Billy Bowlegs in New Orleans

I read about him from time to time. There are different accounts of how the Third Seminole War started with men cutting down his Banana trees on his plantation.
One account I read was that the men were surveyors or scouts for the US Army. They might have been contracted by the government.
Either way they either stole bananas or chopped down his trees. Chief Bowlegs was furious and approached their camp. He asked them why they did it. They said they just wanted to see Chief Bowlegs "cut up."
He said "well be here in the morning and you'll get to see him "cut up." Then he and his men sneaked into their camp the next morning and killed them all.

This even lead to the third war. Eventually Chief Bowlegs was convinced and paid to leave Florida. The steamer he was on stopped in New Orleans. This article was about the visit. I guess Chief Bowlegs was a bit of a celebrity by then.

http://fcit.usf.edu/Florida/docs/b/bowlegs.htm

Does anyone have any interesting articles or stories of Chief Bowlegs?

A discussion;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Billy_Bowlegs

The surname "Bowlegs" may be an alternate spelling of Bolek. Some one he was named after or his French name. I read different accounts.
Here is one account of his name. This is an interesting read;

"I suppose this boy’s real name was Micanopito— for that means the grandson of Micanopy in Spanish— but he began when he was so very young to ride astride big horses, and on top of such large bundles, that it made his legs crooked, and his father, who knew a very little Spanish, nicknamed him Piernas Corvas, meaning bowlegs. When he grew up, Natto Jo, a man who was part Indian and part negro, called him Guillermito a las piernas corvas, meaning to say little William Bowlegs; but when Natto Jo came into our camp, ‘and spoke of him by that name, the soldiers asked what it meant and turned it for themselves into Billy Bowlegs."

https://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/billy-bowlegs-and-the-everglades-of-florida.htm

I also read that he died shortly after he got to Arkansas or Oklahoma. I also read the he lived there a while as a chief and prospered well with his daughters.
Some confusion lies in that his son took the name Billy Bowlegs. It could be the son that lived and prospered after his father died.

Following the lineage, Billy Bowlegs was the grandson of Micanopy.
Micanopy succeeded Bolek as hereditary principal chief of the Seminole following his death in 1819.
Bolek (died 1819), also spelled as Boleck or Bolechs, and known as Bowlegs by European Americans, was a Seminole principal chief, of the Alachua chiefly line. He was the younger brother of King Payne, who succeeded their father Cowkeeper (known to the Seminole as Ahaya) as leading or principal chief in Florida.

Even still, another Bowlegs. Probably who Billy Bowlegs was named after.

I always thought that was an interesting start for a war. The Seminole Wars were fascinating historically. I find it interesting nobody is 100% sure of what exactly makes up a Seminole. Osceola is a fine example. He was born to a White (they say of Welsh origin) merchant to the upper Creek towns by the name of William Powell and either a half white or quarter white woman by the name of Polly Coppinger whose uncle was Peter McQueen, a famous half white Creek war leader who fought against Jackson and was at the Ft. Mims massacre. He was more white than indian and he was born in Tallassee a Creek town in northern Alabama.....and yet he is probably the most famous Seminole.

I have heard a number of explanations of what exactly constitutes a Seminole....I have even said my two cents worth. Lately I have been reading a number of histories on the Creek Civil War and also about Benjamin Hawkins and his tenure as chief agent to the southern Indians. I have also been reading contemporary writings on the Revolutionary War in GA and FLA and apparently what I had always thought of as the Lower Creeks of the lower Flint River basin in SOWEGA were thought of as Seminoles by the contemporary writers. Even some of the maps from the time show the area around Albany GA as being Seminole territory. Ben Kirkland if you are out there, please expand on this issue for me.

Been reading about the Seminole as well. It appears to be a name given to all the tribes that mixed in Florida, lower Alabama, and South West Georgia as well.
Then you've got Black Seminoles mixing and living among the red ones. Sometimes in the same towns and sometimes in mostly black towns such as Angola, Florida.

Was reading about the battle of Negro Fort in Florida. The British recruited former black slaves and free blacks plus Indians to help them in the War of 1812. Even though Florida was a Spanish territory Britain had a few forts in it.
Andrew Jackson called the Spanish governor out about it but they didn't have the care or men to do much about it.

