The Southeast culture area, north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the Northeast, was a humid, fertile agricultural region. Many of its natives were expert farmers—they grew staple crops like maize, beans, squash, tobacco, and sunflower—who organized their lives around small ceremonial and market villages known as hamlets. Perhaps the most familiar of the Southeastern Indigenous peoples are the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, sometimes called the Five Civilized Tribes, some of whom spoke a variant of the Muskogean language.
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By the time the U.S. had won its independence from Britain, the Southeast culture area had already lost many of its native people to disease and displacement. In 1830, the federal Indian Removal Act compelled the relocation of what remained of the Five Civilized Tribes so that white settlers could have their land. Between 1830 and 1838, federal officials forced nearly 100,000 Indigenous people out of the southern states and into “Indian Territory” (later Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee called this frequently deadly trek the Trail of Tears.
A painting of Choctaw women harvesting, processing, and cooking maize. By Francois Bernard. Image credit: Wikimedia Common
Life for the southeastern nations, as for Native Americans throughout the Americas, changed with European exploration and colonization. The Native Americans had no immunity to smallpox or other diseases Europeans carried, and the spread of these diseases killed thousands of Indigenous people. Others were killed or enslaved by the Spanish explorers who led 16th-century expeditions through the Southeast. These factors weakened the remaining tribes. Many joined with larger or stronger groups, such as the Cherokee and the Creek.
With colonization came a desire to convert Native Americans to Christianity and to encourage (or force) them to adopt European cultures and traditions. These efforts were more successful in the Southeast than most parts of North America; indeed, five southeastern nations (the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole) later became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.” Europeans viewed even the most “civilized” tribes as inferior, however, and waves of European immigrants encroached on the Native Americans’ land. The southeastern tribes signed treaties to cede land to the colonies and moved, only to be followed by new settlers looking for new land. Conflicts between Native Americans and white settlers often erupted into violence. The southeastern Native Americans could not defend themselves against the colonists’ seemingly never-ending demand for land. Like other Native Americans, they were pushed farther west and, eventually, onto reservation land.
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