University of Virginia Library

9. Some Early History Of The Creek Nation

That portion of the Creek nation lying south and west of the Arkansas River, before the advent of the Creeks, was the common battleground between the Osages on one side and the allied tribes of the Pawnee Picts, Kiowas, Commanches and Caddos on the other side. All this country was once Pawnee Pict territory, who are now known as the affiliated tribes of the Wichita agency. In junction with their allies, the Commanches and the Kiowas, the Osages were driven from the east by the Chickasaws. The Osages in turn defeated and drove out the Pawnee Picts with great slaughter.

The Pawnee Picts, having formed a strong alliance with the other tribes mentioned, were beginning to cut the Osages short and had driven them from beyond the Arkansas River to the Verdigris swamps and Grand river hills and into the Ozark ranges. The Concharty Mountain was the last fortress the Osages were compelled to relinquish, to the Pawnee allies south of the Arkansas River.[1] The Cherokee and Osage war followed, being new foes from the east against the Osages.

The first settlers of the Creeks came west and began to build homes, churches and school houses on the lands of the Pawnee allies claimed to have recovered as their old ancient homes. Contentions followed. The first Creek killed by these wild allies was named Joe, a member of the Hitchetee town. He was killed within a mile of the present town site of Muskogee .

This war party was driven west by a war party of Creeks. It was then that Jerry Cates--an inter-married white man--made a remarkable shot at a Pawnee disguised as a wolf, who was lying in a point of rocks viewing a passing column of Creek warriors. Jerry's horse began bucking and Jerry fired his rifle from the horn of his saddle, without aim, killing the wolf Pawnee at seventy-six yards distance.

When the Creeks first met these prairie warriors, who circled in open field battalion tactics, covered with snow-white shields, bedecked with war trophies and eagle feathers, they mistrusted the ability of their rifle balls penetrating the shields of these noble wild warriors. On trial, however, they found that these beautiful shields were no defense against a swift half-ounce rifle ball, which gave them great courage.

The Creek frontiersman pushed forward far west of other civilized outposts. Such men as Can-cha-tee-matha, Au-kan-teen-ne-ya, Cho-la-fek-sel-ko, Long Tiger, and Tiger Bone; also the elder brothers and uncles of ex-Chief Roley McIntosh and others should be recognized as the pioneers and knights who led the present civilization into this country. Creek blood splashed the wild prairie flowers by Pawnee arrows and lance far and near. In sight of Judge N.B. Moore's residence one fell. Just over the succeeding ridge to the west, near the base of the Concharty Mountain, Loney Bruner defeated a superior force of the enemy. The rifle being too slow, the Creeks charged the Pawnee Picts, sword in hand, against the lances of the wild men. In battle royal, worthy of the fame of the eastern fields, the enemy was driven away. Loney Bruner is the father of Hon. Richard Bruner, now of Coweta.[2] A few miles further on, near Bluford Miller's residence, an entire Creek family was slaughtered. The innocent boys and girls, with the infant child, and both parents, whom the writer well knew long years ago, and still remembers the life flushed cheeks of each as well as if they were now present and speaking, were ruthlessly butchered in their home yard. Just beyond, further west, a band of Euchees [Yuchis], of the Creek Nation, fought a large band of Pawnee Picts in open field fight on Duck Creek Prairie,[3] defeating the Pawnees and capturing the war standard of the war chief of the Pawnee Picts.

On Tiger Creek, now in Oklahoma,[4] during the fall of 1859, Long Tiger, Tiger Bone and a crippled brother of theirs--three alone, fought a war party of Comanches, who were in alliance with a war party of the Pawnee Picts. These three Tiger brothers whipped the Commanches and Pawnee Picts, killing seven of them. Tiger Bone's horse was shot from under him. Other similar contests extended along the entire western frontiers of the Creek Nation, which was advanced out into Old Oklahoma of today, and beyond the parallel of the Cherokee frontier, and in line with the Seminole and Chickasaw western frontiers. These troubles lasted forty years, with Fort Gibson garrisoned with walking pop guns, followed by Fort Arbuckle, with like conditions.

The last blood shed was by a Creek lighthorse company under Capt. Lesley Haynes, an uncle of Hon. S.J. Haynes, now of Okmulgee, and a party of Caddoes, in 1866. Then the noble red chief of the Caddoes--George Washington--and that illustrious Christian nobleman, Samuel Checotah, then chief of the Creeks, made a permanent peace between the Creeks and the allied tribes that had so long and manfully contended for this land that the United States government had sold to the Creeks. As we mourn the red splashes of blood where the wild lily gave bloom, the hummingbird and wild bees abhorred, the Muskogees will not say one word of discredit of their old foes. They are too brave and noble--after these old chiefs had clasped their hands in friendship--to do so. It was on a principle of justice that is human the Christian world over, that impelled these wild men of the prairies to hostile acts. They were brave enough to demand, in their manner, what the highest courts of America have termed "a legal right."

Wagoner Record, January 24, 1901.