Part one of a multi-part series on the Creek War, in particular the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, which marks its 200th anniversary this year.

Two hundred years ago, life changed forever for the inhabitants of the Old Southwest (what is now Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas).

The traditional life of the Indians was swept away as millions of acres of pristine timber and farmland fell into the hands of speculators and settlers moving in from Georgia and the Carolinas. The defeat of the Creeks at the hands of future president Andrew Jackson changed the course of history at the local and the national level.

The attacks at Burnt Corn, then later that summer at Fort Mims, inflamed the tension among the whites and Indians as both became intimately involved in the future of the United States. It was the Battle at Horseshoe Bend that settled the question of who would control the Old Southwest and who would embrace manifest destiny.

In March 1814, the Creek War ended very decidedly along a bend in the Tallapoosa River at the site of the last stronghold of Chief Menawa and his tribe of Red Stick Creeks. Horseshoe Bend was the beginning of the end for the Creek traditionalists. What traditions formed the foundation of that life? What do we know of the origins of the Creeks and their relationship with the whites that eventually dislodged them from their lands?

In the late 17th century, English traders along the Atlantic coast began to refer to local natives as Creek because of their close proximity to the Ochesee Creek in north Georgia. As these Indians moved further inland toward the western boundary of Georgia, the name traveled with them.

Over time, the Creek name became associated with several different tribes that lived in the backcountry (west Georgia and south-central Alabama). In most instances, a constructed division of the native people was also applied by the English. The Lower Creek designation was given to those people living in the southern and eastern portion of the interior, while the Upper Creeks were those who lived near the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers.

Although the English created artificial designations for their own purposes, the Upper and Lower Creek peoples did have common bonds that linked them together in times of peace and war. As such, the Creek’s lives revolved around their relationships to their town.

In stressful times, representatives from the towns met to decide strategy and to come to solutions as a whole. Festivals such as Busk or the Green Corn Ceremony helped create a bond between towns. A familial system of clans also tied these groups together through marriage. So while the term Creek was used extensively by the English and subsequently by the Americans, the Indians referred to themselves exclusively through their relationship to their town.

By the onset of hostilities between Creeks and Americans in 1813, the social system of the town configuration was well established. The division, however, between those who supported the traditional way of life and those who supported a transition to a more European lifestyle had brought underlying tensions among the Creeks to a head.

Next week, we will examine those tensions and how they gave rise to the Red Stick faction.

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend

DATE: March, 27, 1814

LOCATION: Near Dadeville in Central Alabama

CONFLICT: Upper Creeks (Red Sticks) opposed U.S. settlement of Old Southwest; Andrew Jackson and troops sent to clear Alabama for American settlement.

RESULT: U.S. and allied Native American victory