Red Sticks
Creek of the Lower Towns were closer to the settlers, had more mixed-race families, and had already been forced to make land cessions to the Americans.
In this context, the Red Sticks led a resistance movement against European American encroachment and assimilation, tensions that culminated in the outbreak of the Creek War in 1813.
The preferred weapon of the Red Stick warriors, this war club had a red-painted wooden handle with a curve at its head that held a small piece of iron, steel, or bone projecting about two inches.
He commented in letters to President Thomas Jefferson that Creek women were matriarchs and had control of children "when connected with a white man".
Hawkins further observed that even wealthy traders were nearly as "inattentive" to their mixed-race children as "the Indians"; Benjamin Griffith argues that Hawkins failed to understand the closer relationship that children in Creek culture had with their mother's eldest brother, closer than with their biological father, because of the importance of the clan structure.
[9] By supplying long rifles in trade, England was one of the principal nations (with Spain)[10] that helped and encouraged Native Americans to fight against America, mainly as a diversionary tactic.
The Creek of the Lower Towns, who were closer to the settlers and had more mixed-race families, had already been forced to make numerous land cessions to the Americans.[when?]
Estimates of the number of settlers at Fort Mims at the time of the massacre vary from 300 or so to 500 (including whites, slaves, and Lower Creek).
The day before, the Creek's commander, William Weatherford, left to be with his pregnant wife, leaving Chief Menewa in charge.
Jackson's cavalry, under the command of Coffee, left at 3 a.m. to cross the Tallapoosa river and cut off the Red Sticks' retreat and prevent reinforcements.
[16] Some of the notable people present at the battle were: Sam Houston, John Coffee, and Andrew Jackson The massacre had significant short-term and long-term effects.
Historian Frank L. Owsley, Jr. suggests that the state-sponsored military activity in the area likely prevented the British from occupying an undefended Gulf Coast in 1814.
His forces killed or captured most of the Creek, but some survivors escaped to Florida, where they joined the Seminoles and continued the resistance to the United States.
[7] The war had begun over internal divisions among Creek who resisted the assimilation and loss of traditions, led by the chiefs William Weatherford, Menawa, and Peter McQueen of the Upper Towns.
Some remnant Creek chose to stay in Alabama and Mississippi and become state and U.S. citizens, but treaty provisions to secure their land were not followed, and many became landless.
The state installed a historic plaque at the Fort Mims site that notes the British had provided weapons to the Red Sticks as part of its campaign against Captain Kaleb Johnson's troops in the South during the War of 1812.
