8 - A Brave Journey

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Between about 1690 and 1717, many of the Indians who eventually moved to the Fort Benning area, were located on the Ocmulgee River near present-day Macon, Georgia in the center of the state. These were violent unsettled times, with England, Spain, and France fighting for power. In Europe, there were fierce battles, and in the Americas Europeans didn't hesitate to use the Indians as pawns in their disputes.

The Muskogee Indians who came to be known as the Creeks received their new name during this period. The English first called them Ocheese Creek Indians, then eventually Simply the Creeks because they lived by a creek near an English trading post. Ocheese was an early name for the Ocmulgee River. Both Ocheese and Ocmulgee originally were names for local Indian groups. The Creeks were not the only native people living near the trading post. A group that would also play an important role in Fort Benning's history, the Yuchi Indians, moved to the banks of the Ocmulgee River a few years before the Creeks.

Most knowledgeable historians agree that the Yuchi Indians lived in the mountains and hills of present-day eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina when Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto passed through the region. Sometime later, the Yuchis migrated south, perhaps because of war with the Cherokee Indians who came to dominate in the mountains. Many Yuchi Indians settled along the Savannah River in east Georgia near present day Augusta, although related Indians may have moved into other areas. Then, in 1681 at least some of the Yuchi Indians migrated again, perhaps because of warfare with the Shawnee Indians. They reportedly relocated from the Savannah River area to the Ocmulgee River near Macon and were there almost a decade before the Creeks arrived. The Yuchis, Creeks, and other groups settled in central Georgia in part because of the lure of English goods. In return for trade items, the Indians raided northern Florida to capture slaves for the English and at the same time helped weaken Spanish influence. The Spanish controlled Florida through a system of missions and fortified settlements.

The slaves captured in Indian raids were sent to build a thriving plantation economy in Charleston, South Carolina, leading to some of the first colonial fortunes. A census in 1708 showed that among 9,500 people officially counted in the South Carolina colony there were 3,000 black and 1,400 Indian slaves, or one slave for every White person. The numbers do not fully reflect the Indian slave trade, however. Black slaves, primarily from Africa, were easier to control because they were far removed from their homeland. Indians, because they were held not far from their villages, were far more likely to escape. Many were transported to New England or to Caribbean Islands to ensure they would be more docile. Consequently, they were not counted in the census. Not everyone approved of the trafficking in human beings. Whites living on South Carolina's frontier could see the havoc the slave trade was causing among native groups, and the managers of the colony, the Proprietors, were also concerned. They attempted to regulate and limit the trade, but the effort was shunted aside as the lure of profits drew more colonists into the practice.

In retaliation for slave raids, the Spanish and a force of Florida Indians, the Apalachee, invaded Creek settlements in 1695, destroying six. One village they burned was called Uchichi, which may have referred to a Yuchi Indian settlement. However, the community could have belonged to the Creeks or Ocheese Indians. A series of battles and raids between people based in Florida and others living in central Georgia followed. The most significant raids into Florida were led by Colonel James Moore, the South Carolina Governor. Born of Irish descent on the Caribbean island of Barbados, Moore, along with Creek and other Indian allies, laid waste to Spanish presence in northern Florida. His most devastating assault came in the winter of 1704. Leading a force of 50 English soldiers and a thousand Indian warriors, Moore destroyed Indian villages and 13 Spanish missions in northern Florida. His force killed at least several hundred people and captured about a thousand slaves. The impact on Spanish control was devastating.

Indian raids to capture slaves for the English continued. Native groups in Georgia traveled as far as Mississippi on raids to catch slaves to exchange for guns. Indian hunters also slaughtered deer in unprecedented numbers, according to anthropologist Charles Hudson. Before Europeans arrived, hunters used almost every part of the slain animals as food and tools. Now they often took only the hides to trade and left the rest of the deer to rot.

Yet, growing numbers of Indians were becoming disenchanted with the English. The slave trade escalated combat between different Indian groups and was poisonous to traditional societies. European settlers were pushing further into the frontier from Charleston. Also, the Indians hated many English traders, seeing them as dishonest scoundrels, an opinion shared by many colonists.

