Christopher D. Haveman. Rivers of Sand

In Rivers of Sand, Christopher D. Haveman offers a methodically detailed history of Creek Indian removal from the U.S. Southeast during the 1820s and 1830s. Describing Creek removal as an example of American ethnic cleansing, Haveman examines the complicated mixture of coercion, fraud, and political negotiation that led to the relocation of more than twenty thousand Creek (Muscogee Nation) people to new lands west of the Mississippi River. He also provides meticulous descriptions of the migration experience, tracing the routes followed by Creek removal detachments and detailing the suffering of those compelled to make the journey. As Haveman promises, the book is one of the most comprehensive case studies available on the forced relocation of a native people during the antebellum era. As they did with other Indian nations, U.S. federal officials tried to use the treaty system to effect Creek removal, pressuring tribal leaders to negotiate removal agreements and cultivating particular headmen who seemed sympathetic to the idea of relocation. In 1825, a small number of Creek leaders, some of whom received American bribes, signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, which ceded all Creek territory in Georgia and a large portion of the Creek Nation in Alabama. The Creek council condemned the treaty as fraudulent and sent delegates to Washington, D.C., to lobby against it. Responding to tribal protests, the United States nullified the treaty, but the state of Georgia insisted on retaining the ceded lands within its borders. Creek leaders chose to negotiate a new agreement, in which they accepted the loss of the Georgia lands but retained their territory in Alabama. Haveman skillfully guides readers through this complex diplomatic episode while describing the bitter conflict that the loss of the Georgia lands sparked within Creek communities. Some Creeks relocated west within a few years of the Treaty of Indian Springs, but many others remained, encouraged by tribal leaders who hoped to preserve their people’s remaining territory. Opponents of removal worked to convince potential migrants that they would encounter poor lands and an unhealthy climate in the West, and they threatened would-be emigrants with violence and the destruction of their property. Pro-removal leaders, meanwhile, argued that relocation was now inevitable and that Creeks who stayed in the Southeast would suffer needlessly. As pro-removal Creeks recognized, the loss of so much territory undermined the tribal economy, while Creek communities faced continual harassment from the state of Alabama and from an army of white trespassers who squatted on tribal land. Haveman’s account of this internal conflict provides an especially keen sense of the dilemma the Creeks faced during this period, caught as they were between two terrible options.

Archaeology · Ethnic group · Ethnology · Geography · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Relocation · State (computer science) · Treaty · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies