A VINTAGE ORIGINAL APPROXIMATELY 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 INCH PHOTO FROM 1926 OF JACKSON BARNETT CREEK INDIAN AND THE RICHEST INDIAN IN THE WORLD. This story starts in the early 1850s near Muskogee, Oklahoma with the birth of Jackson Barnett. Jackson’s father, Siah Barnett, was a mixed-blood Creek Indian connected to the prominent Barnett family. Jackson’s mother, “Thlesothle”, was a mostly full-blood Creek Indian. Jackson’s father and mother both belonged to the Tuckabatchee tribal town. Jackson was said to be a great lover of horses when young. It is said that sometime during his adolescence he was thrown off a horse and hit his head. This trauma apparently caused Jackson some damage which affected his future mental development. He evidently did not emotionally and intellectually develop well. He was described as having the mind of a child. By the mid 1850s Siah and Thlesothle had separated and sometime after Siah and his new wife Mary migrated much further southwest near the town of Bryant in Okmulgee county. Jackson lived with and around his mother (who had remarried), his half-brother Tecumseh Andrew, and other maternal kin as was the traditional Indian custom. It is said that sometimes he would visit and stay with cousins near Humboldt, Kansas. Jackson worked for many years for John Leecher (his uncle), the owner of a ferry near Muskogee on the Arkansas River. Jackson’s half-brother Tecumseh also worked on Leecher’s ferry. Meanwhile his father Siah, his uncle Jim, and James Fife operated a store near Bryant (dates unknown) near Bryant in southwestern Okmulgee county. It can only be assumed that during some of these trips Siah would visit with his son. In late June 1891 while operating the ferry Jackson’s brother Tecumseh fell into the river and drowned. Word of Tecumseh’s death eventually spread to relatives in Kansas and apparently the Barnetts at Bryant. It is said that Siah Barnett decided that he would go to Muskogee and bring Jackson back with him to Bryant. When Jackson came to the Bryant neighborhood he lived with his half-siblings and cousins. Eventually his relatives built him a cabin but many times he would prefer to stay in the woods even in his increasing age. While Jackson would by choice or nature not take care of himself like a “normal” person he evidently was extremely resilient and healthy for he lived to a ripe age. The relatives no doubt felt a bit ashamed of their “strange” kin but still they cared enough to keep food and fire wood in his cabin if he needed it. By the time of the Dawes Enrollment in 1899 his relatives probably filled out the application for him. When it came to select an allotment Jackson refused to make a selection and an arbitrary allotment in Creek county was made for him. Jackson was declared legally incompetent by the Indian officials and a guardian was appointed to handle his affairs. His guardian allowed an oil company to drill on his allotment for oil and it was on this allotment that Jackson’s future fortune would spring in 1912. Muskogee Times Democrat, Feb. GUSHER COMES IN WHILE CREEK IS LOOSE IN WOODS. Cushing Allotment Develops 14,000 Barrel Well Today — Owner Demented. Lives in a Cabin Near Henryetta, Where Relatives Take Food and Fuel, Which Are His Only Wants. When Jackson Barnett, a demented Creek Indian, is running wild in the woods of Okmulgee county, down near Henryetta, the Gypsy Oil Company today brought in a 14,000 barrel oil well on Barnett’s allotment in the Cushing Field. A Telegram received at the United States Indian Agency here today brought the information that the gusher had been brought in on the Barnett allotment in the S2 of the SE4 of section 5-17-12. The drillers are unable to control the gusher, the telegram says, and oil is flowing from the well into a creek. Portrait photo of JacksonBarnett is a fullblood Creek. He has been declared an incompetent. He is not able to care for his property, his mind is deranged, and he lives in a hut in the woods near Henryetta. He roams through the woods, living on herbs and bark, and what game he can kill. All he wants is to be left alone to live his life his own way. Relatives, it is said, let him wander, and always keep a supply of food and fuel in his cabin. While he is alive the government is keeping his property intact and investing his surplus wealth. [Muskogee Times Democrat, May 10, 1917]. ALLEN IS OPPOSED TO LIBERTY LOAN? May 10-(Special)- Carl J. The cash is idle in the sub-treasury of the United Sates but there is some doubt here about Indian Commissioner and R. Allen approving the loan. It is suggested that Allen may not regard it as a safe investment. [Muskogee Daily Phoenix, June 8, 1917]. OKMULGEE, June 7-(Special) Application has been made to the department of the interior by Carl J. [Muskogee Times-Democrat, July 25, 1919]. In addition to being a restricted Indian, Mr. Barnett’s affairs are looked after by a guardian, which made the matter an extremely technical one. He is possessed of a fortune estimated at more than a million dollars, which was derived from oil royalties principally. He is unmarried and has no relatives. He is a member of the church receiving the donation and lives a very simple life with few wants or desires. [Muskogee Daily Phoenix, September 7, 1919]. Jackson Barnett’s Next Gift Goes to Brother Who Fed Him When Poor. Cameron, former Muskogee preacher, is pastor. This is a gift to the church by Jackson Barnett, wealthy Creek Indian, whose income is so large form oil royalty in the Cushing pool, that he will never be able to spend it during a lifetime. Barnett is a member of the church and wanted to make a contribution for a new church building. Through the field agent he asked to be allowed to make the gift, and it was approved by the department. While he has no desire to die a poor man, Barnett is developing into a sort of philanthropist. But he cannot make any useless gifts, because he is a restricted Indian and all of his expenditures are checked by the Indian superintendent at Muskogee. Jackson now has another gift which he will submit to the department for their approval. Dave Barnett is an old-time full-blood with long gray hair. He has not been fortunate in getting oil on his land, and he and his daughter are making a meager living from a hilly farm. Before oil was found on Jackson’s land, his brother Dave fed and clothed him and took care of him when he was ill and in need. Now Jackson wants to do something for his brother. He wants him to have enough to live on during his life time, and wants to see that Dave’s daughter receives a good education. Dave was in Muskogee last week with Henry Harwell, postmaster at Bryant. He said that Jackson wanted to do something for him, and he came to ascertain the attitude of the department. He was told that if he was really a brother of Jackson, and his brother wished it, the gift would probably be approved. He is now planning a trip here and call on the Indian officials, who are custodians of.. Jackson’s home built by his guardian Carl J. O’Hornett near Henryetta, Oklahoma. [Muskogee Times Democrat, January 31, 1920]. RICH INDIAN DISAPPEARS WITH “BRIDE”. Jackson Barnett and “Kansas City Woman” Attempt to Get Married. Officers combing state for couple. Jackson Barnett, millionaire Indian incompetent and 70 years old, is trying to get married. In fact, he may be married at this time, although latest reports received at Muskogee indicate that the rich old man is still at large and single, despite his strenuous effort to break into the ranks of the benedicts. Reports said hem disappeared from his home at Henryetta with a woman companion either early Friday or late Thursday. Comb State for Him. Up to a late hour Saturday afternoon, the government had not been able to lay it’s hand on Jackson and his near-bride, but the entire east-side of the state was being combed in an effort to locate the marrying old couple. Reports at the Indian agency from Holdenville and Okemah were that Jackson and his companion, had been unable to secure a license at either of those places but that probably would try at other places before despairing. They know the old man won’t last much longer and they have put this woman up to the trick so they come before the government with a claim on Jackson’s millions and compromise for a few thousand dollars. First reports of the attempt of the old couple to get married were received at the Indian agency late Friday. A telephone message from the field clerk at Okemah was to the effect that Jackson and his companion, “a middle-aged woman from Kansas City, ” were trying to get a marriage license from the county clerk court. The court clerk has applied for information to the field clerk, who had put his foot down on the securing of the license. Jackson was asked how long he had known the woman and why he wanted to get married. Known Her Only a Day. “Oh, I got acquainted yesterday, ” he is reported to have said, and I liked her pretty well, so though we’d get married. The next call for help was from Holdenville early Saturday. The field clerk was told to notify other field clerks in neighboring counties and to spread the news among the other county officials in an effort to prevent the marriage. Strain has notified Carl J. O’Hornett, Jackson’s guardian at Henryetta, who is scouring the country to locate his ward. Other’s have also been put on the couple’s trail. Barnett is about 70 years of age and has never married. [Muskogee Times Democrat, February 23, 1920]. BARNETT COIN IS TIED UP BY COURT ORDER. With Indian Missing, Williams Issues Injunction Against Charity Plan. Kidnaped’ again by persistent’lover. The hearing for a permanent injunction was set for Saturday morning. Disbursal of the million and a half dollars as proposed is illegal and can not be carried through, insists the surety company, which is bondsmen for the guardian, Carl J. O’Hornett of Henryetta and for David Buddruss, cashier at the Indian Agency. Also named in the petition as a defendant is Gabe E. Parker, superintendent for the Five Civilized Tribes. To Protect Bond Company. “While this suit was filed simply to protect us, ” said Judge N. Maxey, attorney for the complainant, we have been unable to find any authority in law for such an expedition of funds. If the courts decide against us, then we are protected at any rate. Officials at Washington now are revisiting former estimates of the amount to be expended on the proposed charities, according to Mr. With the total funds estimated at a million and a half, it is said that the expenditures will be well under a million dollars – if they are made. Gifts Total Million and Half. Tentative plans call for the erection of an Indian hospital at Henryetta with endowment of the institution. Gifts to churches and other charities bring the amount up close to a million and a half dollars. Woman Gave Two Names. 