The powerful chiefs of the Mississippian era were gone. Chiefs now represented only a single village or two and nearby hamlets. Their control was also diminished in other ways. They no longer ruled for life. If a chiefs followers became disgruntled, they might remove him from leadership. Also, before chiefs made crucial decisions, they usually had to summon a council of important men of the village to seek advice.

Despite these limitations, a number of loose alliances arose among various Indian leaders to confront pressures on native societies forced by the Europeans. These networks became more obvious in 1715 when disenchantment with whites reached a boiling point and spilled over into war. The conflict began with the Indians launching coordinated attacks against English settlements along the South Carolina coast.

Warriors slipped into white homesteads, catching settlers by surprise. Simultaneously, they killed traders caught within Indian villages and stole their supplies. They killed more than 200 people and attacked traders as far west as Alabama in Creek and Choctaw villages. Various groups participated-the Creeks, Yuchis, Yamasees, possibly some Cherokees, and others. Despite the diverse collection of fighters, however, the uprising became known as the Yamasee War. The colonial response was swift. Officials slapped an embargo on selling arms to the Indians and launched brutal retaliatory attacks. Colonial armies killed many men, women, and children, and burned Indian villages.

Colonial authorities also began negotiating an alliance with the Cherokee Indians in return for bargain-priced trade goods and guns. The Cherokee, still living in the mountains to the north, didn't easily agree to fight other Indians battling Europeans. There were factions both for and against the proposed alliance. The issue reached a climax when a group of Cherokee in favor of the colonists killed some Creek emissaries, violating Indian rules guaranteeing safe passage for negotiators. The murders required Creek retaliation and poisoned relations between the two groups for years after.

With aid from the Cherokees, the colonists defeated the uprising. Indians living in South Carolina and the eastern half of Georgia abandoned their homes and fled west. Creek Indians, including residents associated with the Kawita and Kasita communities, relocated back to the Chattahoochee River. The Yuchi and others also migrated to the Chattahoochee River. By 1717, the Yamasee War was over. In the aftermath, more than two dozen Indian villages existed either on Fort Benning land or near by.

The war brought about other changes. The Indian slave market began to fade as the trade in Africans expanded. Black slaves brought higher prices because they were less likely to escape. The Macon-area trading post closed, but bartering with the Indians for animal furs continued to thrive. English traders now traveled to the Chattahoochee to hawk their wares.

The Creeks settled along the Chattahoochee became known as the Lower Creeks. They maintained communication and cooperation with other native peoples, such as the Yuchi, when dealing with the Europeans. Many Indian groups lived along the river, including the Apalachicola, Oconee, Yuchi, and Apalachee, as well as the Lower Creeks. The alliances that had helped fuel the Yamasee War were the beginnings of the Creek Confederacy, a loose, often changing coalition of various Indian groups.

Another source of trade developed when the French erected Fort Toulouse near present-day Montgomery, Alabama in 1717. Creeks living nearby dominated the trade and became known as the Upper Creeks. English colonists associated with Charleston, South Carolina continued to handle most of the trade with the Lower Creeks and other Indians nearby who lived along the Chattahoochee.

A momentous gathering occurred at Creek villages on Fort Benning land in the summer of 1739, an event that influenced the political future of the fledgling colony of Georgia. The central figure in the episode was James Edward Oglethorpe, a British aristocrat, member of Parliament, and former soldier who once served as aide de camp to Prince Eugene, Austria's renown military strategist, in fending off the Turks. Stirred by the plight of a friend who died in an English debtors' prison, Oglethorpe organized support for a colony in the New World where the poor and individuals suffering religious persecution, as well as others who wished to, could embark on a fresh start. With 20 associates, he obtained a royal charter in 1732 for the new colony, which they named in honor of Britain's King George. The British government backed the colony of Georgia to establish a barrier between the prosperous colonists in Charleston and the Spanish in Florida.

