• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Creek Wars / Red Stick War 1813–1814

For two years, the Red Sticks fought twelve major battles known as the Creek War of 1813-1814. The more traditional Creeks were against the new life that was being introduced. Anglo- American encroachment into the traditional lands of the Upper Creeks instigated the Red Stick War.

The Creek lived for thousands of years in southeastern North America, in what are now the states of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Florida. Over time, their culture evolved into what is now called the Mississippian Culture. During the Mississippian time period they built huge earthen mounds. They did so by carrying dirt in baskets to the mound site. These mounds were built for various purposes. Some were platforms for the homes of chiefs, some were for religious ceremonies and some were for burials. They are the only structures that remain of the many highly organized and flourishing tribal towns of the Mississippian society.

The first documented Europeans to come among the Mississippians was Hernando DeSoto, who came in 1540. Thousands died from the diseases his expedition brought from Europe, such as measles, small pox and “the plague”. The loss of so many people devastated the chiefdoms. The people who survived moved away from the areas where sickness had occurred and banded together to form new towns. The English founded Charlestown in 1670 as the capital of the colony of Carolina. They became well acquainted with the Muskogean people through trade. It was during this trade era that the English began to call the Muscogean people “Creeks”. The “Upper Creek” towns were those located along the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, close to Ft. Toulouse, who supported the French. The “Lower Creek” towns were those located along the Catv Hvtce (now called Chatahoochie) and Flint rivers. Many Lower Towns were close to Florida and were friendly to the Spanish.

About a year after the United States declared war on Great Britain in June 1812, a conflict erupted in the American South that would become known as the Creek War. The Creek War was a complicated affair. It was both a civil war between two factions within the Creek Nation and an international struggle in which the United States, Spain, Britain, and other Indian tribes played a part. America’s ultimate victory in the conflict helped shape the outcome of the broader war with Britain and gained significant new territory for white settlement in the American South.

After the end of the American Revolution in 1783, Georgia experienced an explosion in population, and many new settlers looked for opportunities to acquire land in the western part of the state, largely occupied by Creek Indians. Their homeland included riverside towns, crop fields, and hunting grounds that extended into what is now Alabama. The Creeks were historically and culturally divided into two groups: the Upper Creek towns, located primarily along the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers and their tributaries in what is now Alabama, and the Lower Creek towns, found in the Flint and Chattahoochee river valleys of western Georgia.

Before 1790, Georgia made several treaties in which Lower Creek headmen ceded the land between the Ogeechee and Oconee Rivers to the state, but Upper Creek leaders refused to acknowledge the validity of these agreements. This disagreement resulted in frequent Creek attacks on Georgia settlers in the disputed territory. In 1790, the U.S. government made its first treaty with the Creeks, one in which both Lower and Upper Creek leadership participated. In subsequent treaties, the Creeks ceded more lands to the United States until the Ocmulgee River became the boundary between the Creek Nation and Georgia in 1805.

Federal officials instituted a “civilization program,” implemented and promoted by the Indian agent for the United States, Benjamin Hawkins. His program of teaching agriculture and “domestic arts” to the Creeks succeeded primarily with the Lower Creeks. Their conversion from a hunting/bartering economy to a market economy produced great wealth among many of them, particularly those of mixed-blood ancestry who claimed a white father (usually a trader or merchant) and a Creek mother. Hawkins created a governing body for all Creeks, the National Council, which intentionally circumvented the previous polity of town headmen. This caused resentment between those economically successful Lower Creeks and many Upper Creeks who opposed assimilation.

By the fall of 1811 Tecumseh, a Shawnee warrior from north of the Ohio River, and his brother “the Prophet” (Tenskwatawa) had forged an alliance between the British and many northern tribes. Tecumseh advocated an armed uprising by all Indians against the encroachments of American settlers. In the summer of 1811, Tecumseh sought to expand his pan-Indian alliance into the South. He first visited the Chickasaws. Rebuffed, he continued on to the Choctaws, but one of their chiefs, Pushmataha, was a staunch friend of the United States and countered Tecumseh’s efforts. He then ventured on to the Creek Nation, where he encountered a more receptive audience. Admonishing his adherents not to strike until the pan-Indian alliance was ready to act in unison, Tecumseh returned to his home in the north before the end of the year. In the spring of 1812, a few of Tecumseh’s Creek followers killed several white travelers on the Federal Road.

A serious rift soon developed in the Creek Nation. One faction consisted of those leaders who received monetary emoluments from the United States, who supported the National Council, and who rejected Tecumseh’s call to war. Members of the other faction, known as Red Sticks, disliked the council’s challenge to local autonomy, resented the growing influence of white culture at the expense of traditional values, and embraced Tecumseh’s political vision and the Prophet’s religious teachings. As the year wore on, the animosity between these two factions became intense.

