Mississippi territory and a lot of slaves. About 500 people inside of this fort. And on august 30, a faction of was upset and attacked the ford there was a long battle in the end almost 300 people inside the fort were killed. I first learned about it when i read about the massacre but there is more to the story. Like most American Indians had to find the way to deal with the expanding american in settlements. In this area, the creeks were successful as the cherokee to assimilate to American Life style. Quite a few wealthy indians owned slaves with a big plantation and raise domestic livestock and largely gave their way of life to the american norms of agriculture. The large part of the nation did not see the advantage they wanted to maintain their traditional life. There was a rift in 1813, a civil war broke out and what happened here is a continuation of the civil war but it brought , the americans into the of war against the antiamerican faction. There was a religious component of the shawnee prophet and tecumseh were proselytizing for a religious way of life and to he came here and converted a lot of creeks to their religion. So there was a political angle as well. Most of those leaders the americanhe pay of the government. So they were profiting, while others were suffering. By the early 1800s, there is a lot of reasons why individuals chose one side or the other. Locals area, most of the creeks were proamerican and decided to stay on that side of the civil war. Was from thisford area. He was the leader of the red sticks attack. Hadfolks inside fort mims been boarded up for about a month. There was a skirmish in july around fort mims. Attacktly the red stick was in response to that skirmish. They had been in their own territory and they were attacked by americans. They felt they were wronged by that and decided to take revenge in this area. Morning, the folks inside the fort had to go out and find food. Inside the500 people fort, so very cramped conditions and they had to forage every day for food. People dispersed and began to harvest crops from nearby fields. That went on throughout the morning. There were some sightings in the area by african slaves and they reported this, but were not believed for some reason. Having being whipped for spread false rumors. The attack was a surprise. The garrison was not a form terry formal military unit. And so very badly lead. The fort was badly dealt. Should loopholes, which have been five feet above the ground, were at threefoot levels. They were level with the attacking force, who took of the loopholes. The battle went on for a long time. There were maybe 700 red sticks in the attacking force and several hundred fighting inside among the many civilians inside the fort. Sometime around the afternoon, the battle had stalemated. The red sticks withdrew. Good portion to a of the southern part of the fort. The fire spread and at that point, defense was impossible. The few remaining defenders tried to escape. About 25 made it out of the fort. The battle need all of the papers in the country. It was considered a huge disaster of American Military might and it took a while for the local armies to reconstitute themselves. The volunteers were devastated by this. Eventually they organized an army to invade the creek nation. The georgians organized a couple of different attacks from the east and then the tennessee under several generals, Andrew Jackson most famously, invaded from the north. This was one of the major outcomes of the battle, this introduction of Andrew Jackson. His success throughout the creek war, they made him famous throughout the country and convinced of the leadership in washington he could actually fight and win. So he was given command of the army in new orleans and defeated the british there in 1815. Andrew jackson is a controversial figure for many reasons. New sorts ofrts of policies in all aspects of government. Of his experiences during the creek war was his determination to see indian in the finally occur eastern united states. A lot of people like George Washington had tried to formulate a policy of assimilation where indians could sense americans, in their of the word, and stay where they were located. HadAmerican Indians populations in the tens of thousands. The American Government was toer pressure by settlers take the land one way or another. So jackson was excited when he heard the news of fort mims and saw this as an opportunity to take land from the creeks and negotiated the treaty of fort jackson. 21,000,000 acres from the creek nation. 20 years later when he became president , he was able to push through the removal act of 1830 that led to forced removal of indians from the east and the north, the ohio country. Launched theself invasion of the creek nation and the confiscation of all this land, which after the war was opened up for settlement. Alabama and southern georgia settled ifave been not for this war. There was a thing called alabama fever, this land rush in the years following the war. That was the most immediate impact. And of course the removal act, this is sense of betrayal the americans felt at this sneak attack. The way they viewed it, there was a massacre. They felt betrayed because in previous years, people had tried their best to assimilate creeks and this was a clear response they did not want to become americans. That gave a lot of force for the removal proponents to move indians out of this area. The conquering spirit was used by the federal agent to the southern indians. When he first got wind of the red sticks movement, which was largely religious and also militaristic, he said the red sticks were possessed of a conquering spirit by the master of breath, the great spirit figure. And so i thought that was appropriate for that perspective and also when the americans are attacked at fort mims, their response is to respond in kind. I thought that captured the essence of what was going on. Initially i was part of a team of archaeologists who was contracted by the alabama could Historical Commission to look at the archaeology and a lot of at the site at fort mims. We had thousands of artifacts and no reports to speak of. We spent about a year in 2003, 2004 analyzing the collection. It was in the process of doing that i began to read up on the history and see that there were a lot of old historical ideas that needed to be reexamined. A lot more evidence available than back in the 1890s when the last major work had been done. The archaeology led me to the history. Ar people who read ferentring spirit see dif perspective. The creek perspective has been underrepresented and indian perspectives in general although that is clearly changing now. I hope people try to understand the red stick when you view. They were not evil incarnate as they were portrayed in the era by the american press. They had all kinds of legitimate grievances and the outcome is tragic from all perspectives. It is a very instructive period. As similar tos other stories. Often fiction writers will take some kind of vessel like the titanic or a rowboat or a lifeboat, the space station, some kind of contained entity in which people interact and kind of show their true selves. I thought that is what was happening. We see the cruelty of the beasleyr here, daniel who had been a sheriff in the natchez area, whipping the slaves who were talking about the approaches of the red stick creeks. All the human stories that go on and the most fascinating to me and trying to delve into the genealogy of these individuals showed they were closely related. These people were fighting on opposite sides but they all knew each other. They would yell insults back and forth and it was a very personal war played out here on a small scale. It is like the American Civil War crunched down into a little tiny event in many ways create you see the same kinds of stories as you would see in a Bigger Picture like the American Civil War. Cspans American History to her takes you
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