23 – (Special) Where is Jackson Barnett? Believed to have been “kidnaped” Saturday night for the second time by a woman who gives her name on some occasion as Ida Bartell of Oklahoma City and on others as Mrs. Lowe of Kansas City, the aged Indian millionaire’s whereabouts today are veiled in obscurity. According to reports from Barnett’s farm six miles from here, the persistent “suitor” who failed in her first attempt to get away with him about three weeks ago, called again about 8:30 o’clock Saturday night, invited the incompetent old man to “take a ride” and whisked him away. The last that was seen of the high-powered car was when it plunged into a swirl of dust with its hood pointing north. Sheriffs and other officers over all of eastern Oklahoma and surrounding states were immediately notified but no trace of the “elopers” has been found. It is thought that the automobile was a service car from Okmulgee but efforts to locate it have been futile. The first alleged attempt of the Bartell-Lowe woman to marry Barnett was frustrated when then pair drove up to the courthouse in Holdenville about three weeks ago to seek a license. A crowd recognised Barnett and the pair abandoned their effort to get the license. [Muskogee Times Democrat, February 25, 1920]. Jackson Barnett and Wife as Photographed at Coffeyville. Jackson Barnett, millionaire Creek Indian of Henryetta, and Mrs. Anna Laura Lowe Barnett, who were married at Coffeyville, Kansas, Monday after a sensational “development”, posed for the photographer at the request of the Times-Democrat correspondent yesterday morning, and the result is shown above. When the picture was taken both Barnett and his wife were clad in nobby leather coats which they wore when they left Henryetta in a motor car. The rakish tilt of Barnett’s hat and the Barney Oldfield slant of his cigar would indicate that he is anything but displeased with his lot. Guardian O’Hornett Finally Gets Conference with Barnett and His Bride; Result of Secret Meeting Not Disclosed; Pair Still in Coffeyville. 25-(Special)-Overcoming the objections of Mrs. Anna Laura Lowe Barnett, bride since Monday of his 68-year-old Indian ward, Carl J. O’Hornett, Guardian of Jackson Barnett, gained entrance Wednesday morning into the honeymoon suite at a local hotel and held a conference with the elopers, whose sensational dash for the Kansas line Sunday night and the subsequent marriage Monday morning made more than one officer wonder were they got through. O’Hornett had been denied admittance to the room of his ward Tuesday night by the bride, but Wednesday morning, accompanied by his attorneys, Nott and Welch of Coffeyville, he succeeded in negotiating with the Indian. The conference was conducted through attorneys McGugin and Keith, also of Coffeyville, who were hastily engaged by Mrs. He did not succeed in seeing old Barnett alone as he had desired. Barnett hurled defiance at her husband’s guardian and urged him to allow them to return to the Barnett home near Henryetta without molestation. Otherwise, she declared, they would not return. No answer to the ultimatum has been made by O’Hornett, it is understood. Meanwhile the bridal couple are seemingly enjoying themselves despite the virtual surveillance to which they are subjected by the Coffeyville police and secret service men. They are, however, allowed their freedom and apparently have no though of worry. Muskogee Dailey Phoenix, Feb. BARNETT’S BRIDE, REVOLVER IN HAND, BLOCKS KIDNAPERS. Leap Year’ Wife of Millionaire Indian Stands Careful, Defiant Guard Over Spouse. Millionaire is’broke’ but funds still keep coming. Officials Think Some Interested Third Party Is Financing Barnett’s Defence – Officers Here Mum. 26 – An attempt to kidnap Jackson Barnett was frustrated here late this afternoon through quick action on the part of his wife, according to employees at the hotel where the couple are living. They said that while Mrs. Barnett was using telephone on another floor, a large gray touring car containing two young men drone to the curb outside a window where Barnett could be seen sunning himself. Men in the car held up a fish pole and pointing toward the river beyond the city they attracted the attention of the Indian and as he was about to join them one of the party rushed into the hotel to meet him. The wife appeared on the scene and shoving her husband into his room turned on the intruders with a pistol. Third attempt to steal him. This is a said to be the third attempt to kidnap or entice Barnett away from the hotel. Her attorneys are said to have employed private detectives from Kansas City to guard the couple. In a statement dictated to a porter Mrs. Barnett said: Our home is in our apartment at the hotel. I have the right to defend that home against any invader. We are through with Oklahoma, Kansas is our home, and in Coffeyville, if possible. Oklahoma refused us our rights as American citizens and Kansas accepted us, therefore we, will continue to make Kansas our home. Barnett’s attorneys left the city today and, it is said, has gone to Wichita, Kansas, to apply to the federal court for an injunction to prevent Carl J. O’Hornett of Henryetta, Okla. The action is being held in abeyance pending the arrival here of certified copies of the federal and state court records from Muskogee showing Barnett has been adjudged incompetent. Up to Kansas Jury. Harold McGugin, one of the attorneys for Mrs. Barnett, today said he expected to institute legal proceedings should federal authorities insist on annulment proceedings. His contention is that the Oklahoma federal and state court decisions are not binding on the question of Barnett’s competency, but that a Kansas jury must pass on the matter before the marriage can be set aside unless Barnett is taken from the Kansas jurisdiction. The attorney said if Barnett should be kidnaped or enticed into Oklahoma then the decision of that state would apply. If the question of sanity becomes an issue it is expected both sides will bring alienists from all over the country to give testimony as to Barnett’s mental fitness. Barnett herself tonight denied a rumor that her husband was without funds to fight the annulment proceedings. Federal officials believe the… For background information about Anna Laura Lowe see this scandelous Confidential Report dated April 28, 1920. Muskogee Daily Phoenix, Aug. JACKSON BARNETT IS’STEPPIN’ OUT,’ HIS WIFIE AVERS. Jackson Barnett,’millionaire’ Creek Indian is’stepping out. He has been playing the ponies at the Windsor races at Detroit Mich. And now his wife, Anna Laura Barnett, who was accused of kidnapping him when they ran away to Coffeyville, Kans. Word of Jackson’s mingling among the high steppers at Detroit reached Muskogee yesterday in the form of an interview with Mrs. According to the statement credited to Mrs. We are going to have a swimming pool, a garage and a stable. We have already ordered a special made automobile. The house will be of stone and have a red tile roof. Jackson and I have been living long enough in a 30-acre homestead and in an ordinary cottage, according to the interview. About the only trouble with “Chief” Barnett as husband, according to his wife, who says she is superlatively fond of him, is that he insists on walking Indian fashion (single file) when we go down the avenue together. Tell of Indian Traits. He drops into his old habit often. “Chief” refuses also to be henpecked, she said. Silence, eternal silence, is his forte whenever his plans are interfered with. Barnett, but I seem to do as the chief wishes. Jackson in field near Muskogee, 1922. Jackson on his newly bought farm. On West Okmulgee ave. Portrait photo of Jackson and Laura. Portrait photo of Jackson. Muskogee Daily Phoenix, Feb. GETS PART OF INTEREST FROM WIFE’S TRUST FUND. Jackson Barnett yesterday voluntarily stripped himself of most of his wealth. This sum is given to the Baptist home mission society of New York, which had administration control over Bacone and the Murrow home. Announcement of the agreement was made in Washington yesterday. It was reached at a conference of the Barnetts with Charles H. Burke, commissioner of Indian affairs, Victor Locke, superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes and A. At His Own Request. The various trust agreements involved were made, according to Mr. Burke, “because designing persons” sought not only to gain control of his property now but were scheming to make claims after his death. Bacone college now will have the largest endowment of any state educational institution, Dr. Weeks superintendent, said last night. He had been awaiting for several weeks announcement of the agreement which was the primary purpose of the Barnetts’ visit to Washington. Disposal of Barnett’s fortune was arranged at his request to keep it out of the hands of these “designing persons” when he dies, Burke stated in Washington. Barnett, who has no living relatives with legal or moral claims upon him, according to Burkes’s announcement, has been in the public eye more prominently perhaps than any other Indian, not only because of his great wealth but because of his sensational marriage about three (sic) years ago when his bride is alleged to have kidnaped him from his guardian in Oklahoma and taken him to Kansas, where they were married. It is explained that the gift to the society, which will go to its permanent endowment fund, is not a denominational or church donation but is made solely because the organization has administrative control over Bacone college and the Murrow home. To Balk Varied Schemers. According to Commissioner Burke, Jackson’s wealth seems to have been a magnet attracting designing persons of every character from all parts of the country. Indian department official have been called upon to devote much time and energy in the thwarting of impossible and fantastic schemes to secure his wealth. “Definite knowledge has recently come, ” Burke said, to the Indian office officials that the grafters are not content with making encroachments on this estate during the lifetime of its owner, but have gone so far as to hunt up persons who will claim to be his heirs upon his death and have secured from them contracts for 50 percent of their interest in his estate and which claims will be prosecuted when Jackson Barnett dies. [Muskogee Times Democrat, May 31, 1923]. But This Time It’s In California Where They Intend to Remain. Barnett in the recent settlement of Barnett’s estate. Barnett of a palatial residence in Los Angeles. Barnett acted entirely without