Red Stick warriors began targeting Creeks friendly to the United States. By June 1813, the Creek Nation was descending into civil war. Having won the backing of the majority of Creeks, the Red Sticks began gathering their forces near the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers. There they executed several Creeks who had enforced the National Council’s orders to bring perpetrators of violence to justice. Red Stick leaders announced that they intended to kill Hawkins and all headmen who supported the United States.

Fighting quickly escalated between the opposing factions as did the danger posed by the Red Sticks to whites traveling through or living near Creek lands. The governors of Georgia and Tennessee could not support the council since states could not send their militia into federal territory without the permission of the US government. The attacks caused many settlers to leave their remote homesteads for settlements near the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers. Scattered throughout the region were small stockade forts that generally consisted of a palisade erected around a settler’s dwelling and other nearby structures. Each fort usually boasted at least one blockhouse in a corner to provide some cross-fire capability.

Fort Mims sheltered several hundred white and mixed-blood settlers along with their slaves. The fort consisted of a compound of about one acre surrounded by a stockade. On 30 August 1813 about one thousand Red Stick warriors rushed the open eastern gate to Fort Mims in a noon assault. The warriors took no prisoners, killing the inhabitants without mercy. When news of the Fort Mims disaster reached Nashville on 18 September 1813, Jackson was bedridden with wounds received from a recent duel. He nevertheless assured Blount and the town’s leading citizens that he would personally lead the expedition into the Creek lands. Heeding Jackson’s advice, Blount directed the general to raise twenty-five hundred militia.

Although low on food and supplies, Jackson thought that a victory at Talladega might end the war. On 9 November, his two thousand Tennesseans approached Talladega. Through an error, his force failed to encircle the town as Jackson had intended. The Red Sticks escaped with about seven hundred warriors, leaving three hundred men to perish in a furious battle when Jackson’s troops attacked. His string of victories notwithstanding, Jackson struggled to keep a respectable military force assembled. During the closing weeks of 1813, supply shortages had kept General Jackson idle in the north.

Eager to resume the offensive, to his dismay Jackson found the army in a mutinous mood, with many militiamen asserting that their enlistments would expire on 10 December. Fearing that he would lose most of his men, Jackson asked Blount to raise more militia. Jackson allowed his own volunteers to begin their way home.

By mid-January 1814, the Tennesseans and Georgians were ready to embark on a renewed effort. Their ultimate objective was the Red Stick bastion of Tohopeka, a town located on a curve of the Tallapoosa River known as the Horseshoe Bend. Once they captured the town, the combined armies would be positioned to dominate the rest of the Creek heartland. Although they suffered heavy losses, the Red Sticks by aggressive action defeated each of the two thrusts directed at Tohopeka.

After having gathered a sufficient quantity of supplies, Jackson marched out on 14 March with twenty-two hundred infantry, Coffee’s seven hundred mounted troops, and six hundred American Indian allies (five hundred Cherokees and one hundred National Creeks). On 24 March, Jackson’s column approached Tohopeka after a three-day march. At the large bend of the river, the Red Sticks had built across the peninsula a zigzag log fortification, five to eight feet high. The Red Sticks fought fiercely, but they were soon overwhelmed. Jackson counted 557 enemy warriors “left dead upon the peninsula,” not counting the several hundred casualties inflicted by Coffee’s command. Only about 200 of the 1,000 defenders escaped. Jackson and his Indian allies suffered about 260 casualties. The victors also rounded up some 350 women and children as prisoners. Jackson later boasted that “the history of warfare furnishes few instances of a more brilliant attack.”

The absence of further resistance signaled an end to the Creek War. The now-famous Jackson received a brevet major general’s commission in the U.S. Army. With the Creek War at an end, Jackson could turn his full attention to the new adversary. He marched his army to Mobile where he repelled a British attack in mid-September 1814.

In terms of combat effectiveness, the volunteer militia proved brave if inexperienced and undisciplined. The greatest handicap posed by the militiamen was their frequent unwillingness to serve for longer than their initial term of enlistment, which was often six months and sometimes less. Short-term enlistments became serious obstacles since the tasks of raising, organizing, and moving a force into the Red Stick territory; establishing supply points; and conducting operations proved time consuming. This was particularly true given the daunting terrain, which ranged from swamps and creeks in the lower Mississippi Territory to the mountains of northern Alabama, with few roads on which to bring in supplies. Inclement weather also impeded progress, especially during winter when soldiers frequently lacked proper shelter and camp equipment.

During the Creek War, the Americans followed a strategy that they had often employed against Indians east of the Mississippi River. Targeting Indian settlements forced the Red Sticks to make difficult choices — either they could stand and fight to protect their property at the risk of suffering heavy casualties in battle or they could abandon their settlements, avoiding casualties but losing the shelter, property, and food stores that the towns provided, particularly in winter. Whatever course the Indians chose, over time they would suffer sufficient attrition in either men or resources to break their will to resist.

