Chief Opothle Yohola appealed to the administration of President Andrew Jackson for protection from Alabama but he supported removal.
[1] Creeks could either sell their allotments and receive funds to remove to the west, or stay in Alabama as state and federal citizens, who would have to submit to state laws.
Land speculators and squatters began to defraud Creeks out of their allotments, resulting in some violent backlash from these Creeks.
U.S. officials described the violence as a "war" in order to argue that the Creeks were thereby forfeiting their prior treaty rights.
Secretary of War Lewis Cass dispatched General Winfield Scott to end the violence by forcibly removing the Creeks to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.