Oglethorpe's decision to visit the Chattahoochee villages was prompted, in part, by two of his closest advisors, Tomochichi and Mary Musgrove, both of whom were trusted by the Creek Confederacy and may have been born along the Chattahoochee. Oglethorpe met Tomochichi soon after the Englishman landed with an advance party at Yamacraw Bluff on the Savannah River in 1733. They were searching for a place to build Savannah, the first town of the new colony of Georgia. Tomochichi was the mico, or chief of the Yamacraw Indians who lived nearby. Almost six feet tall, Tomochichi impressed Oglethorpe with his intelligence, wisdom, and eloquence. A few days after their first encounter, Oglethorpe returned with the rest of the original 114 settlers. Tomochichi presented Oglethorpe with a buffalo robe and said, "We have come to welcome you, as I promised. I have brought you a present. This is the skin of a buffalo, which is the strongest of all beasts. Inside, you see painted the head and feathers of an eagle, which is the swiftest of all birds and flies furthest....The eagle's feathers are warm and soft and signify love. The buffalo robe is warm and signifies protection. Therefore, love and protect our little families."

Tomochichi and Oglethorpe became friends and worked side by side to secure peaceful relations between the colonists and Indian groups, including the Lower Creeks. Tomochichi arranged meetings among different chiefs and Oglethorpe.

Oglethorpe impressed the Indians because, unlike many Europeans they had met, he treated them as equals. He proposed that the natives be allowed to testify in colonial courts and that their words be given equal weight to those of European witnesses. Officials in England overruled Oglethorpe, but Indians respected his attempt. There was mutual trust between them and Oglethorpe when he began his long, 250-mile journey to the Fort Benning area.

The second advisor influencing Oglethorpe was Mary Musgrove. Considered by many early colonial settlers to be an Indian princess, Musgrove, who was half white, was related to one of the Creek leaders. She served often as Oglethorpe's chief Indian translator. When he needed a sensitive message dispatched to Indian leaders, Musgrove was often the messenger.

Both Musgrove and Tomochichi urged Oglethorpe to travel to the Chattahoochee villages in July 1739 to cement ties with the Creeks and other Indians. The French were gaining influence along the Gulf Coast, and the Spanish were again attempting to expand their power. Tomochichi and Musgrove knew that important Indian leaders were to gather at the villages of Kawita and Kasita, providing an ideal opportunity for the Englishman to gain their favor.

Oglethorpe's long and dangerous horseback trip across the wilderness passed along a series of paths known as the Lower Creek Trail. The same route had been followed for hundreds of years by native people seeking game and contact with each other. In the future, the Lower Creek Trail evolved into a key artery for white settler migration. But as Oglethorpe and his armed escort of 25 men slowly wound their way toward the Chattahoochee, they couldn't have imagined how the sometimes barely visible path would someday expand into a roadway. Their major concern must have been reaching their destination alive.

Led by Indian guides, the Englishmen rode horseback under a hot summer sun. They were plagued by mosquitoes and other pests and forced to be alert for poisonous snakes, alligators, and other dangers. The narrow foot trails curved through dense thickets and woods. There were no bridges over the many rivers and wide creeks they encountered. They forded those they could on horseback and built rafts to cross others. Sleeping in the open air, with a few tree limbs laced together overhead to provide shelter from rain, Oglethorpe fell ill with fever but was determined to continue.

Near the end of July, they reached the top of a hill offering a fine view of the surrounding rolling countryside Off in the distance they saw a column of smoke. Indian scouts moved silently ahead to investigate They discovered a smoldering campfire, apparently left behind by Spanish horsemen. What a coup it would be for the Spanish to capture or kill the leader of the new colony of Georgia which maintained such a tenuous toehold along the coast. The colonists became even more alert.

Wildlife was everywhere. Deer and turkey were abundant, and close to a river they came upon a herd of buffalo grazing peacefully. Nearing the end of the trip, they met several friendly Indians who alerted others about the approaching travelers. The next day, as Oglethorpe and his band moved down the trail, they found bags of food in the trees placed as welcoming gifts by Indians in the villages they were approaching.

