Native American tribe of Muskogean language family, and of the Southeastern culture area.

In the 18th century they were the dominant tribe in a confederacy with a membership at one time of about 30,000. The confederacy occupied most of what are now the states of Alabama and Georgia and, after the Cherokee, was the most powerful grouping of Native Americans south of New York.

The Seminole of Florida were an offshoot of the Creek. A number of other Muskogean tribes were absorbed by the Creek, who held black slaves and intermarried with them.

During the American Revolution the Creek supported the British. They signed a peace treaty with the United States in 1790, but in 1813, instigated by the British, they again took up arms against the Americans, beginning with a terrible massacre at Fort Mims.

They were completely crushed by General Andrew Jackson in a brief but bloody campaign. The Creek were then compelled to sue for peace, which was granted only on submission to a peremptory demand for the surrender of more than half their ancient territory.

Other cessions quickly followed, until 1828 when they sold all their remaining territory and agreed to move beyond the Mississippi River to Indian Territory, which later became Oklahoma. A few remained behind.

In Oklahoma the Creek were one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes because they established a system of government similar to that of the states.

The Creek were an agricultural tribe, living in villages consisting of log houses. The houses were plastered on the outside with clay and arranged in a rectangle around a central space reserved for public ceremonies, among which the annual busk, or greencorn dance, was the main feature.

Their villages were often located at rivers and creeks-hence the name Creek given them by white traders.

Some villages were designated for war ceremonies, and others for peace ceremonies. Creek temples were impressive dome-shaped structures, made of thatch, and situated on an earth elevation into which stairs were cut.

Creek women cultivated corn, squash, beans, and other crops, and the men hunted and fished.

Like many other tribes of the Southeast, the Creek were heavily tattooed and ornamented.

Those claiming Creek heritage numbered 43,550 in 1990.

"Creek (people)," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

History of the Creek Nation in Georgia

Prior to the early 18th Century, most of Georgia was home to Native Americans belonging to a southeastern alliance known as the Creek Confederacy. Today's Creek Nation, also known as the Muskogee, were the major tribe in that alliance.

According to Creek traditions, the Confederacy migrated to the southeastern United States from the Southwest. The confederacy was probably formed as a defense against other large groups to the north. The name "Creek" came from the shortening of "Ocheese Creek" Indians -- a name given by the English to the native people living along the Ocheese Creek (or Ocmulgee River). In time, the name was applied to all groups of the confederacy.

Most of the groups of the confederacy shared the same language (Muskogean), types of ceremonies, and village lay-out. The Creek people lived in large permanent towns or italwa with smaller outlying villages or talofa that were associated with the larger town. Italwa were centered around plazas(pascova) used for dancing, religious ceremonies and games. It was here that the Sacred Fire was rekindled annually at the Green Corn Festival (Busk). Plazas in the towns also contained a rotunda -- a round building made of poles and mud used for council meetings -- and an open-air summer council house. The people in the villages attended ceremonies in the towns with which they were associated. Surrounding the plaza area were the family homes. Towns were governed by a Chief, or "Mico", an assistant chief, and a "Mico Apokta", who acted as speaker for the Chief, announcing his decisions to the people.

These characteristics are very similar to what is known about the prehistoric Mississippian Culture who occupied the Etowah Mounds village. The people of the Etowah Mounds are believed to be the ancestors of the Creeks who controlled the area until the early 1500's.

This description of the Creek culture and society is based on the writings of Benjamin Hawkins, "Indian Agent" to the Creek Nation:

When a Creek town reached a population of about 400-600 people they would split, with about half moving to a new, nearby site. The new town would build its ceremonial center and develop its own villages, but would also retain a "mother-daughter" relationship with its original town. This is how the confederacies were formed. Creek legends tell of palisaded, compact towns. By the 1700's Creek towns began to spread out, reflecting a move to an agrarian lifestyle. At the end of this century it was not uncommon for each town to have outlying homes separated by a mile or more of crops. The Creek adopted the plow and ax and raised livestock. While most Creek still lived in traditional huts (not teepees) roofed with wood shingles or grass some began to build log homes with chimneys. By the end of the century Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins described the Creek towns as being "well fenced with fine stocks of cattle, horses and hogs surrounded by fields of corn, rice and pototoes(sic)."

The modern capitol of the Creek Nation is in Okmulgee, OK.

from http://ngeorgia.com/history/creek.html where you can read lots more:

• The Creek Indians from pre-history to 1763
• The Creek fight the Choctaws as settlers move into their territory. Alexander McGillvray becomes an English agent and Creek chief. The death of Emistesigo.

The Creek Indians of Georgia

At the dawn of the 16th century Europeans had barely reached the coast of the North American mainland. Spanish sailors heading north from Florida encountered a vast Indian culture living in a land they called Guale (Wah-li). These coastal Indians were the largest group of a tribe that covered much of the present-day Southeastern United States, The Creek.

Moundbuilder origins

Moundbuilders, the first great civilization in North America, arose 4,000 years before the Spanish set foot on the islands of coastal Georgia. From the oldest of these sites, Poverty Point in Louisiana, this great culture spread across two-thirds of the United States, following the Mississippi north to Minnesota, its tributaries, including the Ohio, east and west deep into the continent, and around the Florida peninsula into coastal Georgia.

By the time Spanish conquistadors worked inland in search of the wealth of a continent the Moundbuilder culture was in steep decline. Cahokia, Etowah and Ocmulgee, major cities of a dying culture, were no longer active sites. The remaining Moundbuilders were absorbed into the Woodland cultures which they dominated. With few exceptions in the state of Georgia, the Indians that deSoto met were not Moundbuilders, but these remnants of that tribe.

Spanish Missionaries

Spanish missionaries and their accompanying garrisons are interesting to study, but in fact this was a minor cultural development in relation to the Creek Indians. It is doubtful that there was ever more than 200 people in these missions and garrisons, and there physical location is a subject of intense debate. Evidence of long-term Spanish habitation exists in three places in Georgia, Genesis Point (site of Fort McAllister), Mount Yonah in northeast Georgia, and Rome (in northwest Georgia). There was a mission at the confluence of the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers, one at the falls on the Chattahoochee and a number along the coast in Guale and the other fiefdoms.

In the late 1600's English traders found an interconnected Indian culture south of the Carolinas. Nomadic tribes wandered throughout the land, but remained centered in a group of villages along the Ocheesee Creek that were probably pre-Colombian in origin. The traders named them because their villages were near this creek. They were known to other Indians as the Muskogee, probably a Shawnee term who's meaning has been lost to time.

part from: http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/indians/Creek/creek01.html