Gerry Adams' greatest betrayal

I written on the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike before, and have even included this information, but I’ve never focused on it.  The information comes from articles written by Richard O’Rawe, Anthony McIntyre, and Carrie Twomey, as well as the results of a study in which the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) participated.

On 1 March 1981, republican (Irish Republican Army, IRA) and republican socialist (Irish National Liberation Army, INLA) political prisoners in the H-Blocks at Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland began a staggered hunger strike.  This meant that rather than have all the volunteers go at once, one man would begin, then another a week later, then another a week after that, and so on. 

This was not done lightly.  It came only after five years of many prisoners living in nothing but a blanket and three years of not washing and being forced to piss in the floor of their cells and smear their shit on the walls.  The prisoners picked 1 March as the day to begin because that was the anniversary of order withdrawing Special Category Status from republican and loyalist prisoners in 1976.

(There were, by the way, around fifty loyalist prisoners on the blanket in addition to the over three republican and republican socialist prisoners on the blanket.)

The hunger strikers had five demands:

(1) the right not to wear a prison uniform;

(2) the right not to do prison work;

(3) the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organize educational and recreational pursuits;

(4) the right to one visit, one letter, and one parcel per week;

(5) full restoration of remission of sentence lost through the protest.

Bobby Sands, up to that point OC for the IRA prisoners, took the first watch. 

Blanketman Bik McFarlane succeeded him as OC, with blanketman Richard O’Rawe as the PRO.  Rab Collins was OC for the INLA prisoners.

Francie Hughes, also of the IRA, followed him on 15 March.  Patsy O’Hara of the INLA and Raymond McCreesh of the IRA joined them on 22 March.

Bobby was elected MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone on 9 April.  But in addition to laying the groundwork for what followed, it had no effect other than steeling Thatcher’s stubbornness.

Bobby died on 5 May, after 66 days.  Joe McDonnell of the IRA joined his comrades on 8 May.

Francie Hughes died on 12 May after 59 days.  Brendan McLaughlin joined his comrades on 14 May.

Patsy O’Hara Raymond McCreesh both died on 21 May after 61 days.  Kieran Doherty of the IRA joined McDonnell on 22 May, and Kevin Lynch of the INLA joined them on 23 May.

Brendan was taken off hunger strike after 12 days when he suffered a perforated ulcer and internal bleeding on 26 May.  Martin Hurson of the IRA joined his comrades on 28 May .

Tom McElwee of the IRA joined his comrades on 8 June.

On 11 June, hunger striker Kieran Doherty of the IRA and blanketman Paddy Agnew of the IRA were elected TD's in the Republic of Ireland.

Paddy Quinn of the IRA joined his comrades on 15 June.  Mickey Devine of the INLA joined his comrades on 22 June.  Laurence McKweon of the IRA joined his comrades on 29 June.

On 5 July, through intermediary Brendan Duddy (codenamed “Mountain Climber”), Thatcher’s government offered the prisoners the right to wear their own clothes, have remission restored, more visits and letters, have prison work redefined to include educational and cultural activities, though no free movement within the wings.  Amazed, the prisoner leadership of the IRA (Bik McFarlane, OC, and Richard O’Rawe, PRO) agreed to accept, conditioned on the approval of the IRA leadership outside.

At this point, Joe McDonnell, Kieran Doherty, Kevin Lynch, Martin Hurson, Tom McElwee, Paddy Quinn, Mickey Devine, and Laurence McKweon were on the hunger strike.  Joe, who had started his watch on 8 May, was near death.

After word passed outside to Gerry Adams, OC of the IRA’s Northern Command, and his “Kitchen Cabinet”:  Martin McGuinness (COS of the IRA), Danny Morrison (publicity director for the IRA and for Sinn Fein, its political arm), Tom Hatley (Sinn Fein), and Jim Gibney (Sinn Fein).  They vetoed the prisoners’ acceptance and ordered them to continue.  They gave the excuse that it more was needed, but the real reason was that Adams and the rest want to keep up political support for the upcoming August by-election for Westminster to fill the seat vacated at the death of Bobby Sands.  

Adams and his Kitchen Cabinet kept the contents from the leadership of the IRSP (political wing of the INLA), who would have ordered their members off the strike had they known, as well as from the republican candidate for the seat, Owen Carron.  They also ordered McFarlane and O’Rawe not to disclose the offer to the volunteers on hunger strike.

Joe died in the middle of these “negotiations”.  The hunger strike continued.  New volunteers joined.  Young men kept dying.

Owen Carron, Sinn Fein’s Anti-H-block/Proxy Political Prisoner candidate, won the 20 August by-election for Bobby’s Fermanagh-South Tyrone seat in a landslide.

The IRA and INLA volunteers still on hunger strike called it off themselves on 3 October.

After the hunger strike ended, the British government, quietly and in stages, fulfilled all five of the prisoners’ demands, though not in writing.

Because of their playing politics, their selfish ambition, or at least acquiescence to Adams’ ambition, Joe, Martin, Kieran, Kevin, Tom, and Mickey died.  Paddy and Laurence didn’t die because they were removed from the hunger strike by their families after they lapsed into unconsciousness.  Adams and his Kitchen Cabinet, not Maggie Thatcher, are responsible for the deaths of those six men.

In other words, six republican prisoners died because Adams and his Kitchen Cabinet were more interested in ephemeral political gain than in the health, welfare, and lives of those prisoners.  Of all the sins he and they may have committed in the course of the Troubles, this gross betrayal, the occurrence of which is beyond the shadow of a doubt, stands at the top.

Danny Morrison announced the Provisional Republican Movement’s “Armalite and ballot box” strategy in November 1981.

The story of the secret offer on 5 July 1981 first surfaced in O’Rawe’s 2005 account called Blanketman.  Widely denounced by the Provisional Republican leadership, O’Rawe’s highly detailed notes at the time were released along with a number of papers dating from the time and proved his assertions of what happened 100% accurate.

The moral of the story is this: for prisoners on hunger strike, keep the control and negotiations in your own hands.  Also, that blind faith in your leaders, in 1981, 1985, or any other time at all, will get you killed, and maybe others along with you.  Accept no gods, follow no masters.

Tiocfaidh ar la, Rooz-e ma khahad amad, ‫Notre jour viendra, Thig ar latha, Saya'ty yawmana, Our day will come

Hamilton County, Tennessee vs. Gaza Strip

Hamilton County is 576 square miles.

