An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States Ortiz

92 An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

democratic ways in their villages, the elite Muskogees were making

decisions and compromises on their behalf that would bear tragic

consequences for them all.

Federal authorities in 1793 identified five hundred Muskogee

towns where they believed the majority of insurgents resided. Secre­

tary of War Knox called on the Georgia militia for federal service.

The fe deral Indian agent notified the War Department that the set­

tlers were set on assaulting the Muskogees and asked that a thou­

sand. federal troops be deployed to occupy the insurgent Muskogee

towns. Although the War Department rejected that idea and war

was postponed, the restless Georgian militiamen deserted after hav­

ing rushed to the Muskogee territory to loot, burn, and kill, only to

be forced to wait. Persistent squatter attacks on Muskogee farmers,

traders, and towns continued.

During the winter of 1793-94, Georgia border squatters formed

an armed group of landless settlers. The leader, Elijah Clarke, was

a veteran Indian killer and had been a major general in the Georgia

militia during the war of independence, in which he commanded

rangers to destroy Indigenous towns and fields. As a US patriot hero,

Clarke was certain that his former troops would never take up arms

against him. Clarke and his rangers declared the independence of

their own republic, but Georgia state authorities captured him and

destroyed the rebel stronghold. Still, Clarke's action sent a strong

message to state and fe deral authorities that landless squatters were

determined to take Indigenous lands. They would get the leader they

needed for that purpose a decade later. Meanwhile, the elite of the

Muskogee towns were successful in marginalizing the insurgents,

while the federal government increased grants, and the wealthy class

of Muskogees established trading posts, making whiskey cheaply

available to impoverished Muskogees.^22

THE DIE IS CAST

The successful settler intrusion into western Georgia made Ala­

bama and Mississippi the next objectives for the rapidly expand­

ing slave-worked plantation economy, which, along with land sales