the knowledge of the Indian office. Immediately after the distribution of Jackson Barnett’s fortune in Washington last winter, Mrs. Barnett went immediately to California, leaving her husband in Muskogee. She made one or two other trips to the Pacific coast before packing up the family trinkets and departing for a long stay. Barnett confirms rumors that the Barnett’s intend to reside just as far from Oklahoma and it’s probate courts as they can get. O’Hornett is attacking in the federal courts the distribution of Barnett’s fortune on the ground that he as guardian was consulted and did not approve the settlement. By his court actions the guardian would have paid into his hands the more than a million dollars involved in the Washington settlement under which Bacone College and Mrs. Barnett were the chief beneficiaries. [Muskogee Daily Phoenix, May 30, 1934]. Jackson Barnett, Whom Oklahoma Enriched but Couldn’t Educate. Dies in Palatial Home; Not a Cent to Woman Who “Kidnapped” Him. Barnett Found Jackson, 70, Living As Though Penniless. When Oil Was Found on His Land, Indian “Became Shuttlecock in Game of Battledore”. Jackson Barnett lived for 70 years in his shack near Henryetta with his dogs and ponies, and until he became wealthy was allowed to shift for himself and eke out an existence as best he could. With the discovery of oil on his apparently worthless land in the Cushing field, however, Barnett became, as described by Federal Judge John C. Knox of New York, a shuttlecock in a game of battledore in which the stakes were high. ” Known as the “world’s richest Indian Barnett was solicited and importuned for donations, kidnapped, and married by an adventuress, and harassed and annoyed by his attorneys. [Muskogee Daily Phoenix, June 3, 1934]. BARNETT’S DEATH CLOSES ONE STORY AND OPENS SECOND. Jackson Lived Alone Near Henryetta Until Gold Rushed From Scrubby Acreage. Battle for Indian Millions Just Starting, a Heirs Flock to Agency Here. The death of Jackson Barnett last week brought to a sudden close one of the strangest and at the same time one of the sordidly romantic stories in the history of the rich Creek nation and began another. Jackson Barnett was “the world’s richest Indian”. For 70 years Jackson lived among his dogs and ponies in a log cabin shack near Henryetta. Unkept, unlettered, dirty, the millionaire Creek was considered a “scrub” Indian, unable to meet the requirements of the Creek tribe. An outcast, Jackson lived alone until “black gold” poured out of his allotment. It was there that Anna Laura Lowe, a Kansas oil promoter, found him, and rushed the millionaire “scrub” across the Kansas state line to marry him. Lowe is reported to have made several trips to Barnett’s cabin to woo the aged Creek incompetent. Jackson later said that he refused several times to marry Mrs. Lowe, an attractive white widow, because she called when it was getting dark. Against that marriage the Indian bureau cried in protest. They insisted that Jackson was incompetent, did not understand the intent of marriage vows, and that the extent of his participation in the marriage ceremony had been a grunt and a grin. [Muskogee Dailey Phoenix, June 8, 1934]. Jackson Barnett Buried In Hollywood Cemetery, Far From Native Plains. June 7 – AP – Far from the rolling plains of his native Oklahoma, Jackson Barnett, reputedly the world’s wealthiest Indian, was buried today in Hollywood cemetery. Frank Gibson, and Episcopalian minister, conducted brief services. (Thanks to Allan Ellenburger). Accompanying the body to the final resting place was Mrs. Anna Laura Lowe Barnett, who Wednesday won her court battle to prevent the government from sending the aged Creek’s body to Oklahoma for burial. Barnett, whose marriage to the Indian recently was annulled in federal court, said she would prosecute her fight to obtain a widow’s share of the estate. Barnett died May 29 of a heart ailment. He was 92 years of age. Funeral services were held May 31, but the government halted burial plans, insisting his body be sent to his birth place for interment among his tribal ancestors. Barnett obtained a restraining order preventing the undertaker from sending the body to Oklahoma. Because Jackson and Anna’s marriage was annulled shortly before Jackson’s death Anna then had no effective legal claim to the estate as Jackson’s “widow”. Because of this, Jackson’s estate then fell to his natural heirs. The fight over Jackson’s began in the local courts but because of the growing claims to the estate the case was removed to the Federal Court of the Eastern District of Oklahoma in Muskogee presided by Judge Robert L. Immediately after Jackson’s death the local and Federal Court began to be deluged with legitimate and phony claims to the estate. The taking of depositions from over 600 claimants and witnesses around Oklahoma and even other states began in March 1935 and ended in February 1937. The trial to determine the heirs and live in-court testimony began in March 1937 and ended in June 1938. Throughout this time Jackson’s legitimate nieces, nephews, cousins had the tremendous task of countering the many phony claims by filing legal briefs and presenting witnesses to the contrary. In the beginning each individual legitimate niece, nephew and cousin was presenting largely similar and complementary claims but eventually they decided to join forces and present a united claim to help counter the illegitimate claims. The most persistent phony claim was from a Negro woman who claimed to have been married to Jackson and had a child. Others were from supposed cousins in Tennessee and Kentucky. Even before Jackson’s death it was known to the government officials that there were many unscrupulous people patiently waiting for the day Jackson died when they would swoop in and make their “claim” to the estate. Also, some persons with the Barnett surname were approached and induced by lawyers to try and cash in on Jackson’s fortune. Finally, after 5 years of taking testimony and depositions from real and alleged relatives who lived close and far and legal maneuvers from attorneys and government officials Judge Robert L. Williams came to a decision. On December 16, 1939 he filed his opinion in the case and on January 2, 1940 decreed and awarded half of the estate to Jackson’s paternal nieces and nephews and the other half to his maternal cousins. The court’s judgment was then appealed by the losing parties to the circuit court and later Supreme Court to be tried but in both cases the initial court ruling was held valid, without further trial. Department of the Interior until 1920. Jackson was the son of a mixed Creek farmer, Siah Barnett, and a Creek woman named Thlesothle. Orphaned at an early age, he was raised by his mother’s relatives. He suffered a head injury after falling from a horse as a young man. As a result of the Curtis Act of 1898, Barnett received title to 160 acres (65 ha) in Creek County in 1903, but the land was administered in trust by the Department of the Interior. During the same decade, Barnett was a supporter of the Crazy Snake Rebellion. With the discovery of oil on Barnett’s lands in 1912, a series of court actions by interested parties litigated the control of Barnett’s trust. Barnett was declared incompetent and denied access to his affairs simply because he only spoke the Muscogee Creek language and not English. Barnett was permitted a modest income and was installed in a house near Henryetta. The couple had to marry in Kansas after a marriage license was denied in Oklahoma. Barnett’s guardians were unable to annul the marriage and the hospital plans were never pursued. Instead, the trust was divided between Anna Barnett and Bacone Indian College. The Barnetts moved to Los Angeles and bought a mansion on Wilshire Boulevard, where Jackson passed his time directing traffic at a nearby intersection. Legal actions continued from 1923 to 1929, which provoked congressional hearings on the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in establishing and administering the Barnett trust and others like it. The hearings led to criticism of BIA administrator Charles H. Burke’s actions, and during the 1930s, to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. In 1927 Barnett v. Equitable again proclaimed Jackson Barnett incompetent in federal court. In March 1934 another federal ruling annulled the Barnetts’ marriage and Anna Barnett’s rights to Jackson’s trust on the grounds that Jackson had been “kidnapped” by a woman of suspect moral character, but allowed Anna to act as Jackson’s caretaker. Jackson Barnett died on 29 May 1934 of natural causes: allegations that Anna had poisoned him were found to be false. Anna was finally evicted from the Wilshire Boulevard residence after four years, even though she had gained significant support from Los Angeles society, [5] including Los Angeles District Attorney Burton Fitts and California Governor Frank Merriam. [4] In 1982 the Jackson Barnett No. 11 Oil Well, the most productive well on Barnett’s lands, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Muscogee, also known as the Muskogee, Muscogee Creek, Creek, Mvskokvlke, or the Muscogee Creek Confederacy pronounced m? Lgi in the Muscogee language, are a related group of indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. [2] Their original homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, all of Alabama, western Georgia and part of northern Florida. Like the Cherokees in northeastern Alabama, most of the Muscogee people were forcibly relocated from their original lands in the 1830s during the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Some Muscogee fled European encroachment in 1797 and 1804 to establish two small tribal territories that continue to exist today in Louisiana and Texas. Another small branch of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy managed to remain in Alabama and is now known as the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. A large population of Muscogee people moved into Florida between roughly 1767 and 1821[4] and these people intermarried with local tribes to become the Seminole people, thereby establishing a separate identity from the Creek Confederacy. Muscogee people in these waves of migration into Florida were fleeing conflict and encroachment by European settlers. The great majority of Seminoles were also later forcibly relocated to Oklahoma, where they reside today, although the Seminole Tribe of Florida and Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida remain in Florida. The respective languages of all of these modern day branches, bands and tribes, except one, are all closely related variants called Muscogee, Mvskoke and Hitchiti-Mikasuki, all