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Through the 1700s and early 1800s, Creek nationalism had the potential to both assert political autonomy and devolve into catastrophe. Projected externally, Creek nationalism engaged Euro- Americans and afforded room for local negotiation among towns and clans. However, the nationalist dynamic shifted with increased external pressure and the centralization of domestic political authority. Embodied in the suppression of retaliatory killings, the nationalist assertion of control fundamentally changed Creek country and had broad cultural ramifications. The push for exclusive authority over domestic justice forced each Creek to evaluate clan, town, and national loyalties, contributing to the many divisions leading up to the 1813 Creek War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the presence of the British in the late 18th century on North America's Gulf Coast affected the Creek Indians in the region, focusing on the diplomatic and trade relationships between the British and Creek communities. Other topics include competition among Creek factions, the economic relationship between the Creeks, British, French , and Spanish, and how Europeans maintained mercantilism in North America.

The article explores the role of Native Americans such as the Creeks and Seminoles during the U.S. Revolution in Georgia and on the border with Florida. Emphasis is given to topics such as British war strategy that incorporated Native raids, the sacking and burning of forts such as Fort Barrington, and Native fighting customs such as the role of clan membership and kinship in Creek identity.

The article discusses American aggression against the Creek Indians under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson in the early 19th century, focusing on the destruction of Littafuchee, a Creek town in Tennessee. Other topics include attacks on American forts by Native Americans, the taking of Creek Indian prisoners by the Americans, and collaboration between peaceful Creek Indians and Americans against aggressive Creeks, or Red Sticks, during the Creek War.

The essay discusses how landscapes influence the historical interpretation of past events, focusing on the role of the Southern landscape during the Creek War in Alabama in the early 19th century. Other topics include aspects of the Southern landscape including forest coverage, water levels, and trails, how these aspects have changed since prehistoric times, and the war against the Creek Indians led by U.S. Major General Andrew Jackson.

The article discusses the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, or Tohopeka, during the Creek War in Alabama during the early 19th century, focusing on the fortifications of the Red Stick Indians during the battle. Other topics include tactics used by the Americans, led by U.S. Major General Andrew Jackson, leadership of the Indians by Menawa, and the symbolism of the fortifications at Horseshoe bend and how the battle should be remembered in 2014.

Between the late 1760s and the early 1780s, dozens of Creek Indians made the journey to Havana, ferried by Cuban fishing boats along the Gulf Coast of Florida. Creeks and Spanish Cubans traveled into the coastal and marine regions between Havana and the Florida Gulf Coast as it suited them; both took advantage of the space to negotiate and participate in exchanges with one another. For Creeks the region served as an economic and diplomatic safety valve. In the midst of conflict with Anglo Americans, Creeks hoped that Florida would provide them with new avenues into Atlantic diplomatic and exchange networks. For Cubans, and the Spanish Empire as a whole, an alliance with the Creeks represented a means of reestablishing Spanish influence in Florida and of pushing back against an expansionistic British Empire in the wake of the Seven Years' War. Though Spaniards and Creeks found the Florida Gulf Coast and its waters eminently useful, neither established full control over this maritime space. Though neither group would have framed it in these terms, Creek-Cuban contacts converted the Gulf of Mexico into a maritime borderland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted an analysis of economic transaction records from the Fort Wilkinson Factory Store in central Georgia in an attempt to understand trade behaviors by the Muscogee Creek people of the southeastern United States. Between February 4, 1804, and November 29, 1806, factory personnel recorded 2,168 trade transactions at Fort Wilkinson. During this period, 38,226.5 deerskins and skins, 482 hides and rawhides, and 569 furs entered the fort. In exchange for these items, the Creek Indians primarily received cloth, followed by manufactured items such as kettles, gun supplies, and consumable groceries. We analyze the month-by-month exchange trends and compare the trade-good assemblages to archaeological sites that represent Creek occupations that date to the same time period in Georgia and Alabama. Further, we assess the biases of the data and interpret the data in relation to existing historical and archaeological studies of the Muscogee Creek people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reinterprets the life of a famous Muscogee Creek leader and examines the relationship between chiefly power and foreign travel in American Indian studies and Atlantic world studies. In spring I734, the Creek headman Tomochichi and British imperialist James Edward Oglethorpe traveled to London to ratify a treaty that established the British colony of Georgia in the neighborhood of the Creek Confederacy. During his five-month sojourn, Tomochichi forged alliances with the Georgia trustees and the British royal family that resulted in a unique trans-Atlantic network of patronage. Upon return home, he leveraged his ocean-going imperial connections to craft an authoritative chieftainship that dated to the seventeenth-century Mississippian era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. Army unit of Kansas known as the First Indian Home Guards, which consisted of refugee Creek and Seminole Indians from Indian Territory, during the American Civil War. Particular focus is given to the U.S. Army's goal of assimilating Indians. The Indian Brigade's commanders Colonel Robert W. Furnas and Colonel William A. Phillips, including the latter's perspective on Indians' ability to lead the brigade, are discussed. An overview of the Indians who fought for the Confederate States of America's forces, including Cherokee Indians, is provided.

