Credit Mobilier,
“credit on movable personal property,” a name given to a great joint-stock company in
France in 1852, with a capital of $12,000,000, which was sanctioned by the government.
Its object was to carry on a general loan and contract business.
In 1859 a corporation for this purpose was chartered in
Pennsylvania.
It was organized in 1863, with a capital of $2,500,000. In 1867 its charter was purchased by a company formed for the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad.
The stock was increased to $3,750.000, and soon rose in value to a very great extent, paying enormous dividends.
In 1872 it was charged that a number of members of both Houses of Congress were privately owners of the stock.
As legislation concerning the matter might be required, and as grants of land had been made to the railroad company, Congress ordered an investigation.
The Senate committee reported the innocence of several who had been accused.
The expulsion of one member was recommended, hut no further action was taken.
In the
House a resolution censuring two
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members was adopted.
On the whole, the charges, though not without some basis, had been applied so promiscuously as to involve some men who were absolutely free from offence.
See
Ames, Oakes.
Creek
Indians, members of a noted confederacy whose domain extended from the
Atlantic westward to the high lands which separate the waters of the
Alabama and
Tombigbee rivers, including a greater portion of the States of
Alabama and
Georgia and the whole of
Florida.
It was with the people of this confederacy that
Oglethorpe held his first interview with the natives on the site of
Savannah.
They called themselves Muscogees, but, the domain abounding in creeks, it was called the
Creek country by the Europeans.
Evidently the kindred in origin and language of the Chickasaws and Choctaws, they claimed to have sprung from the earth, emigrated from the
Northwest, and reached
Florida, when they fell back to the more fertile regions of the
Ocmulgee,
Coosa, and
Tallapoosa rivers.
Some of them remained in
Florida, and these became the Seminoles of a later period.
De Soto penetrated their country as early as 1540, and twenty years later
De Luna formed an alliance with the tribe of the Coosas.
When the Carolinas and
Louisiana began to be settled by the
English, Spaniards, and
French, they all courted the
Creek nation.
The
English won the
Lower Creeks, the
French the
Upper Creeks, while the Spaniards, through their presents, gained an influence over a portion of them.
In 1710 some of these (the Cowetas) made war on the Carolinas, and were petted by the Spaniards at
St. Augustine, but in 1718 they joined the
French, who built a fort at
Mobile.
In 1732 eight Creek tribes made a treaty with
Oglethorpe at
Savannah; and in 1739 he made a treaty with the Cowetas, and they joined him in his expedition against
St. Augustine.
When the
French power in
North America was overthrown, the entire Creek nation became subject to English influence.
At that time they had fifty towns, and numbered nearly 6,000 warriors.
They were the allies of the
British during the
American Revolution.
Many Tories fled to the
Creek towns from the Carolinas and
Georgia at the close of the war, and excited the Indians to ravage the frontiers of those States.
A peace was concluded with the
Creeks by
Washington in 1790; yet some of them joined the Cherokees in incursions into
Tennessee in 1792.
Another treaty was made in 1796, and in 1802 they began to cede lands in the
United States.
But when the
War of 1812 broke out they joined their old friends, the
English; and by an awful massacre at
Fort Mims, in August, 1813, they aroused the
Western people to vengeance.
Troops led by
General Jackson and others entered the
Creek country; and in 1813 they ravaged the finest portion of it, destroyed the towns, slew or
captured 2,000 Creek warriors, thoroughly subdued them, and, in fact, destroyed the nation.
Their last stand against the United States troops was made at
Horseshoe Bend in March, 1814.
Some of them had already settled in
Louisiana, and finally in
Texas, where they remained until 1872, when
the government took steps to reunite the nation in the
Indian Territory.
They had ceded all their lands east of the
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Mississippi.
With those who had removed there was trouble at times.
Some favored removal west of the
Mississippi; others opposed it. In 1825 they put one of their chiefs (
William McIntosh) to death for signing a treaty for the cession of lands.
 |
|
A chief addressing the Creek Indians. |
In 1836 some of the
Creeks joined their kindred, the Seminoles, in
Florida in attacks upon the white people, and others joined the United States troops against them (see
Seminole War). They were finally nearly all removed beyond the
Mississippi, where they numbered about 25,000 in 1876.
Unsuccessful attempts to Christianize them were made.
They refused missions and schools for a long time.
Their nation declined, and in 1857 numbered less than 15,000.
During the
Civil War the tribe was divided in sentiment, 6,000 of them joining the
Confederates.
Their alliance with the
Confederates was disastrous to their nation.
In 1866 they ceded 3,000,000 acres of their domain in the
Indian Territory to the
United States for 30 cents an acre.
They are now among the most peaceable and order-lov ing of the banished tribes.
In 1899 there were 14,771 Creeks at the the
Union agency in
Indian Territory.
The men of the
Creek Confederacy were wellproportioned, active, and graceful; the women were smaller, exquisitely formed, and some of them were very beautiful.
In summer both sexes went without clothing, except a drapery of Spanish moss that was fastened at the waist and fell to the thighs.
The principal people painted their faces and and fops sometimes appeared in beautiful mantles of feathers or deer-skins, and on their heads were lofty plumes of the eagle and the flamingo.
The houses of the chiefs stood upon mounds, sometimes in the form of a great pavilion, and the inside of their winter dwellings were daubed with clay.
Hunting, fishing, and cultivating their fertile lands were their employment, for they
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seldom made aggressive war. They were skilful artisans in making arms, houses, barges, canoes, and various ornaments.
They made pottery for kitchen service, and some of it was very ornamental.
Fortifications were constructed with moats, and walled towns and grand and beautiful temples abounded.
They made mats of split cane, with which they covered their houses and upon which they sat. These resembled the rush carpeting of the Moors.
In their temples, dedicated to the worship of the sun, were votive offerings of pearls and rich furs.
They regarded the sun as the superior deity, and in all their invocations they appealed to it as to God.
To it they made sacrifices of grain and animals.
The chief, while he was alive, was held in the greatest veneration as priest and king.
As a symbol of devotion to him of the entire strength of the nation, the sacrifice of the first-born male child was required, while the young mother was compelled to witness the slaughter of her child.
Their marriages were attended with great displays of ornaments and flowers, and at the setting of the sun the bride and groom and their friends prostrated themselves before that luminary and implored his blessing.
Like the
Iroquois, the civil power in their government was widely distributed; and, like the
Iroquois, the
Creeks were an exception, in their approach to civilization, to all the
Indian tribes of
North America.
Such were the
Creek (or
Muscogee) Indians when first seen by Europeans.