The Lower Creek Trail passed through what is now Fort Benning before reaching the Chattahoochee. Oglethorpe and his convoy crossed the river on August 8 after ten hard days of travel and entered the village of Kawita (Coweta).

Impressed by the white men's bravery in making the journey, the local mico or leader welcomed Oglethorpe in the main square. The Indian held a small English flag as a sign of friendship. Children presented the visitors with gifts of venison and wild turkey meat, muscadine grapes, and melons. Oglethorpe reciprocated with gifts he had brought.

The Indians called the Englishman White Chief and invited him to sit with their most important members on benches covered with bearskins. Proceedings began with the ritual smoking of a pipe, then drinking from a large seashell of a hot drink containing a great deal of caffeine. Called A-cee or black drink, the beverage was brewed from the stems and leaves of the Yaupon holly plant.

Oratorical skills were highly prized among the Indians, so speeches were fundamental in such a gathering. Negotiations continued for the next three days. On the fourth day, when it became apparent that there might be agreement on a peace treaty, Oglethorpe and the Indian leaders crossed the Chattahoochee. They intensified their negotiations at the Creek peace town, Kasita (Cusetta), located on Fort Benning at the site of Lawson Army Air Field.

The Creek practice of labeling some villages peace towns was rooted in their distant past and shrouded in mystery. The designation did not mean that villagers avoided war when consensus favored conflict. Yet, peace towns were apparently different from other settlements. The Creeks associated peace towns with culture, wisdom, and knowledge, as well as the color white, which the Indians related to purity and that which was old, traditional, venerable, and holy, according to author William Wynn. They may have also thought of a peace town as a place for mediating disputes, suggests anthropologist Charles Hudson. There were supposed to be no executions in a peace town, a tradition Creeks sometimes abandoned in the anger of war. Still, colonial traders knew to flee to peace towns during hostilities and sometimes found sanctuary.

The 18th century naturalist and explorer William Bartram, who later passed through the Fort Benning area, told the story of Apalachicola, a village then located on the Alabama side of the Chattahoochee in what is now Russell County. The village, according to Bartram, once thrived as a peace town. Some white traders seeking refuge there were executed, and the village went into decline. The Creeks were convinced the village failed because blood was shed in a place supposed to be sacred.

Kasita was even more special than most peace towns, apparently serving as a "head peace town" where leaders from many villages gathered to deliberate peace proposals.

The Creeks called other villages red towns. Red was the color of war. Kawita, the village where Oglethorpe first met the Creek chiefs, was the head red town. According to Bartram, Kawita "is called the bloody town, where the Micos, chiefs, and warriors assemble when a general war is proposed."

The Creeks also thought of red as the color of the earth and connected it to human instinct and nature. Red towns were associated with the practice of killing captives, sometimes torturing them to death. Early explorers reported seeing tree poles stuck in the ground at Indian villages where captives were tied and tortured. Indians sometimes topped the poles with human scalps. Some English, French, and Spanish explorers, including Hernando de Soto, also tortured captives to death.

When he negotiated with the various chiefs at Kasita, Oglethorpe probably visited the village's square ground where important meetings usually occurred in good weather. A Creek square ground consisted of four open sheds facing one another across an open square of land about a half acre in size. The four sheds frequently were aligned with the four cardinal directions, and a sacred fire often burned in the center of the square ground.

The sheds were made of wood frames, stood about one story tall, and were covered with gabled or slanted roofs. The rear of the sheds and the sides had clay walls, often with open windows near the roofs for air circulation. Ritual objects, such as scalping knives, war clubs, swan wings, eagle feathers, or herbs, hung from the ceilings, while the walls were often painted with mythical creatures, such as the uktena, a winged serpent.

Oglethorpe met with the Indian leaders at Kasita for nine days. The resulting peace treaty, signed on August 21, 1739, guaranteed that a wide section of land along the Atlantic coast belonged to the colonists, although the Indians still maintained exclusive hunting rights in some of the area. Most of what constitutes Georgia today still belonged to the Creeks and their allies under the treaty. Oglethorpe agreed that the colonists would never settle further west and would never again encroach on lands the Indians considered exclusively theirs.

