Deconstructing the Cherokee Nation: Town, Region, and Nation among Eighteenth-Century Cherokees

3 “in constant hostility with the Muskohge”: The Cherokee-Creek War

3 “in constant hostility with the Muskohge” The Cherokee-Creek War The Cherokee-Creek War, which lasted roughly from 1715 to 1755, was the longest and most destructive conflict between Cherokees and other indigenous peoples during the eighteenth century. The war’s early phases revealed customary disunity among Cherokees from different towns and regions, since villagers rarely had a common enemy when it came to intertribal warfare. Edmond Atkin testified to this regional dimension of Cherokee warfare when he observed that Upper and Lower Cherokees “seldom take part in each others Wars.” The “upper Cherokees do not always take part with the lower,” he added, especially when fighting their Muscogean neighbors. Lower Cherokees often fought against Lower Creeks, while villagers from other regions typically warred against the Upper Creeks (when uninterrupted by a temporary peace). The same held true for Cherokees and other native peoples. James Adair found that Lower Cherokees were “in constant hostility with the Muskohge,” whereas the “upper towns . . . were always engaged in hot war with the more northern Indians.”1 As the statements by Atkin and Adair suggest, different borderland experiences shaped the dynamics of Cherokee warfare. Cherokees engaged multitudes of Indians from near and far who all brought varying agendas to their mountain homeland. Imperial and colonial powers exerted additional pressure, which further complicated Cherokee relations with their indigenous neighbors. As a result, the Cherokee-Creek War was much more than a conflict between two southeastern Indian peoples. Issues of war and peace between the Cherokees and Creeks were particularly influenced by the northern Indians, “Settlement Indians,” and South Carolina. 58 · Deconstructing the Cherokee Nation Peace with northern Indians, for example, typically meant war with the Creeks, who accused the Cherokees of recruiting Iroquois, Shawnee, and other “Northward” warriors to take Muscogean captives and scalps. Peace with the Creeks and Catawbas, in turn, invited raiders from the north to attack their own villages. Such varying geopolitical considerations pulled Cherokees in different directions, thereby ensuring that intertribal warfare remained a town and regional, rather than national, prerogative. The latter stages of the Cherokee-Creek War challenged these longheld conventions. The war changed course near midcentury, as the Lower Creeks shifted from sporadic raids to full-scale attacks against the Lower Cherokee Settlements. Most of the Lower Towns temporarily disbanded, creating a refugee crisis that drew villagers from other towns and regions more directly into the war. What had generally been a regionally based conflict now emerged as a larger struggle between Cherokee and Creek peoples. By 1753 the debilitating effects of war on all Cherokees, whether through dislocation, bereavement, or interference with economic livelihoods , encouraged Cherokees from every region first to attack their Muscogean neighbors and then to seek and confirm a general peace with the Creeks. War and peace accordingly became more interregional affairs than in prior conflicts, a trend that would continue throughout the Seven Years’ War. The Cherokee-Creek War, in short, and similar to the Anglo-Cherokee trading alliance, exposed the complicated structure of Cherokee sociopolitical organization. Both at times exacerbated local and regional tensions within Cherokee country, but they also revealed a remarkable tendency among Cherokees to transcend parochial interests during crises. The war proved consequential in other ways; namely, the reshaping of regional power within Cherokee country. The beleaguered Lower Towns entered a state of flux as Creek attacks unsettled their villages. Into the void stepped the Overhill people. They protected the refugees and sent warriors against the Creeks, while also utilizing long established connections to Northward Indians to gain allies against their Muscogean enemies . As a result, the war turned in favor of the Cherokees, which allowed the Lower people to resettle some of their former towns. The Overhill Cherokees and their leaders therefore played an ever-expanding role in the affairs of those Cherokees living beyond their own villages. Ultimately, the war ensured the ascendancy of the Overhill Settlements and the beloved town of Chota. “in constant hostility with the Muskohge”: The Cherokee-Creek War · 59 The post-Yamasee phase of the long-standing Cherokee-Muscogee wars changed markedly near midcentury. The conflict escalated when Lower Creeks launched an intense campaign against the Lower Cherokee Towns in the Tugaloo River area, which later spread to include those settlements along the Keowee River and its tributaries. These attacks were not limited to small-scale raids as was typical in woodland warfare. In November 1750, a Creek trader...