The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670–1763

Abstract

In the latest addition to the University of Nebraska Press's Indians of the Southeast series, Steven C. Hahn offers the important argument that Creek nationhood was an invention born out of the imperial contest over the American South between France, Spain, England, and the Creeks. With fine-grained use of Spanish, English, and French sources, Hahn writes a compelling, page-turner narrative largely organized around a succession of Creek political personalities, such as Emperor Brims, Tomochichi, Coosaponakeesa, and Malatchi, among others. Hahn follows their life stories to show how each jockeyed for power and position by exploiting both their Creek kinship and township positions and by forging relations with the Spanish, French, and/or English. While it is refreshing to see Indian individuals finally emerge as central and memorable figures in southern history, the device should not obstruct one of Hahn's central arguments—that the Creek Nation during the colonial era did not have a centralized government with a hierarchical leadership; it was rather an ephemeral and situational frontier institution characterized by much internal factionalism.