When I visited the Atlanta History Center this spring, it was mainly for its Civil War exhibits, including the Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama. As excellent as those were, the museum clearly has its eye on much more of Georgia’s history, including the removal of its original peoples.
Pottery and tools of the people who were Georgians before there was Georgia
The exhibit Native Lands: Native Americans and Georgia, starts with a brief view of how Creek and Cherokee people lived in the area before it became Georgia and parts of other states, and continues with the shameful tale that led to the Trail of Tears and their loss of what had been their home.
Many of us who grew up on movies and literature in the 20th century have images of Native Americans living primitive lives in the woods—images that were used to marginalize them and help build acceptance of their removal.
But, in fact, the peoples of the Southeast were part of an extensive Mississippian culture that lived, often in sizable towns, along major waterways, and were part of trade patterns that extended from Mexico to Minnesota and points west and east. The mounds that have been excavated in a number of places mark the locations of some of these towns.
Excavation at Etowah Mounds in the early 20th century.
Those towns, some inhabited for hundreds of years, were the home of peoples who are referred to as Creek, but who called themselves Muscogee. In the 1700s, Cherokee people came to the area from their former home area in North Carolina and Tennessee, under pressure from European settlement.
Creek settlements had a ‘town fire’ that was kept burning; once a year it was extinguished and re-kindled to mark a new year and new commitments.
Life in the area had already changed; the arrival of Europeans and new diseases as well as warfare brought collapse to Mississippian culture; from the remains, the so-called Creek Confederacy developed. Independent towns and tribes were self-governing, but shared many cultural traits and worked together.
The Cherokee peoples also lived in cohesive settlements, with women mainly responsible for growing crops, while the men were hunters or warriors. Land was held in common, rather than by individuals. For both Creeks and Cherokees, maintaining land and life was under constant pressure from ever-growing colonies.
Among the Cherokees in particular, during the late 1700s, this began to change as more and more moved from towns to establish individual farms; men still hunted but also raised cattle, sheep and pigs. Women still grew garden crops, but also took up spinning and weaving. Some Cherokee families adopted European ways so thoroughly that they became slave-owners.
But all that was not enough: In the new United States, pressure continued to build to take the land and remove the Indians. State laws challenged their right to the land—Georgia even held a lottery to distribute their land while they still lived on it, and the Indian Removal Act of 1830 pushed the process faster.
During the 1820s, most Creek and Cherokee groups resisted removal and further shrinking of their lands. In 1824, following the lead of Cherokees, the Creek national council declared all their land ‘national domain’ and made any sale without their permission a capital crime.
One Creek chief, William McIntosh, left above, owned two plantations, over a hundred slaves and several businesses. His mother was Creek, his father was a Scottish soldier. In February, 1825 he signed the ‘Treaty of Indian Springs,’ ceding all Creek land in Georgia in return for a large bribe and a promise of safety. He got neither; in May, on orders from the council, he was executed by Menawa, right above.
During the period, Cherokees set up a government of their own, largely modeled on the U.S., and created a capital at New Echota, site of one of the ancient towns, perhaps in hopes that being more like the settlers would help them stay; they, too, banned sale of their land. But the pressure continued.
In 1835, Federal agents called a conference at New Echota to negotiate about the land. John Ross, above, principal chief, stalled for time and thousands of Cherokees refused to attend. The government agents then announced that any who did not attend would be counted as ‘yes’ votes for a treaty. In the end, the Treaty of New Echota was approved by about 200 Cherokees and intermarried whites, ceding all Cherokee land in Georgia in return for cash.
Image: CCulber007/Wikimedia Commons
Within the year, the Federal government began the process of forcible removal, the horrendous exodus that has come to be called the Trail of Tears. Thousands among the sixty thousand who were removed died along the march to new lands west of the Mississippi River; the monument above at New Echota remembers them.
