Creek Removal

Chief Menawa

          Like the Seminoles, the Creeks were led in their struggle against removal by a survivor of the massacre at Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Chief Menawa, leader of the Red Stick defenders, was shot seven times during the battle. He was lying with his fallen comrades and assumed dead when he awakened to see a militiaman looting the body of a Creek warrior nearby. Menawa raised himself on one elbow and shot the soldier. Again he was shot and again left for dead, but when night fell Menawa managed to pull himself down to the river, climb into a canoe, and push himself into the current. He was discovered by a group of Creek women camped downstream from the battleground, rescued and nursed back to health.    

          Nearly 8000 Creeks were rendered destitute by the burning of their villages and crops during the Red Stick War. The Creeks were forced to sign an admission of guilt for the war, even those who had fought alongside the Americans against their brethren. Then they were forced to cede 2/3 of their domain.

          These devastating concessions left the Creeks divided and demoralized. Finally, in 1822, on the urging of the Cherokees, their council voted to adopt written laws, and to accept missionary schools in an effort to learn to live in the white man's world. Their resolution stated, "We were here before there was the face of a white man seen on this island," and "We earnestly admonish our white brethren … to treat us with tenderness and justice." At about the same time they passed a law forbidding any chief to cede more tribal land to the whites, under penalty of death.

Opothle Yahola

          In 1825, one of the Creek chiefs who had apposed the Red Sticks, a mixed blood named William McIntosh, met with federal commissioners and drew up a treaty exchanging all the Creek land in Georgia for land in the west. What made it worse was that McIntosh was a cousin of the Governor of Georgia and had been given a $25,000 bribe. The Creek Council sent a messenger, a young chief named Opothle Yahola, to warn McIntosh of the consequences of signing the treaty. Opothle Yahola climbed on a rock in McIntosh' front yard, called him to his window, and, surrounded by his fellow chiefs, said:

Brothers, the Great Spirit has met here with his children of the woods and their pale face brethren. I see his golden locks in the sunshine; he fans the warrior's brows with his wings and whispers sweet music in the winds; the beetle joins his hymn and the mocking bird his song. You are charmed! Brothers, you are deceived! A snake has been coiled in shade and you are running into his open mouth, deceived by the double tongue of the pale face chief, and drunk with the fire water of the pale face. Brothers, our grounds are gone, and the plow of the pale face will soon turn over the bones of our fathers. Brothers, are you tame? Will you submit? Opothle Yahola says NO!

          Then, turning to McIntosh, he continued:

           "As for you, double tongued snake, before many moons have waned, your own blood shall wash out the memory of this hated treaty. Brothers, I have spoken."

          McIntosh signed the treaty anyway, and the Council sent out a war party, led by Chief Menawa, the veteran of Horseshoe Bend. The party set McIntosh' house on fire, and when the chief ran out, the death sentence was carried out. When President Adams found out that the treaty had been signed without the Council's consent, he refused to send it to Congress. Instead he called the Creek leaders to Washington, including Menawa and Opothle Yahola, and a new treaty, not much different from the McIntosh treaty, was drawn up and signed. It became known as "Menawa's Treaty," and by 1830 about 3000 tribal members had migrated west under its terms.  

          Although initial reports of Indian Territory had been favorable, some emigrants returned later with tales of disease, poverty, and attacks by hostile tribes. These stories made those remaining in the east more reluctant to leave. In 1829 the Creek Council met and voted to stay in their native homeland and submit to state laws.

          When local authorities failed to expel whites encroaching on Creek land, one chief sent a list to Washington of 1500 illegal settlers, asking for federal help. Andrew Jackson was now President, and he gave the Creeks what would become his standard reply, that he was helpless to intervene in state affairs, and that the Indians' only choice was to move west.

          By 1832 more chiefs, including Opothle Yahola, had decided that removal was inevitable, and they signed another treaty, this time agreeing to give up their remaining lands in the east. The terms of the treaty were similar to those of the Choctaws. Settlers were to be kept out of Creek land, and those who decided to stay were to be given allotments. Creeks who emigrated were to be paid for their property, given transportation west, and subsistence for one year after arrival.

          But like the Choctaws, the Creeks were given none of the protection promised by their treaty. Swindlers found ways to trick them into signing away their allotments, and they had no legal recourse in the courts. When the Indians refused to move, land hungry settlers raided their farms. In 1836, eighty year old Chief Eneah Emathla led a party of warriors to retaliate. Sadly Opothle Yahola was forced to lead his warriors against the old man to prevent further bloodshed.

          With another "Indian uprising" as an excuse, U. S. troops were sent in under General Winfield Scott, and the rebel groups were forced to surrender. About 800 Indian warriors were marched 90 miles to Montgomery, Alabama, and paraded through the streets before being loaded onto barges bound for Mobile, and then Indian Territory. The experience was so humiliating for these proud people that several warriors committed suicide. After these "hostiles" and their families arrived in Indian Territory, they were released there without food, weapons, farming tools, or even cooking utensils, to live or die. Only about half survived the trip.

          To escape being sent west, several groups of Creek Indians fled to the Cherokee and  Chickasaw nations where they were given refuge, and some went to Florida to fight with the Seminoles. Those remaining in Alabama were hunted down and either hanged or placed into slavery.

          By the end of 1837, 15,000 Creeks had been forcibly removed to Indian Territory. The hardships they underwent were similar to those of the Choctaws. They suffered diseases like smallpox and cholera. They were forced to march in freezing cold weather without proper clothing, and were left to die if they couldn't keep up. One of the steamboats crammed full with 600 Creek captives sank in the Mississippi River, killing half its passengers.

          One elderly lady began to sing a song as she marched and soon she was joined by the others:

"I have no more land. I am driven away from home, driven up the red waters, let us all go, let us all die together."

          The old chiefs Eneah Emathla and Menawa were among those who died during the Removal. Opothle Yahola continued to lead his people in the new Indian Territory.