BULL. 30] 



CREEKS 



3G3 



bay, and from this line northward to the 

 mountains. Tlie s. ])ortion of tliis terri- 

 tory was held by dispossession of the 

 earlier Florida tribes. They sold to Great 

 Britain at an early date their territory be- 

 tween Savannah and Ogeechee rs. , all the 

 coast to St Johns r., and all the islands 

 up to tidewater, reserving for themselves 

 St Catherine, Sapelo, and Ossabaw ids., 

 and from Pipemakers bhiff to Savannah 

 (Morse, N. Am., 218, 1776). Thus oc- 

 cupying a leading position among the 

 Muskhogean tribes the Creeks were suffi- 

 ciently numerous and jiowerful to resist 

 attacks from the northern tribes, as the 

 Catawba, Iroquois, Shawnee, and Chero- 

 kee, after tliey had united in a confed- 

 eracy, which they did at an early day. 

 The dominating tribes at the time of 

 the confederation seem to have been the 

 Al)ihka (or Kusa), Kasihta, Kawita, Oak- 

 fuskee, and some other tribe or tribes at 

 the junction of Coosa and Tallapoosa rs. 

 Nothing certain can he said of their pre- 

 vious condition, or of the time when the 

 confederacy was established, but it ap- 

 pears from the narratives of De Soto's 

 expedition that leagues among several of 

 these towns existed in 1540, over which 

 head chiefs presided. 



For more than a century before their 

 removal to the W., between 1836 and 

 1840, the people of the Creek confederacy 

 occupied some 50 towns, in which were 

 spoken 6 distinct languages, viz, IMusco- 

 gee, Hitchiti, Koasati, Yuchi, Natchez, 

 and Shawnee. The first three were of 

 Muskhogean stock, the others were en- 

 tirely alien incorporations. About half 

 the confederacy spoke the Muscogee lan- 

 guage, which thus constituted the ruling 

 language and gave name to the confed- 

 eracy. The meaning of the word is un- 

 known. Although an attempt has been 

 made to connect it with the Algonquian 

 maskeg, 'swamp,' the probabilities seem 

 to favor a southern origin. The people 

 speaking the cognate Hitchiti and Koa- 

 sati were contemptuously designated as 

 "Stineards" by the dominant Muscogee. 

 The Koasati seem to have included the 

 ancient Alibamu of central Alabama, 

 while the Hitchiti, on lower Chattahoo- 

 chee r., appear to have been the remnant 

 of the ancient people of s. e. Georgia, and 

 claimed to be of more ancient occupancy 

 than the Muscogee. Geographically the 

 towns were grouped as Upper Creek, on 

 Coosa and Tallapoosa rs. , Ala., and Lower 

 Creek, on middle or lower Chattahoochee 

 r., on the Alabama-Georgia border. 

 While the Seminole (q. v.) were still a 

 small body confined to the extreme n. of 

 Florida, they were frequently spoken of 

 as Lower Creeks. To the Cherokee the 

 Upper Creeks were known as Ani-Kusa, 

 from their ancient town of Kusa, or 



Coosa, while the Lower Creeks were 

 called Ani-Knicitd, from their principal 

 town Kawita, or Coweta. The earlier 

 Seminole emigrants were chiefly from the 

 Lower Creek towns. 



The history of the Creeks begins with 

 the ai)pearance of De Soto's army in their 

 country in 1540. Tristan de Luna came 

 in contact with part of the grouj) in 1559, 

 Init the only important fact that can be 

 drawn from the record is the deploraljle 

 condition into which the people of the 

 sections ])enetrated by the Spaniards had 

 l)een brought l)y their visit. Juan del 

 Pardo passed through their country in 

 1567, but Juan de la Vandera, the chron- 

 iclerof his expedition, has left little inore 

 than a list of unidentifiable names. The 



CREEK MAN 



Creeks came prominently into history as 

 allies of the Flnglish in the Apalachee 

 wars of 1703-08, and from that period 

 continue almost uniformly as treaty allies 

 of the South Carolina and Georgia colo- 

 nies, while hostile to the Spaniards of 

 Florida. The onlj' serious revolt of the 

 Creeks against the Americans took i)lace 

 in 1813-14 — the well-known Creek war, 

 in which Gen. Jackson took a prominent 

 part. This ended in the complete defeat 

 of the Indians and the submission of 

 AVeatherford, their leader, followed by 

 the cession of the greater part of their 

 lands to the United States. The extended 

 and bloody contest in Florida, which 

 lasted from 1835 to 1843 and is known as 

 the Seminole war, secured permanent 

 peace with the southern tribes. The re- 



