Description
Book SynopsisIn Of One Mind and Of One Government Kevin Kokomoor examines the formation of Creek politics and nationalism from the 1770s through the Red Stick War, when the aftermath of the American Revolution and the beginnings of American expansionism precipitated a crisis in Creek country. The state of Georgia insisted that the Creeks sign three treaties to cede tribal lands.The Creeks objected vigorously, igniting a series of border conflicts that escalated throughout the late eighteenth century and hardened partisan lines between pro-American, pro-Spanish, and pro-British Creeks and their leaders. Creek politics shifted several times through historical contingencies, self-interests, changing leadership, and debate about how to best preserve sovereignty, a process that generated national sentiment within the nascent and imperfect Creek Nation.
Based on original archival research and a revisionist interpretation, Kokomoor explores how the state of Georgia’s increasi
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"This book contributes immensely to the field of ethnohistory in its expert examination of Creek politics in the early nineteenth century and its placement of the Creek Nation into a larger context of nation building."—Alex Colvin, Chronicles of Oklahoma
“A stunning book about an indigenous people’s valiant attempts to stand up to American expansionism through an internal political revolution—an attempt that ultimately failed, not because the Creeks could not realize a new political order but because America would not let them. It is just brilliant.”—Robbie Ethridge, professor of anthropology at the University of Mississippi and author of Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone: The Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South
“The subject is vital. Nationalism encompasses all people in the early nineteenth century. The Creek National Council has been a source of contention for a long time. [The book’s] bold thesis, advocating the efficacy of the Creek National Council, will generate productive debate for years to come.”—Steven C. Hahn, professor of history at St. Olaf College and author of The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670–1763
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Prologue: “A few of those belonging to the Coweta Town:” A Crisis in Creek Country
Introduction
Part I: The End of Creek Country
Chapter 1:“All the Red People Were Now the King’s People:” Creek Partisans Emerge During the American Revolution
Chapter 2: “No acts of a few or part can or does bend the whole:” Georgia Treaties and Creek Partisans
Chapter 3: “The Just retaliation upon the Georgians:” Partisan Creeks at War
Chapter 4: Like “mad people . . . running crazy:” Creek Country in Crisis
Part II: Building a Creek Nation
Chapter 5: “By the voice of the whole of the Upper Creeks and likewise the Cussetahs:” A Stronger Nationhood
Chapter 6: “I will try the experiment and I think it will succeed:” The Ascendancy of the National Council
Chapter 7: “To be of one mind and of one Government:” Legitimating a Creek Nation
Part III: The Fate of the Creek Nation
Chapter 8: “Retarded by the Demon of politiks:” The National Council Splintering
Chapter 9: “You who are afraid look to yourselves, you who are warriors, turn out:” The Red Stick War and the Future of the National Council
Epilogue: “The Government of the Creeks is not an ephemeral one:” The Creek Nation in the Removal Era
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