The Trail of Tears: Explore the Takeover of Nations from Beginning to End by Ramos Adrian & Compacted History

Author:Ramos, Adrian & Compacted, History
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Creek Removal

The Creeks, whom the Seminoles were forced to settle with in the 1840s, had already been present in Indian Territory since, at least, 1826. The series of events that brought them there, and would continue to send Creeks west, was a long chain of broken treaties, as well as an unexpected success or two.

As a consequence of British influence during the War of 1812, the Creek nation became embroiled in civil war that spilled out in to a general war involving the United States. The rebelling faction, a group of younger Upper Creeks known as “Red Sticks” for their painted war clubs, wanted to end U.S. influence and “civilizing programs” influencing the Creek tribe.

The Red Sticks were inspired by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who led a large tribal confederation during the War of 1812. They mostly kept their anti-U.S. agenda a secret, until an episode of violence in February of 1813, where a band of Red Sticks murdered two families of white settlers close to Nashville, Tennessee.

Benjamin Hawkins, the Indian Agent associated with the Creek tribe, demanded that the Red Sticks war party be handed over to the authorities. Instead, the Creek National Council had them executed according to their own law. This angered U.S. authorities and caused the war to expand in scope until the Red Sticks faction surrendered in 1814, by the U.S. army and allied Creeks.

Andrew Jackson, still a General at the time, held the entire Creek nation accountable for the Red Sticks rebellion, and went so far as to blame them for not killing Tecumseh sooner during the War of 1812. The Treaty of Fort Jackson, which he oversaw the signing of reflected this general disdain, requiring that the entire tribe cede over twenty million acres of land to the United States.

This was more than half of the tribe’s homeland, and its annexation by the states of Alabama and Georgia caused many Red Stick Creeks to flee south in to Florida, where they’d join the Seminoles in their later resistance against the United States. Other Creeks crowded in to their reduced territory and begrudgingly continued to offer occasional military aid to the U.S., such as in the Seminole Wars.

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