Muscogee (Creek)

The Muscogee (Mvskoke), called Creek by the English, are related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands whose towns once filled southern Tennessee, Alabama, western Georgia and northern Florida. Organised as a confederacy of autonomous talwas, each with its square ground, chunkey yard and Green Corn ceremony, they farmed, hunted deer and traded deerskins by the ton to Charleston and Savannah. The Muscogee held the balance of power between French, Spanish and English empires, playing them against one another for a century. Defeat in the Creek War of 1813-1814 cost half their land; the 1830s removals dragged most west on the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory. Groups that slipped into Florida between 1767 and 1821 became, with others, the Seminole. Today the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, the Poarch Band of Alabama and Florida Seminole descendants carry the language, the stomp dance and the fire that towns carried from the old country.