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Prior to contact with Europeans during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , Native Americans in Georgia subsisted primarily on deer, turtles, and turkeys . Other native wild mammals and birds, ¤sh, and shell¤sh supplemented the diet. There is no archaeological evidence of diet among the Lower Creek in the seventeenth or early eighteenth century, although historical accounts of the Upper Creek indicate that they had been introduced to, and were acquiring, some domesticated animals and birds from their Spanish and English neighbors by the early eighteenth century (Piker 2004). Historical accounts indicate that while the Lower Creek raised domestic livestock and drove them to coastal markets, they did not believe in eating these animals except in famine situations (Ethridge 1996, 2003; Piker 2004). The changes brought about by owning domestic livestock would play an integral role in all aspects of Lower Creek life over the next several decades. Europeans noted that there was little difference in Creek clothing or houses based on individual status, although “possessions” included jewelry, agricultural and hunting tools, cooking vessels and utensils, and animal hides. Of these, deer hides were the only items of value to the colonists. Hides were the only commodity the Maskókî had to trade for desirable European goods, including metal tools, cooking pots, guns, powder, shot, rum, glass beads and bottles, and European ceramics. Many of these items, particularly metal tools and guns, were valued because they reduced the amount of energy expended on agricultural, domestic, and hunting activities of Creek men and women (Braund 1993; Hahn 2004; Saunt 1999). Prior to the 1760s, the deerskin trade had not had much in®uence on the relationships between Maskókî and their concept of property, most of which was communally “owned,” worked, and hunted (Braund 1993). Exchange of “gifts” was informal and was based on matrilineal kinship ties. Much to the chagrin and confusion of colonial Spanish and English leaders, the Maskókî had little interest in accumulating or pos7 Animal Remains Lisa O’Steen sessing property. Ranching of domestic animals by the Maskókî and the interaction with colonists required to support this activity would eventually have profound effects on Creek social, political, and economic systems. Maskókî established kin relationships with British traders via marriage, which made the exchange of goods reciprocal and obligatory rather than solely commercial. By the middle of the eighteenth century, intermarriage had produced a generation of ethnically mixed children (Saunt 1999). This change corresponded with the increasing population of white Georgians and black slaves, which together quadrupled between 1745 and 1760 and reached 36,000 by 1775. At this time, Creek population was estimated at 14,000 (Swanton 1922). At the same time, the number of cattle owned by white settlers increased and encroached more and more on Lower Creek lands (Ethridge 2003). A 1756 letter to Governor Reynolds from the Lower Creek stated that white people “spoils our hunting Ground and frightens away the Deer.” Another letter , in 1759, reported that whites who “have Guns that will kill Deer as far Distant as they can see them” were “wandering all over the Woods destroying our Game, which is now so scarce that we cannot kill suf¤ciently to supply our Necessities.” The Maskókî believed that incursion by whites and their cattle was responsible for the depletion of deer, bear, and “buffalo” on their hunting lands. Cattle and pigs also destroyed the natural habitats that attracted the native animals. By the 1750s South Carolina was overstocked with cattle, and white ranchers continued expanding into the neighboring colony of Georgia and Lower Creek lands (Saunt 1999:46, 48, 50). Prior to the Revolutionary War there are records of Maskókî owning domestic livestock. They had adopted pigs and chicken, both of which were common in their towns before the middle of the eighteenth century. Piker (2003:199– 202) found 1735,1737,and 1749 accounts of cattle ownership among the Maskókî, although such accounts became much more common later in the century. In many cases, these were probably free-ranging animals that were appropriated after they wandered into Creek towns and crop ¤elds. Despite some ownership of livestock among the Maskókî, the invasion of colonists’ and traders’ cattle was a major Creek grievance in treaties between the Maskókalkî and Britain in 1717, 1763, and 1765. When land was ceded to Georgia in these treaties, one condition was to “keep your slaves [who herded the cattle] & Cattle”within those boundaries. However, cattle and settlers continued...

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