The economy centered upon agriculture, growing corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, melons, and sweet potatoes. When war erupted in 1813 between the United States and the Red Stick faction of the Creek Nation, a series of raids were launched against the white settlements. These raids culminated in the sacking of Fort Mims, in which 400 settlers were killed. General Andrew Jackson defeated the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend, and exacted a disastrous cession of 23 million acres of land from the Creeks. When Jackson became president, he forcibly removed the Creek to what is now Oklahoma. Today, the Creek Confederation has its capital in Okmulgee, Oklahoma; but there are a few surviving bands in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.

Nothing certain can be said of their previous condition, or of the time when the confederacy was established, but it appears from the narratives of Spanish explorer, Hernando de Soto's expedition that leagues among several of these towns existed in 1540, over which, head chiefs presided.

For more than a century before their removal to the west, between 1836 and 1840, the people of the Creek Confederacy occupied some 50 towns, in which were spoken six distinct languages -- Muscogee, Hittite, Koasati, Yuchi, Natchez, and Shawnee. The first three were of Muscogean stock.

About half the confederacy spoke the Muscogean language, which thus constituted the ruling language and gave name to the confederacy. The meaning of the word is unknown. Although an attempt has been made to connect it with the Algonquian, the probabilities seem to favor a southern origin. The people speaking the cognate Hitchiti and Koasati were contemptuously designated as "Stincards" by the dominant Muscogee. The Koasati seem to have included the ancient Alibamu of central Alabama, while the Hitchiti, on lower Chattahoochee River, appear to have been the remnant of the ancient people of southeast Georgia, and claimed to be of more ancient occupancy than the Muscogee. Geographically the towns were grouped as Upper Creek, on the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers in Alabama, and Lower Creek, on middle or lower Chattahoochee River, on the Alabama-Georgia border.

While the Seminole were still a small body confined to the extreme north of Florida, they were frequently spoken of as Lower Creeks. To the Cherokee, the Upper Creeks were known as Ani-Kusa use, from their ancient town of Kusa, or Coosa, while the Lower Creeks were called Ani-Kawita, from, their principal town Kawita, or Coweta. The earlier Seminole emigrants were chiefly from, the Lower Creek towns.

The history of the Creek begins with the appearance of De Soto's array in their country in 1540. Spanish conquistador, Tristan de Luna came in contact with part of the group in 1559, but the only important fact that can be drawn from the record is the deplorable condition into which the people of the sections penetrated by the Spaniards had been brought by their visit. Another Spanish explorer, Juan del Pardo, passed through their country in 1567, but Juan de la Vandera, the chronicler of his expedition, has left little more than a list of unidentifiable names.