The treaty set the stage for the continued existence of the colony of Georgia because of close ties Oglethorpe forged with the Indians, but dark days lay ahead.

As he headed home, Oglethorpe's fever continued to plague him. Weak and tired, he fell from his horse in a field of wild cane. A sharp cane stalk pierced his side, and soon the wound was infected. When Oglethorpe finally did reach the small settlement of Augusta, he was forced to bed to recuperate. Then came word that his trusted friend, the Indian leader Tomochichi, was dying. Oglethorpe, despite his condition, headed back to Savannah to be at Tomochichi's side, but he was too late. He learned on the journey that Tomochichi was gone. Oglethorpe, overcome with emotion, wept.

Other problems beset him. A number of colonists complained about what they considered Oglethorpe's heavy-handed, ineffectual leadership. There was also continuous carping from critics in London, from both colony trustees and British officials. A growing number in Parliament favored dismantling the Georgia colony to appease the Spanish and guarantee peace. Oglethorpe's own financial picture darkened as he plunged deeper into debt to finance the venture and its army.

After the English declared war against Spain, Oglethorpe and his army, including several hundred Creek warriors, invaded Florida and menaced the mighty stone fortress, Castillo de San Marcos, at St. Augustine. They failed to capture the fort, and Oglethorpe returned to Georgia and sank into depression. In the end, however, Oglethorpe triumphed. His knowledge of Indian war tactics and information about the enemy provided by his Indian scouts helped turn the tide. In July 1742, Oglethorpe learned that a Spanish army, 3,000-men strong, had pushed ashore and was approaching his Fort Frederica on St. Simon's Island off the Georgia coast. Vastly outnumbered, Oglethorpe nonetheless attacked advance Spanish forces and hurled them back. Then, with fewer than a thousand colonial and Indian fighters, Oglethorpe set a trap, dispatching most of his small band into dense vegetation along both sides of a narrow path the Spanish were expected to follow. When the Georgians opened fire, the Spanish army was forced to retreat.

Although there were few casualties, the fight came to be known as the Battle of Bloody Marsh. Afterwards, Spanish armies never again mounted a serious challenge to the British in Georgia.

For the next 20 to 25 years, the Creek Indians and their allies near the Chattahoochee controlled most of what is now Georgia, a vast territory where they hunted, traded, and sometimes fought with enemies such as the Cherokees. The village of Kasita continued to be one of the most important Creek settlements.

Much of what remained of the village was destroyed by the construction of Lawson Army Air Field before the site could be examined with modern archeological techniques. But in 1938, noted archeologists Gordon Willey and Charles Fairbanks did study a narrow strip of land, at some points 300 feet wide, on the western border of the air field. This was a relatively small area on the river edge of what must have once been a large village. The archeologists located five refuse pits, some as large as four and five feet across, and evidence, in the form of post molds, of two buildings. The post molds revealed that one structure was circular or semicircular and the other was a rectangular house about 25 feet long and 21 feet wide. The Indians buried three people near the house. One of them, placed in a flexed, fetal position, was buried with several hundred European trade goods, dated to between 1700 and 1800.

A partial list of these items demonstrates how thoroughly European culture had modified Indian life. There were bells, English smoking pipes, copper buttons, straight brass pins, and 250 trade beads. There were also a number of European tools. These included a claw hammer, scrapers made from bottled glass, iron files, metal spikes, an iron adz, a chisel, gun parts, knives, and a mold for making bullets.

The colonists' lives were also changed from contact with the Indians. They learned new methods for waging war, hunting, cooking, and raising crops. They also adapted many Indian practices for surviving in the wilderness, as well as the habit of smoking tobacco.

The alterations to Indian society because of the intermingling of cultures were, however, much more profound and ultimately destructive. The Creek Indians were about to face their biggest challenge.

Chapter 9: The Flower Hunter

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