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Of One Mind and of One Government: The Rise and Fall of the Creek Nation in the Early Republic

Of One Mind and of One Government: The Rise and Fall of the Creek Nation in the Early Republic Nationhood always comes at a cost. For many members of the Creek Nation, that cost became unbearable by 1813. In that year a faction known as the Red Sticks rose in rebellion against the Creek National Council, assaulting national leaders and killing their livestock. The Creek government tried to suppress the uprising, but in August Red Stick warriors attacked Fort Mims, in present-day Alabama, killing 250 Creek loyalists and white Americans and provoking armed intervention by the United States. In the ensuing war the Creeks lost 10 percent of their population and 20 million acres of land. Two decades later one of the invading army's commanders, Andrew Jackson, became the American president and took everything else. This cruel narrative provides the denouement to several recent histories of Creek politics and society, including Of One Mind and of One Government. The originality of Kevin Kokomoor's interpretation lies in his casting of the Red Sticks as political rebels rather than social or religious revolutionaries, and in his long and careful study of the rebels’ adversary, the Creek National Council. He argues that in the mid-1790s the national council ended an era of factional division, foreign intrigue, and internecine violence. It employed war parties as a police force, punishing horse thieves and flogging or executing Creeks who attacked white Americans. Council members concurrently took control of the Creeks’ foreign relations, negotiating a peace treaty and two land-cession treaties with the United States. These measures brought the Creeks internal peace and political nationhood. Mutually beneficial relations with the United States became the foundation of the Creek National Council's legitimacy. The Americans callously undermined that legitimacy by taxing the Creeks’ trade and running unauthorized roads through their territory. Then, in the interest of peace, the council alienated many of its own people. When a number of Creek men joined Tecumseh's insurgency and killed white Americans, the councilors hunted down and executed the insurgents. Many nascent Red Sticks considered these executions just a series of political murders. To them, the costs of Creek nationalism now outweighed the benefits. Their uprising and all the disasters that followed it ensued. The Red Sticks did not see themselves as antinationalists, but by their attacks on the national council they were, according to the author's interpretation, assailing the core of Creek nationhood. Kokomoor challenges Steven Hahn's argument that Creek nationalism grew from kinship, shared ceremonies, and a common language. Kokomoor instead defines an Indian nation as a nation-state, a polity capable of creating a monopoly of violence within its territory and monopoly control of external affairs. By that measure, no Creek nation was worthy of the name before the 1790s, and probably no Cherokee or Chickasaw or Choctaw nation either. This precise and exclusive definition of nationhood will inspire debate among ethnohistorians of the native southeast, who will find Of One Mind and of One Government a provocative and richly detailed account of a troubled era. © The Author 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of American History Oxford University Press

Of One Mind and of One Government: The Rise and Fall of the Creek Nation in the Early Republic

Nichols,, David
The Journal of American History , Volume 107 (1) – Jun 1, 2020
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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
ISSN
0021-8723
eISSN
1945-2314
DOI
10.1093/jahist/jaaa045
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Nationhood always comes at a cost. For many members of the Creek Nation, that cost became unbearable by 1813. In that year a faction known as the Red Sticks rose in rebellion against the Creek National Council, assaulting national leaders and killing their livestock. The Creek government tried to suppress the uprising, but in August Red Stick warriors attacked Fort Mims, in present-day Alabama, killing 250 Creek loyalists and white Americans and provoking armed intervention by the United States. In the ensuing war the Creeks lost 10 percent of their population and 20 million acres of land. Two decades later one of the invading army's commanders, Andrew Jackson, became the American president and took everything else. This cruel narrative provides the denouement to several recent histories of Creek politics and society, including Of One Mind and of One Government. The originality of Kevin Kokomoor's interpretation lies in his casting of the Red Sticks as political rebels rather than social or religious revolutionaries, and in his long and careful study of the rebels’ adversary, the Creek National Council. He argues that in the mid-1790s the national council ended an era of factional division, foreign intrigue, and internecine violence. It employed war parties as a police force, punishing horse thieves and flogging or executing Creeks who attacked white Americans. Council members concurrently took control of the Creeks’ foreign relations, negotiating a peace treaty and two land-cession treaties with the United States. These measures brought the Creeks internal peace and political nationhood. Mutually beneficial relations with the United States became the foundation of the Creek National Council's legitimacy. The Americans callously undermined that legitimacy by taxing the Creeks’ trade and running unauthorized roads through their territory. Then, in the interest of peace, the council alienated many of its own people. When a number of Creek men joined Tecumseh's insurgency and killed white Americans, the councilors hunted down and executed the insurgents. Many nascent Red Sticks considered these executions just a series of political murders. To them, the costs of Creek nationalism now outweighed the benefits. Their uprising and all the disasters that followed it ensued. The Red Sticks did not see themselves as antinationalists, but by their attacks on the national council they were, according to the author's interpretation, assailing the core of Creek nationhood. Kokomoor challenges Steven Hahn's argument that Creek nationalism grew from kinship, shared ceremonies, and a common language. Kokomoor instead defines an Indian nation as a nation-state, a polity capable of creating a monopoly of violence within its territory and monopoly control of external affairs. By that measure, no Creek nation was worthy of the name before the 1790s, and probably no Cherokee or Chickasaw or Choctaw nation either. This precise and exclusive definition of nationhood will inspire debate among ethnohistorians of the native southeast, who will find Of One Mind and of One Government a provocative and richly detailed account of a troubled era. © The Author 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)

Journal

The Journal of American History – Oxford University Press

Published: Jun 1, 2020

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