of which belong to the Eastern Muskogean branch of the Muscogean language family. All of these languages are, for the most part, mutually intelligible. The Yuchi people today are part of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation but their Yuchi language is a linguistic isolate, unrelated to any other language. The ancestors of the Muscogee people were part of the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere, who between AD 800 and AD 1600 built complex cities and surrounding networks of satellite towns (suburbs) centered around massive earthwork mounds, some of which had physical footprints larger than the Egyptian pyramids. Some Mississippian city populations may have been larger than later colonial European-American cities. Muscogee Creeks are associated with multi-mound centers such as the Ocmulgee, Etowah Indian Mounds, and Moundville sites. Mississippian societies were based on organized agriculture, transcontinental trade, copper metalwork, artisanship, hunting, and religion. Early Spanish explorers encountered ancestors of the Muscogee when they visited Mississippian-culture chiefdoms in the Southeast in the mid-16th century. The Muscogee were the first Native Americans officially considered by the early United States government to be “civilized” under George Washington’s civilization plan. In the 19th century, the Muscogee were known as one of the “Five Civilized Tribes”, because they were said to have integrated numerous cultural and technological practices of their more recent European American neighbors. In fact, Muscogee confederated town networks were already based on an (at minimum) 900-year-old history of complex and well-organized farming and town layouts. Influenced by Tenskwatawa’s interpretations of the 1811 comet and the New Madrid earthquakes, the Upper Towns of the Muscogee, supported by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, actively resisted European-American encroachment. Begun as a civil war within Muscogee factions, it enmeshed the Northern Creek Bands in the War of 1812 against the United States while the Southern Creeks remained US allies. General Andrew Jackson then seized the opportunity to use the rebellion as an excuse to make war against all Muscogee people once the northern Creek rebellion had been put down with the aid of the Southern Creeks. The result was a weakening of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy and the forced cession of Muscogee lands to the US. During the 1830s Indian Removal, most of the Muscogee Confederacy were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Kialegee Tribal Town, and Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, all based in Oklahoma, are federally recognized tribes, as are the Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas. Seminole people today are part of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Rise of the Muscogee Confederacy. British, French, and Spanish expansion. Muscogee and Choctaw land dispute (1790). State of Muskogee and William Bowles. Pre-removal (late 18th-early 19th centuries). A comet, earthquakes, and Tecumseh (1811). Treaties of Indian Springs. American Civil War (1861). Indian Appropriations Act of 1871. Federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma. Federally recognized tribes in Alabama. Etowah Mound C, was a part of a precontact Mississippian and ancestral Muscogee site occupied by ancestors of the Muscogee people from c. At least 12,000 years ago, Native Americans or Paleo-Indians lived in what is today the Southern United States. [7] Paleo-Indians in the Southeast were hunter-gatherers who pursued a wide range of animals, including the megafauna, which became extinct following the end of the Pleistocene age. [7] During the time known as the Woodland period, from 1000 BC to 1000 AD, locals developed pottery and small-scale horticulture of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. The Mississippian culture arose as the cultivation of maize from Mesoamerica led to population growth. Increased population density gave rise to urban centers and regional chiefdoms. Stratified societies developed, with hereditary religious and political elites, and flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500 AD. The early historic Muscogee were descendants of the mound builders of the Mississippian culture along the Tennessee River in modern Tennessee, [8] Georgia, and Alabama. They may have been related to the Tama of central Georgia. Oral traditions passed down by the ancestors of the Creeks have alleged that their nation migrated eastward from places West of the Mississippi River, eventually settling on the east bank of the Ocmulgee River. [9] It was here that they waged war with other bands of Native American Indians, as the Savannas, Ogeeches, Wapoos, Santees, Yamafees, Utinas, Icofans, Paticans and others, until at length they had extirpated them. At the time the Spanish made their first forays inland from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, many political centers of the Mississippians were already in decline, or abandoned. [11] The region is best described as a collection of moderately sized native chiefdoms (such as the Coosa chiefdom on the Coosa River) interspersed with completely autonomous villages and tribal groups. The late Mississippian culture is what the earliest Spanish explorers encountered, beginning on April 2, 1513, with Juan Ponce de León’s Florida landing and the 1526 Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón expedition in South Carolina. Precontact Muscogees did not have the concept of private property; everything was shared. Similarly, they did not have a structured government; decisions were made by consensus. Both of these gradually vanished, the first because the Native Americans wished items the Europeans had to sell, such as muskets, or alcohol. [12] The second disappeared partly because the Spanish pressed them to say whom they could negotiate with; government by consensus was unknown in Europe at that time. Hernando de Soto and his men burn Mabila, after a surprise attack by Chief Tuskaloosa and his people; 1540, painting by Herb Roe, 2008. Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the first expedition into the interior of the North American continent. [14] From 1540 to 1543, de Soto explored through present-day Florida and Georgia, and then westward into the Alabama and Mississippi area. The areas were inhabited by historic Muscogee Native Americans. De Soto brought with him a well-equipped army. He attracted many recruits from a variety of backgrounds who joined his quest for riches in the Americas. As the de Soto expedition’s brutalities became known to the indigenous peoples, they decided to defend their territory. The Battle of Mabila was a turning point for the de Soto venture; the battle “broke the back” of the Spanish campaign, and the expedition never fully recovered. De Soto’s expedition, especially the new infectious diseases carried by the Europeans, caused a high rate of fatalities among the indigenous peoples. These losses were exacerbated by the Indian slave trade that flourished in the Southeast during the 17th and 18th centuries. As the survivors and descendants regrouped, the Muscogee or Creek Confederacy arose, which was a loose alliance of Muskogee-speaking peoples. The Muscogee lived in autonomous villages in river valleys throughout present-day Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, speaking several related Muskogean languages. Hitchiti was the most widely spoken in present-day Georgia; Hitchiti speakers were the first to be displaced by white settlers, and the language died out. Muskogee was spoken from the Chattahoochee to the Alabama River. Koasati (Coushatta) and Alibamu were spoken in the upper Alabama River basin and along parts of the Tennessee River. The Muscogee were a confederacy of tribes consisting of Yuchi, Koasati, Alabama, Coosa, Tuskeegee, Coweta, Cusseta, Chehaw (Chiaha), Hitchiti, Tuckabatchee, Oakfuskee, and many others. The basic social unit was the town (idalwa). Abihka, Coosa, Tuckabutche, and Coweta are the four “mother towns” of the Muscogee Confederacy. [16] Traditionally, the Cusseta and Coweta bands are considered the earliest members of the Muscogee Nation. [2] The Lower Towns, along the Chattahoochee, Flint, and Apalachicola rivers, and further east along the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers, were Coweta, Cusseta (Kasihta, Cofitachiqui), Upper Chehaw (Chiaha), Hitchiti, Oconee, Ocmulgee, Okawaigi, Apalachee, Yamasee (Altamaha), Ocfuskee, Sawokli, and Tamali. The protohistoric King Site, occupied during the mid-1500s. The Upper Towns, located on the Coosa, Tallapoosa and Alabama rivers, were Tuckabatchee, Abhika, Coosa (Kusa; the dominant people of East Tennessee and North Georgia during the Spanish explorations), Itawa (original inhabitants of the Etowah Indian Mounds), Hothliwahi (Ullibahali), Hilibi, Eufaula, Wakokai, Atasi, Alibamu, Coushatta (Koasati; they had absorbed the Kaski/Casqui and the Tali), and Tuskegee (“Napochi” in the de Luna chronicles). The most important leader in Muscogee society was the mico or village chief. Micos led warriors in battle and represented their villages, but held authority only insofar as they could persuade others to agree with their decisions. Micos ruled with the assistance of micalgi or lesser chiefs, and various advisers, including a second-in-charge called the heniha, respected village elders, medicine men, and a tustunnuggee or ranking warrior, the principal military adviser. The yahola or medicine man officiated at various rituals, including providing black drink, used in purification ceremonies. The most important social unit was the clan. Clans organized hunts, distributed lands, arranged marriages, and punished lawbreakers. The authority of the micos was complemented by the clan mothers, mostly women elders. The Muscogee had a matrilineal kinship system, with children considered born into their mother’s clan, and inheritance was through the maternal line. The Wind Clan is the first of the clans. The majority of micos have belonged to this clan. Further information: Yamasee War. A raiding party against Spanish missions in Florida passes the Ocmulgee trading post. Britain, France, and Spain all established colonies in the present-day Southeastern woodlands. Spain established Jesuit missions and related settlements to influence Native Americans. The British and the French opted for trade over conversion. In the 17th century, Franciscan friars in Spanish Florida built missions along Apalachee Bay. In 1670 English settlers from Barbados founded Charles Town (Charleston), capital