Gaza Strip is 138 square miles, smaller than the 142.3 square mile City of Chattanooga within Hamilton County.

Hamilton County has 334,000 humans.

Gaza Strip has 1.82 million humans.

Hamilton County is surrounded by mountains and freeways with occasional gridlock.

Gaza Strip is surrounded by concrete walls thrice the height of the Berlin Wall with barbed wire, machine guns, and snipers, and missile-wielding patrol boats with machine guns.

Hamilton County's weather of late has been rather unpredictable, from blistering heat with draining humidity to unseasonably cool with drenching rain. 

Gaza Strip has suffered over five hundred air strikes within the past five days with over 120 dead, mostly civilians.

Maps of Gaza Strip showing how small a space into which those 1,820,000 are crammed and imprisoned in what amounts to a concentration camp, accurately referred to as the Gaza Ghetoo, such as those here are still a bit misleading in that the Occupation Forces last year imposed a three-kilometer "buffer zone" from the concrete walls surrounding Gaza Ghetto to where it is theoretically safe from being casually shot down.  Everything between, all together 40% of the total within the surrounding ghetto-prison walls (leaving merely 82 square miles for the humans inside Gaza Ghetto to live upon, 22,200 humans per square mile), is a free-fire zone.

Indian wars in the Old Southwest

Watching Westerns as a kid, I used to wish we had had Indian wars like that here in Tennessee because I thought that would have been cool (at that age, of course).  Little did I know until decades later that not only did Tennessee and the surrounding area have Indian wars, or wars with frontier settlers viewed from the other side, we had more and worse.

When Americans hear the term “Old Southwest”, they tend to think of Billy the Kid, the OK Corral, Doc Holliday, Kit Carson, and Old Mexico.  When they hear the phrase “Indian Wars of the Old Southwest”, they think of the Apache, the Navajo, the Pueblo, Geronimo, and Cochise.  This is about another “Old Southwest”, the first in fact,  and the wars fought by the Indian nations and tribes within it against the colonists who became Americans and against each other because of those colonists and over European trade.

To Americans from 1763 until the acquisition of Texas and the territories gained from the conquest of Mexico in the 1840’s, the “Southwest” meant the lands south of the Ohio River to the 31^st parallel between the 1763 Proclamation Line and the Mississippi River.  From the 1840’s into the early 20^th century, it was the “Old Southwest”.  Historians focusing on the region still use the term, and it is quite popular among the faculty of Louisiana State University.

In the 1763 Treaty of Paris ending the French and Indian War, Great Britain gained Canada and Louisiana east of the Mississippi, Bermuda in the Caribbean, and Florida, the last from Spain in exchange for Louisiana west of the Mississippi and the return of her former colonies of Cuba and the Philippines.  Prior to the end of the war, all the lands west of the Appalachians and the Ogeechee River were foreign territory, not because of the Indian nations living there but because the empire of France, along with that of Spain, had prior claim.

Influenced by the visit of John Stuart, British Superintendent of Southern Indian Affairs, and three Cherokee leaders to his court, George III, King of Great Britain, forbade colonial settlement beyond the Proclamation Line.  This ran roughly south down the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from Nova Scotia to the headwaters of the Ogeechee River, which formed the eastern border of the province of Georgia.

The French had divided eastern Louisiana, which included lands from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Great Lakes region, at the Ohio River into Upper and Lower Louisiana.  Britain merged Upper Louisiana and Canada into the new province of Quebec.  Upper Louisiana roughly approximates what to the Americans became the Old Northwest after the Revolution.  Lower Louisiana, the lands south of the Ohio River, between the Mississippi and the Proclamation Line down to the 31^st parallel, became the British Indian Reserve. 

All of the French forts on the coast and in the interior of Lower Louisiana (except for New Orleans) became British: Ft. Assumption at Chickasaw Bluffs, Ft. Rosalie at Natchez, Ft. St. Pierre at Yazoo, Ft. Tombecbe on the Tombigbee River, Ft. Conde at Mobile, and Ft. Prudhome at Randolph, Alabama.  French forts dotted more of the landscape in Upper Louisiana, but that region is outside the scope of this article.

Elsewhere, Bermuda became a crown colony.  Florida was divided into two colonies, East Florida and West Florida, at the Apalachicola River, the northern border of both being at the 31^st parallel.  West Florida extended past the west end of the present Panhandle to the Mississippi.

To the colonists who became the Americans, Upper Louisiana was the Old Northwest and Lower Louisiana was the Old Southwest.  In the Treaty of Paris (1783) which ended the Revolutionary War, Great Britain ceded both to the new country.  The Northwest became its own U.S. territory 1787.  While the intention was to do the same for the whole Southwest, the territory actually created was confined to the current boundaries of the State of Tennessee.

The following are the Indian wars fought in the greater Old Southwest, the natives’ resentment and often very legitimate grievances focusing mostly on the settlements that grew into the state of Tennessee.  Only after the above-mentioned land swaps of 1763 does the term Old Southwest make any sense, as before that it was foreign territory.

Creek-Choctaw war, 1765-1776

Lingering resentment over hostilities that took place during the French and Indian War between the Choctaw, who had supported the British, and the Creek, who had supported the French, broke out into open conflict in 1765.  The intense warfare ended with the death of Great Mortar, paramount mico of the pro-French Creek in 1774, but formal peace did not arrive until 1776.

Lord Dunmore’s War, 1773-1774

Settlers from Virginia began moving across the Proclamation Line into what are now West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania, and eastern Kentucky beginning in 1773.  In the spring of 1774, the Shawnee and the Mingo, who lived in the Ohio Valley, began attacking these new settlements all along the frontier.  It ended with a treaty the Mingo refused to sign.

American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783

Six major Indian nations remained in the Old Southwest along with several smaller tribes.  Five of these fought as allies of Great Britain (in addition to their own campaigns against the colonies and later states) while one nation fought as allies of America.  Their participation in these campaigns and defense garrisons is quite separate from the “Indian wars”; most of this came after the shift of British attention to the South.

The Cherokee served with Loyalist rangers and provincial troops and provided warriors for the campaigns in Georgia and South Carolina.  After the capture of Augusta, Savannah, and Charlestown, Cherokee also formed part of the garrisons of those cities.  They also manned a camp at the mouth of the Tennessee on the Ohio to prevent colonials entering the Mississippi.

