The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670-1763
Drawing on archaeological evidence and often-neglected Spanish source material, The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670-1763 explores the political history of the Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama and the emergence of the Creek Nation during the colonial era in the American Southeast. In part a study of Creek foreign relations, this book examines the creation and application of the "neutrality" policy-defined here as the Coweta Resolution of 1718-for which the Creeks have long been famous, in an era marked by the imperial struggle for the American South. Also a study of the culture of internal Creek politics, this work shows the persistence of a "traditional" kinship-based political system in which town and clan affiliation remained supremely important. These traditions, coupled with political intrusions by the region's three European powers, promoted the spread of Creek factionalism and mitigated the development of a regional Creek Confederacy. But while traditions endured, the struggle to maintain territorial integrity against Britain also promoted political innovation. In this context the territorially defined Creek Nation emerged as a legal concept in the era of the French and Indian War, as imperial policies of an earlier era gave way to the territorial politics that marked the beginning of a new one.
THE OJIBWA-IROQUOIS WAR: THE WAR THE FIVE NATIONS DID NOT WIN
Most colonial observers, as well as most past and present historians, consider the Iroquois of the Five Nations of upstate New York as the central military and diplomatic Indian force of the Eastern Woodlands during the 17th and 18th centuries. On the other hand, the traditions of the Ojibwas/Chippewas, Ottawas and Hurons talk of an extended and fiercely contested struggle that by 1700 had soundly crushed the Five Nations Iroquois. The internal consistency of Indian oral traditions as they have been preserved by 19th century Indian writers strongly support these ancient traditions of a catyclysmic defeat suffered by the Iroquois. Supporting data can also be found in the usual colonial historial records.
The League of The Iroquois
The origins of the Iroquois are shrouded in the mists of prehistory. There is no certainty or even agreement of probability as to how the Indians of America came to inhabit the North American continent. Itis not even known where the Iroquois lived in North America before they began to establish domination over the area from the Hudson River to Lake Erie and from the St. Lawrence River to the Susquehanna Valley. To the primitive Iroquois the problem of their origin was solved by the "Creation Myth," which told of a sky-world of gods who resembled the Iroquois. As the story goes, one of the young ladies was pregnant and kept her husband busy collecting the strange assortment of foods pregnant women are supposed to crave. In the middle of the sky-world grew a great elm tree especially sacred and not to be mutilated. Naturally, the woman wanted to eat of the roots of this tree. Her husband knew itwas wrong, but to quiet her he dug some roots of the sacred tree for her. In so doing, he inadvertently broke through the crust of the sky-world. The woman, being curious, looked through the hole. Whether she then slipped and fell or her husband pushed her is a moot question. At any rate, fall she did — to the water far below — stillclutching the roots of the sacred elm. The birds stretched their wings to support her on the way down, and a great sea turtle surfaced to give a dry resting place. Fish dove to the bottom of the ocean floor for soil in which she could plant the life-giving roots. The woman started walking in a circle around the planted roots, moving in the same direction the sun moves. AllIndian dances still move in this same direction. At the proper time the woman was delivered of a daughter, who in turn grew up and gave birth to twin sons, fathered in all probability by the West Wind. The birth of the twins killed their