of the new Province of Carolina. The Spanish and their “mission Indians” burned most of the towns along the Chattahoochee after they welcomed Scottish explorer Henry Woodward in 1685. In 1690, the English built a trading post on the Ocmulgee River, known as Ochese-hatchee (creek), where a dozen towns relocated to escape the Spanish and acquire English trade-goods. The name “Creek” most likely derived from Ocheese Creek and broadly applies to all of the Muscogee Confederacy, including the Yuchi and Natchez. In 1704-06, Carolina Governor Col. James Moore led colonial militia and Ochese Creek and Yamasee warriors in raids that destroyed the Spanish missions of the Florida interior. [citation needed] With Florida depopulated, English traders paid other tribes to attack and enslave the Yamasee, leading to the Yamassee War of 1715-17. Yamacraw leader Tomochichi and nephew in 1733. The Ochese Creeks joined the Yamasee, burning trading posts, and raiding back-country settlers, but the revolt ran low on gunpowder and was put down by Carolinian militia and their Cherokee allies. The Yamasee took refuge in Spanish Florida, the Ochese Creeks fled west to the Chattahoochee. French Canadian explorers founded Mobile as the first capital of Louisiana in 1702, and took advantage of the war to build Fort Toulouse at the confluence of the Tallapoosa and Coosa in 1717, trading with the Alabama and Coushatta. Fearing they would come under French influence, the British reopened the deerskin trade with the Lower Creeks, antagonizing the Yamasee, now allies of Spain. The French instigated the Upper Creeks to raid the Lower Creeks. In May 1718, the shrewd Emperor Brim, mico of the powerful Coweta band, invited representatives of Britain, France, and Spain to his village and, in council with Upper and Lower Creek leaders, declared a policy of Muscogee neutrality in their colonial rivalry. That year, the Spaniards built the presidio of San Marcos de Apalache on Apalachee Bay. In 1721, the British built Fort King George at the mouth of the Altamaha River. As the three European imperial powers established themselves along the borders of Muscogee lands, the latter’s strategy of neutrality allowed them to hold the balance of power. Yamacraw Creek Native Americans meet with the trustee of the colony of Georgia in England, July 1734. Notice the Native American boy (in a blue coat) and woman (in a red dress) in European clothing. The colony of Georgia was created in 1732; its first settlement, Savannah, was founded the following year, on a river bluff where the Yamacraw, a Yamasee band that remained allies of England, allowed John Musgrove to establish a fur-trading post. His wife Mary Musgrove was the daughter of an English trader and a Muscogee woman from the powerful Wind Clan, half-sister of’Emperor’ Brim. She was the principal interpreter for Georgia’s founder and first Governor Gen. James Oglethorpe, using her connections to foster peace between the Creek Indians and the new colony. [20] The deerskin trade grew, and by the 1750s, Savannah exported up to 50,000 deerskins a year. In 1736, Spanish and British officials established a neutral zone from the Altamaha to the St. Johns River in present-day Florida, guaranteeing Native hunting grounds for the deerskin trade and protecting Spanish Florida from further British encroachment. 1750 a group of Ochese moved to the neutral zone, after clashing with the Muskogee-speaking towns of the Chattahoochee, where they had fled after the Yamasee War. Led by Chief Secoffee (Cowkeeper), they became the center of a new tribal confederacy, the Seminole, which grew to include earlier refugees from the Yamasee War, remnants of the’mission Indians,’ and escaped African slaves. [23] Their name comes from the Spanish word cimarrones, which originally referred to a domestic animal that had reverted to the wild. Cimarrones was used by the Spanish and Portuguese to refer to fugitive slaves-“maroon” emerges linguistically from this root as well-and American Indians who fled European invaders. In the Hitchiti language, which lacked an’r’ sound, it became simanoli, and eventually Seminole. Many Muscogee Creek leaders, after contact with Europeans began, have British names: Alexander McGillivray, Josiah Francis, William McIntosh, Peter McQueen, William Weatherford, William Perryman, and others. These reflect Muscogee women having children with British colonists. For instance, Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins married a Muscogee woman. [24]:9 In Muscogee culture, unmarried Muscogee women had great freedom over their own sexuality compared to European and European-American counterparts. With the exception of McGillivray, mixed-raced Muscogee people did against Muscogee Creek interests, as they understood them[clarification needed]; to the contrary, in many cases, they spearheaded resistance to the British and then American expansion. 7 As put by Claudio Saunt. These offspring of mixed marriages occupied a different position in the economy of the Deep South than did most Creeks and Seminoles. They worked as traders and factors. As Andrew Frank writes, Terms such as mixed-blood and half-breed, which imply racial categories and partial Indianness, betray the ways in which Native peoples determined kinship and identity in the eighteenth- and early-nineteen-century southeast. With the end of the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years’ War) in 1763, France lost its North American empire, and British-American settlers moved inland. Indian discontent led to raids against back-country settlers, and the perception that the royal government favored the Indians and the deerskin trade led many back-country white settlers to join the Sons of Liberty. Fears of land-hungry settlers and need for European manufactured goods led the Muscogee to side with the British, but like many tribes, they were divided by factionalism, and, in general, avoided sustained fighting, preferring to protect their sovereignty through cautious participation. During the American Revolution, the Upper Creeks sided with the British, fighting alongside the Chickamauga (Lower Cherokee) warriors of Dragging Canoe, in the Cherokee-American wars, against white settlers in present-day Tennessee. This alliance was orchestrated by the Coushatta chief Alexander McGillivray, son of Lachlan McGillivray, a wealthy Scottish Loyalist fur-trader and planter, whose properties were confiscated by Georgia. His ex-partner, Scots-Irish Patriot George Galphin, initially persuaded the Lower Creeks to remain neutral, but Loyalist Capt. William McIntosh led a group of pro-British Hitchiti, and most of the Lower Creeks nominally allied with Britain after the 1779 Capture of Savannah. Muscogee warriors fought on behalf of Britain during the Mobile and Pensacola campaigns of 1780-81, where Spain re-conquered British West Florida. Loyalist leader Thomas Brown raised a division of King’s Rangers to contest Patriot control over the Georgia and Carolina interior and instigated Cherokee raids against the North Carolina back-country after the Battle of King’s Mountain. He seized Augusta in March 1780, with the aid of an Upper Creek war-party, but reinforcements from the Lower Creeks and local white Loyalists never came, and Georgia militia led by Elijah Clarke retook Augusta in 1781. [26] The next year an Upper Creek war-party trying to relieve the British garrison at Savannah was routed by Continental Army troops under Gen. After the war ended in 1783, the Muscogee learned that Britain had ceded their lands to the now independent United States. That year, two Lower Creek chiefs, Hopoithle Miko (Tame King) and Eneah Miko (Fat King), ceded 800 square miles (2,100 km2) of land to the state of Georgia. Alexander McGillivray led pan-Indian resistance to white encroachment, receiving arms from the Spanish in Florida to fight trespassers. He also became a wealthy landowner and merchant, owning as many as sixty black slaves. In 1784, he negotiated the Treaty of Pensacola with Spain, recognizing Muscogee control over 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) of land claimed by Georgia, and guaranteeing access to the British firm Panton, Leslie & Co. Which controlled the deerskin trade, while making himself an official representative of Spain. [27] In 1786, a council in Tuckabatchee decided to wage war against white settlers on Muscogee lands. War parties attacked settlers along the Oconee River, and Georgia mobilized its militia. McGillivray refused to negotiate with the state that had confiscated his father’s plantations, but President George Washington sent a special emissary, Col. Marinus Willet, who persuaded him to travel to New York City, then the capital of the U. And deal directly with the federal government. In the summer of 1790, McGillivray and 29 other Muscogee chiefs signed the Treaty of New York, on behalf of the’Upper, Middle and Lower Creek and Seminole composing the Creek nation of Indians,’ ceding a large portion of their lands to the federal government and promising to return fugitive slaves, in return for federal recognition of Muscogee sovereignty and promises to evict white settlers. McGillivray died in 1793, and with the invention of the cotton gin white settlers on the Southwestern frontier who hoped to become cotton planters clamored for Indian lands. In 1795, Elijah Clarke and several hundred followers defied the Treaty of New York and established the short-lived Trans-Oconee Republic. In 1790, the Muscogee and Choctaw were in conflict over land near the Noxubee River. The two nations agreed to settle the dispute by ball-play. With nearly 10,000 players and bystanders, the two nations prepared for nearly three months. After a long daylong struggle, the Muscogee won the game. A fight broke out and the two nations fought until sundown with nearly 500 dead and many more wounded. Further information: State of Muskogee. William Augustus Bowles was born into a wealthy Maryland Tory family, enlisting with the Maryland Loyalists Battalion at age 14 and becoming an ensign in the Royal Navy by age 15. He married two wives, one Cherokee and the other a daughter of the Hitchiti Muscogee chieftain William Perryman, and later used this union as the basis for his claim to exert political influence among the Creeks. [29] In 1781, a 17-year-old Bowles led Muscogee forces at the Battle of Pensacola. After seeking refuge in the Bahamas, he travelled to London. In 1799, Bowles formed the State of Muskogee, with the support of the Chattahoochee Creeks and the Seminoles. He established his capital at Miccosuki, a village on the shores of Lake Miccosukee near present-day Tallahassee. It was ruled by Mico