Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1996

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

History

Major Professor

John R. Finger

Committee Members

Paul Bergeron, Benita Howell, Charles Johnson

Abstract

According to the standard accounts, the Creek War of 1836 was a short-lived, rather insignificant military conflict, a mere side light to the larger story of Creek removal. Drawing on federal and state records, newspaper accounts, and county histories, this study reveals that the contest was a real war, one which should be called the Second Creek War (the Creek War of 1813-1814 being the first) for a number of important reasons. First, the war was more than a sudden, desperate affair. Lower Creek rebels planned the war and executed a definite strategy for sweeping whites out of New Alabama (the Old Creek Nation). Second, the Creek war was more extensive than we have been led to believe. Creek insurgents fought engagements with whites in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Third, the contest did not actually end in July of 1836 when federal commanders declared victory. Many Creeks escaped federal and state troops and continued fighting for years. In fact. Creeks took the lead in native resistance efforts during the last stage of the Second Seminole War in Florida. Fourth, some Creeks avoided removal and never left their ancient homeland. For them, the war was a victory. Fifth and finally, the Second Creek War had a significant impact on both red and white southerners for the remainder of the antebellum era. More importantly, this exploration of the Creek conflict provides a closer look at Indian-white relations at the local level during the removal era of the 1830s—a much neglected topic. Previous studies of the Creek Indians and Creek removal present us with the traditional and rather monolithic view of white versus red, of American oppression and native victimization. However, this exploration of the Creek war reveals more complexity. White settlers in the Creek country competed with and exploited one another even as they sought to exploit the Creeks and take their lands. Some whites even opposed Creek removal for economic reasons. Simultaneously, the Creeks, riven by ethnic and economic disputes of their own, did not respond to the white challenge in a unified way. Some natives self-destructed, others sought accommodation with whites and exploited their fellow tribespeople, and still more natives took up arms both to liberate themselves from New Alabama's grinding economy and to escape removal to the West. Thus it seems that the Second Creek War resulted not fi-om the meeting of two united, culturally homogenous and diametrically opposed societies, but from the intermingling of two fractious, incohesive ones. The lack of unity on both sides created volatility and increased social fragmentation which exploded in a war of surprisingly long duration. Indeed, this fact is the great lesson of the conflict, and forms the central thesis around which this exploration of a previously unexplored contest unfolds.

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