My People: The Creek, Cree, Blackfoot, Mohawk & Cherokee Nations

In addition to African and Cuban Ancestry, I have five known tribes running in my veins. Blackfoot Cherokee Mohawk Creek Cree.

Blackfoot:
The Blackfoot Confederacy consists of four different tribes, the Pikuni/Peigan, North Peigan Pikuni, Blood/Kainai, and Blackfoot/Siksika. Members of the Blackfoot Confederation presently live in Montana, the United States and Alberta, Canada.
The Blackfoot migrated to their present territory from the northern Great Lakes Region. They were nomadic buffalo hunters. The Blackfoot were first introduced to horses in 1730 when the Shoshoni attacked them on horseback. After this, they obtained their own horses through trade with the Flathead, Kutenai and Nez Perce. They also traded buffalo hides, horses, and guns with settlers as far away as the east coast. However, by the winter of 1884, the buffalo were nearly extinct and many Blackfoot starved. They were forced to depend upon the Indian Agency for food. Cohesive structure was the very reason that the Niitsitapi achieved cultural, political and military predominance making them "the Lords of the Great Plains." They were a Nation of people united by a common language, culture and religion living in a country with borders recognized by other First Nations. In 1870, one of the worse slaughters of Indians by American troops occured, known as the Marias Massacre. On the morning of Jan. 23, 200 Peigans were killed, most of them women, children, and elderly. The Peigans were a friendly tribe, not the hostile camp that the troops were supposed to attack. However, the commander had permission to use his judgment and attack the Peigans and punish them for things they may be guilty of in the past or future.
The Blackfoot were a nomadic people who followed the buffalo. Their territory once covered an areas from Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta to the Yellowstone River, and from the Rocky Mountains to the present day North Dakota border. The most important event of the year was the Sundance Festival, or the Medicine Lodge Ceremony, which was celebrated with other Plains Indians tribes. An important religious area for the Blackfoot is the Badger-two Medicine area. This area was lost in 1895 to the U.S. government in a treaty which was poorly translated to the Blackfoot.

Cherokee:
At the base of the Great Smoky Mountains live a people whose ancestors came to America thousands of years before Columbus. Ancient tribes followed large animals over a land bridge from Asia when the seas had frozen into glaciers during the last Ice-age, making the oceans shallow. Tribes hunted the large animals with stone tipped spears, then roasted their meat over fires in coastal caves and rustic abodes. Hides were used for clothing, shoes and blankets. Clans moved down the shorelines with the animals and gathered wild fruits and vegetables along the way. Fire was carried from place to place. Fish were caught and sea shells were used for knives, tools and utensils. Colorful feathers, gems and shells were strung with animal hide and worn for identity. When our climate got warmer the glaciers melted, the oceans rose, smaller animals prevailed and people moved inland with the oceans. Tropical currents flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, causing rains which kept the Mississippi River full year round. Fish and migratory animals ate the foods which grew near the river's bottom lands and thousands of people settled the Mississippi River. They fanned up its feeders as the climate got warmer. Various clans gathered to form villages to protect themselves from others and wild animals. Some in the villages fished, others hunted, some made blankets and clothes from plants and animals, and others gathered wild fruits and vegetables. Pottery was made from clay and seeds were planted in fertile places along the rivers. Houses were made with wood and covered to keep them dry. Fire places were built and used to smoke fish and meat for the winter. Crops were gathered and stored in dry places.
Villages united into networks bordered by natural barriers. Dugout canoes were invented and networks enlarged into nations of people who shared certain customs and gestures. Culture grew rapidly with the exchange of news, foods, clothing, metals, and art. The Cherokee Indians, the Tennessee River people, became one of the nations residing along the Great River System; the Mississippi and all of its giant tributaries. Other nations were forming along the Great River's other tributaries: the Ohio, the Missouri, the Arkansas and the Red Rivers. Trade was conducted along the Great River from the Rockies to the Appalachians and down to the Gulf of Mexico.
Large cities grew where the big tributaries merged. Indian economy focused into the continent, with Illinois at the center of trade, not outward across the seas, as was the habit of European nations at the time Columbus discovered America. The Cherokee Indians lived along the Tennessee River in the Appalachian Mountains. They thrived in the bottom lands from Virginia southward. They built their houses in villages, much like Early American settlers did. Villages were separated by day-long walks, houses were made of wood and stone, fields were planted, nuts and berries were gathered, game was cured, tobacco was smoked and the Cherokee people adhered to high ethical standards. "Fire," the center of life, became the Cherokee word for "home." Rivers between the Cherokee mountains, fed by creeks running from all directions, flowed north and west into the Great River, the Cherokees' lifeline to other Indian cultures. A network of roads followed those rivers and streams to connect the Cherokee villages. Steep mountain gaps limited routing choices so Cherokee roads converged at certain gaps, just as roads do today in those mountains. Village chieftains lead and represented the people to the tribe as a whole. The people used the roads to trade and compete with other villages. They continued to grow and flourish well after Columbus discovered America, but when Hernando de Soto followed their roads into their villages in 1540 everything changed. The Spaniards brought foreign diseases, horses, chains, knives, guns and vicious dogs to America; they took women, food and slaves as they went. North America withstood the onslaught to become the only place in the New World that Spain never colonized.

