Beginning with a skirmish at Burnt Corn Creek in 1813 and ending with the Treaty of Fort Jackson in August 1814, the Creek War of 1813 to 1814 brought to an end the movement by traditionalists among the Creeks to halt the downfall of their nation. From that point forward into the 19^th century, the Creek Nation was systematically dismantled and settled by whites that poured into the frontier in ever increasing numbers. In the long term, much of the most desirable land fell into the hands of planters that used their windfall to become even wealthier and more politically powerful. For those that resided further down the social ladder, the newly available land meant hope that they too could find their fortune. But what of the Creeks that were displaced during this chapter in American expansion? Did they all readily accept their fate and make the arduous journey west? And if not, what became of the Indians that refused to follow that path? Did they adopt a more European lifestyle like their white counterparts raising cattle and planting gardens?

The answer to those questions is not an easy one, noting that not all the Creeks in the region felt the same way about their future. Indeed, the very essence of the Creek War of 1813 centered on the differences between the Red Sticks who sought a return to a more traditional way of life and the Indians who believed their path lay alongside the white entrepreneurs that settled farmland all along the new frontier. The tension that began with those differences didn’t dissipate completely in the summer of 1814. As a matter of fact, the issues surrounding removal and opportunity became more perceptible in the 1830s as the hordes of white immigrants streamed into what had once been the exclusive domain of the Creek.

Throughout the early 1830s, Creeks who resisted the move west had faced off against white settlers that often encroached on lands that had been reserved for Indians after the Creek War settlement and made more apparent in a series of treaties that followed. By 1836, the hostility between the two opposing forces could no longer be contained and violence broke out in what is referred to as the Second Creek War. Historians like John T. Ellisor have stated that, in general, historians have referred to the event as little more than a police action by the United States government as it closed the book on the Creek Nation. But, as he maintains, the issues were more complex with violence raging across much of the south as Creeks lashed out against the dramatic change to their lives.

Much of the fighting during the Second Creek War took place in the modern-day Alabama counties of Chambers, Macon, Pike, Lee, Russell and Barbour. The uprising finally subsided in 1837 with the Battles of Hodby’s Bridge and Pea River. The violence within this conflict was the very evidence needed by the Federal government to order the removal of all Creeks westward. That is just what happened as more than 23,000 Indians found their way to land designated for them by the federal government.  Soon enough, those desired lands of the south were all claimed by immigrants moving in and the reign of the Creek all too soon was a memory.