The Second Creek War: Interethnic Conflict and Collusion on a Collapsing Frontier

1. Creek Politics and Confinement in New Alabama

9 In September 1810 Tecumseh appeared on the square of Tuckabatchee with an entourage of northern warriors. They were an impressive sight: handsome men sporting eagle feathers in their hair, buffalo tails hanging from their arms and waists, faces painted solid black to signal the seriousness of their business. They marched around the square several times to show themselves off to the many spectators, increasing the curiosity and tension in the crowd. Finally, Tecumseh stood before all the Creek chiefs gathered at one end of the square and gave them gifts of tobacco as symbols of his goodwill. He did not, however, speak of his mission. He waited, biding his time for more than a week until the government’s agent, Benjamin Hawkins, left Tuckabatchee along with others who should not hear what he had to say. Only then did Tecumseh deliver his long and animated address to his fellow Native Americans.1 We have no transcript of his remarks, but we know something of what he said. Hawkins had his informants in the crowd. Moreover, Tecumseh preached to many Indian nations during that time and his message was much the same wherever he traveled in the heartland. Undoubtedly, he echoed the words of his brother, the Shawnee prophet Tenskswatawa, calling for the Creeks and all other Natives to throw off the corrupting white ways and goods so they might reclaim their ancient spiritual power, unite as one people, and rise up in armed 1. Creek Politics and Confinement in New Alabama creek politics and confinement 10 resistance to stop U.S. expansionism in the trans-Appalachian West. It also seems likely that Tecumseh promised the Creeks that the British in Canada, themselves no friends of the European Americans, would support and assist the great Native alliance once it was formed. But Tecumseh may have promised even more, for Tenskswatawa, like so many other revolutionary prophets trapped in world colonialism, foretold a coming apocalypse, a time when the Master of Breath would restore justice to the land. In Tenskswatawa’s version of the sermon, that time would see all sinful Indians and whites buried, and the whole country given back to virtuous Indians, those who rejected white ways and returned to their traditional economy, taking from the land only what they needed to live.2 These bold declarations resonated among the Creeks. Tecumseh’s mother was a Creek, and they considered the Shawnee leader a fellow tribe member, one of their own. But more importantly, the Creeks had been facing the aggressive expansionism of whites since the sixteenth century, and in that year of 1810, they felt truly threatened by the burgeoning young U.S. Republic. Just to their west, the Creeks saw settlers moving into the Mississippi Territory; not far to the north, the people of Tennessee perched over them like so many hungry vultures; and to the east, stood the greatest threat of all, the state of Georgia. For nearly one hundred years, the Georgians had pushed steadily against the Creeks, overrunning their best hunting grounds, then demanding that the Creeks cede those lands. In fact, the Georgians claimed the Chattahoochee River as the western boundary of their state and made no secret of the fact that they intended, with the help of the federal government, to clear Georgia of its Native population. Moreover, Agent Hawkins, just before he left Tuckabatchee, announced to the Creeks that the government would cut roads through the heart of their nation so the European Americans in the surrounding states and territories could communicate and trade with one another.3 However, Tecumseh may have stirred the passions of the Creeks most when he raised the specter of Indian dependence within the world economy. His brother constantly railed against the fur trade, deploring thefactthatIndiansdestroyedanimalssolelyfortheirskins,leavingtheir creek politics and confinement 11 bodies to rot in the woods, and all to meet the demands of the whites for more leather and fur. Tecumseh surely passed this message to the Creeks, which must have reminded them that during the eighteenth century, at the height of the fur trade, they had, along with many other Native groups, become a “forest proletariat,” scouring their territory for deer hides for the markets of Europe. In the process, they became addicted to foreign manufactured goods, as well as to alcohol, and so indebted to white traders and merchants that they had to sign away large chunks of land...