John T. Ellisor. The Second Creek War: Interethnic Confict and Collusion on a Collapsing Frontier. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010. 512 pp. $50.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8032-2548-0.

Reviewed by Samuel Watson ( Military Academy)

Published on H-War (February, 2015)

Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University)

As John Ellisor asks, who has heard of the honest land speculators on one side and ... settlers “Second Creek War” that began in 1836? We know on the other, with the speculators fomenting and the Second War as the United States’ using Indian hostilities as a cover for their nefari‐ longest discrete conflict before Vietnam; we know ous practices” (p. 223). Extreme social fragmenta‐ the First Seminole War, and perhaps the First tion and instability, among whites as well as Indi‐ Creek War, because of . If one has ans, made conflict termination immensely difficult heard of the Second Creek War, it is probably as a —far more so than in the first Creek and Seminole short-lived uprising that disrupted U.S. offensives wars, and at least as much as in the second Semin‐ during the early stages of the Second Seminole ole confict. War. Ellisor’s immensely detailed book makes the The first third of The Second Creek War case that the Second Creek War was just as im‐ provides context, the second focuses on the year portant as the other three conflicts in the creation 1836, and the last explores the persistence of con‐ of the cotton plantation South, and a better ex‐ flict into the early 1840s and beyond. The im‐ ample of the impact of capitalist economic expan‐ mense detail means that military history readers sion in intensifying social hierarchies and political may become bogged down in the context, and stu‐ divisions within racial-ethnic groups, as well as dents of southern and Native American history in between them. While we tend to think of the other the operational narrative, but both parts are ne‐ three conflicts as stark clashes between red and cessary for understanding why the war began, white, Ellisor demonstrates convincingly that the continued for so long, and played out the way it Second Creek War was a civil war among the did. Many readers may find the comprehensive Creeks (as experts would expect, given the rifts in narrative unnecessary, but Ellisor clearly intends Creek society). The surprise is that many contem‐ his book to provide just such comprehensiveness: porary whites believed it “a civil war between dis‐ no new history of the conflict will be needed for H-Net Reviews generations to come. This review will focus most Starting from the perspective of world sys‐ on the problems of conflict termination, but The tems theory, Ellisor identifies “New ,” the Second Creek War is a complex work of southern northeastern quarter of the state where most and Native American as well as military history, Creeks lived when the conflict erupted into overt and deep, sustained attention to social, political, violence, as a periphery that entrepreneurs sought economic, and cultural context and connections is to mine for commodities: cotton for the Atlantic one of its great strengths, which makes it better market. Commodification, colonialism, imperial‐ military history. Careful readers will be rewarded ism, and war went hand in hand. As a result, El‐ for their persistence, by a far deeper understand‐ lisor cannot settle for the thesis of “settler coloni‐ ing of the roots, catalysts, and escalation of the alism” now common among students of European war, and the reasons for its repeated revival and imperialism. In its focus on interethnic interac‐ persistence for nearly a decade. tions, this concept sometimes reduces European (and white American) encounters with indigenous peoples to binaries of conquerors and victims. In‐ stead, Ellisor focuses as much on intra-ethnic divi‐ sion, competition, and discord, and on the collu‐ sion between whites and Indians alluded to in his title. Where settler colonialism tends to emphasize that white migrants sought to settle, and often clashed with the priorities of their distant central governments, but were essentially united against the local indigenes, a world systems approach stresses divisions among the “settlers,” many of whom were speculators and profiteers, or hoped to accumulate capital (in this setting, plantations) rather than settle for the self-sufficient yeoman equality beloved in Jeffersonian and Jacksonian rhetoric. In New Alabama, these conflicts in eco‐ nomic purpose and practice were intensified by social and cultural conflicts between the “respect‐ ables” (essentially proto-Victorians, pursuing gen‐ tility) and the “roughs” (essentially poor whites, resentful of all hierarchies save that of race). Thus (though not “ironically,” as Ellisor puts it), “the expansion of the U.S. people and their market economy that so shattered the Creek Na‐ tion also fragmented white society” (p. 144). “Pred‐ ation ... was part and parcel of the local economy” (p. 269), which historians have long known, but it was rooted in the pressures and inequities of the world economy, and came in as many forms as peaceful economic competition. In New Alabama poor whites lived much like Indians, which fostered both resentment and collaboration