Kanache, his father-in-law and strongest ally. Bowles envisioned the State of Muskogee, with its capital at Miccosuki, encompassing large portions of present-day Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and incorporating the Cherokee, Upper and Lower Creeks, Chickasaw and Choctaw. Bowles’ first act was declaring the 1796 Second Treaty of San Ildefonso, which drew the boundary between the U. And West Florida, null and void, because the Indians were not consulted. He denounced the treaties Alexander McGillivray had negotiated with Spain and the U. Although a Spanish force that set out to destroy Mikosuki got lost in the swamps, a second attempt to take San Marcos ended in disaster. After a European armistice led to the loss of British support, Bowles was discredited. The Seminole signed a peace treaty with Spain. The following year, he was betrayed by Lower Creek supporters of Hawkins at a tribal council. They turned Bowles over to the Spanish, and he died in prison in Havana, Cuba two years later. Further information: Five Civilized Tribes. Painting (1805) of Benjamin Hawkins on his plantation, instructing Muscogee Creek in European technology. George Washington, the first U. President, and Henry Knox, the first U. Secretary of War, proposed a cultural transformation of the Native Americans. [31] Washington believed that Native Americans were equals as individuals but that their society was inferior. He formulated a policy to encourage the “civilizing” process, and it was continued under President Thomas Jefferson. [32] Noted historian Robert Remini wrote, [T]hey presumed that once the Indians adopted the practice of private property, built homes, farmed, educated their children, and embraced Christianity, these Native Americans would win acceptance from white Americans. [34] The Muscogee would be the first Native Americans to be “civilized” under Washington’s six-point plan. The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole would follow the Muscogee efforts to implement Washington’s new policy of civilization. In 1796, Washington appointed Benjamin Hawkins as General Superintendent of Indian Affairs dealing with all tribes south of the Ohio River. He personally assumed the role of principal agent to the Muscogee. He moved to the area that is now Crawford County in Georgia. He began to teach agricultural practices to the tribe, starting a farm at his home on the Flint River. In time, he brought in slaves and workers, cleared several hundred acres, and established mills and a trading post as well as his farm. For years, Hawkins met with chiefs on his porch to discuss matters. He was responsible for the longest period of peace between the settlers and the tribe, overseeing 19 years of peace. In 1805, the Lower Creeks ceded their lands east of the Ocmulgee to Georgia, with the exception of the sacred burial mounds of the Ocmulgee Old Fields. They allowed a Federal Road linking New Orleans to Washington, D. To be built through their territory. A number of Muscogee chiefs acquired slaves and created cotton plantations, grist mills and businesses along the Federal Road. In 1806, Fort Benjamin Hawkins was built on a hill overlooking the Ocmulgee Old Fields, to protect expanding settlements and serve as a reminder of U. Hawkins was disheartened and shocked by the outbreak of the Creek War, which destroyed his life work of improving the Muscogee quality of life. Hawkins saw much of his work toward building a peace destroyed in 1812. A faction of Muscogee joined the Pan-American Indian movement of Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh, rejecting accommodation with white settlers and adaptation of European-American culture. Although Hawkins personally was never attacked, he was forced to watch an internal civil war among the Muscogee develop into a war with the United States. Further information: Great Comet of 1811. Further information: 1812 New Madrid earthquake. The Great Comet of 1811, as drawn by William Henry Smyth. A comet appeared in March 1811. The Shawnee leader Tecumseh, whose name meant “shooting star”, [35] traveled to Tuckabatchee, where he told the Muscogee that the comet signaled his coming. McKenney reported that Tecumseh would prove that the Great Spirit had sent him by giving the Muscogee a sign. Shortly after Tecumseh left the Southeast, the sign arrived as promised in the form of an earthquake. On December 16, 1811, the New Madrid earthquake shook the Muscogee lands and the Midwest. While the interpretation of this event varied from tribe to tribe, one consensus was universally accepted: the powerful earthquake had to have meant something. The earthquake and its aftershocks helped the Tecumseh resistance movement by convincing, not only the Muscogee, but other Native American tribes as well, that the Shawnee must be supported. The New Madrid earthquake was interpreted by the Muscogee to support the Shawnee’s resistance. The Indians were filled with great terror… The trees and wigwams shook exceedingly; the ice which skirted the margin of the Arkansas river was broken into pieces; and most of the Indians thought that the Great Spirit, angry with the human race, was about to destroy the world. Nichols, The American Indian. The Muscogee who joined Tecumseh’s confederation were known as the Red Sticks. Stories of the origin of the Red Stick name varies, but one is that they were named for the Muscogee tradition of carrying a bundle of sticks that mark the days until an event occurs. Sticks painted red symbolize war. Further information: Creek War, Red Sticks, and Fort Mims massacre. Menawa was one of the principal leaders of the Red Sticks. After the war, he continued to oppose white encroachment on Muscogee lands, visiting Washington, D. In 1826 to protest the treaty of Indian Springs. Painted by Charles Bird King, 1837. Inspired by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh (to whom nineteenth-century writers attributed fiery speeches that he “must have said”)[citation needed] and their own religious leaders, and encouraged by British traders, Red Stick leaders such as William Weatherford (Red Eagle), Peter McQueen, and Menawa won the support of the Upper Creek towns. Allied with the British, they opposed white encroachment on Muscogee lands and the “civilizing programs” administered by Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins, and clashed with many of the leading chiefs of the Muscogee Nation, most notably the Lower Creek Mico William McIntosh, Hawkins’ most powerful ally. Their opponents, who sought peaceful relations with white settlers, were known as the White Sticks. Before the Muscogee Civil War began, the Red Sticks attempted to keep their activities secret from the old chiefs. They were emboldened when Tecumseh rallied his followers and joined with a British invasion to capture Fort Detroit in August 1812. In February 1813, a small party of Red Sticks, led by Little Warrior, was returning from Detroit when they killed two families of settlers along the Duck River, near Nashville. Hawkins demanded that the Muscogees turn over Little Warrior and his six companions. Instead of handing the marauders over to the federal agents, Big Warrior and the old chiefs decided to execute the war party. This decision was the spark which ignited the civil war among the Muscogee. The first clashes between Red Sticks and the American whites took place on July 21, 1813, when a group of American soldiers from Fort Mims (north of Mobile, Alabama) stopped a party of Red Sticks who were returning from West Florida, where they had bought munitions from the Spanish governor at Pensacola. The Red Sticks fled the scene, and the U. Soldiers looted what they found, allowing the Red Sticks to regroup and retaliate with a surprise attack that forced the Americans to retreat. On August 30, 1813, Red Sticks led by Red Eagle William Weatherford attacked Fort Mims, where white settlers and their Indian allies had gathered. The Red Sticks captured the fort by surprise, and carried out a massacre, killing men, women, and children. They spared only the black slaves whom they took as captured booty. After the Indians killed nearly 250-500 at the fort, settlers across the American southwestern frontier were in a panic. Although the Red Sticks won the battle, they had lost the war. On the morning of August 30, 1813, few of Fort Mims’ defenders stirred in the steaming heat. In the forested shade, the Creeks watched and waited. The fort’s main gate, located on the east side of the stockade, had not been closed by the garrison troops… No sentries occupied the blockhouse. A Short History of the Ft. Mims Massacre of 1813 during the Creek Indian War[38]. The Fort Mims Massacre was followed two days later by the smaller Kimbell-James Massacre. The only explanation of this catastrophic event is that the Upper Creek leaders thought that fighting the United States was like fighting another Creek tribe, and taking Fort Mims was an even bigger victory than the Battle of Burnt Corn had been. The Red Stick victory spread panic throughout the southeastern United States, and the cry Remember Fort Mims! Was popular among the public wanting revenge. With Federal troops tied up on the northern front against the British in Canada, the Tennessee, Georgia, and the Mississippi Territory militias were commissioned and invaded the Upper Creek towns. They were joined by Indian allies, the Lower Creek under William McIntosh and the Cherokee under Major Ridge. Outnumbered and poorly armed, much too far from Canada or the Gulf Coast to receive British aid, the Red Sticks put up a desperate fight. On March 27, 1814, General Andrew Jackson’s Tennessee militia, aided by the 39th U. Infantry Regiment and Cherokee and Lower Creek warriors, crushed the Red Sticks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. Though the Red Sticks had been soundly defeated and about 3,000 Upper Muscogee died in the war, the remnants held out several months longer. Depiction of Red Eagle’s surrender to Andrew Jackson after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Jackson was so impressed with Weatherford’s boldness that he let him go. In August 1814, the Red Sticks surrendered to Jackson at Wetumpka (near the present city of Montgomery, Alabama). On August 9, 1814, the Muscogee nation was forced to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson. It ended the war and required the tribe to cede some 20 million acres (81,000 km2) of land- more than half of their ancestral territorial holdings- to the United States. Even those who had fought alongside Jackson were compelled to cede land, since Jackson held them responsible for allowing the Red Sticks to revolt. The state of Alabama