The Creek divided into Upper, Middle, and Lower Towns, with the Seminole sometimes included in their number.  The Upper Creek, led by Emistisigua, former rival of Great Mortar, fought in many of the same campaigns as the Cherokee.  Of the Lower Creek, the only active British allies were the Hitchiti, who provided warriors led by William McIntosh, father of the later Creek leader of the same name.  Both groups also fought with the British defending the Gulf coast against incursions by the Spanish.

The Eastern and the Western divisions of the Choctaw supported the British effort, mostly against the Spanish on the Gulf coast.  They also sporadically monitored the Mississippi against incursion by the Americans.  The Six Towns division, meanwhile, supported the Spanish, but never in action against their own kinsmen.

The Chickasaw performed some of the same monitoring tasks on the Mississippi and on the Lower Tennessee, and also provided a small contingent on the Gulf coast.

The Seminole, newly settled in East Florida, universally supported the British war efforts, eagerly attacking the colony of Georgia and sometimes of South Carolina, most often in conjunction with Thomas Brown’s East Florida (Loyalist) Rangers.

The Catawba, sandwiched between North Carolina and South Carolina, provided troops as part of the colonial/state militia of South Carolina.

Kentucky Indian wars

In addition to taking part in invasions and battles there with the British army, war parties from all the surrounding Indian nations repeatedly raided the settlements in Kentucky, also known as the western Virginia frontier.  These included the Cherokee, Creek, Shawnee, Mingo, Lenape (especially the Munsee band), and Wyandot.  Nearly all of these all raided the settlements on the Cumberland River beginning in 1780, which to the Indians was within Kentucky.

Cherokee-American Wars, 1775-1795

A series of conflicts stretching from the first attacks against the colonies in 1776 through the Treaty of Greeneville in 1795, also called Chickamauga Wars or Dragging Canoe’s War. There were periods of calm and sometimes even of no raids at all, other times full-scale frontier warfare, nasty and brutal and cruel, on both sides. 

Within this chain of events are periods that can accurately be described as wars within the wars, rarely involving the entire Cherokee nation, more often just one or two divisions that can be called bands or tribes.  To understand who was fighting whom, a short description of these divisions will help.

At the outset of the Revolutionary War, the Cherokee nation was divided by geographic location into six tribes or bands.  Although there was a rudimentary “national” structure for dealing with the European immigrants and creoles, the only government was at town level.  Coercive power among the Cherokee lay solely within the seven clans, seven which had once been fourteen.

The Overhill Towns were on the Tellico and lower Little Tennessee Rivers.  The Valley Towns occupied the upper Hiwassee and the Valley Rivers in western North Carolina.  The original Lower Towns lay along the Chatooga, Keowee, and Tugaloo Rivers, and the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River in northwestern South Carolina and northeastern Georgia.  The Middle Towns sat on the upper Little Tennessee and Nantahala Rivers and Little Tellico Creek in western North Carolina.  The Out Towns (later known as the Hill Towns) were on the Tuckasegee and Oconaluftee Rivers in the Great Smoky Mountains.  The Hiwassee Towns, sometimes grouped with the Overhill Towns, were on the lower Hiwassee and Ocoee Rivers in modern Polk and Bradley Counties.

The trend of westward migration by the Cherokee begun not long after European contact with the first of the Overhill Towns increased rapidly during the Revolution.  In this migration, the original Lower Towns disappeared but a new group called by that name sprang up at the farthest western reaches of the nation.

The Chickamauga Towns, occupied after 1776, mostly lay in modern Hamilton County, Tennessee, with a couple in modern Bradley County, Tennessee and one in modern Catoosa County, Georgia.  The later Lower Towns, occupied after 1782, were at first limited to modern Marion County, Tennessee, Dade County, Georgia, and Jackson County, Alabama, later expanding to the south and west.  These were founded by the evacuees from the Chickamauga Towns in 1782.  The Upper Towns were in modern Georgia north of the Chattahoochee River, first settled by the diaspora from the original Lower Towns during the American Revolution.

In their wars against the frontierspeople, the Cherokee often fought in conjunction with the Upper Creek, and there were never less than a hundred Shawnee living among them as allies at any time, often more, and in more than one band.

For simplicity’s sake, I generally refer to the settlements in East Tennessee collectively as the Overmountain settlements.

Cherokee War of 1776

This involved all five tribes of the Cherokee nation attacking the colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, as well as the Overmountain settlements in what is now East Tennessee in the summer of 1776.  Retaliation by the colonies was brutal, destroying fifty towns with their foodstores and killing dozens in the Lower, Middle, Out, and Valley Towns, with the hammer falling in the Overhill Towns solely on the ones abandoned in the removal of the warriors following Dragging Canoe to the Chickamauga region.

Creek-Georgia campaigns of 1776

The Upper Creek warriors, mostly from the town of Chiaha, began raiding the colony of Georgia to their east in small bands and faced retaliation on a similar scale.

Revolutionary War, Southern theater, 1778-1783

In late 1778, the focus of the war between Great Britain and its rebellious former colonies shifted to the South.  Part of British strategy was to incite the nations of the South—Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole—to join the war both as allies and in their own interests, with greater supplies and military support.  In addition to the direct support of the Southern nations for the British war effort, there were several different campaigns against the rebellious colonies of the region.

Creek-Georgia campaigns of 1778

Taking advantage of British attention in the area, the Upper Creek once again began attacking the outskirts of the state of Georgia, this time accompanied by large numbers of Lower Creek as well.

Cherokee campaigns of 1779

Following the abortion of a northern campaign against the Virginia forces of George Rogers Clark in the Illinois Country, the Cherokee began raiding the Overmountain settlements in small parties that summer, preparing for a major assault.  The states of Virginia and North Carolina launched a joint expedition against the Chickamauga Towns, burning all eleven and destroying nearly all their supplies.  Since nearly all the warriors were raiding the settlements or down in Georgia and South Carolina with Loyalist militias, there was little fighting.

Chickasaw-American war, 1780-1783

The same George Rogers Clark made the mistake of building Fort Jefferson and the settlement of Clarksville at the mouth of the Ohio River, inside the territory of the Chickasaw.  They soon burned the settlement and laid siege to the fort, which was abandoned not long after the Chickasaw departed.  They also waged a steady campaign against the recent settlements in the Cumberland Valley, sometimes in conjunction with the Cherokee.

Cherokee-Overmountain campaigns of 1780

This involved the Overhill and Hiwassee Towns, who bore the brunt of the inevitable retaliation, and the Overmountain settlements.