2 H-Net Reviews between them, and disdain from “respectables.” join the and perhaps inspiring violent As a result, “class conflict was a constant,” as Cherokee resistance.) “roughs” joined Indians in resentment and retali‐ Contrary to conventional wisdom, Thomas ation against white elites. Some Indians lived Sidney Jesup’s aggressive offensive dispersed the much like rich whites, with plantations and slaves, Creeks, making them harder to catch and defeat, which fostered antagonism from poor whites and and Ellisor is sympathetic to ’s more some Indians, some empathy from “respectables,” methodical campaign plan, but popular clamor for and greed from whites of every description. White action spurred Jesup and sustained him in the dis‐ Alabamans exported their social and economic putes that followed. On the other hand, Jesup fo‐ tensions by blaming Georgian land speculators for cused on securing Alabama, essentially leaving much of the Creek resistance. As historians have to its own devices, which helped the long known, the Creeks were divided geographic‐ Creeks first to retreat through southwest Georgia ally (between Upper and Lower Creeks), econom‐ to Florida, and then to return, prolonging the war ically, by mixed and full-blood status, and by their by at least a year. Jesup’s solution then became views about how to deal with white encroach‐ conciliating the Creek and helping them escape ment. Ellisor provides the most detailed evidence the clutches of white creditors, to enable them to of these divisions available, and adds an unusu‐ move west and end the conflict. To do this he sup‐ ally strong emphasis on (and evidence for) politic‐ ported the creation of a Creek regiment for service al factionalism among the Creeks and their lead‐ in Florida, which some wealthy Creeks, and their ers, who used the conflict to enhance their follow‐ white business associates, approved as a means of ings at each others’ expense. recovering slaves and paying of debts. Turning to the military conflict itself, Ellisor Most of the war was fought by state volun‐ makes it clear that the resistant Indians had “a teers and rather than the regular army. In‐ definite strategy” (p. 2) to disrupt white society deed, Ellisor observes that the long war only truly and its economic and military operations by cut‐ began after the federal surge. As students of nine‐ ting roads. This strategy was possible because the teenth-century Indian wars expect, we find a cata‐ war was the product of at least a generation of logue of impatience, indiscipline, assaults—inten‐ tension, rather than a sudden, desperate, and im‐ tional and otherwise—on neutral or friendly plicitly irrational uprising, foredoomed against Creeks (including the families of those who were overwhelming odds. The Creeks were desperate, fighting for the United States against the Semin‐ but they hoped to take advantage of U.S. embroil‐ oles), and panicked flights from handfuls of Indi‐ ment with the and in efforts to compel ans. The lines between citizen-soldiers, vigilantes, the Cherokee to move west, and of the multitude and criminal predators were thin and often trans‐ of divisions among whites. Whites were surprised gressed. The Creeks were hard to catch and harder by the rebellion, but this was due as much to the to keep, especially as whites used the legal system distractions of economic and political competition to try to force Indians to pay prewar debts (often (which also slowed their military and diplomatic fraudulent), to punish them as criminals (whether reactions) as to the blinders of racism. The U.S. in‐ as Alabama citizens or as the equivalent of “un‐ tervention during the summer of 1836 failed to lawful enemy combatants”) rather than prisoners crush the Creeks, although federal power projec‐ of war, and to extract further land cessions, often tion encouraged many of the initial rebels to regardless of whether the Indians in question had switch sides, and deterred others from joining the any claim to the land in question. rebellion. (Regular army commanders were espe‐ cially concerned to prevent Creeks from fleeing to

