Although an attempt has been made to connect it with the Algonquian maskeg, вЂswamp,вЂ™ the probabilities seem to favor a southern origin. About half the confederacy spoke the Muscogee language, which thus constituted the ruling language and gave name to the confederacy. The first three were of Muskhogean stock, the others were entirely alien incorporations. 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 De SotoвЂ™s expedition that leagues among several of these towns existed in 1540, over which head chiefs presided.ДЇor more than a century before their removal to the west, between 18, the people of the Creek confederacy occupied some 50 towns, in which were spoken 6 distinct languages, viz, Muscogee, Hittite, Koasati, Yuchi, Natchez, and Shawnee.

The dominating tribes at the time of the confederation seem to have been the Abihka (or Kusa), Kasihta, Kawita, Oakfuskee, and some other tribe or tribes at the junction of Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers. They sold to Great Britain at an early date their territory between Savannah and Ogeechee rivers, all the coast to St Johns river, and all the islands up to tidewater, reserving for themselves St Catherine, Sapelo, and Ossabaw Ilands, and from Pipemakers Bluff to Savannah 1 Thus occupying a leading position among the Muskhogean tribes the Creeks were sufficiently numerous and powerful to resist attacks from the northern tribes, as the Catawba, Iroquois, Shawnee, and Cherokee, after they had united in a confederacy, which they did at an early day. The south portion of this territory was held by dispossession of the earlier Florida tribes. Johns river and all the islands, thence to Apalachee Bay, and from this line northward to the mountains. They claimed the territory on the east from the Savannah to St. 1893 Map of Aboriginal America showing the approximate territory of the Creek tribe upon contact with Europeans.Дuring early historic times the Creek occupied the greater portion of Alabama and Georgia, residing chiefly on Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, the two largest tributaries of the Alabama river and on the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers.

Creek indian font