Creek Nation

“ Thus far Congress has not terminated that relation with respect to the Creek Nation and its members. That Nation still exists, [23] and has recently been authorized to resume some of its former powers. Act of June 26, 1936, 49 Stat. 1967, 25 U.S.C.A. § 501 et seq. And although the Creek tribal rolls were closed on March 4, 1906, [24] Congress has recognized that un-enrolled Creeks of the half blood or more are tribal Indians subject to federal control. [25] Respondents fall in this class.
We have considered the other contentions raised by petitioners and find them without merit. ”

“ These clauses from the Creek Treaty will illustrate the point:
Article I. There shall be perpetual peace and friendship, and an alliance offensive and defensive, between the Confederate States of America, and all of their States and people, and the Creek Nation of Indians, and all its towns and individuals. ”

“ The concession is well stated in the Creek Treaty and occurs in connection with a prohibition against the pasturing of stock by outsiders within the Creek country.
Article xxii. No citizen or inhabitant of the Confederate States shall pasture stock on the lands of the Creek Nation, under the penalty of one dollar per head for all so pastured, to be collected by the authorities of the nation; but their citizens shall be at liberty at all times, and whether for business or pleasure, peaceably to travel the Creek country ”

“ The Creek Nation was recognized by the United States as a distinct political community, with which it made treaties and which within its own territory administered its internal affairs. Like other governments, municipal as well as state, the Creek Nation was free from liability for injuries to persons or property due to mob violence or failure to keep the peace. ”

“ You will, in an especial manner, impress upon the Creek Nation and surrounding Indian tribes the imperious fact that they will doubtless recognize, that the real design of the North and the Government at Washington in regard to them has been and still is the same entertained and sought to be enforced against ourselves, and if suffered to be consummated, will terminate in the emancipation of their slaves and the robbery of their lands. ”

“ Captain George W. Grayson has served as official Creek interpreter for many years. He understands the history of his tribe, is entirely in sympathy with their aims, and has done much to aid the various tribal attorneys in Oklahoma. With a fine Indian, Moty Tiger, Chief of the Creek Nation, he has frequently visited Washington. I asked Captain Grayson to read the manuscript of my Oklahoma section prior to publication, and am indebted to him for valuable suggestions and information. ”

“ The Indian trade that existed between the Creeks and the Atlantic coast, which has already been mentioned, was an inviting field to cupidity and enterprise, and many were the young adventurers from the old world who engaged in it soon after their landing at Charleston or Savannah. Some of them, too, fascinated by the wild life of the forest, made themselves homes in the Creek nation, and found wives amongst the Creek maidens, who in form, feature and habits, were superior to those of other tribes. ”

“ Towards four o’clock in the afternoon we reached the agency, a group of twenty log houses, and some negro huts. It is appointed for the residence of the agent of the United States with the Creek Indians, (he, however, was absent at this time,) and is situated in a very handsome tract of land on the left side of the Flint river, which rushes over a rocky bed between pretty steep banks. The right bank belongs to the Creek nation, of about twenty-one thousand souls, and is inhabited by them. The contest between the state of Georgia and the United States is caused by this territory. ”

“ There were over 3,000,000 acres of land in the domain of the Creek Nation, and approximately 16,000 Creek Indians and freedmen. It was easily to be seen that the tribe possessed sufficient allottable land to permit each citizen to take 160 acres, assuming the land values were approximately uniform. There were many reasons of convenience and of sentiment indicating the quarter section as a proper provisional allotment. ”

“ After negotiations and legislation looking to the enrolment of the tribes entitled to citizenship, an act of Congress known as the original Creek agreement was passed. (Act of March 1, 1901, 31 Stat. at L. 861, chap. 676.)
Section 7 of that act contains certain restrictions upon the title of individual Indians after the same had been conveyed to them by the Creek Nation, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. Section 7 of the act of March 1, 1901, was amended by the act of June, 30, 1902 (32 Stat. at L. 500, chap. 1323) , known as the supplemental creek agreement. ”

“ The hope of the Creeks was to wipe the white man's settlements from the face of Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee. Alabama, in the middle, would then be safe, also. But the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Cherokees, refused to join. The White Sticks themselves listened to the words of their old men, and of Head Chief William Macintosh; they said that they had no feud with the United States.
Commencing with President Washington, the United States had treated the Creeks honestly; the Creek nation had grown rich on its own lands. ”

“ The lands of the Creek Nation were tribal lands and the evident purpose of the Indians was to continue at least a semblance of that status so far as it could be done consistently with their distribution in severalty. With the wisdom of that purpose we have nothing to do. ”

“ The town, of 35 warriors, had lost its ancient language and spoke the Creek (1799) . The noted A. MacGillivray, head chief of the Creeks in the latter part of the eighteenth century, or as he was styled, "Emperor of the Creek Nation," lived at Taskígi, where he owned a house and property along Coosa river, half a league from Fort Toulouse; Milfort, Mémoire, p. 27. On the immigration of the tribe, cf. Milfort, pp. 266. 267.
The name of the town may be explained as: "jumping men, jumpers," from Cr. tāská-is, tā′skäs I jump (tulúp-kalis in Hitchiti) ”

“ Some of them have large farms, in a good state of culture, and many of them spend much of their time in agricultural improvements. Although they do not possess one quarter part of the quantity of land which the Creek nation occupies, their number of people is more than two thirds as large as the Creek confederacy. ”

“ The mass of the Creek nation, fixed in the villages in the interior, clung to their habits of hunting even when obliged to cultivate the soil, and their semi-civilization rendered them a more perplexing obstacle to the whites than though they had obstinately resisted white influence. ”