Cherokee-Cumberland campaign of 1780-1781

The first settlement on the Cumberland came in 1779, but the population did not gain notice until the following year.  Intense raiding, massacring, and scalping left only three settlements by late spring 1781.

First Cherokee-Overmountain campaigns of 1781

This involved the Middle and Out Towns and the Overmountain settlements, first an assault by warriors from those towns, then the usual reprisal.

Second Cherokee-Overmountain campaigns of 1781

Warriors from the Middle and Valley Towns attacked the Overmountain settlements, but this time the Overmountaineers satisfied themselves with an attack upon the war party instead of wholesale destruction.

Cherokee-Georgia campaigns of 1781

A large force from the Valley Towns invaded the outskirts of the state of Georgia, attacking frontier settlements.  Andrew Pickens led a joint South Carolina-Georgia force that destroyed most of the towns involved.

Shawnee-Overmountain campaigns, 1781-1785

The Shawnee on the Ohio River, as opposed to those living with the Cherokee, began sending war parties down the Warriors Path through Cumberland Gap to attack the Overmountain settlements and those in Southwest Virginia in 1781.  This was, of course, in addition to attacks by the Shawnee living in the South.  The raids petered out when the Shawnee began having trouble in the Old Northwest.

Cherokee-Overmountain campaigns of 1782

Cherokee from the Chickamauga Towns raided the Overmountain area through most of the spring and summer of 1782.  John Sevier responded with a campaign of destruction against many of the towns founded by those originally from the first “Lower Towns”, the settlements in North Georgia known as the Upper Towns.

Georgia Indian campaigns of 1782

Sometimes hailed as the last battles of the Revolution in Georgia, it was more a frontier war of the Upper Cherokee and the Upper Creek against the states of South Carolina and Georgia with the assistance of a group of Loyalist Rangers.  After a joint raid of the two states’ militias under Revolutionary War heroes Andrew Pickens and Elijah Clarke into the southern territory of the Cherokee Upper Towns, the Cherokee sued for peace.

Cherokee-Overmountain campaigns of 1783

Warriors from the Middle Towns began attacking the Overmountain region, especially the new settlements south of the French Broad River.  The Overmountaineers retaliated with the destruction of Cowee in the Middle Towns.

Coldwater Indian war, 1785-1787

A French trading company set up at the foot of Muscle Shoals in 1783 changed hands in 1785 and its new owners encouraged the Cherokee and the Creek living there (in the town of Coldwater) to attack the Cumberland settlements.  Which they did, repeatedly.  It wasn’t until 1787 that the Cumberland people learned of the town’s existence and put an end to it.

Northwest Indian War, 1785-1795

Trouble between the nations and tribes of the Old Northwest, formerly southern Quebec, started as soon as Americans pioneers appeared in the frontier of the region.  Small-scale warfare broke out in 1785.  The next year the combatant nations, including two Southern nations (Cherokee and Creek), formed the Western Confederacy to better coordinate their actions.  They received encouragement and assistance from the British forts in the Great Lakes area. 

Although the majority of the action took place in the Old Northwest, a significant number of events took place south of the Ohio River in Kentucky, part of the Southwest.  Throughout this time, there were at least three bands of Cherokee living in the Northwest with the Shawnee, the Munsee-Lenape, and the Wyandot.  The 1795 Treaty of Greeneville ended the war.

Cherokee-Franklin war of 1786

This conflict involved raids against the State, or Free Republic, of Franklin, formed among the Overmountain settlements, by Cherokee from the new Lower (formerly of the Chickamauga), Overhill, and Valley Towns.  The latter two suffered all the retaliation of the Franklinites, mostly because they had land the Franklinites wanted.

Cumberland campaign of summer 1786

Throughout the summer, the Lower Towns Cherokee under Dragging Canoe fought a steady campaign against the settlements of the Cumberland, often ranging north into Kentucky, and fighting alongside Upper Creek warriors, now under Alexander McGillivray.  Many of the raids for which they were blamed, however, had been carried out by the Coldwater warriors.

Oconee War, 1786-1794

After repeated encroachments by invaders of their territory from the state of Georgia, the Oconee tribe of the Creek Confederacy, living between the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers, appealed to their cousins for help.  This came on the heels of an attempt to establish Houston County, Georgia, with a fort at modern South Pittsburg.  The Creek declared war and fought Georgia for eight years, during which the Oconee migrated south to join the Seminole.  The final act saw the ephemeral Trans-Oconee Republic under Elijah Clarke.

Creek-Cumberland war of 1787-1789

McGillivray and his warriors took aim at the Cumberland District in revenge for the deaths of the Creek warriors who had been with the Coldwater contingent.  The local Shawnee sometimes participated but the Cherokee were focused to the east.

Cherokee-Franklin war of 1788

This conflict involved all divisions of the Cherokee and was the bloodiest and most widespread since 1776.  It began with the murder of several pacifist leaders in the Overhill Towns.  The outraged Cherokee invaded Franklin from all sides, then broke up into smaller bands.  The Franklinites invaded the Middle and Valley Towns.  At least one major band stayed in the area into the beginning of the year, and small party raiding continued until April 1789.

Doublehead’s war, 1790-1794

A more or less renegade Cherokee who set up shop at the head of Muscle Shoals, Doublehead carried out his own war against the settlements of both the Cumberland and Overmountain regions and Kentucky.  The make-up of his warriors approximated that of Coldwater.

Choctaw-Creek war of 1790

In 1790, the Choctaw confederation and the Creek confederacy agreed to settle a dispute over land along the Noxubey River with a game of stickball.  Stickball resembles the lacrosse of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) but is much more violent.  A fight broke out during the match and in the end five hundred lay dead.

Southwest Indian War, 1791-1796

Begun with a sustained raiding campaign by the Creek in spring through autumn 1791, this war involving the Creek, Cherokee, and resident Shawnee against the new Southwest Territory established in 1790 lasted until formal peace between the United States and the Creek Confederacy.

Mero District campaigns of 1791-1792

The Creek regularly raided the Mero District (formerly Cumberland District) throughout the spring, summer, and early autumn of this year.

They were joined in spring 1792 by parties of Cherokee, petering out in the summer.

Mero District invasion 1792

This took place in early fall after a formal declaration of war by the Cherokee.  Led by the Cherokee, now under John Watts since the death of Dragging Canoe in March, its apex was the invasion of the Cumberland and Kentucky by four armies composed of Cherokee, Creek, and Shawnee warriors.  Its most noted battle was the siege of Buchanan’s Station on 30 September, but raiding in the area continued through the rest of the fall.

