From: will.dockery@gmail.com   
      
   Muscogee Creek Indian History found and posted by Melissa Hargett, reposted   
   here for information, archival, historical purposes.   
      
   Part Two   
      
   Unrest had been smoldering for some months. Earlier in the year, the Creek   
   chiefs gathered at the central Georgia community of Indian Springs to meet   
   with Georgia government representatives. They negotiated at a tavern owned by   
   William McIntosh, one of    
   the five great chiefs of the Creek nation. McIntosh, whose father was a Scot   
   and mother a Creek, was chief of the village of Kawita on the Alabama side of   
   the river, not far from Fort Benning's boundaries.    
      
   McIntosh was a distinguished warrior, but his choice of foes did not endear   
   him to some Native Americans. He had fought beside Andrew Jackson in the 1814   
   Battle of Horseshoe Bend against the Upper Creeks, so there was probably   
   already mistrust between    
   him and some of the Creeks. McIntosh had also fought with American forces   
   against the Seminoles in Florida    
   More damaging to his reputation was the rumor that he was susceptible to    
   being bribed by white officials. He was also suspect because he maintained   
   cozy relations with the Georgia governor, George McIntosh Troup, his first   
   cousin.    
      
   McIntosh signed his own death warrant when he put his name on the Second   
   Treaty of Indian Springs on May 1, 1825, surrendering all remaining claims the   
   Creeks had to Georgia land. The treaty relinquished Native American rights to   
   land from the Flint    
   River to the Chattahoochee River, including the area now occupied by Fort   
   Benning and the city of Columbus. Reportedly, McIntosh accepted thousands of   
   dollars in return for his signature. Outraged Upper Creek leaders angrily   
   withdrew from the    
   negotiations, branding McIntosh a traitor and the treaty a fraud.    
   The Creek council had earlier decreed that anyone who sold Creek lands without   
   unanimous consent from the council would be sentenced to death. McIntosh knew   
   he was in danger and sought protection from Georgia officials. No one,   
   however, could save him    
   from the fury of his kinsmen.    
   Soon after the signing of the detested treaty, Upper Creek warriors invaded   
   McIntosh's plantation, near present day Carrollton, Georgia. They set his   
   house on fire, and when McIntosh ran from the blaze, shot and stabbed him to   
   death.    
   Violence spread as more settlers began moving onto land many Creeks still   
   considered theirs. The Indians responded with raids on white settlements. The   
   United States government ordered the 4th Infantry Regiment to Fort Mitchell to   
   quell the unrest. The    
   earlier fort had fallen into disrepair, and a new one was built.    
   The second Fort Mitchell was protected by wooden picket fences about 12 feet   
   tall built in a square. Soldiers built blockhouses on two corners of the   
   square where hiding sharpshooters could train their rifles on all approaches   
   to the fort.    
      
   The controversy concerning the Indian Springs treaty escalated when Colonel   
   John Crowell, an Indian agent, publicly criticized the document as invalid.   
   Georgia's Governor Troup denounced Crowell, accusing him of inciting the Upper   
   Creeks to kill McIntosh.   
    He demanded that Crowell be suspended from office while there was an   
   investigation of him. The governor also insisted that a survey of the Indian   
   lands begin at once so that a lottery could be held to distribute free land to   
   white settlers.    
   However, the Indians had an unexpected ally. The president of the United   
   States, John Quincy Adams, also decided the treaty was flawed. He ordered a   
   ban on surveying Indian lands until a new treaty could be negotiated. The   
   president's action outraged    
   Georgia's Governor Troup. He considered the president to be meddling illegally   
   in the state of Georgia's affairs. Troup vehemently disagreed that there was   
   anything wrong with the original treaty, saying that the Georgia legislature   
   had already upheld    
   the treaty's validity.    
   The president ignored Troup's protests and summoned Creek representatives to   
   Washington, where a new treaty was hammered out more favorable to the Indians.   
   Ratified by the U.S. Senate on April 22, 1826, this new treaty was scorned by   
   Troup.    
      
   Backed by the Georgia legislation, the governor proceeded to launch the survey   
   of disputed Indian lands anyway. His authority challenged, Adams dispatched a   
   lieutenant with the U.S. Army, J. R. Minton, to hand deliver a dispatch to the   
   Georgia governor,    
   ordering him to halt the survey. The president also ordered the U.S. Attorney   
   for Georgia to arrest anyone attempting illegal surveying on Indian land.    
      
   Adams wrote the Georgia governor, threatening to send in federal troops: "The   
   pretensions under which these surveys are attempted are in direct violation of   
   a treaty, and if persevered in, must lead to a disturbance of the public   
   tranquility...the    
   President will feel himself compelled to employ, if necessary, all the means   
   under his control to maintain the faith of the nation by carrying the treaty   
   into effect."    
   Troup's reply was equally blunt. If he wrote, the president ordered troops to   
   Georgia to enforce the treaty, "From the first decisive act of hostility, you   
   will be considered and treated as a public enemy... You, to whom we might   
   constitutionally have    
   appealed for our defense against invasion, are yourselves the invaders, and,   
   what is more, the unblushing allies of the savage whose cause you have   
   adopted."    
      
   The governor ordered two divisions of militia on alert to defend the state   
   against a possible invasion by United States forces. Troup declared: "The   
   argument is exhausted; let us stand by our arms."    
      
   With both sides threatening military action, powerful members of the U.S.   
   Congress stepped into the breech. They persuaded the president that the   
   dispute wasn't worth risking civil war. Armed conflict to protect Indian   
   rights, they argued, wouldn't be    
   politically palatable for many voters.    
   Adams backed down, ending a serious challenge to federal power. The president   
   ordered the Indian agent, John Crowell, to negotiate yet another treaty.   
   Signed November 27, 1827 at Fort Mitchell, the treaty committed the Creeks to   
   relinquish all claims to    
   Georgia. Settlement of the village that grew into the city of Columbus and the   
   Fort Benning area could now legally proceed.    
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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