The Creek War (also the Red Stick War or the Creek Civil War) was a regional conflict between opposing Native American factions, European powers, and the United States during the early 19th century. The Creek War began as a conflict within the tribes of the Muscogee, but the United States quickly became involved. British traders and Spanish colonial officials in Florida supplied the Red Sticks with weapons and equipment due to their shared interest in preventing the expansion of the United States into regions under their control.
The Creek War took place largely in modern-day Alabama and along the Gulf Coast. Major engagements of the war involved the United States military and the Red Sticks (or Upper Creeks), a Muscogee tribal faction who resisted U.S. territorial expansion. The United States formed an alliance with the traditional enemies of the Muscogee, the Choctaw and Cherokee nations, as well as the Lower Creeks faction of the Muscogee. During the hostilities, the Red Sticks allied themselves to the British. A Red Stick force aided British Naval Officer Alexander Cochrane's advance towards New Orleans. The Creek War effectively ended in August 1814 with the signing of the Treaty of Fort Jackson, when Andrew Jackson forced the Creek confederacy to surrender more than 21 million acres in what is now southern Georgia and central Alabama.
According to historian John K. Mahon, the Creek War "was as much a civil war among Creeks as between red and white". The war was also a continuation of Tecumseh's War in the Old Northwest, and, although a conflict framed within the centuries-long American Indian Wars, it is usually more identified with, and considered an integral part of, the War of 1812.
Background
Creek militancy was a response to increasing United States cultural and territorial encroachment into their traditional lands. The war's alternate designation as the "Creek Civil War", though, comes from the divisions within the tribe over cultural, political, economic, and geographic matters. At the time of the Creek War, the Upper Creeks controlled the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Alabama Rivers that lead to Mobile, while the Lower Creeks controlled the Chattahoochee River, which flows into Apalachicola Bay. The Lower Creek were trading partners with the United States, and unlike the Upper Creeks, had adopted more of their cultural practices.
Territorial conflict
The provinces of East and West Florida, governed by Spanish and British firms such as Panton, Leslie, and Co., provided most of the European trading goods into Creek country. Pensacola and Mobile, in Spanish Florida, controlled the outlets of the U.S. Mississippi Territory's rivers.
Territorial conflicts between France, Spain, Britain, and the United States along the Gulf Coast that had previously helped the Creeks to maintain control over most of the United States' southwestern territory had shifted dramatically due to the Napoleonic Wars, the West Florida Rebellion, and the War of 1812. This made long-standing intra-Creek trade and political alliances more tenuous than ever.
In the Treaty of New York (1790), Treaty of Colerain (1796), Treaty of Fort Wilkinson (1802), and Treaty of Washington (1805), the Creek ceded parts of their Georgia territory east of the Ocmulgee River. In 1804, the United States claimed the city of Mobile under the Mobile Act. The 1805 treaty with the Creek also allowed the creation of the Federal Road that linked Washington, DC, to the newly acquired port city of New Orleans, which partially stretched through Creek territories.
During and after the American Revolution, the United States wished to maintain the Indian Line, which had been established by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The Indian Line created a boundary for colonial settlement to prevent illegal encroachment into Indian lands and also helped the U.S. government maintain control over Indian trade. Still, traders and settlers often violated the terms of the treaties establishing the Indian Line, and frontier settlement by colonists in Indian lands was one of the arguments the United States used to expand its territory.
These increasing territorial grabs westward into Creek territory (which included parts of Spanish Florida), coupled with the Louisiana Purchase (which neither the British nor the Spaniards recognized at the time), compelled the British and Spanish governments to strengthen existing alliances with the Creek. In 1810, following the occupation of Baton Rouge during the West Florida Rebellion, the United States sent an expeditionary force to occupy Mobile. As a result, Mobile was jointly occupied by weak detachments of American and Spanish soldiers until Secretary of War John Armstrong ordered General James Wilkinson to force the Spaniards to turn over control of the city in February 1813.
The Patriot Army captured parts of East Florida from 1811–1815. After Fort Charlotte was surrendered in April, the Spaniards focused on protecting Pensacola from the United States. The Spaniards decided to support the Creeks in an attack on the United States and in defense of their homeland, but were greatly hindered by their weak position in the Floridas and lack of supplies even for their own army.
Cultural assimilation and religious revival
The splintering of the Creek peoples along progressive and nativist lines had roots dating back to the 18th century, but came to a head after 1811. Red Stick militancy was a response to the economic and cultural crises in Creek society caused by the adoption of Western trade goods and culture. From the 16th century, the Creeks had formed successful trade alliances with European empires, but the drastic fall in the price of deerskin from 1783 to 1793 made repayment of their debts more difficult for individuals, while at the same time the assimilation process made American goods more necessary. The Red Sticks particularly resisted the "civilization" programs administered by U.S. Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins, who had stronger alliances among the towns of the Lower Creek. Some of the "progressive" Creek began to adopt American farming practices as their game disappeared and as more Anglo settlers assimilated into Creek towns and families.
Leaders of the Lower Creek towns in present-day Georgia included Bird Tail King (Fushatchie Mico) of Cusseta, Little Prince (Tustunnuggee Hopoi) of Broken Arrow, and William McIntosh (Tunstunuggee Hutkee, White Warrior) of Coweta. Many of the most prominent Creek chiefs before the Creek War were "mixed bloods", like William McGillivray and William McIntosh (who were on opposing sides of the Creek Civil War).
Before the Creek War and the War of 1812, most U.S. politicians saw removal to be the only alternative to the assimilation of native peoples into Western culture. The Creeks, though, blended their own culture with adopted trade goods and political terms, and had no intention of abandoning their land.
