Creek Villages of the Federal Period

by Denise Farnsworth

A number of my novels include the history of Georgia and surrounding states when large portions of the Southeast belonged to Creek and Cherokee Indian Territory. I'm often surprised at how many people are unaware that the Cherokees fought with the British during the American Revolution but allied to Andrew Jackson's Americans during the War of 1812, facing off against their longtime enemies, the Creeks, who were allied to the British. Most of the fighting of this portion of the war, known as the Creek War or Red Stick War, took place between the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers in modern-day Alabama. My novella that just released in Freed by the Frontier starts on the Georgia border in 1814 and unfolds in Creek Territory, depicting what life was life in a Creek village. Today’s article will relate something of the structure of a Creek Indian town during the Colonial to Federal period.

Naturalist William Bartram was an observer at the land cessation meeting that occurred in 1773 in Augusta, Georgia, between the white colonists and the Creek and Cherokee Indians. The journal of his travels from the coast to middle Georgia provide significant early information about the Creek Indians. He described 60 towns, 30 of which spoke the Muscogulge tongue. The five clans were Panther, Bear, Wind, Bird and Snake.

Creek reenactor at Horseshoe Bend

In each town, white clay, paste, or chalk was used to draw plants, flowers, and trees on the red clay houses, especially those creating the public square. On white walls, colored chalk was used. Each family would have a round winter and a rectangular summer house. In 1790, Caleb Swan described these as being between 12 and 20 feet long and 10 to 15 feet wide, constructed with poles stuck in the ground, walls lathed with canes and packed with clay, and roofs pitched from a ridge pole and covered with bark and four to five layers of shingles. The huts had one door and a chimney and would last only a couple of years. Families often lived in clusters of homes. Major villages were surrounded by walls.

The town council was held every forenoon in the public square, presided over by the mico, with the war chief on his left and the second headman on the right. The mico or king received great respect at the Great Rotunda or winter council house, but outside important meetings, he dressed and was treated the same as the others, hunting and working the fields with his family. He was, however, entitled to the first fruits of harvest and use of the national granary. Should a king or mico also be war chief or high priest (in charge of guarding the eternal fire in the Great Rotunda) he would indeed have great power.

Between the public square and rotunda of each town was the chunky-yard, chunky being a game which involved rolling a small disk and shooting arrows or spears at the disk. The yard itself was a large, sunken ground with what was known as the chunky-pole, four square pine pillars rising to an obtuse point. At the top, the Indians could fasten an object to shoot at with bows and arrows and rifles. Near each corner of the lower and farther end of yard was a lesser, 12-foot-high pole, but a more fearful sight than the chunky pole, as it was decorated with the scalps of enemies and crowned by a grinning enemy skull. Here in the days before Bartram’s arrival, captives could have been forced to run the gauntlet or burned to death. Thankfully, that practice had been abandoned by then, and Bartram was full of praise for the hospitality of his hosts.

Each family had a lot bordered by poles and including a garden spot where corn, rice, squash, etc. were raised. A portion of everything went to the aforementioned public granary, which was for the use of guests of the tribe or families that fell on hard times. Bartram observed that the Creek were very given to sharing and loaning. A man could clear and settle as much land as desired within his tribe. Occasionally, a Creek Indian would own an independent plantation and would live in their private villa, wealthy from trade with whites.

Freed by the Frontier: Three unforgettable romances prove that God's greatest blessings often come disguised as our greatest challenges, and that true love can bridge any divide.
https://www.amazon.com/Freed-Frontier-Lone-Star-Redemption-ebook/dp/B0GX2WN3ZB/

Denise Farnsworth, formerly Denise Weimer, writes historical and contemporary romance mostly set in Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.

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Creek and Cherokee Territory

Answers to Prayers that Inspired a Nation

 

For the month of January, our church is having 21 days of fasting and prayer. I became curious about some of the historical calls to prayer and fasting. In my research, I found many since the first settlers came to this continent. But we are not always told what the answers were in history books. Let me share a few significant answers to those calls to prayer and fasting.

Powerful answer to prayer in 1746

During the French and Indian War, prayer stopped the advance of the enemy. France desperately wanted Novia Scotia and other parts of Canada back from Britain. They also wanted to damage the colonies on the east coast of America.

French Admiral Jean-Pierre Louis Frederic de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d'Anville took  command of a fleet of 70 ships and 13,000 troops to fulfilled that desire. He arrogantly proclaimed he would take back Louisburg, Nova Scotia, and wreak havoc along America's east coast all the way to Georgia. Burning Boston was on his agenda.

A Day of Prayer and Fasting was called by Massachusetts Governor William Shirley on October 16, 1746, after hearing the plan for the French invasion. 

Here's a snippet about the prayer meeting.

 Reverend Thomas Prince, standing in the Old South Meeting House, prayed: "Send Thy tempest, Lord, upon the water… scatter the ships of our tormentors!"

According to Historian Catherine Drinker Bowen, as he finished his prayer the sky darkened, wind shrieked and church bells rang "a wild uneven sound… though no man was in the steeple."

Wrought with calamity

Admiral D'Anville's mission was slow to start. For reasons not explained, the fitting of the ship was slow and difficult. It didn't sail until June 22, 1746. Their journey took three months rather than the average six to eight weeks.

At the beginning of the journey, adverse winds slowed the fleet

Typhus and scurvy broke out onboard.

In the Azores, the fleet was trapped in a long dead calm. When the wind finally picked up, it became a vicious storm. Lightning struck several vessels. One ship's magazine, struck by lightning, ignited into a fire, caught the ammunition on fire and exploded, killing or wounding thirty men.

By August 24^th they had been at sea for two months but were still 1,400 km (870 miles) away from Nova Scotia.

September 10^th. The flag ship and a few others had arrived at Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia. A violent gale scattered the fleet three days later. The damaged ships were forced to return to France.

By the time the expedition arrived in Nova Scotia in late September, hundreds of soldiers and sailors had died from typhus, scurvy and typhoid, and hundreds more were gravely ill.

Six days later, September 27^th, Admiral d'Anville died from a stroke.

His replacement Admiral Constantin-Louis d'Estourmel became overwhelmed and attempted suicide before resigning.

And the commander who took over, the Marquis de la Jonquiere, had planned to go ahead with the attack even with sick soldiers. Even after reinforcements arrived, Jonquiere changed his mind. He ordered his fleet back to France and told the Indian and French reinforcements to go home.

A poem immortalized the event.

The prayer was so powerful and the event so startling that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his Ballad of the French Fleet retelling the tale.  Click here to read.

In 1774

On May 24, 1774, in response to the British Blockade of the Boston Harbor, Thomas Jeffereson drafted a resolution in the Virgina House of Burgesses declaring a day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer "to implore the Divine interposition, for averting the heavy calamity which threatened destruction of our civil rights."

Virginia's Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, considered the prayer resolution as a protest against King George. He dissolved the House of Burgesses. The legislatures moved their meeting to the loyal tavern and began planning the Continental Congress.

How exciting to know the response to a prayer pushed the founding fathers to press on.

Another powerful answer to prayer

1814

James Madison declared a Day of Prayer during the War of 1812. (1812-1815)

America was struggling to win the war. Britain was in a vengeful mood over the burning and looting of York in northern Canada. Madison requested the Day of prayer and fasting knowing the British were headed their way. Madison and the legislature had already fled Washington City (present day D.C.) They'd remove important documents.

On August 25, 1814, British soldier set fire to the White House, the Capital and a few other government buildings. We learned in school that the British only occupied D.C. for 26 hours. But it is rarely mentioned in history textbooks the why behind it. Dark clouds rolled in and a tornado touched down, sending debris flying. The British were bombarded with sections of roofs and chimneys. Horses and their riders pelted to the ground. Two cannons flew up in the air and landed yards away. It is said more British soldiers were killed by nature than from all the weapons of the Americans. Rain followed the tornado, extinguishing the fires. Americans saw it as Providence intervening. 

 

National Days of Prayer

Over the centuries, presidents have called for national days of prayer. I wonder what miracles were performed by God because of those prayers. In this new year, perhaps our prayers will turn the tide of unrest in a way that can only be attributed to God.

Cindy Ervin Huff, is a multi-published award-winning author in Historical and Contemporary Romance.  She’s a 2018 Selah Finalist. Cindy has a passion to encourage other writers on their journey. When she isn’t writing, she feeds her addiction to reading and enjoys her retirement with her husband of 50 plus years, Charles. Visit her at www.cindyervinhuff.com.

 

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Robert Fulton more than a Steamboat inventor

 

 

1906 Replica of the North Shore Steamboat 

 

I recall doing a project in elementary school. We were tasked with creating Fulton’s Folly, the first successful commercial steamboat. Back in the day, sugar cubes were a go-to crafting tool. My mother assisted me in creating the boat, adding some popsicle sticks for the paddles and a toilet paper tube for the smokestack. Doing that project secured the historical trivia in my mind over fifty years later. But there is so much we never learned from our history books about Robert Fulton.

 Robert Fulton

Born November 14, 1765, in Pennsylvania and the oldest of five children, Fulton apprenticed to a jeweler at 15. But his love of art took him on an alternative career path. For six years he lived in Philadelphia, where he earned a living painting a variety of things from portraits to machinery sketches. He always sent money home to his mother, so we have to assume his father passed and left him the provider for the family. In 1785 he purchased a farm near Pittsburgh for his mother and siblings.