Indian information networks crisscrossed the colonial Southeast. Operating outside European control and hidden from European eyes, these networks' existence and importance have been assumed but never fully explicated. This article explores some of these inter- and intra- Indian connections. Rooted in the Lower Creek town of Coweta and analyzing sources from the vantage point of Indian country, it shows some of the different ways in which Creek Indians remained informed of and connected to developments in the colonial Southeast. Exploring the networks forged by one particular Indian chief—Brims, Mico of Coweta-helps evince the breadth and extent of information channels among native people. The information networks linked, modified, and influenced by Brims show more than the movement of news; they offer insight into the power structures that shaped the colonial Southeast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination of cross-cultural lies told between American Indians and European imperial leaders in North America. It discusses the social impact of the lies these groups told each other and examines how lies influenced the imperial relationship and power structures in North American. It discusses how lies allowed Indians to shape the narrative of empire in North America and how these lies eventually influenced policies and behaviors in the colonies. It explores the influence of lies by examining the death of Creek Indian Acorn Whistler.

In the early nineteenth century, the frontier people of the Alabama Valley saw a large amount of tension with the Creek Indian people. This tension grew out of an internal strife within the Creek Nation between traditionalist Creeks and those Creeks who began adopting American culture. The tension eventually became too strong and brought war to the people in the Alabama Valley in 1813, known as the Creek Indian War. William Weatherford was one of the most prominent figures in the Alabama Valley during the early nineteenth century. He was the son of a wealthy American trader and an important Creek Indian princess. When war broke out in the summer of 1813, Weatherford had chosen to fight on the side of the Creek Indians and to oppose the forces of the United States, despite his ties to the American people. Through an analysis of Weatherford's actions during the war and how he fought in the war, I have attempted to answer what Weatherford's reasoning was to fight for the Creeks. Knowledge of how Weatherford viewed the situation developing around him also helps us understand what the mindset was for many other mixed blood American Indians in his situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to Joshua Piker's (this issue) comment on our article (Foster and Cohen 2007). we point out that our article was a description of a test of a hypothesis. Piker's (this issue) criticism of our paper is grounded in the differences between historians and anthropological archaeologists. The historic literature that Piker (this issue) cited does not inform about whether or not Creek Indians hunted where we performed the sediment cores. It merely points out that Creek hunters may have hunted with greater frequency elsewhere. But that is irrelevant to our study, which tested whether the eighteenth-century deerskin trade increased the frequency of forest fires in a particular region. Archaeologists will benefit from using historical documents but archaeologists still have to be clear about the potential biases of those interdisciplinary data sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Comment interrogates claims made by Foster and Cohen (2007) regarding eighteenth-century Creek Indian hunting strategies. It argues that Foster and Cohen's attempts to link the archaeological and ethnohistorical record are flawed because of their misreading of the latter. The "Comment" demonstrates that Creeks did not—contra Foster and Cohen (2007)—conduct large-scale hunts near their communities or frequently rely on fire-drives. Thus, pollen and charcoal samples gathered by Foster and Cohen (2007) from the neighborhood of those communities speak to activities other than hunting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination of the 1812 murder of the westward-moving pioneer Thomas Meredith, Sr. along the banks of Pinchona Creek in Montgomery County, Alabama by militant Creek Indians. It offers a reexamination of the location of the murder and explores tavern-owner Sam Moniac's assertion that the killing was accidental despite Meredith's son claiming otherwise. It discusses issues that arise due to the creek having various alternative spellings, explores the Meredith family's life in South Carolina and examines Moniac's possible motivation for declaring the murder accidental.

In this paper I review risk management and horticultural production among the Muscogee Creek of southeastern North America (1715-1825) in an attempt to understand decisions about land use. The z-score model and the marginal value theorem are developed, incorporating the effects of population growth among consumers and confounding variables that result from long-term resource consumption. The study calculated the annual productivity of horticultural fields of the Muscogee town of Cussetuh between 1715 and 1825 and found that the native people were not maximizing long-term average maize yield. The Cussetuh ceased using their horticultural fields sooner than a marginal value model would predict, which is consistent with the z-score model of a risk-sensitive consumer. I discuss implications of the finding that the Southeastern Native Americans were risk sensitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creek (or Muskogee) is among a small number of languages around the world that distinguish multiple tenses based on degrees of remoteness from the time of speaking. Those working on Creek have rarely agreed on the number of tenses or on their meanings, however, and have rarely examined the seemingly intricate ways that speakers use tenses in texts, This paper argues that Creek has one future tense and five past tenses. It finds, however, that speakers may cast events within a single time frame in several different tenses based on immediacy. That is, just as English speakers will sometimes use present tense in describing past events, Creek speakers will sometimes allow tenses to creep forward from past 5 (remote past) to past 4 or even past 3 as events become more vivid. The Creek data thus provide especially clear support for observations that temporal distance in language may be extended metaphorically to express subjective distance (Dahl 1984, Fleischman 1989, and Hintz 2007). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview is presented with author Joy Harjo, a native Oklahoman and member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Asked how writing for young readers affects her other writing, Harjo states that all her writing is from the heart and forms a continuum. She says children love to hear her read her book "The Good Luck Cat" and that over the years she has changed her delivery to respond to their interest. Her most recent book "For a Girl Becoming" is a poem written for a grandchild.

The article discusses the ideologies of Alexander Posey as contained in his "Fus Fixico" letters. It analyzes Posey's concept of transformation as an alternative to both traditionalist resistance and the assimilationist concept that a complete abandonment of American Indian cultural practices is needed in order to fully participate in the U.S. society. It also cites the effects of the conservative Creek faction's emigration plans to Mexico for the transnational approaches to Creek culture and literature.

Presents literary criticism for the novel "Drowning in Fire" by Craig Womack, particularly how Womack structures a Creek/Muskogee identity in the book and how that identity is in constant flux. The author also uses Womack's book "Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism," which also deals with identity. The novel is set in Oklahoma, which is where that group was relocated to because of the U.S. Indian Removal Act, so place is an important element in the novel.

This qualitative, collective case study involves interviews with 27 members of the Muscogee Creek Tribe to explore spirituality as related to death and bereavement. Results yielded that Creeks are generally open to the existence of inexplicable supernatural events. Creek spirituality encompasses awareness of spiritual beings, both good and bad. Participants believed that spirits exist alongside people and can send and receive messages from people to guide and inform them. Creeks have ongoing, though not constant, relationships with loved ones and others who have died. Spiritual attunement can occur at every point in the life cycle but seems to be especially astute in children and animals. Results are discussed in terms of continuing bonds and meaning making perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the small-scale farming of Creek Indians and explores the transformation from working in slavery to personally owning land following the U.S. Civil War. Details are provided about a treaty signed in 1866 between the U.S. Government and the Creek Indian Nation regarding the rights of Creek Indians. The multiethnic development of the Creek Nation in the 1870s is described and the unity felt by the Creek Nation is discussed. The nationalist attitude of the Creek Nation with regard to their land is also examined.

The article focuses on the argument made by Alexander McGillivray, a chief of the Upper Creek Indians, for Creek Independence after the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Fundamental to McGillivray's contention for Creek independence were the terms of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, a document to the Treaty of Paris of 1763. The treaty itself provided for the transfer of sovereignty among its European signatories, shifting the balance of power dramatically in favor of Britain.

The article offers some insights into the use of technical writing basics by a cohort of Lighthorse Police Officers from the Muscogee Creek Nation to record part of their family and clan history and to document their law enforcement careers and education. The technical writing exercise is part of an assignment for the police officers, the first among a group of tribal officers to pursue an associate of applied science degree in police science through Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City and the newly formed College of Muscogee Nation.