Mohawk:
Mohawk (cognate with the Narraganset Mohowaùuck, 'they eat (animate) things,' hence 'man-eaters') The most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They called themselves Kaniengehaga, 'people of the place of the flint.'_In the federal council and in other intertribal assemblies the Mohawk sit with the tribal phratry, which is formally called the "Three Elder Brothers" and of which the other members are the Seneca and the Onondaga. Like the Oneida, the Mohawk have only 3 clans, namely, the Bear, the Wolf, and the Turtle. The tribe is represented in the federal council by 9 chiefs of the rank of roianer (see Chiefs), being 3 from every clan. These chiefships were known by specific names, which were conferred with the office. These official titles are Tekarihoken, Haienhwatha, and Satekarihwate, of the first group; Orenrehkowa, Deionhehkon, and Sharenhowanen, of the second group; and Dehennakarine, Rastawenserontha, and Shoskoharowanen, of the third group. The first two groups or clans formed an intratribal phratry, while the last, or Bear clan group, was the other phratry. The people at all times assembled by phratries, and each phratry occupied aside of the council fire opposite that occupied by the other phratry. The second title in the foregoing list has been Anglicized into Hiawatha.
The Conestoga waged war against them so vigorously for 10 years that for the second time the Mohawk were overthrown so completely that they appeared to be extinct. About this time (?1614) the Dutch arrived in their country, and, being attracted by their beaver skins, they furnished the Mohawk and their congeners with firearms, in order that the pelts might be obtained in greater abundance. The purpose of the Dutch was admirably served, but the possession of firearms by the Mohawk and their confederates rendered it easy for them to conquer their adversaries, whom they routed and filled with terror not alone by the deadly effect but even by the there sound of these weapons, which hitherto had been unknown. Thenceforth the Mohawk and their confederates became formidable adversaries and were victorious most everywhere, so that by 1660 the conquests of the Iroquois confederates, although they were not numerous, extended over nearly 600 leagues of territory. The Mohawk at that time numbered not more than 500 warriors and dwelt in 4 or 5 wretched villages. The accounts of Mohawk migrations previous to the historical period are largely conjectural. Some writers do not clearly differentiate between the Mohawk and the Huron tribes at the north and west and from their own confederates as a whole.