The Indians and Blacks in Florida knew their freedom was best secured with the Spanish and British. People who think the Civil War was against slavery need to look back farther at the actions of Jackson. If they think the US government was their friend and not foe.

Anyway back to Negro Fort, the British manned it with blacks and Indians. After the War of 1812, they left it and told the Blacks to keep it manned. I guess for spite. People in South Georgia and Alabama didn't take to kindly to a fort of blacks and Indians being so close. Jackson sent troops to destroy it. This included General Gaines from Ft. Scott on the Flint River. The blacks tried to defend it but weren't trained much on cannon fire. It was totally destroyed with a hotshot cannonball from a US gunboat.

Supposedly this event, the battle of Negro Fort, angered Chief Neamathla of Fowltown, Georgia. They were of the Miccosukee Tribe of the Seminoles.
Neamathla sent word to the commander of Fort Scott, General Gaines, on the west side of the Flint River that if he crossed the Flint, they would be attacked and defeated.
Chief Neamathla had people at Negro Fort. The threat provoked the general to send 250 men to arrest the chief in November 1817 but a battle arose and it became the official opening engagement of the First Seminole War.

So the battle of Negro Fort started the first Seminole War or this battle on Fowl Town in Georgia started the first Seminole War.

The land in southern Georgia had been ceded by the Creeks in the Treaty of Fort Jackson, but the Mikasukis did not consider themselves Creek, did not feel bound by the treaty, and did not accept that the Creeks had any right to cede Mikasuki land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fowltown,_Georgia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro_Fort

Some of the Creek Red Sticks moved into Florida and joined the Seminoles to fight the US Army.
The Black Seminole were known as Maroons. They were fighting against Jackson's troops in the Florida panhandle and got pushed down to middle Florida. Eventually they got pushed even farther south and formed towns such as Angola near Tampa.

By this time Florida was US territory. Many Blacks and Indians had already headed to south Florida for protection. They knew that without the British presence or the Spanish, they'd better head south.

Various black, Seminole, Red Stick Creek, and Spanish settlements were spread out from Tampa Bay all the way down to present-day Ft. Myers. The Angola community, approximately located at present-day Sarasota, was a refuge for blacks escaping the onslaught of white slave raiders.

I think Jackson sent the Creek to attack the town of Angola.

http://libcom.org/history/black-maroon-settlement-angola-beacon-freedom-florida

Article of the Black Seminole settlement on the Suwannee River. Many of them soon relocated to Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River to volunteer for service in the British Colonial Marines, the ones who fought at Negro Fort.

Many of the maroons had left the bluff before the U.S. attack. Some went down to Southwest Florida where they established the new community of Angola, but others went to the Suwannee where the population of the “Negro village” there grew dramatically in 1814-1816.

http://exploresouthernhistory.com/mobile/2017/12/12/nero/

There was also an Indian settlement at Payne's Prairie in the Alachua area of middle Florida. This is where Billy Bowlegs was living before they were ran south ahead of the US Army.
A scout told them about the grassy open prairies of southwest Florida so they settled in that area. Bowlegs was living in this area near Fort Meyers when the "cut up" incident happened.

Interesting story of Elizabeth Stewart Dill. She was the sole female survivor of the 1817 battle remembered as Scott's Massacre. Mrs. Stewart was making her way to Fort Scott with 6 other wives of soldiers and 4 children. The civilians had come up the Apalachicola River aboard supply boats destined for Fort Scott. Mrs. Stewart was carried away as a prisoner and spent the next several months working as a slave of Peter McQueen's band of Red Stick Creeks. She was rescued by the Yuchi warrior Timpoochee Barnard during the Battle of Econfina Natural Bridge in 1818.

On April 12, the army found a Red Stick village on the Econfina River, and attacked it. Close to 40 Red Sticks were killed, and about 100 women and children were captured. In the village, they found Elizabeth Stewart, the woman who had been captured in the attack on the supply boat on the Apalachicola River the previous November.

