Editing Muscogee (section)

===Treaties of Indian Springs===
[[Image:William McIntosh by Charles Bird King.JPG|thumb|upright|[[Charles Bird King]]'s portrait of [[William McIntosh]]]]

''Mico'' [[William McIntosh]] led the Lower Creek warriors who fought alongside the U.S. in the [[Creek War]] and the [[Seminole War|First Seminole War]]. The son of the [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalist]] officer of the same name who had recruited a band of [[Hitchiti]] to the British cause, McIntosh never knew his white father. He had family ties to some of Georgia's planter elite, and after the wars became a wealthy cotton-planter. Through his mother, he was born into the prominent Wind Clan of the Creek; as the Creek had a [[matrilineal]] system of descent and inheritance, he achieved his chieftainship because of her. He was also related to [[Alexander McGillivray]] and [[William Weatherford]], both mixed-race Creek.

In the late 1810s and early 1820s, McIntosh helped create a centralized police force called 'Law Menders,' establish written laws, and form a National Creek Council. Later in the decade, he came to view relocation as inevitable. In 1821, McIntosh and several other chiefs, including Chief [[Shelocta]], signed away Lower Creek lands east of the [[Flint River (Georgia)|Flint River]] at the [[first Treaty of Indian Springs]]. As a reward, McIntosh was granted {{convert|1000|acre|km2|sigfig=1}} at the treaty site, where he built a hotel to attract tourists to local hot springs.

The [[Creek National Council]] responded by prescribing the death penalty for tribesmen who surrendered additional land. Georgian settlers continued to pour into Indian lands, particularly after the discovery of gold in northern Georgia. in 1825 McIntosh and his first cousin, Georgia Governor [[George Troup]], a leading advocate of [[Indian removal]], signed the [[second Treaty of Indian Springs]] at his hotel. Signed by six other Lower Creek chiefs, the treaty ceded the last Lower Creek lands to Georgia, and allocated substantial sums to relocate the Muscogee to the [[Arkansas River]]. It provided for an equally large payment directly to McIntosh.

In April, the old [[Red Stick]] [[Menawa]] led about 200 Law Menders to execute McIntosh according to their law. They burned his upper [[Chattahoochee River|Chattahoochee]] plantation. A delegation of the Creek National Council, led by the speaker ''[[Opothleyahola]]'', traveled to Washington D.C. to protest the 1825 treaty. They convinced President [[John Quincy Adams]] that the treaty was invalid, and negotiated the more favorable [[Treaty of Washington (1826)]]. The tribe ceded their lands to Georgia in return for $200,000, although they were not required to move west. Troup ignored the new treaty and ordered the eviction of the Muscogee from their remaining lands in Georgia without compensation, mobilizing state militia when Adams threatened federal intervention.

{{blockquote|text=The government and people of the United States will always find the Muscogees anxious to preserve peace and do justice; and all they ask in return is to be treated in like manner, and spared the afflictions in which the people of Georgia appear determined to involve them. Justice is Justice. There is not one kind for the White man and another for the Red man.|source=[[Opothleyahola|Opothle Yoholo]], [[John Stedham|John Stidham]], [[Ya-ha Hadjo|Mad Wolf]], Menawee, Yoholo Micco, Tuskeekee Tustenuggee, Charles Cornnels, Apauli Tustenuggee, [[Selocta Chinnabby|Selocta]], Timpoochy Bamnett, Coosa Tustenuggee, Nahetlue Hopie, Ledagee, March 3, 1826<ref>{{Cite book |last=Caison |first=Gina |title=Red states: indigeneity, settler colonialism, and southern studies |date=2018 |publisher=The University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-5335-7 |series=The new southern studies |location=Athens |pages=109 |language=en-us}}</ref>}}