Review of A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South, by Peter Cozzens

This review appeared in the Fall/Winter 2023 issue of the Journal of Mississippi History

Southern historiography of the nineteenth century is dominated by the Civil War. Although few could argue against that conflict as being a seminal point in Southern history, the Creek War of 1813-1814 had dramatic repercussions as well. The war and its results eventually laid the groundwork for Native American removal in the Southeast, spurred mass American immigration into the region which led directly to the establishment of the states of Mississippi and Alabama, helped bring about the entrenchment of cotton agriculture and its reliance on slave labor in the Deep South, and made Andrew Jackson a national hero. Jackson would eventually leverage that notoriety into two terms as president and wield an incredible amount of political influence well before and after his term in office. Thankfully, this much lesser-known struggle has received more attention from historians in recent years. Peter Cozzens, a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer and author/editor of seventeen books, has entered the fray in a small but growing body of scholarship on the war with A Brutal Reckoning, Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South.

Cozzens, whose previous books discussed Civil War battles in the western theater, designates this work as the third volume of his trilogy of works on Indian Wars (along with Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers who Defied a Nation and The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West.) His stated goal is to provide a gripping and balanced account of the process of dispossession of Indian lands and how the actions of one man, Andrew Jackson, charted the course of the nation in winning “arguably the most consequential Indian war in U.S. history.” In these regards, Cozzens has succeeded admirably.

Cozzens opens with a narrative of Hernando DeSoto’s entrada across the Southeast. He obviously is making a comparison between the Spaniard’s horrific trek and the actions of Andrew Jackson against the Creeks which these reviewers found to be too much of a stretch for worthwhile comparison. Entirely different circumstances, motivations, tactical situations—not to mention the diversity of allied native forces with which he worked—renders such a connection of little more than shock value. Cozzens then transitions to providing an excellent overview of Creek culture and the impacts of the increasing influence of the growing United States and the American settlers on native lands which altered traditional Creek lifeways. By not only settling on their lands, but actively assimilating Creeks into Euro-American agricultural, economic, and political systems, Americans played a role in irrevocably altering Creek society. The resulting slow-growing but deep schism in Creek society between those who believed they should return to traditional ways and those who insisted they could remain fully Creek while adapted to new realities eventually erupted into civil war. In discussion of this complicated and little-understood conflict, Cozzens shines by providing the best account of this affair that these reviewers have ever read. Most books on the Creek War gloss over this internal strife as prologue to the larger war with American and allied native forces, but Cozzens gives it its just due.

Cozzens then proceeds to cover the war itself, with its beginnings at Burnt Corn Creek and then the horrific affair at Fort Mims.  The campaigns of the Mississippi Territorial militia as well as units from the state of Georgia are described in detail, but these take a back seat to the actions of those Tennesseans under the leadership of Andrew Jackson. His determination and perseverance overcame chronic supply shortages and enlistment problems to eventually break the backbone of the Red Stick faction of the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend. During the narrative, Cozzens presents the war’s iconic moments and personalities in vivid fashion. These include riveting tales of the exploits of as Sam Dale and the famous Canoe Fight, William Weatherford’s legendary escape from American forces at the Holy Ground, and the exploits of David Crockett and Sam Houston. Cozzens presents an especially thorough and grisly account of the pivotal Battle of Horseshoe Bend, shedding light on the true strategies and the realities of combat for both the Redsticks and their assailants. As these events make the Creek War such a powerful, epic chapter in Southern history, we were thrilled to see Cozzens deliver some of his most engrossing writing in chronicling these people and events.

Upon ending the war, Jackson eventually took charge of treaty negotiations and set the stage for future compacts with Southeastern tribes with the Treaty of Fort Jackson. He forced the forfeiture of more than twenty-two million acres, most of which came from friendly Creek allies who were astonished at the harsh terms imposed by Jackson. Jackson felt he was securing the nation’s southern border and opening areas to white American settlement in an unproductively used expanse of territory which could play a pivotal role in the growth of the United States. He would forever be known as Sharp Knife for his treatment of the Creeks, as over the next twenty years they endured hardship, poverty, exploitation and eventual removal in a Creek Trail of Tears which they dated to their first altercation with Jackson.  

