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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9" black and white photographic prints are availat>le for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMÏ UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE THE SHAPING OF A CREEK (MUSCOGEE) HOMELAND IN INDIAN TERRITORY, 1828-1907 A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment o f the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By DOUGLAS A HURT Norman, Oklahoma 2000 UMI Number 9968103 UMI UMI Microform9968103 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 THE SHAPING OF A CREEK (MUSCOGEE) HOMELAND IN INDIAN TERRITORY, 1828-1907 A Dissertation APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY BY \r>s^ Copyright by DOUGLAS A HURT 2000 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements The author thanks my advisor. Dr. Richard L. Nostrand who patiently gave his time, input, and advice from the genesis o f this research idea in 1995 to its conclusion. His generosity, kind spirit, and mentoring were a constant blessing. I also thank my committee. Dr. Bret Wallach, Dr. Bruce Hoagland, Dr. Bob Rundstrom, and Dr. Morris Foster. Each contributed to the development of this work. I am especially grateful to those who influenced my growth as a geographer at the University of Missouri: Dr. Kit Salter, Dr. Gail Ludwig, Dr. Walter Schroeder, and Dr. Bob Kaiser (who unwittingly began my interest in homelands in his seminars). All played indirect, yet important, roles in this work. Close geography buds Matt Engel (University of Nebraska) and Hank Rademacher (The Pennsylvania State University) gave me constant suggestions and advice. My peers at OU, Jason Hilkovitch, Pete McCormick, Blake Gumprecht, Dave Robertson, Jeff Roth, Mike Stevens, Kent Sanmann, and John Marshall all helped in various ways. I also thank the archivists and librarians at the sites which house Creek Nation collections, in particular John Lovett and his staff at the Western History Collections. Ultimately, my professional or personal successes belong to my loving wife Jill, who endured much to see this project completed. Thanks are also due to my animal friends Hester, Henry, Tobias, Jones, and Meramec, who could always put my work in a larger perspective. Without the constant support of my extended family, this dissertation would not have been completed. IV Table of Contents Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v List of Figures vii Abstract viii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Overview and context Methods and sources Significance Chapter 2: The Homeland Concept Revisited 12 Prologue Geographical origins A social science perspective Geographical predecessors Maturation of the homeland conceptual framework The future of the concept Chapter 3: The Creek in the Southeast and Removal 37 Prologue Landscape and environment in the Southeast The pre-contact era (to 1528) The European contact era (1528 to the early 1700s) The colonial era (early 1700s to 1828) Removal and the federal influence Chapter 4: Implantation in Indian Territory (1828-1850) 72 Prologue Two environments, two landscapes Arrival in Indian Territory The transfer of Creek town names and cultural continuation Environmental adaptation and landscape change Chapter 5: Formation in Indian Territory (1850-1867) 105 Prologue Cultural divisions and institutions Development of sacred sites and attachment to place Landscape and social change The Civil War and Reconstruction Chapter 6: Elaboration in Indian Territory (1867-1907) 132 Prologue One Nation? The constitution and the meanings of “Creek” Anglo intrusion Territoriality Allotment Landscape and social change Chapter 7: The Creek Homeland Since 1907 184 Prologue The homeland since Oklahoma statehood Contemporary Creek social groups Creek sense of place and sense of time Landscape expressions The future Chapter 8: The Homeland Concept Revised 223 Implications of the Creek study The meaning of American homelands For further research Endnotes 241 Bibliography 304 Appendix A: Active and Historical Creek Nation Towns in Indian Territory and Oklahoma 340 Biographical Sketch 371 VI List of Figures Figure Page 1.1 5 3.1 40 3.2 42 3.3 44 4.1 74 4.2 76 4.3 91 4.4 97 4.5 98 4.6 102 5.1 107 5.2 127 6.1 135 6.2 142 6.3 147 6.4 149 6.5 161 6.6 162 6.7 166 6.8 181 7.1 188 7.2 192 7.3. 196 7.4 200 7.5 202 7.6 208 7.7 210 7.8 211 7.9 212 7.10 214 7.11 215 7.12 216 7.13 217 7.14 219 8.1 238 Vll Abstract Federal authorities removed the Creek (Muscogee) Nation from Alabama and Georgia to Indian l erriioi y (Oklahoma) beginning in 1828. By the time of statehood in 1907, the Creek had shaped a new homeland in a ten-county area south of Tulsa. This study discusses the transfer of place names, tribal towns, ceremonial grounds, rural churches and other elements that characterize the new homeland. The role of Anglo intruders and individual allotments complicate the story, yet bonding to a new place, especially through the institution of the Creek tribal town, is clear. The study goes beyond the Creek to identify five new parameters by which geographers might better define homelands; a tightly knit and spatially integrated ethnic community, a limited geographic territory, a distinctive cultural landscape, an emotional loyalty that includes heightened feelings of attachment, home, and compulsions to defend, and a partial social or spatial segregation from other communities in order to maintain unique forms of cultural life and history. vni Chapter 1 Introduction Overview and context The history of Oklahoma is unquestionably tied to its occupation by sizable and diverse Indian Nations. Scholars have argued that this American Indian presence has been the state’s most significant attribute, giving Oklahoma a unique regional character. Indian dispossession and removal, Anglo desire for the opening of native lands, allotment, and an often uneasy interaction between Indian and Anglo cultures are several elements in this place personality. However, Oklahoma’s Indian story is not a relic history but an evolving, adaptive past and present. As the historian Muriel H. Wright wrote, “more Indian tribes have retained their character and identity in Oklahoma than in any other state o f the Union.”' Some academics consider the residents of Oklahoma to have a weakly expressed or confused identity. In part, this opinion stems from the quest to understand Oklahoma’s diverse cultural origins. Generally, scholars have divided the state into two to four competing zones, or culture regions, making Oklahoma a diverse cultural mosaic. Others have called Oklahoma the “land of the drifter,” questioning whether Oklahomans have developed a heightened attachment to place owed to the recent nature of statehood, the diverse population sources, its boom-and-bust economic cycles, and the supposed cultural disappearance of the state’s Indian Nations. Certainly, the historical geography of Oklahoma has been an overlooked and understudied enterprise with many past cultures and landscapes waiting to be investigated. Only three geographers, Michael Doran, Leslie Hewes, and John Morris have made significant contributions to the historical geography of Oklahoma with regularity / The story of American Indians in present-day Oklahoma is thus an important key to understanding the historical geography of the state and has largely been ignored by geographers investigating sense o f place. In reality, many of Oklahoma’s Native peoples had—and continue to have—a heightened attachment to place, investing their surrounding landscapes with meaning, emotion, and significance. This geographical synthesis attempts to explain the historical geography, identity, and sense of place of the Creek (Muscogee) Nation in eastern Oklahoma through the lens of the homeland concept—an idea that attempts to understand how a group relates to and bonds with a place through time. The Creek were able to shape an Eastern Oklahoma homeland through the maintenance and adaptation of their social construct of the tribal town.' Often, American Indian history since European contact has been written as an epic struggle between noble, but misguided, savages and an advancing tide of progressive, righteous Anglo explorers and land-seekers attempting to find a better life through a highly developed Protestant work ethnic. This version of history is full of dramatic military battles, the settlement of vast areas of wild virgin lands, and the transformation of these lands to the production o f agricultural commodities. American Indian dispossession, removal, and allotment are reduced to a regrettable, but inevitable, footnote o f continental manifest destiny and advancing Euro-American civilization.