She went on to live in Fort Gaines and married John Dill, a local merchant and later a general in the Georgia Militia. They raised a family in Fort Gaines and two of their homes still survive there. According to legend, Elizabeth built them with money she had collected while a captive of McQueen. As the story goes, the warriors returning from raids with wads of paper money that was of no value to them. They would simply throw it on the ground and Elizabeth would then collect it and stash it away.

http://georgiahistoricsites.blogspot.com/2009/08/remarkable-story-of-elizabeth-dill-fort.html

I toured the Dill House once in the early nineties. A couple had recently bought it and were fixing it up for a Bed & Breakfast.

I have also been to the Elizabeth Dill's house in Ft. Gaines. I always thought the story about how the Creeks did not know the value of the money was more of a "good tale" than reality. There were trading posts throughout the area of the Creek Confederation and one of the conditions of the treaty of New York was annual payments in cash to a number of the "Miccos" of the Creek Nation. Peter McQueen was a hot head but I never thought he bought into the "prophet" movement to do away with all things "white". He was caught up in the politics of the Creek Nation and allied with a group that was strongly against the Postal Road before Tecumseh and the Prophets showed up in 1811. He rose in prominence when McGillivray died and created a power vacuum within the Council. He actually spent a lot of time in both Mobile and Pensacola prior to the first Creek War. He was leading the band coming back from Pensacola with arms they purchased from the Spanish that got ambushed at Burnt Corn Creek. He was familiar with cash and its value. I fall into the camp that the battle of Fowl Town was the opening shots of the Seminole war and not the Battle of Negro Fort. I look at the Battle of Negro Fort as cleaning up loose ends from the War of 1812 since it was a British Fort and they turned it over to run away slaves to be a thorn in the side of Georgia.

Back to Peter McQueen and the prophet movement. A lot of people say he was a prophet, I really have a hard time with that. He was politically inclined to side with them. His father was an ardent tory and kept his tory sentiments after the Revolutionary War. He had political ambitions within the Council and had always hated the United States and the prophet movement fit his political ambitions. William Weatherford always seemed to blame McQueen in large part for the massacre at Ft. Mims which Weatherford tried to stop. William Weatherford is one of the more interesting and tragic characters in early American history. He never truly believed the Creeks would be able to defeat the US but he still was one of the leaders in the War. He and Andrew Jackson actually became good friends. He impressed Andrew Jackson when he turned himself in fully expecting to be executed but knew his death would be the only thing to save his people. Jackson reversed himself and actually Weatherford resided as a guest in his home for a time in Nashville. He eventually returned to one of his plantations where he died a friend of the US.

That would make sense about them knowing the value of currency.
I would follow your line of thinking on Fowl Town as being the start of the war as well.

To me it is hard to separate the Creek Wars and the Seminole Wars...they were intertwined and many of the same characters were active in both. If you want to read about a really interesting character who played a part in all this, read some about William Augustus Bowles. He was a Tory from Maryland that left for the Bahamas after the Revolutionary War. He inserted himself in the Creek politics and was known as the "prince of lies". Time and time again he showed up in Florida and in the Creek Nation. He led a loose band of Seminole and Creek warriors, more outlaws than anything, and caused trouble wherever he went. While he died before the Creek or Seminole Wars in a Spanish Prison, he laid the foundation for the political fractures within the Creek Nation that led to the Creek Civil War. He was an opponent of Alexander McGillivray and his machinations are what led to the deepening cracks in the Council. There appears to be some evidence that he influenced the young Peter McQueen. He was also responsible for the sacking of St. Marks a time or two. His life was the thing great novels are made of.

I find it really sad how few people in Georgia know about these conflicts and the impact they had on the History of the US. The period from the Revolutionary War to the Removal act and the conflicts with the Creeks and Seminoles in GA and FLA was full of intrigue, state vs federal government power struggles, foreign spies, international struggles and continued conflict. The very first treaty ratified by the Senate under the new Constitution involved GA and the Creek Nation.

I did come across Bowles researching Billy Bowlegs. Apparently Bowles went by Bowlegs as well.

One of the most interesting individuals ever
to live in the Two Egg area was William
Augustus Bowles, the individual celebrated
in Fort Walton Beach today as the pirate "Billy
Bowlegs."

http://www.twoeggfla.com/billybowlegs.html

My sister has been to the Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival in Fort Walton Beach.

