NO. 8 CREEK SQUARE GROUNDS SWANTON 3 



several actual cases of such assimilation in later times. However, 

 so far as the tribes enumerated are concerned, this must always 

 remain in doubt. 



When the tribes of the Confederation first became known to 

 white people, they were distributed geographically into two main 

 sections to which the names Upper Creeks and Lower Creeks have 

 become attached. The former were on the Coosa and Tallapoosa 

 rivers and the upper course of Alabama River in the present state 

 of Alabama, the latter on the lower and middle courses of the 

 Chattahoochee, which now forms part of the boundary between 

 Alabama and Georgia. It was this latter division principally whicli 

 lived upon Ocmulgee River for a time and thus gave rise accidentally 

 to the popular English name for the entire people. A minor division 

 also existed between those Creeks living on the middle course of 

 Coosa River and those centering about the lower Tallapoosa, the 

 two being sometimes designated as Upper and Middle Creeks, 

 respectively. In the distribution of the original Muskogee tribes, 

 the Abihka and Coosa constituted the greater part of the Upper 

 Creeks, while the Kasihta and Coweta were the dominating element 

 among the Lower Creeks. The Okchai, Pakana, Tukabahchee, 

 Atasi, Kealedji, Liwahali, Lapiako, Kolomi, and a number of towns 

 descended from the Coosa, including Otciapofa, the Tulsa towns, 

 and the Okfuskee towns, besides several minor groups, formed the 

 bulk of the Middle Creeks. The Eufaula had the distinction of 

 being connected with all three. Their oldest seat seems to have been 

 in the Upper Creek country ; later they established themselves among 

 the Middle Creeks and about the period of first white contact they 

 formed a colony well down Chattahoochee River, among the Lower 

 Creeks. To complete the story of their migrant habits, we may 

 add that they seem to have furnished the first true Muskogee 

 contingent to the Florida Seminole in the Red House or Tcuko Tcati 

 Indians north of Tampa Bay. 



Tradition seems to be borne out by circumstantial evidence in 

 pointing to the Lower Creek country as that region in which the 

 tribes in question began their federation. According to the story 

 this had to do on the one hand with the division of the Muskogee 

 into the Kasihta and Coweta and on the other with the relations 

 between them and the non-Muskogee elements, particularly the 

 Apalachicola. The relations of the Kasihta and Coweta to each 

 other are somewhat uncertain, for while it is at times implied that 

 they resulted from the fission of a single body of people, the most 

 popular traditions speak of them as having come from the west 