Total deaths for U.S. forces, regulars and militia, are estimated at 575. About 1,600 Red Stick warriors died. Many Indian civilians died of starvation or disease brought on by the loss of their homes in winter.

The treaty ending the Creek War was signed on August 9, 1814, and included a massive cession of Creek lands, covering about 75 percent of present-day Alabama and parts of Georgia. The most militant surviving Creeks chose to “redeploy” in the territory of Florida. By the early 1820s, nearly two-thirds of the native Florida population consisted of recent refugees from the Creek War who had merged with the original Seminoles.

Second Creek War of 1836-1838

John T. Ellisor asked "Whoever heard of the Second Creek War? Certainly the event never appears in history textbooks, though one may occasionally encounter the term Creek War of 1836, but without any meaningful description of what that confl ict actually entailed. Other accounts, monographs on Creek history or Indian removal, say a bit more, but even here the Creek War of 1836 appears as a rather insignifi cant police action, lasting only a matter of a few weeks. Often we see the term Creek War of 1836 written in quotation marks to downplay its signifi cance as a real war. Other times historians refer to the confl ict as the so-called Creek War of 1836. Several historians have devoted a few paragraphs of their books to the war, but they mention it only in passing as they move on to other destinations."

While some Creeks moved westward or into Florida after 1814, most stayed on their greatly diminished territory in present-day Alabama. In 1825, William McIntosh, speaker of the Lower Towns, signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, which ceded all Muscogee lands in Georgia and 2/3 of their Alabama lands in return for new land in what is now Oklahoma. As a result, McIntosh was executed under National Council laws.

The Creeks were determined to remain on their tribal homeland. Under the apt leadership of Opothleyahola (oh-bith-thee-ya-ho-la), speaker for the Upper Towns, the Creeks brought their complaints directly before the president. In Washington, D.C., Opothleyahola (oh-bith-thee-ya-ho-la) and the aged Lower Town principal chief, Little Prince, worked out a compromise with the United States. The 1826 Treaty of Washington stipulated that the Creeks cede their Georgia landholdings in exchange for a one-time payment of $217,600 plus $20,000 each year in perpetuity. Additionally, the treaty provided $100,000 for the emigration of McIntosh supporters west of the Mississippi river.

In 1832, the Treaty of Cusseta transferred the ownership of Creek lands from the tribe to individual Indians. Sales by the owners of these individual allotments to white settlers and land speculators, as well as illegal encroachment, caused continued friction and eventually sparked the Second Creek War of 1836. The conflict provided Jackson, now president of the United States, with the pretext to force all of the remaining Creeks to emigrate to Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi River during August and September 1836.

The Second Creek War (1836-1837), also called the Creek War of 1836, was a conflict between the U.S. Army and Alabama and Georgia militias and a faction of the Creek Nation seeking redress for long-standing grievances in Alabama. These Creeks, residing primarily in towns along the Chattahoochee River in the present-day Alabama counties of Chambers, Macon, Pike, Lee, Russell, and Barbour, faced a federal government that refused to enforce the terms of the 1832 Treaty of Cusseta.v In spring 1836, the Chehaw, Yuchi, Hitchiti and other bands of Creeks launched a campaign to drive out the white settlers. Creek war parties burned homes and farms, killed white families out of vengeance, and disrupted the mail stages. On May 14, 1836, Creek warriors, led by Yuchi warrior Jim Henry and the aging Hitchiti chief Neamathla, attacked Roanoke, Georgia, and killed, burned alive, and/or scalped 14 of the 20 defenders; only six managed to escape. The Creek warriors then burned the town to the ground.

The Roanoke massacre caused widespread panic across western Georgia and east central Alabama. Terrified settlers left their farms for larger settlements, and Creek bands burned the abandoned farms and settlements.

By this time, Pres. Jackson had been considering removing the remaining Creeks in Alabama to Oklahoma. He sent 14 companies of Army regulars, including 400 Marines, commanded first by Maj. Gen, Winfield Scott, to end the Creek attacks. . By mid-1837, the Army and the Alabama and Georgia militias had brought most of the fighting to an end although sporadic clashes between small bands of Creeks and local militia continued for several more years. The Commissioner of Pensions gives the number of soldiers in the service from Creek disturbances, 1836–37, as 13,418.

The enmity between the two factions (Upper and Lower) Creeks continued to remain high long after the execution of William McIntosh and removal. This, in part, explains why the Upper and Lower towns were much more autonomous and distinct than they had been in the east. In fact, in the years after forced removal, the Upper and Lower towns maintained their own councils and had little to do with each other. But, on February 17, 1839, approximately fifteen hundred Creeks gathered…for the first nation-wide Council that had taken place in years. There were one thousand Creeks from the Upper towns and five hundred Creeks from the Lower towns represented. Once the Council was reestablished, the Creek Nation created entirely new laws or modified old ones. The Council exerted more influence over Creek Talwas in the west than they had in the east. The Council made decisions for all Creek towns and no Talwa could nullify a decision made of the national level.