I'll have to read more about him. His life does appear interesting.

Why is the term "prophet" used in relation to some of these leaders? Does it have something to do with being against the US?

Also when Peter McQueen went to Pensacola to purchase guns, who did he buy them from?
I know that at some point the British were arming and training the Creek and Seminole. There was mention of some private trading companies in Florida and some Spanish traders as well.

I think Jackson killed some British traders for selling arms to the Indians in Florida. Might have been in Pensacola.

Yeah there was really a lot going on in that era. Civil wars between the Creek, the War of 1812, pirates on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, the Spanish in Florida, slaves running away, etc.

The US was busy fighting the British and pirates and had to fight Indians as well. No wonder Jackson had to round up men from state militias.

Tecumseh had a brother who basically created a new religion for the Shawnee. It was a religious/political movement with the intent of unifying all the Indians against the US. They preached that if the Indians abandoned all things "white" they would be able to prevent the US from expanding into Indian lands. The religious leaders were called "prophets" and the whole movement became known as the "prophet movement".

It was a new religion that appealed to the younger members of the Creek Nation. It also appealed to many of the women in the nation. As the Creeks became more "civilized" growing cotton, raising swine and chickens along with herds of cattle and using African slaves, they developed plantations along the lines of the White Planters that were on the borders of the Creek nation. They also were partaking in commerce similar to the whites, manufacturing cloth, etc...and the society was becoming more patriarchal and moving away from its matriarchal roots. That is why the women were supporters, they were loosing power with the shifting economics.

Tecumseh arrived in the Creek Nation in 1811 preaching his ideas along with a band of Shawnee and some think Kickapoo warriors and religious leaders. When he arrived, Haley's Comet was also making its appearance, so it was seen as a sign. He got into an argument with some "pro-white" or pro-US creeks and he said when he returned to Detroit he would stomp his foot and cause destruction to those who spoke against him at the Council. Benjamin Hawkins was also at the Council representing the US Government, of course Tecumseh did not speak of war but only unity in his presence.

Hawkins called the Council to tell the Creeks, Chickasaw and Choctaw (they were present in some numbers along with some Cherokee) that the US was going to build a road through their Nation over their objections. This played into Tecumseh's hand and after Hawkins left, he met with many of the Creek leaders about a coming war with Britain and how the unified Indian Nations should join the British in order to win. That is when the foot stomping threat took place.

There was a division within the nation of the "old chiefs" and the younger generation....the older group was for keeping peace with the US, many had become wealthy because of the relationship and were benefiting from the changing economy. They also largely fought with the British against the colonies during the Revolution and they had no illusions about who would win the war. They argued it would be the destruction of the Creek Nation. The younger Creek leaders had not accumulated as much wealth nor had they fought a real war, other than a raid or two, against the whites....they sided with Tecumseh. The Alibamu or Alabama Tribe within the Creek Nation was the biggest supporters of Tecumseh with the Creek's greatest prophet coming from them, his name was Josiah Francis, another half white anti-US Creek.

One of the stranger quirks of history was the "foot stomping" threat. I do not know if it was a tall tale or reality, but about the time Tecumseh would have arrived back in Detroit the New Madrid Earthquake hit and destroyed a lot of the Creek communities. It caused serious damage all the way to Milledgeville GA, the then state Capital. Every source I have read talks about this threat, so it might be truth, but needless to say, that caused a lot of converts amongst those who were skeptical about the prophets. I am a little bit cynical about Tecumseh's religious beliefs though, I would bet he was encouraged and I know he was financed, by the British in Detroit. One of the strange results of the prophet movement and its hate of all things white that helped defeat the Creeks was they killed all their cattle, swine and chickens. This led to a period of starvation after the US forces finally entered the Creek nation in force. The first few campaigns of the War were located along the border, neither Jackson (commander of the Tennessee Militia) nor Claiborne (commander of the Mississippi Military District) nor Floyd (led the Georgia Militia) were allowed to enter the heart of the Creek Nation at first. The Government had hoped that by not invading the Creek Nation in force peace might be obtained and the us of Federal Forces would not be necessary....they were tied up fighting the British and Indians else where.