Mero District raids, 1792-1795

In the aftermath of the failed invasion, raiding by Cherokee and Creek supported by the Shawnee resident in both nations remained nearly for the next three years.  Fighting ended in 1795 but a formal peace was not established until 1796.

Lesley’s war, 1793-1794

A Creek war leader, Lesley invaded the Overmountain region with a large band and established a base from which to raid the settlements in the neighborhood.  The Southwest Territory militia finally tracked him down with help from Overhill Cherokee warriors sent by Hanging Maw, chief headman for the Overhill Towns in the summer of 1794.

Eastern Districts campaigns of 1793

This began with an invasion by a militia group from the Overmountain area of the Overhill Towns and an attack on a diplomatic party which included not only local leaders but several Lower Cherokee and even whites from the Mero District.  It included an invasion of the Overmountain area with the largest Indian army ever fielded.  Retaliation by militia from the Washington and Hamilton Districts included the Battle of Etowah, the last pitched battle of the Cherokee-American wars.

Chickasaw-Creek war, 1793-1795

The Chickasaw supplied Anthony Wayne’s Legion of the United States with scouts from its inception at the end of 1791.  Viewing this as treason, the Creek declared war.  Since the Chickasaw were now allies of the Southwest Territory as well, the declaration was mutual.

Mero District campaigns, 1794

The first nine month of 1794 witnessed more than forty raids on the Mero District by the Cherokee as well as the Creek.  A major invasion by a joint Cherokee-Creek army collapsed in the face of dissension between warriors of the two nations.  The Nickajack Expedition in September by federal, territorial, and Kentucky militia forces destroyed the towns of Nickajack and Running Water, leading the Cherokee to sue for a final peace.

State of Muskogee, 1799-1803

From 1799 to 1803, William Augustus Bowles ruled the State of Muskogee carved out of East Florida around the head of Apalachee Bay.  Its population consisted of Seminole, Spanish deserters, Black Seminole, Lower Creek, runaway slaves, and pirates, the latter of whom made up the State of Muskogee navy whose prime concern was pirating Spanish ships.  His reign ended following a conspiracy by Spain, America, and leaders of the Creek Confederacy.

Creek War, 1811-1813

Within the War of 1812 but not of it, the conflict began as a civil war in the Creek Confederacy between a traditionalist faction in the Upper Towns called the Red Sticks and the leadership of the Middle and Lower Towns.  The Creek Upper Towns sat along the Coosa River, their Middle Towns on the Tallapoosa and its tributaries, the Lower Towns on the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers.  As late as the early 1790’s, the Seminole were counted as another division.  The conflict remained fratricidal until the Red Sticks began attacking white settlements then forts.  The army sent to crush them under Andrew Jackson included militia forces from five Southern states and warriors from the Cherokee and Lower Creek.

Cherokee-Osage war, 1817-1823

Fought entirely in Arkansas Territory over disputed lands, the primary belligerents were the Osage nation and the Cherokee Nation West.  Warriors from the Cherokee Nation East, however, travelled back and forth in support.

First Seminole War, 1817-1819

The Miccousukee Seminole in Florida, formerly the Hitchiti-speaking Upper Chiaha of the Tennessee River in the days of De Soto, refused to recognize a land cession treaty the United States signed with the Lower Creek.  After several attacks by both sides, Washington City sent a contingent of eight hundred troops under Andrew Jackson, militia forces of one thousand each from Georgia and Tennessee, and a fourteen hundred-strong force of Lower Creek with a troop of Cherokee cavalry attached.  The upshot was the acquisition of both Floridas by the United States.

Cherokee raid into South Georgia, 1830

Major Ridge led a group of thirty in full war regalia to an a detached area of Cherokee territory about thirty miles southwest of present-day Rome along the Georgia-Alabama border.  They expelled a number of squatters and burned the buildings but there was otherwise no violence.

First Cherokee Civil War, 1834-1836

Members of the National Party led by John Ross, which advocates remaining in the East, start murdering members of the Treaty Party, led by John Ridge, which advocates making the best terms possible for what they see as inevitable, at the rate of about one per week.

Second Seminole War, 1835-1842

Begun by the Seminole resisting attempts to remove them to Indian Territory.  A small number managed to remain in Florida, where after a lengthy and expensive war of attrition that wore out both sides they were allowed to remain on a reservation in southwest Florida.

Creek War of 1836

It began with Creek attacking squatters and land speculators from their remaining territory in Alabama.  It ended with Winfield Scott and the U.S. Army removing by force the remaining twenty thousand Creek to the West, save for those on the Poarch Creek reservation.

Cherokee Disturbances, 1836-1839

The federal government sent in the army and state militia to end the civil war between the two major factions and to prepare the Cherokee for removal.  The actions also included the rounding up of Cherokee into concentration camps for forcible removal, then the removal itself.

Third Seminole War, 1855-1858

An attack by a band of Seminole on a small army patrol touched off another round of warfare that ended with around seventy-five Seminole being removed to Indian Territory.

American Civil War, 1861-1865

In the Southeast/Old Southwest, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, formed the Thomas Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders under Principal Chief William H. Thomas.  Active mostly in the Confederate Department of East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, the legion was one of the last units east of the Mississippi River to surrender on 9 May 1865. 

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw raised the 1^st Choctaw Battalion, Mississippi Cavalry, for service in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana.  After a disastrous battle during the Vicksburg Campaign in which many troops and officers were killed or captured, the survivors joined Maj. S. G. Spann’s Battalion of Independent Scouts, which, ironically, also surrendered 9 May 1865, but in Meridian, Mississippi.

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The phrase “Indian Wars of the Old Southwest” derives from an article under that name by turn of the century historian Albert V. Goodpasture published in the Tennessee Historical Review, in the four volumes of its 1918 edition.  It can be found online, or in the local history section of the Chattanooga Public Library.

Indian wars in the colonial Southeast

Largely due to Hollywood films, when Americans think of “Indian wars”, they think of what we now call the West, particularly the Great Plains, or the “new” Southwest.  Really, though, the wars of the Europeans against the Native Americans/American Indians east of the Mississippi lasted longer, involved greater numbers in combat, and saw far more brutality.

The first wars of Europeans and American Indians occurred during the century of Spanish occupation which preceded that of the rest of that Continent.

Battle of Mabila, 1540

Though De Soto’s conquistadors fought many battles in their three-year trek (1539-1542), the one fought at Mabila in central Alabama against by the coalition under the paramount mico Tuskaloosa was by far the worst of them all.

