Creek Internationalism in an Age of Revolution, 1763–1818 by James L. Hill

Abstract

Reviewed by: Creek Internationalism in an Age of Revolution, 1763–1818 by James L. Hill Angela Pulley Hudson Creek Internationalism in an Age of Revolution, 1763–1818. By James L. Hill. Borderlands and Transcultural Studies. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. 323 pages. Cloth, ebook, pdf. In his influential essay "Indian Polities, Empire, and the History of American Foreign Relations," historian Brian DeLay observes that despite some important calls for correction, American Indian peoples have largely fallen "outside the professional mandate for diplomatic history."1 Building on an earlier argument by historian Arthur N. Gilbert, DeLay notes that the categorization of Native peoples as "legal oddities" since at least the mid-nineteenth century has fueled the field's oversight and is itself largely a consequence of colonialism and imperialism.2 Moreover, the continued erasure of Indigenous people from American diplomatic history depends on scholarly assumptions that Native peoples had no "foreign policy" and were both "disconnected from" and "irrelevant to … international events."3 Yet, as DeLay points out and as decades of work within the fields of Indigenous and settler colonial studies have demonstrated, there is a rich source base providing evidence to the contrary.4 Among the many contributions of James L. Hill's monograph, Creek Internationalism in an Age of Revolution, 1763–1818, its forceful call for greater incorporation of southeastern Indians into the diplomatic history of the Atlantic world is topmost. Hill's study addresses the intersecting themes of diplomacy, trade, and sovereignty in the Creek confederacy during the tumultuous period between the end of the Seven Years' War and the end of the First Seminole War, with an emphasis on the Chattahoochee and Flint River regions in present-day Georgia and Florida. But both his subjects and his source material range much further as he takes readers from Havana to Halifax, from Saint Augustine to Quebec, and from Tallahassee to London. Rather than appearing disconnected from or irrelevant to international relations—per DeLay's indictment of much foreign relations history—Creek, Seminole, and [End Page 408] Miccosukee figures, as Hill's careful analysis demonstrates, used maritime voyages, overland travel, and shrewd diplomatic dealings to advance their aims and protect their autonomy. Though the overall success of their actions was undoubtedly modest, Creek Internationalism lays bare the importance and impact of their efforts. It thus effectively answers DeLay's call for scholarship that undertakes "excavations of the struggle between indigenous polities, settlers, and states for practical control over space" and engages with "Indian polities and individuals as historical actors, rather than mere objects of state and settler aggression."5 Creek Internationalism argues that the two competing movements that emerged in the late eighteenth-century Creek world—one pushing for centralization (a nascent Creek nation) and one striving to protect and even enlarge town (talwa or talofa) autonomy and power—both engaged in inter/intranational diplomacy to achieve their aims. This broad assertion contributes to a long-standing discussion (some call it a debate) in Creek historiography: the degree to which the term nation appropriately describes what the Creek confederacy was or what mid-eighteenth- to mid-nineteenth-century Creek people wanted it to be. Scholars such as Steven C. Hahn, Joshua Piker, and Andrew K. Frank, among others, have produced thoughtful analyses around the question of Creek nationhood, as have a new generation of historians including Bryan C. Rindfleisch and Steven J. Peach.6 But consensus is elusive. And Hill's study does not move us any closer to resolution. To be fair, that is not his goal; instead, he takes that fundamental tension as a given and convincingly uses it as the foundation for his exploration of how foreign relations informed the internal debate in Creek country to a degree not fully recognized in extant literature. Through six more or less chronological chapters, Hill examines key episodes in which both Creek nationalists (those advocating some level of centralization) and Creek localists (those working on behalf of a distinct talwa or group of talwas) deployed "internationalism" (15), which he defines as a strategy designed "to secure recognition that their communities possessed sovereign rights" (15–16) on par with nation-states. Creek Internationalism makes two significant...