CREEK. This, the most important native people of Muskogi (q.v.) lineage, was resident in Georgia and Alabama. Comprising a series of local tribal leagues in the days of de Soto and other Spanish 16th century explorers, they had formed themselves by the t 8th century into a confederacy of about 5o towns with a population approaching 20,000, divided into the Upper Creeks or Kusa and Lower or Kawita. This confederacy remained con sistently hostile to the Spaniards and friendly with the English settlers. They fought against the Americans in the war of 1812 15, and were defeated by Andrew Jackson. Twenty-five years later they removed to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, where they formed a semi-autonomous "nation," one of the "five civil ized tribes." While still an independent confederacy, the Creek absorbed weakened or wasted Muskogian tribes, like the Hitchiti and the Alibamu-Koasati, as well as alien groups such as Yuchi and Natchez. They also held negro slaves, and as a people now contain considerable African and Caucasian blood, by adoption as well as by intermarriage. In 1904, 15,40o persons were officially recognized as Creeks. The Seminole (q.v.) are an off-shoot from the Creeks in the historic period.
See Swanton, Bur. Am. Ethn. Bull. 73, 1922. (A. L. K.)