was created largely from the Red Sticks’ domain and was admitted to the United States in 1819. WHEREAS an unprovoked, inhuman, and sanguinary war, waged by the hostile Creeks against the United States, hath been repelled, prosecuted and determined, successfully, on the part of the said States, in conformity with principles of national justice and honorable warfare– And whereas consideration is due to the rectitude of proceeding dictated by instructions relating to the re-establishment of peace: Be it remembered, that prior to the conquest of that part of the Creek nation hostile to the United States, numberless aggressions had been committed against the peace, the property, and the lives of citizens of the United States.. Treaty of Fort Jackson, 1814[39]. Many Muscogee refused to surrender and escaped to Florida. They allied with other remnant tribes, becoming the Seminole. Muscogee were later involved on both sides of the Seminole Wars in Florida. The Red Stick refugees who arrived in Florida after the Creek War tripled the Seminole population, and strengthened the tribe’s Muscogee characteristics. [40] In 1814, British forces landed in West Florida and began arming the Seminoles. The British had built a strong fort on the Apalachicola River at Prospect Bluff, and in 1815, after the end of the War of 1812, offered it, with all its ordnance (muskets, cannons, powder, shot, cannonballs) to the locals: Seminoles and maroons (escaped slaves). A few hundred maroons constituted a uniformed Corps of Colonial Marines, who had had military training, however rudimentary, and discipline (but whose English officers had departed). The Seminole only wanted to return to their villages, so the maroons became owners of the Fort. It soon came to be called the’Negro Fort’ by Southern planters, and it was widely known among enslaved blacks by word of mouth – a place nearby where blacks were free and had guns, as in Haiti. The white pro-slave holding planters correctly felt its simple existence inspired escape or rebellion by the oppressed African-Americans, and they complained to the US government. The maroons had not received training in how to aim the Fort’s cannons. After notifying the Spanish governor, who had very limited resources, and who said he had no orders to take action, U. General Andrew Jackson quickly destroyed the Fort, in a famous and picturesque, though tragic, incident in 1816 that has been called “the deadliest cannon shot in American history”[41] (see Battle of Negro Fort). The Seminole continued to welcome fugitive black slaves and raid American settlers, leading the U. To declare war in 1817. The following year, General Andrew Jackson invaded Florida with an army that included more than 1,000 Lower Creek warriors; they destroyed Seminole towns and captured Pensacola. Jackson’s victory forced Spain to sign the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819, ceding Florida to the U. In 1823, a delegation of Seminole chiefs met with the new U. Governor of Florida, expressing their opposition to proposals that would reunite them with the Upper and Lower Creek, partly because the latter tribes intended to enslave the Black Seminoles. Instead, the Seminoles agreed to move onto a reservation in inland central Florida. Charles Bird King’s portrait of William McIntosh. Mico William McIntosh led the Lower Creek warriors who fought alongside the U. In the Creek War and the First Seminole War. The son of the Loyalist officer of the same name who had recruited a band of Hitchiti to the British cause, McIntosh never knew his white father. He had family ties to some of Georgia’s planter elite, and after the wars became a wealthy cotton-planter. Through his mother, he was born into the prominent Wind Clan of the Creek; as the Creek had a matrilineal system of descent and inheritance, he achieved his chieftainship because of her. He was also related to Alexander McGillivray and William Weatherford, both mixed-race Creek. In the late 1810s and early 1820s, McIntosh helped create a centralized police force called’Law Menders,’ establish written laws, and form a National Creek Council. Later in the decade, he came to view relocation as inevitable. In 1821, McIntosh and several other chiefs signed away Lower Creek lands east of the Flint River at the first Treaty of Indian Springs. As a reward, McIntosh was granted 1,000 acres (4 km2) at the treaty site, where he built a hotel to attract tourists to local hot springs. The Creek National Council responded by prescribing the death penalty for tribesmen who surrendered additional land. Georgian settlers continued to pour into Indian lands, particularly after the discovery of gold in northern Georgia. In 1825 McIntosh and his first cousin, Georgia Governor George Troup, a leading advocate of Indian removal, signed the second Treaty of Indian Springs at his hotel. Signed by six other Lower Creek chiefs, the treaty ceded the last Lower Creek lands to Georgia, and allocated substantial sums to relocate the Muscogee to the Arkansas River. In April, the old Red Stick Menawa led about 200 Law Menders to execute McIntosh according to their law. They burned his upper Chattahoochee plantation. A delegation of the Creek National Council, led by the speaker Opothleyahola, traveled to Washington D. To protest the 1825 treaty. They convinced President John Quincy Adams that the treaty was invalid, and negotiated the more favorable Treaty of Washington (1826). Troup ignored the new treaty and ordered the eviction of the Muscogee from their remaining lands in Georgia without compensation, mobilizing state militia when Adams threatened federal intervention. In the aftermath of the Treaty of Fort Jackson and the Treaty of Washington (1826), the Muscogee were confined to a small strip of land in present-day east central Alabama. Andrew Jackson was inaugurated president of the United States in 1829, and with his inauguration the government stance toward Indians turned harsher. [42] Jackson abandoned the policy of his predecessors of treating different Indian groups as separate nations. [42] Instead, he aggressively pursued plans to move all Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi River to Oklahoma. Friends and Brothers – By permission of the Great Spirit above, and the voice of the people, I have been made President of the United States, and now speak to you as your Father and friend, and request you to listen. Your warriors have known me long You know I love my white and red children, and always speak with a straight, and not with a forked tongue; that I have always told you the truth… Where you now are, you and my white children are too near to each other to live in harmony and peace. Your game is destroyed, and many of your people will not work and till the earth. Beyond the great River Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your Father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours forever. For the improvements in the country where you now live, and for all the stock which you cannot take with you, your Father will pay you a fair price.. President Andrew Jackson addressing the Creeks, 1829[42]. At Jackson’s request, the United States Congress opened a fierce debate on an Indian Removal Bill. [42] In the end, the bill passed, but the vote was close. The Senate passed the measure 28 to 19, while in the House it squeaked by, 102 to 97. Jackson signed the legislation into law June 30, 1830. Following the Indian Removal Act, in 1832 the Creek National Council signed the Treaty of Cusseta, ceding their remaining lands east of the Mississippi to the U. And accepting relocation to the Indian Territory. Most Muscogee were removed to Indian Territory during the Trail of Tears in 1834, although some remained behind. Some Muscogee in Alabama live near the federally recognized Poarch Creek Reservation in Atmore (northeast of Mobile), and Muscogee live in essentially undocumented ethnic towns in Florida. The Alabama reservation includes a casino and 16-story hotel. The Creek tribe holds an annual powwow on Thanksgiving. Additionally, Muscogee descendants of varying degrees of acculturation live throughout the southeastern United States. By 1836, when extensive Creek removal was underway, Eneah Emathala emerged as leader of the Lower Creeks… Their desire was only to be left alone in their homeland… Winfield Scott was ordered to capture Eneah Emathala… Captured with Emathala were some one thousand other person… Their [racial] colors were black, red, and white.. Burt & Ferguson- Indians of the Southeast: Then and Now. See also: Indian Territory in the American Civil War. Members of the Creek Nation in Oklahoma around 1877. They included men of mixed Creek, European and African ancestry. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Opothleyahola refused to form an alliance with the Confederacy, unlike many other tribes, including many of the Lower Creeks. Runaway slaves, free blacks, Chickasaw and Seminole Indians began gathering at Opothleyahola’s plantation, where they hoped to remain neutral in the conflict between the North and South. On August 15, 1861, Opothleyahola and tribal chief Micco Hutko contacted President Abraham Lincoln to request help for the Union loyalists. On September 10, they received a positive response, stating the United States government would assist them. The letter directed Opothleyahola to move his people to Fort Row in Wilson County, Kansas, where they would receive asylum and aid. [43] They became known as Loyalists, and many were members of the traditional Snake band in the latter part of the century. Because many Muscogee Creek people did support the Confederacy during the Civil War, the US government required a new treaty with the nation in 1866 to define peace after the war. It required the Creek to emancipate their slaves and to admit them as full members and citizens of the Creek Nation, equal to the Creek in receiving annuities and land benefits. They were then known as Creek Freedmen. The US government required setting aside part of the Creek reservation land to be assigned to the freedmen. Many of the tribe resisted these changes. The loss of lands contributed to problems for the nation in the late 19th century. The Loyalists among the Creek tended to be traditionalists. They formed the core of a band that became known as the Snakes, which also included many Creek Freedmen. At the end of the century, they resisted the extinguishing of tribal government and break-up of communal tribal lands enacted by the US Congress with the Dawes Commission of 1892. These efforts were part of the US government’s attempt to impose assimilation on the tribes, to introduce household ownership of land, and to remove