federally recognized tribe
A federally recognized tribe is a Native American tribe recognized by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs as holding a government-to-government relationship with the US federal government. In the United States, the Native American tribe ...
Alabama
Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...
. As Mvskoke people, they speak the
Muscogee language
The Muscogee language (also Muskogee , ), previously referred to by its exonym, Creek, is spoken by Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole people, primarily in the US states of Oklahoma and Florida.
Muscogee was historically spoken by various constitue ...
. They were formerly known as the Creek Nation East of the Mississippi. The Poarch Band of Creek Indians are a sovereign nation of Muscogee (Creek) people with deep ancestral connections to lands of the Southeast United States.
Members of the Poarch Band are located mostly in Escambia County and parts of Florida. Since the late twentieth century, they have operated three gaming
casino
A casino is a facility for gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shops, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos also host live entertainment, such as stand-up comedy, conce ...
s and a hotel on their lands. This has enabled them to generate revenues to support the lives of tribal members and their descendants.
History
The Poarch Band members descend from
Muscogee Creek
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language; English: ), are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlandsassimilation that was common across the history of southeastern Indigenous nations in the U.S. Predominant lineages and surnames in the group include the names Weatherford, McGillivray, Durant, McGhee, Moniac, Cornell, Gibson, Colbert, Woods, and Rolin.
In the early 19th century, various elements intensified tensions within the Creek Nation leading up to their removal. These elements included geopolitical shifts, a growing reliance on European trade and economy, inner rifts within the Creek Nation, and escalating colonial presence of British, Spanish, and U.S. forces. A faction of Creek traditionalists, known as the
Red Sticks
Red Sticks (also Redsticks, Batons Rouges, or Red Clubs)—the name deriving from the red-painted war clubs of some Native American Creek—refers to an early 19th century traditionalist faction of Muscogee Creek people in the Southeastern Uni ...
, started a rebellion against assimilated Creeks, which resulted in the U.S. government intervening against the Red Sticks. This rebellion is known as the Creek War of 1813-1814. Among the primary concerns of Red Stick Creeks was the belief that the growing assimilation into European-American practices, including pressures to conform to
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
and a centralized Creek governance structure, was diminishing the Creek Nation's political strength to maintain authority over their territories and economies. The rebelling Creeks ultimately met their defeat at the hands of Andrew Jackson's enforcements. Among the Poarch ancestors, the Weatherford and Woods lineages were active participants in the Red Stick rebellion and allied with the traditionalists. Other Mvskoke ancestors of Poarch members fought alongside the U.S. against Creek traditionalists. Because of the conflicts with other Creeks, ancestors of the Poarch Band migrated to lands in the southwest of Creek Nation territory in the early 1800s near the Tensaw River and the headwaters of the Perdido River. Many of these Creek families remained in Alabama despite the
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States president Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, ...
of 1830, by which the majority of the tribe ceded their land and were forcibly moved to
Indian Territory
Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...
, west of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...
. However, several ancestors of Poarch members marched to Oklahoma, including Sam Moniac (Totkvs-Harjo) who was buried at Pass Christian in 1837.
Under provisions of the Treaty of Fort Jackson, Poarch Creek ancestors selected four sections of land that would serve as the nucleus of what eventually became known as the Poarch Band of Creek Indian community. These Indian reserves were held subject to federal trust restrictions. The "McGhee Reserve," a 240 acre tract taken by Lynn McGhee became a center of the Creek community. After the Civil War, other Creeks established lands near the McGhee Reserve. They formed a community near Poarch, Alabama and sustained kinship and cultural ties through a high degree of
endogamy
Endogamy is the cultural practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting any from outside of the group or belief structure as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relatio ...
within the Creek community.
The Poarch Band experienced great poverty and struggled to make ends meet throughout the nineteenth century. Most were small subsistence level farmers and sharecroppers in the latter decades of the century. Like their Mvskoke relatives, the three sisters of corn, beans, and squash were common crops. Along with traditional Creek foods like sofke and corn mush, they supplemented their diet with game and fish largely taken from neighboring public lands. With the coming of the railroad in the late nineteenth century, the lumber and turpentine industries arrived. Large corporations bought public lands, closing access to Creek subsistence practices. Many Creeks became migrant or day laborers to earn wages. They also took jobs in the lumber and turpentine industries. Jim Crow segregation and other forms of overt racism limited opportunities for economic advancement for group members. Because they had stayed behind and not removed with the main body of the Creek Nation after the 1830s, members of the Poarch Band received no federal aid or recognition of their indigenous status at the tribal level. Poarch families endured these challenges by relying on strong kinship and community ties. These relations have enabled many among them to retain their connection to language and traditions like busk, stompdance, and chinaberry beading.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, local governments established segregated schools for Creek Indian children in southwest Alabama. Because of Jim Crow segregation, Creek Indians were denied admittance to area businesses or forced to use segregated facilities in schools, theaters, and medical offices. In the 1930s, the Episcopal Church sent missionaries to assimilate the Creek community under the guise of aid. Poarch established their own school and worked to secure federal aid for the people. During the Indian New Deal of the 1930s, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior. It is responsible for im ...