In 1786, Fulton was diagnosed with consumption (tuberculous) and prescribed an ocean cruise for his health. He sailed to Europe, living there for 20 years. For a few years, he stayed in France with a family friend, artist Benjamin West and studied painting.

The sale of his art pieces provided his living expenses while he continued to experiment with mechanical inventions. Steam power and canals held his interest.

In 1793, he patented a design for canals using incline planes rather than locks. He also invented a dredging machine to clear waterways.  He traveled to England to study their canals and found investors to create a prototype steamboat to navigate the canals. However, in time, they became dissatisfied with the design and withdrew from the project.

1794 finds Fulton in Paris again, where he is well-known as an inventor. Ever the seeker of knowledge, he immerses himself in the French and German languages along with chemistry and mathematics. During that time, he invented the first muscle-powered submarine, Nautilus. Napolean refused to fund it. But the Ministry of Marine did and in 1800, built it. The submarine was launched in the Seine River where it submerged, but only for a short time, and the invention was abandoned.

It should be noted here that Robert Fulton built things for Napolean and when he moved to Britain, he continued working on torpedoes and submarines. He seemed to be more focused on his inventions, rather than any political loyalties.

While in France, he met U.S. Ambassador Robert Livingston, a prominent figure in America’s wealthy class. He, too, had a scientific mind, and they collaborated in creating the North River Steamboat, historically referred to as the Clermont. Or by a few in the media Fulton’s Folly. Livingston saw not only the scientific value of the steam engine but also the monetary gain of a steamboat. 

His family home was on the Hudson River, in New York, and among his investments was a shipping line.

Both men returned to America, and while Fulton oversaw the installation of the engine on the boat he’d designed, Livingston got exclusive rights to run his steamboat on the Hudson River between New York City and Albany.

In 1807, the North River Steamboat (often referred to as The Claremont) made its maiden voyage with 60 passengers who paid 5 cents a mile. It cruised at 5 miles per hour and took 32 hours to reach Albany. That seems like a snail’s pace to us, but sailboats took a week to cover the same distance. The steamboat had three cabins with 54 berths, a kitchen, larder, pantry, bar and steward’s room.

On this first cruise, there was an overnight stay at Livingston’s Claremont Manor at the halfway point on the first day. I assume Mr. Livingston wanted to make the trip special for their first guests. Once they re-boarded on the second day, some 20 hours later, they began timing the trip again, and the total time on the river was 32 hours. On the return trip from Albany, they stayed only one hour at Livingston’s estate and managed to make it back to New York in 30 hours. Robert Fulton was among the passengers. Livingston and Fulton built three more steamboats and, like trains and buses today, the boats stopped at various ports between New York and Albany. In his  lifetime Fulton built 17.

The successful voyage of the first steamboat opened other doors for the inventor. Fulton was appointed by the Governor of New York, to serve on the Erie Canal Commission, reigniting his interest in canal building.

Fulton remained busy working with Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt from October 1811 to January 1812 on a joint project to build a new steamboat, New Orleans, stable enough to take on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the mouth of the Gulf in New Orleans, Louisiana. This steamship could travel against the strong currents as it headed upstream, transforming river transportation and trade for America.

One of his final designs was a floating battery, Demogolos. The first steam-driven warship in the world. It was built for the United States Navy for the War of 1812. The vessel was not completed until after his death.

Family life

Robert Fulton married later in life. At 43, he married Harriet Livingston, 25, on January 8, 1808, the niece of his business partner Robert Livingston. Harriet was well-educated, and an accomplished amateur painter and musician. They had four children.

Harriet Fulton

 

 

Fulton passed in 1815 in New York from consumption. While walking home on the frozen Hudson River, he rescued his friend, who’d fallen through the ice. Walking across a frozen river during the coldest part of winter was fairly common during this era. It is believed as he walked home soaked to the skin, he contracted pneumonia. Once home, it worsened to consumption. He was 49. He left his wife with four children under the age of seven. She remarried a year later.

The thing I found most fascinating about Robert Fulton was his insatiable desire to learn and understand, which led to creating a steam engine that changed how commerce and naval warfare were conducted. Eventually, others invented steam engines strong enough to sail across the oceans, cutting trips and transport of goods around the world from months to weeks. Many ships have been named after him. Various statues are on display in Europe and the US. And in 1965 Robert Fulton appeared on a postage stamp commemorating his achievement.

Cindy Ervin Huff, is a multi-published award-winning author in Historical and Contemporary Romance.  She’s a 2018 Selah Finalist. Cindy has a passion to encourage other writers on their journey. When she isn’t writing, she feeds her addiction to reading and enjoys her retirement with her husband of 50 plus years, Charles. Visit her at www.cindyervinhuff.com.

 

 Cherishing Her Heart