As for who Peter McQueen purchased guns from in Pensacola, it was the Spanish Governor. He was worried about the growing influence amongst the Creeks of the British and had dealt with the British making inroads in Spanish West Florida. Remember also this was towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and even though Spain and Britain were kind of allies, they did not trust each other. This was in the summer of 1813. When Napoleon conquered Spain, he required Spain to return Louisiana via treaty back to France in 1801 and then turned around and sold Louisiana to the US. Spain was, with reason, worried about US encroachment on Mobile from the Mississippi Territory and from an enclave of White settlers in the lower reaches of the Alabama River area in the Creek Nation (that was where Ft. Mims was).

The two British subjects that Andrew Jackson had executed were Alexander Arbuthnot and Richard Ambrister. That took place at St. Marks in 1818 and the end of his march during the First Seminole War. It became known as the Arbuthnot affair and about led to war between the US and Britain again. They were British agents supplying arms to the Seminoles and encouraging them to raid south Georgia. Historians have written numerous books on whether Jackson had James Monroe's approval or not to both invade Florida and execute these British subjects. The letter written orders given Jackson by Monroe were vague and open to interpretation. During the diplomatic uproar that followed these executions Monroe seemed to want to use Jackson as a scape goat, but most historians are beginning to see this was a false front and Monroe knew what Jackson was going to do and approved of it. He was the founder of the Monroe Doctrine after all.

Thanks for filling me in on the prophets and other questions. That was a nicely condensed history lesson. Interesting how all the things going on at the time and right before all tied together.

Britain used this to their favor in the War of 1812. The Creek civil war for example. The revival of the old ways and religion of the Creek played helped them as well. I can see why the young Creek men wanted to get involved in it. They were getting away from their roots. They probably heard stories of how great the warriors of their ancestors were and wanted to be like them.
Young people of naturally seekers of things like this.

Makes sense the older ones would not want to keep things the way they were. They had more or less assimilated and were happy with their lifestyle, farms, and trading systems.

You mentioned Jackson and Monroe on orders, it does seem like Jackson had a lot of freedom to do what he pleased. Comparing him to MacArthur in WWII, would you say he was like him in many ways? I'm sure Monroe was aware of what Jackson did in the Arbuthnot affair but Jackson seem to go a little overboard many times like MacArthur as well.
Many times the generals end up being the scapegoats for their leaders. Sometimes they have to do things without waiting for orders ans suffer the repercussions later.

One thing I find interesting is that many of those Creek Chiefs were of mixed European descent. William Weatherford, Peter McQueen, , Menawa, & William McIntosh comes to mind.

Also interesting was the Creeks Law menders. The Creek National Council ruled that the signatories of the 1825 treaty had to be executed for ceding the communal land, which was defined as a capital crime. The Red Stick leader Menawa was chosen to kill them to include McIntosh.
The Cherokee did this as well to avenge the signing of the treaty that moved them from Georgia.

I'm gonna read up on the Indian Prophets. That era of their religion and politics looks like it may have played a big part of things like the Creek Civil war as you mentioned in post 15.

It seemed to widespread within other Indian nations as well. They were all getting visions from the Great Spirit. Like you said the comet was a sign. Maybe that triggered it.

Found this;

In Alabama, the Creek knower (kithla) Captain Sam Isaacs related his vision of traveling for many days on the bottom of a river where he obtained knowledge from a powerful Tie-Snake who knew about future events. This was about 1811 and Captain Sam Isaacs would become one of the greatest Creek kithla. In Creek culture, a kithla is a person who “knows” things. In English this kind of person might be called a “seer” or a “diviner.”

http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1360

Many Creeks were wanting William McIntosh punished and had the Government had someone as sophisticated as Benjamin Hawkins at the time the treaty would have never happened the way it did. The Government either would have known that McIntosh did not speak for the Creek Nation or someone of Hawkins' integrity would not have allowed the second Treaty of Indian Springs. The 2d Treaty was due to the machinations of the State of GA. After the 1st Treaty of Indian Springs in 1821 the Creek Council affirmed that the Creek Nation would never cede anymore more land and would impose the death penalty on any Creek who did so. McIntosh and a handful of Lower Creek Leaders none the less entered into the 2d Treaty in 1825. McIntosh gained personally from the 2d Treaty in that his land was titled to him in fee simple and he was given more lands to add to his large estate of Plantations . He knew the possible consequences when I signed the Treaty and took precautions...though these precautions were ineffective.

