creeks were struggling to come to terms with the changing politics. The Creek proved to be the most stubborn when confronted with the prospect of change. The United States sent an agent, Benjamin Hawkins, to live among the Creek and attempt to educate them in the ways of the white people. Hawkins had some success in achieving a unified Creek government. But when he suggested that Creek men take up farming – traditionally a female task – he met resistance.  Some towns, largely among the Lower Creeks in Georgia, complied. Most of the Upper Creeks bitterly resented Hawkins and the U.S. government dictating their lives.