The Americanization of the Creeks was more prevalent in western Georgia among the Lower Creeks than in Upper Creek towns and came from internal and external processes. The U.S. government and Benjamin Hawkins' pressure on the Creeks to assimilate stood in contrast to the more natural blending of cultures that came from a long tradition of cohabitation and cultural appropriation, beginning with white traders in Indian country.
Shawnee leader Tecumseh came to the area to encourage the peoples to join his movement to throw the Americans out of Native American territories. Previously, he had united tribes in the Northwest (Ohio and related territories) to fight against U.S. settlers after the War for Independence. In 1811, Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa attended the annual Creek council at Tukabatchee. Tecumseh delivered an hour-long speech to an audience of 5,000 Creeks, as well as an American delegation including Hawkins. Although the Americans dismissed Tecumseh as nonthreatening, his message of resistance to Anglo encroachment was well received among Creek and Seminole, especially among more conservative and traditional elders and young men.
Mobilization of recruits to Tecumseh's cause was bolstered by the Great Comet of 1811 and the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–12, which were taken as evidence of Tecumseh's supernatural powers. The war party rallied around prophets who had traveled with Tecumseh and remained with the Creek, influencing newly converted Creek religious leaders. Peter McQueen of Talisi (now Tallassee, Alabama); Josiah Francis (Hillis Hadjo) (Francis the Prophet) of Autauga, a Koasati town; and High-head Jim (Cusseta Tustunnuggee) and Paddy Walsh, both Alabamas, were among the spiritual leaders responding to rising concerns and the prophetic message. The militant faction of Creek stood in opposition of the Creek Confederacy Council's official policies, particularly in regard to foreign relations with the United States. The rising war party began to be called "Red Sticks" at this time—in Creek culture, red "sticks" or clubs symbolized war, while white sticks represented peace.
Course of the war
Creeks who did not support the war became targets for the prophets and their followers, and they began to be murdered in their sleep or burned alive. Warriors of the prophets' parties also began to attack the property of their enemies, burning plantations and destroying livestock. The first major offensive of the civil war was the Red Stick attack on the Upper Creek town, and seat of the council, at Tuckabatchee on July 22, 1813.
In Georgia, a war party of "friendly" Creeks organized under William McIntosh, Big Warrior, and Little Prince attacked 150 Uchee warriors who were traveling to meet with Red Stick Creeks in the Mississippi Territory. After this offensive in the beginning of October 1813, the party burned a number of Red Stick towns before retiring to Coweta.
Although attacks on whites were few and limited in 1812 and early 1813, Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins did not believe that the disruption in the Creek Nation or the increasing war dances were a cause for concern. In February 1813, though, a small war party of Red Sticks, led by Little Warrior, was returning from Detroit when they killed two families of settlers along the Ohio River. Hawkins demanded that the Creek turn over Little Warrior and his six companions, the standard operating procedure between the nations up to that point.
The first clashes between the Red Sticks and United States forces occurred on July 27, 1813. A group of territorial militia intercepted a party of Red Sticks returning from Spanish Florida, where they had acquired gunpowder, blankets, and food from the Spanish governor at Pensacola. The Red Sticks escaped and the soldiers looted what they found. Seeing the Americans looting, the Creek regrouped and attacked and defeated the Americans. The Battle of Burnt Corn, as the exchange became known, broadened the Creek Civil War to include American forces.
Chiefs Peter McQueen and William Weatherford led an attack on Fort Mims, north of Mobile, on August 30, 1813. The Red Sticks' goal was to strike at mixed-blood Creek of the Tensaw settlement, who had taken refuge at the fort. The warriors attacked the fort and killed 400 to 500 people, including women and children and numerous white settlers. The attack became known as the Fort Mims massacre and became a rallying cause for American militia.
The Red Sticks subsequently attacked other forts in the area, including Fort Sinquefield. Panic spread among settlers throughout the southwestern frontier, and they demanded U.S. government intervention. Federal forces were busy fighting the British and Northern Woodland tribes, led by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh in the Northwest. Affected states called up militias to deal with the threat.
After the Battle of Burnt Corn, U.S. Secretary of War John Armstrong notified General Thomas Pinckney, commander of the 6th Military District, that the U.S. was prepared to take action against the Creek Confederacy. Furthermore, if Spain were found to be supporting the Creeks, an assault on Pensacola would ensue.
Brigadier General Ferdinand Claiborne, a militia commander in the Mississippi Territory, was concerned about the weakness of his sector on the western border of the Creek territory and advocated pre-emptive strikes, but Major General Thomas Flourney, commander of 7th Military District, refused his requests. He intended to carry out a defensive American strategy. Meanwhile, settlers in that region sought refuge in blockhouses.
The Tennessee legislature authorized Governor Willie Blount to raise 5,000 militia for a three-month tour of duty. Blount called out a force of 2,500 West Tennessee men under Colonel Andrew Jackson to "repel an approaching invasion ... and to afford aid and relief to ... Mississippi Territory". He also summoned a force of 2,500 from East Tennessee under Major General John Alexander Cocke. Jackson and Cocke were not ready to move until early October.
In addition to the state actions, U.S. Indian agent Hawkins organized the friendly Lower Creek under Major William McIntosh, an Indian chief, to aid the Georgia and Tennessee militias in actions against the Red Sticks. At the request of Chief Federal Agent Return J. Meigs (called "White Eagle" by the Indians for the color of his hair), the Cherokee Nation voted to join the Americans in their fight against the Red Sticks. Under the command of Chief Major Ridge, 200 Cherokee fought with the Tennessee militia under Colonel Andrew Jackson.