Menawa was another Creek Leader that was the result of a "marriage" between an influential creek woman and a white fur trader. His mother was from the Wind Clan so therefore he was in the Wind Clan. Interestingly enough, that was the Clan responsible for being "Law Keepers". McIntosh also was a member of the Wind Clan and was a Law Keeper. A group of Law Keepers led by McIntosh was the one that executed a number of Creeks that prior to the Creek Civil War had joined Tecumseh in some Battles in the Great Lakes area and on the way home massacred a number of white families in Kentucky. The fact that those executed by McIntosh's group were not members of the Wind Clan helped lead to the divisions prior to the Creek Civil War. The fact that Menawa and his band were also from the Wind Clan helped keep another Civil War from happening when they executed McIntosh.

President John Quincy Adams was petitioned by the Creeks to overturn the 2d Treaty of Indian Springs and it appears he did. However in 1826 a renegotiated treaty known as the Treaty of Washington basically turned over pretty much all the remaining Creek lands in GA to the State. This treaty laid the ground works for the 2d Creek war of 1836. By removing all the Creeks in the State of GA, land speculators were operating from the east banks of the Chattahoochee and was flooding Alabama with settlers. After the 1826 treaty many Creeks moved to the Indian Territories west of the Mississippi, those inclined to resist made their way to Florida to join the Seminoles who were still largely free in Florida and had successfully resisted white encroachment on their lands. The largest number though joined their relatives in the Lower Towns in Alabama along the west bank of the Chattahoochee or the Upper Towns in Northern Alabama. Some in GA became assimilated white people, by then a lot of Creeks could pass as white.

After the first Creek War, white settlers started flooding Alabama and this was causing some problems. In 1832 the Creeks signed the Treaty of Cusseta (named after the Creek town on the Banks of the Chattahoochee in Alabama...not Cusseta GA). This treaty dissolved the Council and allotted land to individual Creek families. The Creek Nation officially ceased to exist. Immediately land swindlers began to trick individual Creeks into selling their lands. This led to great angst amongst the Creeks who in 1836 rebelled. Much of the fighting in this War took place in West GA with many of the creek combatants being groups who were trying to make it to Florida to join Osceola and his rebellious Seminoles who were at the time successfully beating the Federal Government.

There was also fighting around what is present day Valdosta and east of there due to a band of Creeks/Seminoles who never left the Okefenokee. These Indians had been hanging on in the Swamp since the Revolution and never abided by any of the previous treaties requiring them to move. These Creeks were led by none other than Bolek or Billy Bowlegs at the time of the 2d Creek War and the 2d Seminole War. While many historians list his band as Seminoles, he did not take up arms the previous year when the 2d Seminole War started but did so in 1836 when the 2d Creek War started and his battles in GA are listed as part of the 2d Creek War. Strangely enough, the 2d Creek War was largely Lower Creeks fighting the whites while the Upper Creeks largely sided with the US. The exact opposite scenario of the First Creek War. The Upper Creeks supplied troops to the US Government for actions against the Lower Creeks and, interestingly, the Seminoles. These Upper Creeks fighting in Florida against, in many cases their close kinfolk, were some of the more effective troops in the 2d Seminole War.

By the time the 2d Creek War came about, many of the Upper Creek were in support of the Removal Act and started to head out to what is now Oklahoma. Billy Bowlegs made it successfully to Florida along with a number of other Lower Creeks and a handful of some Upper Creeks who did not side with the Federal Government. Many of the Lower Creeks were not received well by the "Seminoles" when they arrived in Florida because they had sided with Jackson during the First Creek War and more importantly, with Jackson during the First Seminole War.