, at the urging of the missionaries, sent an investigator to southern Alabama in 1938. Finding that the Poarch Band was clearly a surviving Creek enclave, the Bureau agent recommended educational aid for the community. Coupled with this recommendation was the decision to not establish a federal Indian reservation for the group. Because of federal funding shortages, no federal Indian aid was provided for the Poarch Band during the 1930s and early 1940s.
After World War II, Calvin McGhee, a descendant of Band founder Lynn McGhee, began organizing the Creeks of southern Alabama and northern Florida to pursue land claims and other rights denied to them as Indigenous people. Under McGhee, the group filed a lawsuit for equal education and won their case, several years before the landmark ''Brown v. Board of Education'' Supreme Court decision in 1954. Also in the late 1940s, McGhee spearheaded an effort to file a lands claim case with the Indian Claims Commission. He formed a group that became the Creek Nation East of the Mississippi that pursued a case for compensation for lands lost by the Creeks in the nineteenth century. The group received a favorable judgment; members received sums beginning in 1972 as reparations.
Through the lands claims litigation, Bufford Rollins and Eddie Tullis emerged as leaders of the Poarch Creek community. Along with Calvin McGhee, they took part in major events that were happening due to increasing visibility of Indigenous people, nations, and literary and cultural aesthetics in the 1960s and early 1970s throughout the U.S. Calvin McGhee attended the landmark Chicago Indian Conference of 1961, an event that galvanized movements toward Indigenous rights and sovereignty. McGhee was among the delegation that presented the Conference's "Declaration of Indian Purpose" to President John F. Kennedy at the White House in 1961. The Conference, along with other pan-Indian activism, prompted Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, to establish Indian programs outside the Bureau of Indian Affairs as part of his War on Poverty after 1963. Poarch Creeks secured federal grants during this era. They established federal job training, Headstart, and Department of Education Title IV Indian Education programs for area Creeks.
To fundraise for tribal organizing, the Poarch community advanced several community events, such as the intertribal Thanksgiving Powwow. Despite Mvskoke people not dancing
powwow
A powwow (also pow wow or pow-wow) is a gathering with dances held by many Native Americans in the United States, Native American and First Nations in Canada, First Nations communities. Inaugurated in 1923, powwows today are an opportunity fo ...
historically, Poarch members took advantage of the limited knowledge of Native American history in the United States to gain more funds and visibility for their Nation. The group also worked to formalize its government structures. Emerging from the Indian Claims Commission's petition by the Creek Nation East of the Mississippi in the early 1970s, McGhee, Tullis, and Rollins founded the modern government of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, centered near Poarch, Alabama. After the death of Calvin McGhee in the early 1970s, Eddie Tullis was elected as McGhee's successor. The Band joined the
National Congress of American Indians
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is an Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American Indian and Alaska Natives, Alaska Native Indigenous rights, rights organization. It was founded in 1944 to represent the tribes and resist U.S. ...
and was active in pan-tribal eastern Indian organizations at the time. With a federal Administration for Native Americans grant, the Band secured funding to research and to write a petition for federal tribal recognition during the 1970s.
With the help of anthropologist Tony Paredes per requirements of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Band utilized federal land records, censuses, court records, and school documents to prove they were a surviving and continuous Creek People, eligible for federal tribal status under the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Federal Acknowledgment Process regulations created in 1978. The Band was successful in this effort, being one of the first tribes to secure federal status through the federal process in 1984. Afterward, the Band was able to have a 229 acre tract taken into trust as a federal Indian Reservation and to re-establish their own government under a written constitution. These lands provide the grounds for the tribal reservation.
Tribal membership requirements
To be eligible to enroll in the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, people must be descended from one or more American Indians listed on one of three rolls: the 1870 U.S. Census of
Escambia County, Alabama
Escambia County is a County (United States), county located in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 36,757. Its county seat is Brewton, Alabama, Brewton.
...
; 1900 U.S. Census of Escambia County, Alabama; or 1900 U.S. Special Indian Census of
Monroe County, Alabama
Monroe County is a County (United States), county located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 19,772. Its county seat is Monroeville, Alabama, Monroeville. ...
. Besides being of direct Mvskoke Creek heritage, they must have a minimum
blood quantum
Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws that define Native Americans in the United States status by fractions of Native American ancestry. These laws were enacted by the Federal government of the United States, federal government and S ...
of 1/4 American Indian blood (equivalent to one full-blooded Creek grandparent) and not be enrolled in any other tribe. There are two distinctions of membership, including tribal enrolled membership and enrolled descendant membership that extends to first generation descendants. Each federally recognized tribe has the right to make its own rules of citizenship.