The author explores the history of slavery in the Creek tribes. The Creek's lived in modern day Georgia, northern Florida and Alabama starting around the year 1000. The Creek tribe traditionally enslaved others captured in battle, but this ownership was not inherited by their offspring. The Creek's also sold captives to Americans or to British middlemen. The Creek's practices of slavery changed with the times.

This article presents an analysis of "Wynema: A Child of the Forest," a novel by S. Alice Callahan. The story focuses on Genevieve Weir and Gerald Keithly, Methodist missionary teachers among the Indians, whose student, Wynema, serves as a model for Indian educability and progress. Creek scholar Craig S. Womack argues that the novel needs to be problematized because of its failure to engage Creek culture, history and politics. According to the author, the novel consistently validates the assumption that the savagery of the savage testified to the civilization of a maternalistic Indian reform movement.

The article discusses the ways in which Cherokee and Creek Indians used myth to foster a sense of identity and promote nationalism. Episodes are cited when these Indians appropriated tales from their history to justify claims to land sought by whites. The myths were also part of Indian education tracing progress from supposed savagery to modernity. The historic context also legitimized the tribe as an authentic entity in the eyes of antagonists, as well as its own constituent people. Thus, the Cherokee and Creek usage of history and myth show that those categories are not exclusively European ideas.

The essay presents an exploration into the early pioneering influence of writer Thomas E. Moore's news column "Sour Sofkee," on the development of Muskogee Dialect literature in American history and society. The complex relationship between language and Native American politics is discussed. An analysis of several examples of the Creek dialect literature of the early 20th century is provided.

Explores the story of Creek woman Mary Musgrove which provided evidence of emerging gender roles for Southeastern Indian women. Description of the culture into which Mary Musgrove was born in the early 1700s; Marriage of Mary with the son of Colonel John Musgrove Senior; Trading and business relationship enjoyed by Mary with British officials.

Argues that the historical narratives pertaining to the lives of Creek Indians of the pre-revolutionary southern United States were flawed. Decades of chronic hostility between Native Americans and their European colonizers fueled by land ownership and hatred; Failure of historians to appreciate the nature and durability of socioeconomic relations that emerged in the region; Historical treatment of Indians as static and homogenous.

Offers a spirited challenge to the hybridity and cosmopolitan theorists who have misunderstood or misrepresented the Creek nationalism of writer and critic Craig S. Womack. Views of author Eva Marie Garroutte on radical indigenism; Background of Womack; Overview of the critic's novel "Drowning in Fire."

Homelands are places where people have bonded with their landscape in an uncommon manner. The majority of homeland case studies have revolved around five components — people, place, bonding with place, control of place, and time. Some geographers have used these elements uncritically, confusing the nature of the homeland concept. This paper attempts to provide a revised, less ambiguous conceptual framework for American homelands that is supported by an historical case study of the Creek (Muscogee) Nation in Indian Territory. This paper emphasizes the importance of community, territory, the cultural landscape, social and spatial segregation, and territoriality in homeland formation and maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last generation, scholars intent on removing "tribe" from their narratives of colonial-era Native American history have repeatedly invoked "community" in its place. This development notwithstanding, community-centered projects are rare; Indian towns now appear in the literature, but not as the driving force behind the action being chronicled. This article focuses on the debate among Upper Creek towns as they struggled to define the nature of their relationship to the British between 1763 and the early 1780s. In so doing, it traces the limits of regional and national alliances in the colonial era while arguing for the centrality of the local in Native life. In the eighteenth century, Creek history was community history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses how Chief William McIntosh, the Creek Indian who signed the Treaty of Indian Springs in 1825, obtained and lost his authority in Creek society in Georgia during the 19th century. Family background; Information on the role of McIntosh within Creek society; Details on the killing of McIntosh by Creek warriors for signing the treaty; Examination of the political activities of McIntosh.

Studies the culture and core values of the Muscogee Creeks community. Elements of a value system; Factors that can be attributed to variations in core sets of values; Key basic building blocks of nature and life for the community; Gender relations among Creeks; Characteristics of the proper Creek form of government.

Examines the impact of the connections between African Americans and Native Americans on the history of the United States during the Civil War. Institution of black slavery among Indian societies; Commemoration of the role of blacks in the escape of a faction of Muskogee Indians to Kansas in 1861-1862; Complexity of the slavery connection between blacks and Indians.