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

As the unease between the fledgling United States and the British advanced in the early 19^th century, so too did the animosity between the Native Americans along the frontier and the settlers, who continued to expand their reach ever westward.

In yet another twist to the story, a division within the Creek Nation placed traditionalists in opposition to those who found a future in converting to a more European lifestyle with agriculture as the focal point of their lives.

Various pressures affected the stability of the Creek people, including influences from Americans and Europeans as well as the long standing differences of a people that, in reality, were never as closely bonded as Europeans and Americans had believed.

As mentioned last week, the Creek were more united in the perception held by whites than they were in their daily interaction with one another. They differed in their ideological beliefs and their perception of their people’s cultural future based on their origins.

For example, those that migrated into the region from the North and West viewed themselves in a different light than the people they encountered at the end of their trek. And what’s more, the interaction with whites exacerbated those differences among the people referred to as Creek. Contact, especially among traders in the region, effected the lifestyle of the Indians throughout the South, but most particularly among the Creek. As the tension between the British, then the Americans and later the Spanish and Americans along the frontier heated up, the competition to win the support of the Creek people exposed them to ever more intrusive products and ideology.

The climax to that competition came in 1811, when Shawnee leader Tecumseh visited the Creek towns, bringing a message of revolution to his cousins, the Creek. Tecumseh, aided by his brother Tenskwatawa known to many as the Prophet, forwarded the message of solidarity among all Indian people as a means of halting further incursions by American and European settlers and traders.

Many Creek residents of the southeast believed in the message delivered by Tecumseh, and subsequently sought to stop American expansion through all necessary means. The Lower Creeks, however, continued to follow a path that aligned them with the Europeans they traded with and emulated through cultivation of the land.

The Creeks that sided with Tecumseh became known as Red Sticks. Among these followers of Tecumseh was noted leader William Weatherford (Red Eagle), whose burial is marked in northern Baldwin County. While the divisions within the Creek Nation were beginning to be amplified as early as 1811, the civil war among the Creeks didn’t become apparent until 1813, when a party of Red Sticks killed a group of white settlers in Tennessee following a visit to Tecumseh. The killers were subsequently rounded up and executed by the governing Creek council as a means of appeasing the American government.

As a direct result of the Creek council’s actions, Red Stick Creeks in the Baldwin County area reacted with intent to obtain guns, powder and shot from Pensacola. They anticipated a war and began preparations to defend themselves. One particular group of Red Sticks were, in turn, attacked on a return trip to Pensacola by Mississippi Territorial militia, creating a domino effect of events leading up to the late summer massacre at Fort Mims in northern Baldwin County. Next week, we will examine the last gasp of the Creeks to maintain their land holdings in Alabama.