legal barriers to the Indian Territory’s achieving statehood. Members of the Creek Nation were registered as individuals on the Dawes Rolls; the Commission separately registered intermarried whites and Creek Freedmen, whether or not they had any Creek ancestry. This ruined their claims to Creek membership later, even for people who had parents or other relative who were Creek. The Dawes Rolls have been used as the basis for many tribes to establish membership descent. European-American settlers had moved into the area and pressed for statehood and access to some of the tribal lands for settlement. Selocta (or Shelocta) was a Muscogee chief. Muscogee culture has greatly evolved over the centuries, combining mostly European-American influences; however, interaction with Spain, France, and England greatly shaped it as well. They were known for their rapid incorporation of modernity, developing a written language, transitioning to yeoman farming methods, and accepting European-Americans and African-Americans into their society. Muscogee people continue to preserve chaya and share a vibrant tribal identity through events such as annual festivals, stick ball games, and language classes. The Stomp Dance and Green Corn Ceremony are revered gatherings and rituals. While families include people who are directly related to each other, clans are composed of all people who are descendants of the same ancestral clan grouping. Like many Native American nations, the Muscogee Creek are matrilineal; each person belongs to the clan of his or her mother, who belongs to the clan of her mother. Inheritance and property are passed through the maternal line. Hereditary chiefs were born into certain clans. Biological fathers are important within the family system but must come from another clan than the mother. But, within the clan, it is the mother’s brother (the mother’s nearest blood relation) who functions as the primary teacher, protector, disciplinarian and role model for children, especially for boys. Clan members do not claim “blood relation” but consider each other as family due to their membership in the same clan. This is expressed by their using the same kinship titles for both family and clan relations. For example, clan members of approximately the same age consider each other “brother” and “sister”, even if they have never met before. Because of this system, the Muscogee Creek children born of European fathers belonged to their mother’s clans and were part of part of their tribal communities. High-ranking daughters of chiefs often found it advantageous to marry European traders, who could provide their families with goods. Muscogee Creek believed young men who became educated in European ways could help them manage under the new conditions related to colonialism, while preserving important Muscogee Creek cultural institutions. Muscogee clans are as follows:[44]. Bear Clan (Muklasalgi, Nokosalgi). Beaver Clan (Itamalgi, Isfanalgi, Itchhasuaigi). Bog Potato Clan (Ahalakalgi). Maize Clan (Aktayatsalgi, Atchialgi). Panther Clan (Chukotalgi, Katsalg). Raccoon Clan (Wahlakalgi, Wotkalgi). Salt Clan (Okilisa, Oktchunualgi). Toad Clan (Pahosalgi, Sopaktalgi). Turtle Clan (Locvlke) – related to Wind Clan. Wolf Clan (Yahalgi)[44] – related to Bear Clan. Ancestral Muscogee peoples wore clothing made of woven plant materials or animal hides, depending upon the climate. During the summer, they preferred lightweight fabrics woven from tree bark, grasses, or reeds. During the harsh winters, they used animal skins and fur for warmth. During the 17th century, the Muscogee adopted some elements of European fashion and materials. Cloth was lighter and more colorful than deer hide, it quickly became a popular trade item throughout the region. Trade cloth in a variety of patterns and textures enabled Muscogee women to develop new styles of clothing, which they made for both men, women, and children. They incorporated European trade items such as bells, silk ribbons, glass beads, and pieces of mirror into the clothing. Main article: Muscogee language. The Muscogee language is a member of the Muskogean family and was well known among the frontiersmen, such as Gideon Lincecum, of the early 19th century. The language is related to the Choctaw language, with some words being identical in pronunciation. The following table is an example of Muscogee text and its translation. Mont fayepat vrepet omvtes, hopvyen. Momet vrepet omvtetan, nake punvttv tat pvsvtepet, momet hvtvm efvn sulken omvtes. Momet mv efv tat efv fayvlket omekv, nak punvttuce tayen pvsvtepet omvtes. Mont aret omvtetan, efv tat estvn nak woheceto vtekat, nake punvttvn oken mv efv-pucase enkerret omvtes. English: Someone was hunting. He went hunting in far away places. He went continually, killing small game, and he had many dogs. And the dogs were hunting dogs, so he had killed many animals. When hunting, he always knew his dogs had an animal trapped by the sound of their barking. Ceded area as deemed by the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814. Land was the most valuable asset, which the Native Americans held in collective stewardship. The southern English colonies, US government and settlers systematically obtained Muscogee land through treaties, legislation, and warfare. Some treaties, such as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, indirectly affected the Muscogee. Treaty of Coweta Town. Treaty of Shoulder-bone Creek[46]. All lands east of the Oconee River. Treaty of New York. Boundaries defined, Civilization of Creek, Animosities to cease. Colerain (Camden County, Georgia). Boundary lines, Animosities to cease. Treaty of Fort Wilkinson. Treaty of Fort Jackson. Fort Jackson near Wetumpka, Alabama. 23 million acres (93,000 km2). Treaty of the Creek Agency. Treaty of the Indian Spring. Treaty of Indian Springs. Treaty of the Creek Indian Agency. Treaty with the Creeks. Treaty with the Creeks And Seminole. Treaty with the Creeks, Etc. In 1871, Congress added a rider to the Indian Appropriations Act to end the United States’ recognizing additional Indian tribes or nations, and prohibiting additional treaties. That hereafter no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty: Provided, further, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to invalidate or impair the obligation of any treaty heretofore lawfully made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe. Indian Appropriations Act of 1871[47]. The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana are a tribe of Muscogee people, descended from the Koasati, as are the Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas. Muscogee Creek bike messenger, originally from Okmulgee, Oklahoma. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is a federally recognized Indian Nation. Their headquarters is in Okmulgee, Oklahoma and their current Principal Chief is David W. Three Muscogee tribal towns are federally recognized tribes: Alabama-Quassarte, Kialegee, and Thlopthlocco. Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town is headquartered is Wetumka, Oklahoma and its chief is Tarpie Yargee. [49] Kialegee Tribal Town is headquartered in Wetumka, and Jeremiah Hoia is the current mekko or chief. [50] The Thlopthlocco Tribal Town is headquartered in Okemah, Oklahoma. George Scott is the mekko. Micah Wesley, Muscogee Creek-Kiowa artist and DJ[51][52]. Tullis led the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in their petitioning the United States government to recognize a government-to-government relationship. On August 11, 1984, these efforts culminated in the United States Government, Department of Interior, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs acknowledging that the Poarch Band of Creek Indians existed as an “Indian Tribe”. The tribe is the only federally recognized tribe in the state of Alabama. On November 21, 1984, the US government took 231.54 acres (0.9370 km2) of land into trust for the tribe as a communal holding. On April 12, 1985, 229.54 acres (0.9289 km2) were declared a reservation. Many Muscogee moved out of their tribal nation in Oklahoma to the nearest cities (Tulsa and Oklahoma City), and to other states like California, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee in the second half of the 20th century. Army during World War II and the first Native American to be awarded a Medal of Honor during that war. Eddie Chuculate (born 1972), Muscogee-Cherokee author and journalist. Joy Harjo (born 1959), Muscogee/Cherokee poet and jazz musician. Suzan Shown Harjo (born 1945), Muscogee/Cheyenne activist, policymaker, journalist, and poet. Joan Hill (born 1930), Muscogee/Cherokee artist. William Harjo LoneFight (born 1966), author, president of Native American Services, languages and cultural activist. He traveled to Washington DC to sign treaties and lead Creek warriors on American side in Seminole War. Grant-Lee Phillips (born 1963), Alternative-Americana artist and founder-songwriter of Grant Lee Buffalo, enrolled in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation[53]. Cynthia Leitich Smith (born 1967), children’s book author, noted for Jingle Dancer. France Winddance Twine (born 1960) Professor of Sociology at the University of California Santa Barbara. William Weatherford, also known as Red Eagle c. 1781 – 1824, led the Creek War offensive against the United States. Tommy Wildcat (born 1967), cultural historian, flutist, traditionalist. This item is in the category “Collectibles\Photographic Images\Photographs”. The seller is “memorabilia111″ and is located in this country: US. This item can be shipped to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Estonia, Australia, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovenia, Japan, China, Sweden, Korea, South, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Africa, Thailand, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Bahamas, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Croatia, Republic of, Malaysia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Brunei Darussalam, Bolivia, Ecuador, Egypt, French Guiana, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Guadeloupe, Iceland, Jersey, Jordan, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, Sri Lanka, Luxembourg, Monaco, Macau, Martinique, Maldives, Nicaragua, Oman, Peru, Pakistan, Paraguay, Reunion, Vietnam, Uruguay.

• Region of Origin: US
• Size Type/Largest Dimension: Medium (Up to 10\
• Listed By: Dealer or Reseller
• Subject: Figures & Portraits
• Original/Reprint: Original Print
• Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
• Date of Creation: 1920-1929
• Framing: Unframed
• Color: Black & White
• Signed: No
• Type: Photograph