Napochi War, 1560

In 1560, Spaniards under Tristan de Luna left their recently-founded home at Nanipanca, or Santa Cruz, on the Alabama River in search of trade with the town of Coosa, at Coosawattee, Georgia, the dominant chiefdom inland.  Once there, they were “invited” on a war expedition against the “Napochi”, living in what is now the Chattanooga area. 

After burning the town of Opelika at Audobon Acres, the combined army moved on the village of Tasqui near the mouth of Citico Creek and crossed the river, where they met a force from the large town of Tasquiqui at the Hampton Place site on Moccasin Point.  After a parlay, the locals, ancestors of the Tuskegee, agreed to resume tribute to Coosa.

Carolina Revolt of 1569

The tribes of the Spanish province of Carolina (named for Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor), which stretched from the seacoast of South Carolina into East Tennessee, in La Florida rose up and destroyed all the inland forts of the Spanish and massacred the garrisons, save for one lone survivor. The then capital of La Florida on Parris Island, Santa Elena, was the only settlement and fort untouched.

Escamacu War, 1576-1579

The Orista (Edisto) and the Escamacu (Ahoya) in Carolina and the Guale on the seacoast  between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers rose up to expel the Spanish, especially their hated missions.  It ended with Santa Elena burned to the ground.

Guale Revolt of 1582-1583

The Guale again rising up against the Spanish, until the peace treaty the next year.

Guale Revolt of 1584-1585

The treaty of 1583 didn’t last very long.  By now you’re getting the idea that the Guale did not like the Spanish very much.  There’s more.

Juanillo’s Revolt, 1597-1601

Another uprising by the Guale, after they became an organized province of La Florida.  It began over denunciation of polygamy by a Spanish friar.

Guale Revolt of 1608

Five micos of the Guale rose up against the Spanish colonial and Church mission systems.  The short-lived revolt led to the reintroduction of slavery.

First Powhatan War, 1610-1614

Essentially a war of conquest by the colony of Virginia against the Powhatan Confederation, it ended with much of the confederacy’s territory in English hands.

Calusa War, 1614

After the Calusa, who dominated all of South Florida, killed five hundred of the Mocoso on Tampa Bay in retaliation for Spanish incursions, the Spanish responded with a punitive expedition against them.

Second Powhatan War, 1622-1632

Begun when the Powhatan massacred a third of the colony in a surprise attack.  The war lasted for ten years, with two tribes of the Confederation, the Accomac and the Patawomeck, fighting on the English side.

Beaver Wars, 1628-1701

Largely a war over which nation would control European trade in the North, the nations also fought over resources and to replenish their depleted ranks.  Begun by the attack of the Mohawk of the League of the Iroquois upon the Mahican, the Beaver Wars disrupted life of the nations and tribes in all of eastern North America and some west of the Mississippi.

The fighting covered all of the north, plus West Virginia, western Virginia and Maryland, and Kentucky in the Old Southwest.  The Beaver Wars ended with the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701, signed there because New France had been a party to the conflict as allies of several of the nations and tribes involved, thirty-eight counting the French and the Iroquois.

First Susquehannock War, 1642-1652

The colony of Maryland declared war on the Susquehannock of the Susquehanna Valley over trade issues.  With help from the colonies of New Netherlands and of New Sweden, the Susquehannock emerged victorious.

Third Powhatan War, 1644-1646

This war essentially ended the confederation and made the Pamunkey the leading tribe among the remaining groups.

Guale Revolt of 1645

More of a labor strike than an armed revolt, the Guale Indian workers on Spanish missions and plantations walked off their jobs to their towns in the backcountry in defiance of the friars and their own chiefs when the colonial government ran out of money to pay them.

Apalachee Civil War, 1647

The Apalachee occupied South Georgia between the Altamaha River on the east and the Flint River on the west.  In 1647, traditionalist chiefs rose up against Christianized chiefs and the intrusion of Spanish spiritual beliefs and mores into their daily lives.  As allies, the rebels had a band of the Chisca, the name by which the Spanish knew the Yuchi as far back as De Soto.

First Choctaw Civil War, 1647-1650

Long running disputes over trade with European colonials between the Okla Tannap (Eastern Division) and the Okla Hannalli (Six Towns or Southern Division), who traded with the French of Louisiane, via-a-vis the Okla Falaya (Western Division) who had recently begun to trade with the English of Virginia, broke into war after the charismatic Western Division leader, Red Bones, was assassinated.  The Western Division had the support of the English, the Chickasaw, and the Chakchiuma; the Eastern Division had the support of the French; the Six Towns remained neutral.  The Eastern Division was much larger, however, and in the end won.  Over a thousand Choctaw died, either hundred of them warriors, and dozens of towns were destroyed.

Erie-Iroquois War, 1651-1664

Though accounts of the war between the Erie and the Iroquois give the beinning and ending dates as 1653 and 1656, in truth the war began in the winter of 1651-1652 when the western Iroquois attacked, unsuccessfully, the Atrakwaeronon, one of the Erie subtribes.  The next summer, with contingents from all Five Nations, the destruction of the Atrakwaronon as a cohesive unit succeeded.  In 1653, the Erie counterattacked, destroying one of the two Seneca towns.  Though the Iroquois countered the next year, 1654, by destroying the capital town of Arrigha, or Rigue, causing the diaspora of the Riqueronon subtribe, by 1655 the Five Nations were begging the French for military assistance.  Many historians count the capture of the town of Genaienton in 1656, but the Jesuit Relations, the informants of which were the Iroquois themselves, make clear the war lasted until at least 1664.  Even then, the final group of the Erie remaining in the north did not surrender until 1682.

Descendants of the former Erie assimilated or enslaved by the Iroquois became the core of the mixed group of Iroquoians known as the Mingo or Blue Mingo in the eighteenth century.   Other Erie, particularly the Riqueronon subtribe (whose name was often synonymous with the whole confederacy), went south to the “country of the Muscogui”, as John Norton put it, with a stopover in Virginia.

First Battle of Bloody Run, 1656

Shortly after the destruction of Arrigha by the Iroquois, a large body of northern Indians that colonial records refer to as the “Richahecrians” invaded Virginia and took up residence on the upper James River.  Two years later, Virginia sent a force of colonial rangers accompanied by a hundred Pamunkey to dislodge them.  The resulting battle was a disaster for the Virginian forces.  Later in 1670, the Richahecrians were found in the Blue Ridge mountains in the west of Carolina by a Virginia emissary who referred to them as the Rickohockans.