A Brutal Reckoning serves as superb account of a monumental struggle which led to remarkable change in the Southeast and whose consequences reverberated across the nation. Cozzens is an excellent writer whose narrative captures the reader’s attention. There are a few minor errors such as one mislabeled image (John Coffee is listed as listed as John Cocke), an incorrect spelling on a map (Hinson and Kennedy’s Mill), and a reference to Jett Thomas as Jeff Thomas. He also identifies Fort Jackson as being built in Tuskegee (it is in present-day Wetumpka). But these minor quibbles aside, Cozzens has provided an excellent account of a consequential but understudied war suitable for the general public which promises to help give this conflict the attention it so richly deserves.

CPW/JMB

Review of Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast, by Joan DeJean

The story of the French colony of Luisiane (Louisiana) is one of the most compelling in all of the Gulf Coast’s rich history. Indeed, one might say it ranks among the most interesting in all of American history, for the enormous swath of land the French claimed as part of the colony stretched from the shimmering shores of the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to the central continental plains. A nearly seven-decades long episode involving international rivalries, political intrigue, the formation of critical alliances with Native groups, the creation of settlements, and devastating armed conflict, it is an era which witnessed the birth of such historic cities as Mobile and New Orleans and helped imbue the region with a distinctive cultural heritage. Yet the colony, which existed from 1682 until 1763, featured far more struggle, privation, stagnation and frustration than triumph. It grew slowly, suffered several setbacks, and never developed as the French hoped it would. Its inhabitants struggled mightily from lack of food, lack of supplies, and lack of attention for long stretches in its history. Perhaps none of Luisiane’s people endured worse conditions than some of its founding colonists, most of whom we know little about as individuals.

For this reason and many more, Joan DeJean’s Mutinous Women is truly a landmark volume in the historiography of the beleaguered colony. DeJean manages to present some of Luisiane’s most important but least understood settlers as real people, and explains how their contributions and experiences helped the colony not only develop as it did, but in a way played a significant role in the history of the greater Gulf Coast. The focus of her book are the women forcibly deported to the colony from France in the early 1700s, the “mutinous” women condemned to Parisian jails and marked by authorities as so far beyond reclamation that they were banished to what at the time was one of the most remote and least developed European settlements in the New World.

Nearly the first half of the book, in fact, is about these women’s lives in France, the first of whom arrived in the colony in 1719 on a ship named La Mutine after a harrowing voyage from Le Havre. Most of these women, as DeJean explains in incredible detail, were in truth poor, illiterate, and unable to resist or perhaps even comprehend the system of greed and corruption in which they were falsely charged with all manner of crimes in order to meet the needs of Luisiane’s corporate owners at the time. They were, quite literally, rounded up as targets of convenience, accused of crimes without the benefit of honest investigation or opportunities for defense, and sent packing. DeJean’s research into their stories—hundreds of them—is incredible. While her narrative presents their lives in as much detail as she can find and is a remarkable reference source for its completeness, many readers will wish she had summarized the overwhelmingly similar sagas which she explains in such detail in the first half of the book.

The narrative picks up pace as DeJean explores the story of how these women became the founding mothers of Luisiane. Her account of their living conditions, their marriages and the families they raised, and the communities they helped found is nothing less than a history of the colony. It is a lively one at that, extending far beyond the individual women and painting a vivid picture of what life was truly like on the Gulf Coast frontier in places such as Mobile, Biloxi, and New Orleans, and, to a lesser degree, French settlements in what are now Arkansas and Illinois.

DeJean, a Louisiana native who is trustee and professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a dozen books on French and French colonial history, clearly approaches her topic with a personal interest and enthusiasm. Despite some occasional repetition—she includes numerous almost identical immigrant stories and pauses many times to place repeated emphasis on the irony of how some of the deported women ended  up ranking among the colony’s most successful and respected inhabitants—the book is informative and an enjoyable read. If you have an interest in Gulf Coast history and the French colonial period especially, you will want to know about this book. It is truly a major contribution to the historiography of the region and its subject.

JMB