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Description

Tennessee During the First Creek War

Fine example of Matthew Carey's map of Tennessee from the 1814 edition of Matthew Carey's General Atlas, the first appearance of hand coloring in an American Atlas.

One of the earliest obtainable maps of Tennessee to include counties, with still only a small number shown.  The map also includes amassive region simply titled Cherokees in the southwest.  Only 12 Counties shown, Sullivan, Washington, Greene, Sevier, Jefferson, Blount, Knox, Hawkins, Tennessee, Davidson, Sumner and the massive Cherokee region. Shows early roads, towns, Indian Lines, rivers, mountains, Powell's Valley, Forts, etc.

The First Creek War began in the spring of 1812, when a party of Creek warriors returning from a visit to the British in Canada attacked a small white settlement at the mouth of the Duck River, killing several settlers. At the insistence of United States Agent Benjamin Hawkins, the Creek executed the warriors and their leader, Little Warrior, starting a nativist movement known as Red Sticks, who tried to take control of the Creek Nation from the council chiefs. The Red Sticks sought alliance with the British and membership in a confederacy of northern Native Americans under Tecumseh in order to push American settlers from the Indian heartland. The Red Sticks attacked Fort Mims on the Alabama River, resulting in the Creek Civil War becoming part of the larger War of 1812 between the Americans and Great Britain.

A long history of border conflict with the Creeks and fear of Britain's northern Indian allies, caused Tennesseans to take up arms. Governor Willie Blount called up 3,500 state volunteers to march against the Creeks, under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson and General John Cocke.  The force destroyed several Upper Creek towns and defeated the Red Sticks at the battles of Tallushatchee and Talladega in the fall of 1813 and completing victory in March 1814 at the battle of Horseshoe Bend.

Andrew Jackson assumed command of the Seventh Military District of the United States Army, extracted a 22 million-acre land cession from the Creek Council, and brought a decisive end to the War of 1812 by defeating the British at the battle of New Orleans.