Timucua Rebellion, 1656

The Timucua were a native people that at the time of Spanish first contact made up between ten and twelve nations that occupied all of North Florida.  Like the Guale before them, they revolted against the forced labor system in 1656.

Second Susquehannock War, 1655-1657

Fought between the province of Maryland and the Susquehannock, now at the head of Chesapeake Bay and without their Dutch and Swedish allies.

Iroquois-Shawnee War, 1662-1672

Having eradicated or chased off many of their previous targets, the Iroquois turned their attention on the Shawnee of the Ohio Valley.  Finally tired of the attacks, the Shawnee divided into several bands, and dispersed.   The Chillicothe and Kispoko migrated to the Cumberland River; the Hathawekela moved to the Savannah River upstream from the Westo; the Mekoche sought asylum near the Mascouten; the Piqua gained refuge among the Lenape, who were already subjects of the Iroquois.

Coosaw War, 1671

This was fought against the new colonists led by the inland Coosaw tribe of Cusabo.

First Westo War, 1673-1674

The Westo began attacking Carolina in 1673.  The hard-pressed English imported the Esaw for support.  The war ends in December 1674 with an alliance between the two major parties and a trade monopoly with Carolina for the Westo.

Stono War, 1674

Another war fought with the Carolina colonists, this time led by the Stono tribe of Cusabo.

Chowanoke War, 1675

The Chowanoke launch attacks against Carolina, and the colonists only end the fighting after losing many people.

Third Susquehannock War, 1676-1677

Instigated by the Doeg (the Nanticoke under another name), this war involved the colony of Maryland, and helped spark Bacon’s Rebellion.  At the end, the surviving Susquehannock took refuge with their erstwhile rivals, the Iroquois.

Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676

Both a rebellion against the colonial government at Jamestown and a war of eradication and/or expulsion against local Indians, its leader was Nathaniel Bacon.  Afterwards, the Occaneechi joined the Saponi, the Nanticoke became part of the Nanzatico, and the Pamunkey gained the Rappahannock and the Chickahominy as tributaries in compensation for Bacon’s unprovoked attack upon them.

Guale War, 1675-1680

In 1675, the English colony of Carolina (named for Charles I of England) began a campaign to eradicate the Spanish missions on the Atlantic coast of what is now Georgia.  The Guale were north of the Altamaha, the Mocama south of it; both were targets.  Carolina primarily used proxies, the Westo on the Savannah River and some of the Lower Creek.  The remnants formed the core of the Yamasee.

Second Westo War, 1680-1682

English Carolina and the Hathawekela band of Shawnee (on the Savannah River since 1674) joined forces to eradicate the Westo.  After the destruction of their town, the Westo moved to the Chattahoochee and the Shawnee took their place as trading partners.

Winyah War, 1682

Carolina and the Shawnee attacked the Winyah, primarily for slaves.

Iroquois-Catawba War, 1680-1759

After defeating the Susquehannock and absorbing them into the League, the Iroquois turned their attentions south for warring, scalping, and slave-raiding.  Though for the most part marauding indiscriminately, their favorite targets were the Catawba.  The Catawba fought back, even raiding the north.  George Washington noted that large war parties going one way or another were a common sight.  The final peace came after the Treaty of Albany in 1759.

First Cherokee-Creek War, 1690-1710

As the ranks of the Cherokee swelled from assimilation of new refugees from the north and local remnant populations and they began to spread out, the Creek towns, not yet a confederacy but in league, felt the threat and attacked.  The war lasted until around 1710.

Catawba-Shawnee War, 1690-1707

Back by Carolina, the Catawba begin attacking the Hathawekela Shawnee on the Savannah, often in conjunction with the Yamasee.  After the climactic battle in 1707, the Hathawekela disperse to the Creeks, the Lenape, and most to their Chillicothe and Kispoko cousins on the Cumberland.

Cherokee-Lenape War, 1698-1708

With the upper Ohio County, including at that time the Allegheny Valley, deserted, some Cherokee, apparently a fairly substantial group, returned to the north.  The main town was known as Allegheny, and stood at the confluence of the Kiskiminetas and Allegheny Rivers, what is now Schenley, Pennsylvania.  The Lenape began attempting to drive them out in about 1698, probably encouraged to do so by an invitation of the Iroquois to settle in western Pennsylvania.  In 1708, Allegheny is destroyed (later rebuilt with other occupants), and the survivors returning south, and the Lenape settle the region.

Cherokee-Iroquois War, 1701-1768

After the Beaver Wars ended, the Iroquois turned their martial and slave-raiding attention south, and one of their chief targets were the former Erie reimagined as the Cherokee.  The wars ended with the Treaty of Johnson Hall in 1768, mediated by Superintendent of Northern Indians William Johnson.

First Apalachee War, 1702-1704

English Carolina turned its attention to the west of the coast and began attacking the Apalachee and their Spanish missions.  In addition to their own militia, they used Yamasee and Lower Creek warriors.

Timucua War, 1706

Using the same allies, English Carolina penetrated into northern Florida to eradicate the missions among the Timucua and decimate the dwindling tribe.  Within a short time, the survivors fled to the seat and fort at San Agustin.

Second Apalachee War, 1708

Another invasion of Apalachee territory by Carolina and the Yamasee.

Mobile War, 1708

In support of the Alabama, the Cherokee, Abihka, and Catawba invaded the Mobile Bay area with them, intending to drive the French at La Mobilia and Fort St. Louis there, then capital of La Louisiane, into the sea.  For some reason, their four thousand warrior strong force instead settled for torching the nearby town of the Mobile tribe.

Cumberland Valley War, 1710-1715

In 1710, the Chickasaw in the west and the Cherokee in the east launched a war of expulsion against the Chillicothe and the Kispoko bands of the Shawnee on the Cumberland River.  The impetus came when part of the Hathawekela band moved from the Savannah to the Cumberland to join their cousins beginning in 1707.

Tuscarora War, 1711-1715

The southern band of Tuscarora joined with several Algonquin tribes to attack the settlements of North Carolina over territorial encroachment and slave raids.  They and their allies faced the militias of North Carolina and South Carolina, the northern Tuscarora, the Apalachee, the Yamasee, the Catawba, the Cherokee, and many others.  After the war, the southern Tuscarora migrated north to become the sixth nation of the Haudenosaunee, where some of their cousins from the northern band later followed.

