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BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 11 / / Creeks and Southerners / Andrew K. Frank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [First Page] [11], (1) Lines: 0 to 17 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [11], (1) chapter 1 The Invitation Within Throughout their pre-removal history in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, Creek Indians welcomed countless African, Native, and European outsiders into their villages. Creeks often took the newcomers as spouses and occasionally adopted others into their families. This attitude toward ethnic outsiders was rooted in a political structure and a dynamic culture that fostered inclusivity. Formed as a conglomeration of declining chiefdoms in the eighteenth century, the Creek Confederacy contained various ethnicities and cultures from its inception. The term Creek therefore refers to dozens of ethnic groups, the largest being the Muskogees, who formed social and political alliances in the eighteenth century . Strict rules that applied to all members of Creek society governed the process of incorporation. Creeks consistently incorporated outsiders into their eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century villages and struggled to maintain a sense of who and what belonged in their villages. Creek villages rejected individuals who—regardless of their race, birthplace, or ethnic identity—did not live by various cultural norms. The rules that governed acceptance into villages remained remarkably constant until the nineteenth century, when new ideas about race resulted in regulations for intermarriages between Creeks and European Americans. Incorporation required that ethnic newcomers cede some of their customs and authority to that of the larger Creek community. Yet it did not demand a total negation of past traditions, personal interests, and original identities. Instead most members of Creek villages had multiple identities, reflecting their ethnic, village,clan,and eventually national ties. The divergent concerns of individuals, families, villages, and the confederacy coexisted in an uneasy balance. Some forces united villages into a complex network of relations and obligations, but ethnicity, geography, kinship, politics, and village loyalty divided Creek society. Underneath these differences, however, most Creeks spoke a common hegemonic language, Muskogee; were organized socially through a matrilineal kinship system based on clans; practiced several common religious ceremonies and rites; lived in a polity with merit-based authority figures; participated in an economic system that organized agriculture, hunting, and trade on strict gender lines; and shared a political identity. An ethic of reciprocity also con- BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 12 / / Creeks and Southerners / Andrew K. Frank 12 | The Invitation Within 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [12], (2) Lines: 17 to 25 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [12], (2) nected individuals into familial networks of exchange. Throughout the century that preceded removal, these characteristics extended to all members of Creek society, regardless of their birthplace and ethnic backgrounds. A Creek identity, even if it was not called Creek for much of the eighteenth century, emerged as a product of the disruptions caused by European contact. Recent scholars commonly refer to the existence of a “New World” for both Europeans and Native Americans after contact, one that looked remarkably different than the one that preceded the arrival of Europeans. This implication of contact was wide-ranging, affecting everything from dietary norms to the rules of warfare, and from the nature of diplomacy to cosmological understandings of the world. The arrival of European Americans also had geopolitical rami- fications, and in the lower southern interior, this meant the gradual formation and constant reformation of a loose social and political framework that became called the Creek Confederacy.1 When Hernando de Soto plundered through the southeast in the 1540s looking for gold,a Creek Confederacy did not exist. De Soto and his soldiers encountered dozens of large Indian chiefdoms: among others, the Coosa, Altamaha, Apalachee, Talisi, and Alibamo chiefdoms. These Mississippian societies, which formed between ad 700 and ad 900, were complex and generally contained paramount chiefs, hierarchical structures, institutions of centralized power, specialized labor forces, complex systems of tribute, and sophisticated agricultural practices. In palisaded cities these southeastern Indians spoke numerous languages, relied heavily on agricultural production, had diverse cosmologies, and competed for power and territory as distinct...

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