“White & Clean” & Contested: Creek Towns and Trading Paths in the Aftermath of the Seven Years' War

Abstract

In the last generation, scholars intent on removing ''tribe'' from their narratives of colonial-era Native American history have repeatedly invoked ''community'' in its place. This development notwithstanding, community-centered projects are rare; Indian towns now appear in the literature, but not as the driving force behind the action being chronicled. This article focuses on the debate among Upper Creek towns as they struggled to define the nature of their relationship to the British between  and the early s. In so doing, it traces the limits of regional and national alliances in the colonial era while arguing for the centrality of the local in Native life. In the eighteenth century, Creek history was community history.

Cultural Continuity and Variable Adaptation of the Historic Period Muscogee of the Southeastern United States

“…Below, I will show that throughout the proto-historic and historic periods, settlement and use of space maintained continuity, architecture changed but was geographically variable, diet remained relatively constant, pottery remained relatively constant, and that there is significant reason to believe that there was continuity in the social and political organization. Similar findings have been argued by other researchers in the last few decades (Braund, 1993;Ethridge, 2003;Foster, 2004Foster, , 2007Fretwell, 1980;Hahn, 2004;King, 2002King, , 2006Knight, 1990Knight, , 1994aPiker, 2003Piker, , 2004Saunt, 1999;Waselkov, 1978Waselkov, , 1989Waselkov, , 1997Waselkov, , 1998Waselkov and Wood, 1986;Wesson, 1999Wesson, , 2002Wesson, , 2008. This non-comprehensive list of researchers indicates that the recent trend is toward a better understanding of how the native people changed and how they resisted change.…”

“…How Native American's dealt with dramatic changes during the historic period may be informative as to how they dealt with dramatic changes during the prehistoric period. According to Patricia Rubertone (2000:435-437), treating historic Native Americans as only the recipient of European culture and being traumatically affected by that culture is uncritical and inconsistent with the data, and many archaeologists and historians have begun to document similar phenomena in other datasets (Ethridge, 2003;Foster, 2007;Hahn, 2004;Hurt, 2003;King, 2002;Knight, 1994a;Pavao-Zuckerman, 2007;Piker, 2003Piker, , 2004Saunt, 1999;Waselkov and Wood, 1986;Wesson, 1997).…”

The ‘secret and bloody war path’: movement, place and conflict in the archaeological landscape of North America

“…More recent historical commentary has emphasized trails as elements of evolving systems of communication in the colonial era (e.g. Piker 2003;Turner 2006), but warfare has received limited treatment within this framework.…”