First Yamasee War, 1715-1717

The Yamasee opened the war with a massacre on the frontier.  Several other Indian nations joined in, including Cherokee, Catawba (often in conjunction with the former), Lower Creek, Apalachee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Yuchi, Shawnee, and others.  Against them were the colonial militias of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.  The Tugaloo Massacre of a number of Creek leaders brought the Cherokee over to the side of the colonists.

There was no decisive victory by either side, but the Yamasee were greatly reduced as were the Apalachee, both moving south, and the Lower Creek returning from the Ocmulgee River and Ochese Creeks to the Chattahoochee River.

First Natchez War, 1716

Uprising by the Natchez in Mississippi, the last remain vestige of the Mississippian culture which once dominated all the Southeast and much west of the Mississippi, against the French colonists of Louisiana.

Cheraw War, 1716-1718

In the midst of the Yamasee War, the province of North Carolina declared war on the Cheraw living on its borders with Virginia, which refused to do likewise.  After the close of the war, they joined the Catawba to escape attacks by the Seneca.

Second Cherokee-Creek War, 1716-1755

Begun over the Tugaloo Massacre, hostilities between the two nations lasted until 1755, ending at the Battle of Taliwa in North Georgia.

Chickasaw-Choctaw War, 1721-1760

Provoked by the French colonial authorities at Fort Toulouse, sending their Choctaw allies against the British-allied Chickasaw.

Second Natchez War, 1722-1724

Low intensity warfare between the Natchez and the French colonists, particularly the settlers.

Second Yamasee War, 1727

Carolina attacked the Yamasee refuge near San Agustin, burned the town, slaughtered most, carried some away as slaves.  The survivors later joined the Seminole.

Third Natchez War, 1729-1731

The final uprising of the Natchez began with the capture of Fort Rosalie and massacre of its garrison.  With Choctaw and Tunica allies, the French destroyed the Natchez as a people, deporting captives to the Caribbean as slaves, most of whom had been pro-French, while the rest fled to the Chickasaw.  The Chickasaw also fought the French, raiding well into Upper Louisiane, joined by the Cherokee in 1730.

Chickasaw War of 1736

The French with their Choctaw, Illini, and Quapaw allies launched attacks on the Chickasaw at two different points.  They lost badly.  Their goal had been to destroy the Natchez who had taken refuge with the Chickasaw.

Chickasaw War of 1739-1740

The French ascended the Mississippi, established a fortified camp at Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis), but never got around to attacking the towns just to the east, returning south without firing a shot.

King George’s War, 1744-1748

Though fought mostly in the north between the Great Britain, the northern British colonies, and New France, the war included participation of British allies the Chickasaw and the Cherokee, who focused their efforts on Detroit and the native allies of the French in Upper Louisiane.

Second Choctaw Civil War, 1746-1750

During these years, the Choctaw fought a bloody civil war among themselves between the pro-French Eastern and Six Towns divisions and the pro-British Western division.  It ended with the Choctaw remaining allied to the French.

Chickasaw War of 1752

Another would-be campaign by the French against the Chickasaw that came to naught.

French and Indian War, 1754-1763

Fought mostly in the north, the war in the Southeast primarily involved Shawnee attacks on the Virginia frontier until they switched sides in 1758 and the Anglo-Cherokee War and Anglo-Creek War.

Cherokee-North Carolina War, 1755-1756

Disagreements over trade and encroachment of settlers from the colony into Cherokee territory led to a period of hostilities that ended when the Crown called the Cherokee to join the effort against the French and their Indian allies.

Chickasaw-Shawnee War of 1756

The Chickasaw expelled the Piqua band of Shawnee who had been invited by the Cherokee to settle on the Cumberland a decade before.

South Florida War, 1757

The Lower Muskogee invaded South Florida out to the Keys, killing and enslaving most of the surviving natives.  Those few who escaped were relocated to the Caribbean by the Spanish, and those Lower Muskogee who stayed became the nucleus of the Seminole.

Chickasaw-Cherokee War, 1758-1769

Begun because of an attack by the Cherokee upon the Lower Chickasaw on the Savannah River (where they lived from 1730 to 1775), the tensions had built since the settlement of the Piqua band of Shawnee on the Cumberland.  The final battle at Chickasaw Old Fields in Alabama was a bad loss for the Cherokee.

Anglo-Cherokee War, 1759-1761

Though it started over dissatisfaction over their treatment by the British army while on the campaign to take Fort Dusquene (Fort Pitt), the Cherokee had a pro-French faction based in Great Tellico, supported by a forward post at Long-Island-on-the-Tennessee between the Coushatta at the head and the Kaskinampo at the foot.  Small raids on the Virginian frontier began in 1758, but the war did not fully break out until the next year. 

The Cherokee involved primarily came from the Lower Towns on the headwaters of the Savannah and Coosa and the Overhill Towns on the Little Tennessee River against the provinces of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.  It ended with the Treaty of Long-Island-on-the-Holston with Virginia and the Treaty of Keowee with the two Carolinas.

Anglo-Creek War, 1759-1763

Sparked by the smallpox deaths of a number of micos at Fort Prince George near Keowee, the pro-French faction within the Creek Confederacy declared war against the provinces South Carolina and Georgia.  The faction, led by Great Mortar, had already returned to the former home of the Coosa at Coosawattee, in support of the pro-French Cherokee.  They were opposed, though not with arms, within the Confederacy by a pro-British faction led by Emistisigua.  It ended with the Treaty of Augusta (1763) with Georgia and the cession of coastal land.

Creek-Choctaw War, 1765-1775

This war between the Creek and Choctaw escalated in 1768 when the Chickasaw joined the side of the Choctaw.  John Stuart, Indian Commisioner for the South, almost brought about peace in 1770, only to be undone by four Lower Creek murdering a number of Choctaw.  The British Indian Department managed to secure peace between belligerents in the face of the brewing American Revolution.

End of an era, beginning of a transition

In the Treaty of Paris (1763) at the end of the French and Indian War, Great Britain gained all of New France east of the Mississippi went to Britain (east Louisiana, Canada, and Bermuda), plus Florida in exchange for Louisiana west of the Mississippi and the return of Cuba and the Philippines to the Kingdom of Spain.  The disposition of its new territory, especially in the case of the former east Louisiana, contributed much of the rancor and dissatisfaction that led to the rebellion of thirteen of Britain’s sixteen North American colonies as well as to the same sentiments of the Indian tribes and nations there toward those same colonies.