Muscogee (Muskogee)

Creek Indians

Muscogee is another word for Creek. The Muscogee are descendants of the Creek Indian Nation that inhabited most of the southeastern United States prior to 1500. The Creek Nation did not belong to a single tribe but rather to to a union of several tribes. Early ancestors of the Muscogee were known for their earthen mounds, which resembled pyramids. These mounds are believed to be parts of larger ceremonial structures.

Descendants of the Muscogee would later build towns within the same region, now known as Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. During the “historic period,” the Creek Nation became one of the largest political organizations north of Mexico. The Muscogee dominated and expanded their territories until the colonization of America.

In the early 1800s, as the United States began its expansion westward, the U.S. government focused on policies to remove the Muscogee from their tribal lands to areas beyond the Mississippi. The removal treaty of 1832 required the Muscogee leaders to trade their remaining lands for territory in what is now Oklahoma. More recently, the Muscogee have worked together to protect their heritage. In 1971, the Muscogee tribes freely elected their first principal chief without presidential approval since the partial dismantling of their government. Today, the Muscogee people are in the process of reclaiming and asserting their rights and responsibilities as a sovereign nation.

Muscogee Counties in Georgia and Oklahoma

Muscogee County in the state of Georgia was named for the original inhabitants called the Muscogee or Creek Indian Nation; it came into existence in 1827. Muscogee County, Georgia, was the site of a 20-year-long tuberculosis study. This study began in 1950 and ended in 1970; the study population included over 60,000 participants aged 5 and older.

This study was conducted prior to the practice of institutional review and was notable in that the control group did not receive inoculation against tuberculosis. Twenty years later, researchers discussed the logic of using varying strains of inoculation against tuberculosis to determine if the vaccine worked and at what level it was needed. As the study was implemented, participants had to take it on faith that they were inoculated against tuberculosis.

Today, Muscogee County, Georgia, has approximately 190,000 inhabitants. Interestingly, the 2010 census data report that less than 1 percent of the county inhabitants self-describe as Native American, compared with about 48 percent who self-identify as white and 46 percent who self-identify as black.

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