I have no more land
I am driven away from home
Driven up the red waters
Let us all go
Let us all go die together
"Muskogee Seal"
Much of the most exquisite Creek art has been done by artist Dana Tiger. She has symbolized the strength of Creek women with her painting, "Warrior Women."
Click here for Dana's Art Exhibit.
The Creek Nation is believed to have descended from the prehistoric Mound Builders. The tribal name Creek came from early English traders because the Creek often built their villages on woodland rivers and creeks. Consisting of many different bands and villages, they also had many names. Their ancestral territory included much of what is now Georgia and Alabama, as well as parts of Florida, Louisiana and Tennessee. The Creek were divided into two branches, the Upper Creek, mostly in Alabama, and the Lower Creek, mostly in Georgia.
The most powerful Creek band went by the name Muskogee, which also became the most important language family, Muskogean. The Alabama and Coushatta, along with the Creek and Muskogee bands formed an organization called the Creek Confederacy--mainly for protection and survival. By the 1500s, the Creek Confederacy numbered over 20,000 and maintained a neutrality that allowed them to avoid interaction with Europeans until the 1700s.
After 1733, the Georgians posed the first real threat to the Creek neutrality by becoming the "foreign power" that the Creek had to contend with. They fought unscrupulously to gain control of the Creek lands. In spite of these battles, the Creek were able to maintain cultural and linguistic independence and their own religion throughout the 1700s. The Creek Confederacy was well established with a strong internal organization and internal and external communication systems. Such sophistication enabled the Creek to mount better defenses and stay together longer. Their strength also allowed them to maintain their language, culture and tradition. By the end of the century, however, that would change.
In the early 1800s, the Creek began their own uprising, known as the Creek War of 1813-14. Creek villages were organized into "red" towns and "white" towns. The red towns were the homes of the warriors, and the white towns were the homes of the peacemakers. By 1813, the Red Stick faction wanted war with the whites and the White Stick faction wanted peace. Two mixed-bloods, Peter McQueen and William Weatherford, led the Red Stick faction, and Big Warrior, a full-blooded Creek, led the White Stick faction.
The first incident concerned Little Warrior, another full-blooded Creek.
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