Creek:
Before the middle of the 16th century the Creek controlled almost all of Georgia. At that time the Cherokee (and later whites) began to pressure them to move inland. A "tremendous battle" occurred at Slaughter Gap in Lumpkin County in the late 1600's. After this battle the Creek retreated to a line roughly south of the Etowah River. A later battle in Cherokee County forced the Creek south to the Chattahoochee and Flint(Thronateeskee) Rivers and west to the Coosa(mostly in Alabama), hence the terms Upper Creek and Lower Creek became common references to the now separate tribes.
During the American Revolution the Creek Nation was generally successful in maintaining its neutrality, although factions of the tribe fought on either the British or American sides. In November, 1783, two minor chiefs (Tallassee and Cusseta) ceded Creek land between the Tugaloo and Apalachee Rivers. After the cession, relations between the state of Georgia and the Creek Nation worsened and on April 2, 1786 the Creek Nation declared war. Attacks against settlers on Creek land were carried out. In spite of two attempts at treaty (Shoulderbone, 1786; New York, 1790) there was no sustained peace on the Georgia frontier until after the War of 1812. Although most of the incidents were relatively minor, settlers on the boundary between the Creek Nation and the state of Georgia were always fearful of a raid.
Chief McIntosh_William McIntosh was a leader of the Creek Nation from Coweta. The mixed-blood son of a Scottish trader and Creek mother, McIntosh had been called on frequently to deal with the settlers in the area. Over the years the violence had been decreasing and the Creek Indians aligned with McIntosh were viewed as "friendly". Repeated attacks by the Red Sticks and whites lead to open warfare on the frontier of the Creek Nation. With emotions aroused by the Shawnee warrior Tecumseh, the Red Sticks sought to avenge an surprise attack on a village with an attack on Fort Mims near the mouth of the Alabama River in August, 1813. While the numbers engaged are estimates, and the estimates vary widely, according to Benjamin W. Griffith in McIntosh and Weatherford, the Creek numbered 700 men against 340 mostly irregular soldiers. The Creek breached the exterior wall, quickly disposed of the soldiers and began killing civilians. Lurid details of the battle reached Georgia and Tennessee.
A group of about 5,000 volunteers (mostly farmers and miners from Tennessee) led by General Andrew Jackson were joined by both Creek and Cherokee forces in an attempt to defeat the Red Sticks. Troops under Jackson's command avenged the deaths at Fort Mims on a number of occasions, killing the women and children of the Creek faction. After defeating the Red Sticks, Jackson, a notorious land speculator, forced the entire Creek Nation to cede one-third of its land to the United States on very favorable terms. By 1820 the removal of the Creek Nation had become a major platform for the Democratic Party in Georgia. Elected in 1823, Governor George Troup saw the Creek as a serious problem. As the Creeks began to assimilate American culture, they posed a threat in that men moving west from the coast might have a harder time of disposing of the Indians. Troup felt the Indians should be moved to the Western Territory of the Louisiana Purchase, an idea proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1803. By 1827, the Creek were gone. The Native American land cessions to the state of Georgia ended with the Cherokee "Trail of Tears."

Cree: The Cree lived across the north into the Canadian prairies and in Montana, the Dakotas and Minnesota. They lived as far east as the Hudson to the James Bay and as far west as Alberta and the Great Slave Lake. Language: They spoke Cree, a language of the Algonquin family.
Daily Life: The Cree depended entirely on hunting and fishing, as well as gathering wild roots and fruits. They lived in buffalo skin tipis and traveled by birch bark canoes. Women would dress the skins after a hunt and were experts in using porcupine quills in their everyday needs to dress things up. Men often married two sisters at the same time. There is no evidence of a clan system. The most important religious ceremony was the Sun Dance. The Cree made sacrifices to their gods with Wisukatcak the most important spiritual entity. The dead were buried under a mound of stones with their belongings buried with them or they were destroyed by the grave.
History: During the 17th and 18th century, the Cree began to expand their territory. They did this for a number of reasons; one of the most important reasons was the demand for trading pelts by the English and the French. The Crees were divided into two divisions – the Woodland and the Plains. The Plains Cree moved from the forest into the plains following the buffalo. They acquired guns and horses from trading with the Europeans which were useful when raiding or when they were at wars with other tribes. The wars with the Blackfoot and the Sioux were leading causes, as was small pox, to the dwindling numbers of the Cree population. The Woodland Cree stayed in the forest.