Current status
The
Poarch Creek Indian Reservation
The Poarch Creek Indian Reservation is a Muscogee, Creek Indian reservation in the state of Alabama. It is the home of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the only federally recognized Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe in ...
is located in southern Alabama near the city of
Atmore, Alabama
Atmore is a city in Escambia County, Alabama, United States. The population was 8,391 at the 2020 census. It was incorporated on May 9, 1907.
The Atmore Commercial Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Th ...
."Welcome" , Poarch Band of Creek Indians Website, 2005, retrieved 23 Feb 2009 Their current tribal chairwoman is Stephanie Bryan.
Gaming and racing
The Poarch Band has several casinos operating under Wind Creek Hospitality, a tribe-owned company. Three of its casinos are located on sovereign tribal land in Alabama: Wind Creek Atmore, Wind Creek Montgomery, and Wind Creek Wetumpka. They have gradually expanded their gaming, resort and entertainment businesses beyond those on their reservation.
Beyond its reservation, the tribe owns majority stakes in Mobile Greyhound Park in Alabama, and
Pensacola
Pensacola ( ) is a city in the Florida panhandle in the United States. It is the county seat and only city in Escambia County. The population was 54,312 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Pensacola metropolitan area, which ha ...
Greyhound Park and Creek Entertainment Gretna in Florida. In the
Caribbean
The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
, the tribe owns two hotel casinos operating under the
Renaissance Hotels
Renaissance Hotels was founded as Ramada Renaissance in 1981, as an upscale brand of Ramada Inns. Hong Kong–based New World Development (NWD) acquired Ramada in 1989 and re-launched Renaissance Hotels as a separate brand. The brand was acqui ...
brand in
Aruba
Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...
and Curacao, which it purchased in October 2017.
In Gardnerville, Nevada, the tribe financed and manages the Wa She Shu Casino, owned by the
Washoe Tribe
The Washoe or Wašišiw ("people from here", transliterated in older literature as ''Wa She Shu'') are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans of the United States, Native Americans, living near Lake Tahoe at the border between California and N ...
. The casino opened in May 2016. In
D'Iberville, Mississippi
D'Iberville ( ) is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States, immediately north of Biloxi, across the Back Bay. The population was 12,721 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Gulfport-Biloxi Metropolitan Area.
Etymology
It is nam ...
, Wind Creek purchased land for a planned casino development in March 2016.
In Pennsylvania, the tribe agreed in March 2018 to purchase Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem for $1.3 billion. The sale was approved in May 2019 and the casino was renamed to Wind Creek Bethlehem.
In 2012 the tribe announced plans to expand their gaming operations at Hickory Ground in Wetumpka, Alabama. Not all Poarch members supported this expansion, and it remains a controversial debate in the community. The
Muscogee (Creek) Nation
The Muscogee Nation, or Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The nation descends from the historic Muscogee Confederacy, a large group of indigenous peoples of the South ...
of Oklahoma filed suit to prevent this, arguing that the expansion would require excavation and reinterment of remains from an historic Creek burial ground at the site.Cameron Shriver, ''Milestones:'' "September 2013: Reflecting on Justice 200 Years after the Creek Civil War" ''Origins,''Ohio State University, accessed 28 September 2013
The tribe made a deal in 2016 to purchase the Margaritaville Resort Casino in
Bossier City, Louisiana
Bossier City ( ) is a city in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, Bossier Parish in the northwestern region of the U.S. state, state of Louisiana in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area ...
, which would have been rebranded as a Wind Creek casino. The sale was canceled, however, because of a dispute over licensing payments for the
Margaritaville
"Margaritaville" is a 1977 song by American singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, released on his seventh album, '' Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes''. In the United States, "Margaritaville" reached number eight on the ''Billboard ''Hot 1 ...
name.
In late 2019, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians presented the state of Alabama with a grand bargain that would afford the tribe exclusive rights on casino gambling in exchange for $1 billion.
The Poarch Band of Creek Indians opened the Park at OWA, an amusement park in
Foley, Alabama
Foley is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. The 2020 census lists the population of the city as 20,335 Foley is a principal city of the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolitan area, which includes all of Baldwin County.
History
Fo ...
, on July 20, 2017. The site was a joint venture between the City of Foley and the Foley Sports Tourism Complex, developed in conjunction with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians as part of a city-wide
sports tourism
Sports tourism refers to travel which involves either observing or participating in a sporting event while staying apart from the tourists' usual environment. Sport tourism is one of the fast-growing sector of the global travel industry and equat ...
push. An indoor water park known as Tropic Falls was announced in 2021; the first of the water park's two phases opened in June 2022.
References
Notes
Bibliography
*Littlefield, Jr., Daniel F. and James W. Parins, ed ''Encyclopedia of American Indian Removal'' Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2011. .
*Miller, Mark Edwin. ''Claiming Tribal Identity: The Five Tribes and the Politics of Federal Acknowledgment''. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.