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2026 Symposium:
“Memory and Meaning and the Creek War”
Horseshoe Bend National Military Park is pleased to announce the academic symposium, “Memory and Meaning and the Creek War,” at Auburn University on Saturday, August 22, 2026. This wonderful program, offered in collaboration with Auburn University and the Friends of Horseshoe Bend, brings together leading scholars to discuss the Creek War and how generations have since commemorated it.
The event will take place from 9 a.m. to noon in the Pebble Hill Program Room at Auburn University. The event is free and open to the public.
Park Superintendent Andrew Miller showing off challenge coin gifted by the Mvskoke Riders.
NPS
Message from the Superintendent:
We are truly thrilled to partner with Auburn University and the Friends of Horseshoe Bend to bring this remarkable group of presenters together for the symposium. This collaboration reflects a shared commitment to fostering a richer, more thoughtful understanding of the Creek War and its lasting legacies. By working alongside these valued partners, the park is able to offer a forum where diverse perspectives, rigorous scholarship, and community engagement come together in meaningful ways.
Each of these scholars contributes an important lens through which to view this complex chapter of history. Their combined expertise allows visitors to explore not only the events themselves, but also the evolving ways in which they have been remembered, interpreted, and discussed across generations. Through this partnership, we’re able to present a more complete, more nuanced picture of our past, one that encourages reflection, dialogue, and a deeper appreciation of our collective story.
This Years Presenters:
This year’s symposium will feature four distinguished presenters whose work illuminates different dimensions of the Creek War and its legacy:
Kathryn H. Braund, Hollifield Professor of Southern History Emerita, Auburn University
Kathryn Braund, Hollifield Professor of Southern History Emerita at Auburn University, is a leading scholar of the Deep South Interior whose research centers on early trade, exploration, and environmental history. She is best known for Deerskins and Duffels, the first comprehensive study of the Creek deerskin trade and its wide‑ranging impact on Creek society. Her scholarship spans major themes including economic exchange, race and ethnicity, travel writing, scientific observation, and evolving notions of identity, and she has published extensively on southeastern Native history from the American Revolution through the Creek War. Braund has edited and annotated key eighteenth‑century travel and ethnographic works and produced multiple essay collections, most recently authoring Mapping Conquest: The Battle Maps of Horseshoe Bend (2024). A longtime leader in historical organizations, she founded the Friends of Horseshoe Bend, served as president of both the Alabama Historical Association and the Bartram Trail Conference, and was named a 2026 Alabama Humanities Fellow.
Kathryn H. Braund, Hollifield Professor of Southern History Emerita, Auburn University
Kathryn Braund
“Soldier Memories and Commemorative Activities”
Kathryn H. Braund, Hollifield Professor of Southern History Emerita, Auburn University
The presentation will focus on the immediate aftermath of the battle and the way in which Jackson’s troops related related, remembered, narrated, celebrated, and commemorated their victory.
Keith S. Hébert, Draughon Professor of Southern History, Auburn University
Keith S. Hébert is a Southern historian at Auburn University who directs the university’s public history certificate program and specializes in Civil War memory and the Confederate home front. He is the author of The Long Civil War in the North Georgia Mountains (2017), an award‑winning study of nationalism and white supremacy in the Civil War era. His second major work, Cornerstone of the Confederacy (2021), earned the Georgia Historical Society’s highest publication award. In addition to his scholarship, Hébert completed the Administration History of Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, contributing essential historical analysis that supports long‑term NPS preservation, interpretation, and management planning. He also collaborates on major national public history initiatives—including projects documenting Reconstruction-era Black education and preserving the Selma Bloody Sunday landscape—while mentoring graduate students who now work across academia, museums, archives, and the National Park Service.
Keith S. Hébert, Draughon Professor of Southern History, Auburn University
Keith Hebert
“The Battle to Create Horseshoe Bend National Military Park”
Keith S. Hébert, Draughon Professor of Southern History, Auburn University
The development of Horseshoe Bend National Military Park is one of Alabama's most incredible stories. After decades of setbacks, the park opened in 1964 thanks to the perseverance and foresight of some of Alabama's most influential figures and corporations. As Alabama's first National Park Service unit, Horseshoe Bend stands not only as a lasting monument to the battle that formed the Yellow Hammer State but also as a testament to the visionaries who preserved its memory for generations of Alabamians.
Mike Bunn, Director, Historic Blakeley State Park
Mike Bunn serves as Director of Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama. He is author or co-author of several books, including Settling the Mississippi Territory: The Origin of Two States, The Tensaw River: Alabama’s Hidden Heritage Corridor, This Southern Metropolis: Life in Antebellum Mobile; Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era and The Assault on Fort Blakeley: “The Thunder and Lightning of Battle.” Mike is chair of the Baldwin County Historic Development Commission, treasurer of the Friends of Old Mobile, a member of the board of the Alabama Historical Association and the Bartram Trail Conference, and editor of Muscogiana, the journal of the Muscogee County (GA) Genealogical Society.
Mike Bunn, Director, Historic Blakeley State Park
Mike Bunn
“Remembering (and Forgetting) the Creek War in Alabama”
Mike Bunn, Director, Historic Blakeley State Park
This presentation will provide an overview inventory of Creek War battle sites, with discussion of some successes in regard to preservation and interpretation, some threats to what is there, and point to some sites that have been overlooked to provide a “state of interpretation."
Jake Tiger, Traditional Heritage Interpreter
Jake Tiger, Traditional Interpreter
Speaker's Image
“The Southeastern Struggle”
Jake Tiger, Traditional Heritage Interpreter
An in-depth view of the Mvskoke/Seminole Wars told by a Seminole tribal member.