The GA militia contingent in the First Seminole War was made up of a lot of Lower Creeks and Whites commanded by Brigadier General William McIntosh (the same one who Menawa Killed). This group was responsible for a lot of the fighting and destruction of Seminole and refugee Upper Creek (from the recently finished first Creek War) towns in Northern Florida from Apalachicola to St. Marks. History has it, so does legend, that this band fought a battle and burned an Upper Creek refuge town just south of present day Tallahassee where a teenaged Billy Powell lived at the time. Legend has it that this was Billy Powell's first time fighting...of course most know Billy Powell as Osceola. Many of the Lower Creeks that ended up in Florida spoke Hitchiti (a Muskogean dialect) and became part of the Miccosukee people who were originally from the Lower Chattahoochee and Flint River valleys. I am assuming that because many of these lower creek towns spoke Hitchiti the British and Early American Maps of Southwest GA indicated the natives as being Seminoles even though their Towns were part of the Creek Confederation.

I can't help but wonder if the political divisions within the Creek Nation leading up to and during the First Creek War between the Lower Creeks and the Upper Creeks led to a less apparent division within the Seminole nation between those that spoke a "classical" form of Muskogean and Hitchiti. Today the Hitchiti speakers have their own reservations in South Florida, the Miccosukee Reservations and the heirs of the Upper Creeks who spoke Muskogean have their own reservations ........the Seminole Reservations. More Upper Creeks (from what I can tell, I might be wrong) moved out west during the removal than Lower Creeks. The Hitchiti dialect is supposedly extinct in Oklahoma according to some of the materials I have read. The Lower Creeks did a better job of assimilating into the White population of North Florida and South Georgia than the Upper Creeks did in Alabama and those that did not assimilate were the only natives in the east to take up arms against the removal act along with the Seminoles.

Artfuldodger said:

I'm gonna read up on the Indian Prophets. That era of their religion and politics looks like it may have played a big part of things like the Creek Civil war as you mentioned in post 15.

It seemed to widespread within other Indian nations as well. They were all getting visions from the Great Spirit. Like you said the comet was a sign. Maybe that triggered it.

Found this;

In Alabama, the Creek knower (kithla) Captain Sam Isaacs related his vision of traveling for many days on the bottom of a river where he obtained knowledge from a powerful Tie-Snake who knew about future events. This was about 1811 and Captain Sam Isaacs would become one of the greatest Creek kithla. In Creek culture, a kithla is a person who “knows” things. In English this kind of person might be called a “seer” or a “diviner.”

http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1360

Click to expand...

But for the prophets there probably would not have been a Creek Civil War. The Prophets promised British aid and inflamed the passion that existed amongst many of the Upper Creeks against the postal road which was really for military purposes, to get troops to Mobile and New Orleans in the up coming War with the British that everyone knew was coming.

Captain Sam Isaacs was against the Prophet movement and wanted to be a "counter prophet". He was largely discredited because of his commune with a serpent which represented "witches" amongst the Creeks. The Creeks, like the Puritans of earlier years, had a habit of executing witches...however they burned them as opposed to hanging them. Isaacs played a very muddied role in the events leading up to the Creek Civil War. He had anti-US sentiments however, he felt the Creeks would loose the war. He sided with McIntosh and called for the execution of the Creeks that went north with Tecumseh. Josiah Francis led a band of "red stick" Warriors and assassinated Isaacs. The Prophets saw Isaacs as a traitor and a potential threat to their movement. His assassination was one of the many killings that solidified the divisions within the Creek Nation culminating in the Creek Civil War/First Creek War. Strangely enough, Isaacs advocated War against the US a few years earlier in 1808 because he felt he was being taken advantage of by having to pay tariffs on some goods he bought into the US from Pensacola.

Isaacs took a position in the end against the "Great Breath Giver" who was the new deity the Shawnee Prophets were pushing. Prior to the arrival of the Shawnee Prophets Isaacs was a rival of Josiah Francis and the Alabama Towns (the Tribe Alabama, not the State) over economic and political issues. Though he would have been a Red Stick himself due to his anti-US sentiments, personal considerations intervened and he was loosing influence to the movement led by Josiah Francis amongst the younger Upper Creeks.

I find it interesting that Captain Sam Isaacs was the first Creek Prophet that you came across in your readings. He had followed the old adage of "Fighting fire with fire" against the Prophets.

Haven't read all of this thread yet although very interesting. Some of this topic is mentioned in a book I just finished. It's a great read: "Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans: The Battle That Shaped America's Destiny".