“ The principal chiefs, beginning to learn some of the natural laws that govern commerce, saw that the passage of a good road through the heart of the nation would necessarily benefit them, and make their commerce with the outer world easier and more profitable. Accordingly these chiefs gave the Creek Nation's consent, and the road was made. Over this the people quarrelled among themselves, dividing, as wiser people are apt to do, into two fiercely antagonistic parties. ”

“ In 1898 the citizen population of the Creek Nation numbered 14,771, of whom 10,014 were of Indian blood and the remainder were negroes, their former slaves. It appears that the Indian population included about 700 from other tribes, chiefly Cherokee. There are also about 300 Alabama, “Cushatta” (Koasati) , and Muscogee in Texas. See also Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country; Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; Adair, History of the American Indians; Bartram, Travels; The Five Civilized Tribes, Bulletin of the Eleventh Census; Wyman, in Alabama Historical Society Collections. ”

“ We are thus referred to the 'laws of descent and distribution of the Creek Nation' to ascertain the persons entitled to the property. This explicit and determinative reference disposes of the contention that George A. Solander, although he might be an 'heir' under the Creek laws, nevertheless could not take the lands in controversy because, being a noncitizen, he was not entitled to the allotment of a distributive share of the tribal lands in his own right. ”

“ But the Creeks, having begun to appreciate and enjoy the comforts of civilization, and the advantages of the arts and sciences, which had been introduced into their midst, refused to treat on the subject, and passed a law in the General Council of their nation, forbidding, on pain of death, the sale of any of their lands. After the close of the council, a few of the Creeks, influenced by a chief named M'Intosh, met the United States Commissioners, and formed a treaty on their own responsibility, ceding to the General Government all the Creek lands in Georgia and Alabama. ”

“ State Department MSS. Papers Continental Congress. Intercepted Letters, No. 51. Vol. II. Letter of British Agents Messrs. Rainsford, Mitchell, and Macullagh, of July 12, 1779. "The present unanimity of the Creek Nation is no doubt greatly owing to the rapid successes of His Majesty's forces in the Southern provinces, as they have now no cause to apprehend the least danger from the Rebels ... we have found by experience that without presents the Indians are not to be depended on." ”

“ CXXXIII.—An Act to aid certain Indians of the Creek Nation in their removal to the west of the Mississippi. United States to give to each warrior of the Creek nation, who shall within two years remove to the west of the Mississippi according to article 6 of the treaty of Jan. ”

“ However, the persistent and unremitting demands of the border settlers for more land, backed by the thorough sympathy and influence of the State governments of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, as well as by their Senators and Representatives in Congress, acted as a powerful lever for moving the Congress and Executive of the United States to seek the complete possession of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw lands. ”

“ They were beginning to hold individual property, and thereby to become men, with interests and wills of their own, instead of mere members of a tribe. This was brought about in part by their trading with the whites and in part by their intermarriages. The traders who married Creek wives and lived in the nation were shrewd fellows, strongly inclined to look sharply after their own interests; and their half-breed children, who retained their rank as Creeks, many of them being chiefs of high degree, inherited their fathers' instincts and learned their fathers' ways. ”

“ MUSKOHGE NATION, &c. Their country is situated, nearly in the centre, between the Cheerake, Georgia, East and West-Florida, and the Choktah and Chikkasah nations, the one 200, and the other 300 miles up the Missisippi. It extends 180 computed miles, from north to south. It is called the Creek country, [146] on account of the great number of Creeks, or small bays, rivulets and swamps, it abounds with. This nation is generally computed to consist of about 3500 men fit to bear arms ”

“ The commissioners set forth their desire to procure the cession of a tract of country comprising all to which the Cherokees laid claim lying north and east of a line to begin at a marked corner at the head of Chestatee River, thence along the ridge to the mouth of Long Swamp Creek, thence down the Etowah River to the line to be run between Alabama and Georgia, thence with that line to the dividing line between the Creeks and Cherokees, and thence with the latter line to the Chattahoochee. ”

“ Each town had its separate local government, presided over by a Micco, who belonged always to one of the chief families. They had their public buildings and pleasure houses, their fixed rules for the conduct of public business, for the promotion of warriors, and for all the other things which need systematic regulation.
Beginning thus with a foundation of recognized customs upon which to build a civilization, the Creeks improved rapidly under the influence of the white men when they were brought into contact with them. ”

“ There is scarcely a finer country on earth than that now owned by the Creeks; and in North America, certainly no Indian tribe more advanced in the arts and agriculture than they are. It is no uncommon thing to see a Creek with twenty or thirty slaves at work on his plantation, having brought them from a slave-holding country, from which, in their long journey, and exposure to white man’s ingenuity, I venture to say, that most of them got rid of one-half of them, whilst on their long and disastrous crusade. ”

“ G. W. Stidham, who visited their settlement in Polk county, Texas, during the Secession war, states that they lived there east of the Alibamu, numbered about 200 persons, were pure-blooded and very superstitious. Some Creek Indians are with them, who formerly lived in Florida, between the Seminoles and the Lower Creeks. ”

“ The name of the leading tribe among the Lower Creeks, whose home was at one time on the Ocmulgee, and later on the western side of Chattahoochee below the falls. According to one old Creek tradition the name means "those who follow us," and was given them by the Kasihta Indians, another Creek tribe who traditionally marched in advance when the Creeks invaded Alabama and Georgia. ”

“ They were, however, equalled and probably excelled in numbers by the Cherokee on their northeastern border, and the Choctaw to the southwest, with both of which tribes they waged bitter wars as well as with the Apalachee and Timucua southeast of them. These differences were, however, aggravated considerably by the rival Spanish, English, and French colonists. It should be understood that the Creek Confederacy was a growing American national organism, comparable to the Iroquois Confederacy, the states of Central America and Mexico and some of those of the Old World. ”