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Again and again, federal agents (usually army itive and violent nature of local society not only officers) would concentrate captured or sur‐ caused [the] conflict ... but posed the greatest rendered Creeks for movement west, but the obstacle to defeating the rebels” (p. 257). move would be delayed by the litigation of white By the autumn of 1836 Creeks were fleeing claims against the Creek, who would become dis‐ into Florida, a process that continued for the next satisfied with their impoverished diets (army ra‐ two years. The patterns of conflict that had de‐ tions) and eager to reassert their freedom by hunt‐ veloped in Alabama, among whites as well as ing or returning to their homes. Federal officers whites and Indians, were repeated in would often return their arms for hunting, and in 1837 and 1838. Jesup eventually compelled whites would see armed Indians in the woods and nearly 20,000 Creeks to move west, but by 1841 mobilize to demand their disarmament, often the “Seminole War” was largely fought by Creeks. through vigilante threats and violence, that tar‐ Whites debated whether the truce ending the geted neutral Indians and culminated in atrocity. Seminole conflict applied to Creeks, and Creeks Creeks who had surrendered would then resume continued to rob and sometimes kill until the fighting, and whites would blame Indian perfidity 1850s. Thus, as in the war in Florida, white forces and enlarge their aggression. A good example of conquered New Alabama, dispossessing the Indi‐ this unremitting cycle of escalation came in the ans, but fear and tension persisted for decades. In summer of 1836, when a Georgia major praised Alabama, some Creeks merged into the white pop‐ white children for shooting an elderly Indian man, ulation through marriage and other relationships; who was the only confirmed Indian casualty of the others passed as whites. They probably found it major’s campaign. One of his subordinates en‐ easier to do so among poor whites, for these countered a group of hostile Creeks but fled; the people won little from the conquest, and contin‐ major gave up the pursuit and declared his opera‐ ued, or came to, live much like ordinary Creeks. tions a success. Successful entrepreneurs and “respectables” se‐ Alabamans and Georgians directed their an‐ cured most of the wealth expropriated from the ger at each other, as well as at the federal govern‐ Creek, and inequality grew among whites in tan‐ ment. The military forces of the states, as well as dem with the expansion of plantation slavery. federal officers, repeatedly confronted one anoth‐ Ironically, or perhaps not, a quarter of Alabamans er over jurisdiction over Creek prisoners, and claim Indian descent today, though few can prove Alabama courts acquitted almost all the Indians it for the purpose of securing tribal income, and brought before them. The prisoners frequently the intimate relationship between white and Indi‐ had white lawyers, evidence of empathy from “re‐ an is sometimes regarded as a dimension of south‐ spectables,” their eagerness to blame Georgia land ern distinctiveness. Strange fruit, if we look only speculators and Alabaman roughs for Indian mil‐ from perspectives of race and ethnicity, rather itance, and their desire to secure Creek acquies‐ than capitalism and class. cence in their own land claims. Many whites tried Despite its careful attention to the intricacies to keep Indians in Alabama as slaves or near- of Creek society and politics, and a minutely de‐ slaves, while other whites condemned their tailed narrative of military operations, The Second selfishness. Everyone sought a scapegoat, and Creek War is ultimately about a white society “at everyone became a scapegoat at some point. In‐ war with itself” (p. 144). Social Darwinism had a timidation and violence were endemic among long head start in New Alabama: whites blamed whites, as potent a currency as the dollars for anything and anyone—except themselves as indi‐ which they strove. “Whites proved to be their own viduals (the war was always someone else’s fault) worst enemies” (p. 377): “the aggressively compet‐

4 H-Net Reviews or the economy as a system. Ellisor has the benefit of hindsight, and of the critical perspective provided by world systems theory and historical evidence, to avoid this self-deception. He recog‐ nizes that “this process of incorporation ... helped fuel the European economy and gave a major im‐ petus to the Market Revolution in the United States” (p. 7). “This [concerted] extraction [of re‐ sources], whether in the U.S. South, Africa, or Lat‐ in America, always resulted in the dispossession of the Native population, exploitation of the labor supply, social injustice based on a maldistribution of wealth, and ... an abundance of violence and bloodshed” (p. 360).

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Citation: Samuel Watson. Review of Ellisor, John T. The Second Creek War: Interethnic Confict and Collusion on a Collapsing Frontier. H-War, H-Net Reviews. February, 2015.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=40747

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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