The March 24, 1832, Treaty of Cusseta provided land allotment and some federal compensation for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation emigration from Alabama to Indian Territory. The boundaries included the land between the confluence of the North and South Canadian rivers. In 1848 the Methodist Church established the Asbury Manual Training School. After it burned in 1889, students attended the Creek Nation's Eufaula Boarding School for Girls.
In 1872 Eufaula emerged as a town when the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway established a railhead at the site, near North Fork Town. George W. Ingall, Indian agent for the Five Tribes, suggested the name Eufaula, after a Muscogee tribal town in Alabama. Spring floods washed out the bridge that a railroad company was building over the South Canadian River. The rebuilding delay brought people and materials to the developing town. The federal census of 1890 recorded a population of 500 in the community. By 1898 Eufaula had incorporated and had grown to approximately eight hundred residents.
Nearby, the Creeks successfully grew cotton and corn in the rich soil of the river bottoms. Dairy and cattle operations expanded as well. The number of residents climbed to 2,355 in 1940, holding near that number for the next three decades.
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Muscogee (Creek) Nation is a self-governed Native American tribe located in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. MCN is one of the 5 Civilized Tribes and is the fourth largest tribe in the U.S. with 100,766 citizens. The government side of the tribe is made up of an executive branch, a legislative body and a tribal court system. MCN is a diverse entity with many facets such as: cultural tourism, gaming, businesses, and a higher learning institution.
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Greatest ceremonial rite of Creek Indians was Green Corn Dance. It was held at time of year when before corn had fully matured and while grains were soft. Dance was celebration of harvest season and was of intense religious devotion.
In preparation for festival old fires were extinguished and new ones lighted from old fire embers. Main fire was placed in center of square area. Around this central fire men, women, and children, dressed in colorful costumes, danced, chanted, and sang. After rites were completed, green corn was served to all. Choctaws and other tribes had similar ceremonies.
This marker erected in vicinity of where Creeks held Corn Dances.
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"Friendship Dance" is a mural created by artist Starr Hardridge on the side of E's Hideaway Restaurant in downtown Eufaula. The vibrant, 58-foot-long mural depicts a Muscogee Creek friendship dance meant to symbolize unity and friendship within the Eufaula community.
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Most of the Muscogee people were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) by the federal government in the 1830s during the Trail of Tears. A small group of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy remained in Alabama, and their descendants formed the federally recognized Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Another Muscogee group moved into Florida between roughly 1767 and 1821, trying to evade European encroachment,[4] and intermarried with local tribes to form the Seminole. Through ethnogenesis, the Seminole emerged with a separate identity from the rest of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy. The great majority of Seminole were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory in the late 1830s, where their descendants later formed federally recognized tribes. Some of the Seminole, with the Miccosukee moved south into the Everglades, resisting removal. These two tribes gained federal recognition in the 20th century and remain in Florida.
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