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Friday, March 21, 2014

Indian Battles and The War of 1812

I've been reading about a young Baptist who wants to be a preacher. He moves to Mississippi from Kentucky later in the book, a biographical novel, and the author mentions a battle at Fort Mims in Alabama where the Creek Indians killed over 500 people in the Fort. This took place during the War of 1812 so it isn't exactly a traditional western story. Anyway, my brain inquisitive as it is, immediately thought of the massacre in 1637 in Mystic, Connecticut, of the Pequots, and I said to myself, "Aha!, the Indians are getting even with the whites. That wasn't exactly the case as the Creeks (the faction called Red Sticks) were attacked by U.S. Forces as they were returning from Florida where they had acquired arms. The Red Sticks escaped, but the soldiers plundered the leftovers. This upset the Red Sticks and they went after those dumb Americanos and plundered, looted, and defeated them. This became known as the Battle of Burnt Corn. I don't know why, maybe the popcorn got too hot or something. This meant that the Creeks, who were in their own Civil War because the other Creeks had a disliking for the Red Sticks, had now made the war bigger by their action against the evil land-grabbing Americans. And the War widened to even include the one and only Andrew Jackson. After Fort Mims, the Americans failed to make a difference between the good Creeks and the Bad Creeks. And those dirty low-down Red Sticks began attacking the forts around there, which included Fort Sinquefield of all things.

Jackson's mission was to defeat the Creeks, but, alas, he finally reached Fort Strother of all things and had to dismiss his troops since they had only ten days remaining on their terms of service. He was down to 103 men and General Coffee, of all things, whose men had abandoned him (that will teach him). Well, shucks, Jackson's forces engaged in two battles at Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek which were indecisive, he couldn't decide if he won or lost and returned to Fort Strother of all things.

North of Fort Stoddert, that Claiborne gent established Fort Claiborne. Imagine that. And he ran into a small force at the Holy Ground and burned 260 houses to the ground, so there. Because of supply problems Claiborne high-tailed it for Fort St. Stephens. Another day, another fort.

That Andrew Jackson feller didn't give up, though. The Treaty of Fort Jackson of all things, and the Creek Nation had to sign it, gave up 21,086,793 acres of ground, half of Alabama and part of southern Georgia and three cooking pots, four fence posts, and a partridge in a pear tree to the U.S. Government!! And on top of that Jackson forced the Creek to give up 1.9 million acres that was claimed by the Cherokee Nation, who had fought alongside the forces of Jackson and other Generals.
That Jackson was something else.

And Andrew Jackson became the seventh President of the U.S. in 1829. And that ain't the end of the story, but it is the end of this post and if I ever bring it up again, you have my permission to turn off my computer.

My thanks to Wikipedia for all the facts and information in the above, even for the Pequots, which name was banned after the massacre. So, why am I using it?

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