We are at fort mims park. It is a little park in alabama and this is the location of a major battle between americans and indians in 1813. The fort was full of all kinds of folks taking shelter from an impending attack here at including indians that were allied with the americans, local settlers, militias from the mississippi territory and a lot of slaves. About 500 people inside of this fort. And on august 30, a faction of the was upset and attacked the ford there was a long battle in the end almost 300 people inside the fort were killed. I first learned about it when i read about the massacre but there is more to the story. Like most American Indians had to find the way to deal with the expanding american in settlements. In this area, the creeks were successful as the cherokee to assimilate to American Life style. Quite a few wealthy indians owned slaves with a big plantation and raise domestic livestock and largely gave their way of life to the american norms of agriculture. The large part of the nation did not see the advantage they wanted to maintain their traditional life. There was a rift in 1813, a civil war broke out and what happened here is a continuation of the civil war, but it brought the americans into the of war against the antiamerican faction. There was a religious component of the shawnee prophet and tecumseh were proselytizing for a religious way of life and he came here and converted a lot of creeks to their religion. So there was a political angle as well. Most of those leaders were in the pay of the American Government. So they were profiting, while others were suffering. By the early 1800s, there is a lot of reasons why individuals chose one side or the other. In this area, most of the local creeks were proamerican and decided to stay on that side of the civil war. William rutherford was from this area. He was the leader of the red sticks attack. The folks inside fort mims had been boarded up for about a month. There was a skirmish in july around fort mims. Apparently the red stick attack was in response to that skirmish. They had been in their own territory and they were attacked by americans. They felt they were wronged by that and decided to take revenge in this area. So in the morning, the folks inside the fort had to go out and find food. There were 500 people inside the fort, so very cramped conditions and they had to forage every day for food. People dispersed and began to harvest crops from nearby fields. That went on throughout the morning. There were some sightings in the area by african slaves and they reported this, but were not believed for some reason. One was being whipped for having spread false rumors. The attack was a surprise. The garrison was not a form terry formal military unit. And so very badly lead. The fort was badly dealt. The gun loopholes, which should have been five feet above the ground, were at threefoot levels. They were level with the attacking force, who took possession of the loopholes. The battle went on for a long time. There were maybe 700 red sticks in the attacking force and several hundred fighting inside among the many civilians inside the fort. Sometime around the afternoon, the battle had stalemated. The red sticks withdrew. They set fire to a good portion of the southern part of the fort. The fire spread and at that point, defense was impossible. The few remaining defenders tried to escape. About 25 made it out of the fort. The battle need all of the papers in the country. It was considered a huge disaster of American Military might and it took a while for the local armies to reconstitute themselves. The volunteers were devastated by this. Eventually they organized an army to invade the creek nation. The georgians organized a couple of different attacks from the east and then the tennessee troops, under several generals, Andrew Jackson most famously, invaded from the north. This was one of the major outcomes of the battle, this introduction of Andrew Jackson. His success throughout the creek war, they made him famous throughout the country and convinced of the leadership in washington he could actually fight and win. So he was given command of the army in new orleans and defeated the british there in 1815. Andrew jackson is a controversial figure for many reasons. He did all sorts of new sorts of policies in all aspects of government. One outcome of his experiences during the creek war was his determination to see indian removal finally occur in the eastern united states. A lot of people like George Washington had tried to formulate a policy of assimilation where indians could become americans, in their sense of the word, and stay where they were located. The American Indians had populations in the tens of thousands. The American Government was under pressure by settlers to take the land one way or another. So jackson was excited when he heard the news of fort mims and saw this as an opportunity to take land from the creeks and negotiated the treaty of fort jackson. That took 21,000,000 acres from the creek nation. 20 years later when he became president , he was able to push through the removal act of 1830 that led to forced removal of indians from the east and the north, the ohio country. The attack itself launched the invasion of the creek nation and the confiscation of all this land, which after the war was opened up for settlement. Alabama and southern georgia would not have been settled if not for this war. There was a thing called alabama fever, this land rush in the years following the war. That was the most immediate impact. And of course the removal act, this is sense of betrayal the americans felt at this sneak attack. The way they viewed it, there was a massacre. They felt betrayed because in previous years, people had tried their best to assimilate creeks and this was a clear response they did not want to become americans. That gave a lot of force for the removal proponents to move indians out of this area. The conquering spirit was used by the federal agent to the southern indians. When he first got wind of the red sticks movement, which was largely religious and also militaristic, he said the red sticks were possessed of a conquering spirit by the master by the master of breath. I thought that was appropriate from that perspective. ,hen the americans attacked their response was to respond in kind. I was part of a team of archaeologists who was contracted by the Alabama Historical commission to look at the archaeology that had gone on here for the last 50 years. We had thousands of artifacts and no reports to speak of. Inspent about a year 20032004 analyzing the collection and i began to read up on the history. There were a lot of old historical ideas that needed to examined. D current i archaeology really led me to the history. Life have lots of different perspectives. The correct perspective has been underrepresented in history and general. Rspective in incarnate, asble a corporate trade by the american press. Incarnate, as they were portrayed by the american press. I view it as similar to many other stories. Fiction writers will take some , some kind of contained entity and interact and show their true selves. I thought that what was really happening at fort mims. All the different kinds of human stories that go on within that for were most fascinating to me and really trying to delve into the genealogy of these individuals shows that they were quite closely related. The people were fighting on opposite sides. They knew each other. It was a very personal war played out here on a small scale. Like the American Civil War crunched down into a little tiny event in many ways. You see all these kinds of stories as you would see in a bigger picture. Todays look at the people, places, and events a native American History as part of cspans city tour. More from the cities to her at her website, cspan. Org. Cities tour at our website, cspan. Org. Cspans American History to her takes you to pictograph cave, state park. They were left to hide bite native americans who lived in the area 9000 years ago. This is located five miles