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The Creek Indians, who had been allies of the British during the War of 1812, were angered by white encroachment on their hunting grounds in Georgia and Alabama. In 1813, some Creeks under Chief Red Eagle (William
Watherford) (1780?-1824) attacked and burned Fort Mims on the lower Alabama River, killing about 500 whites [the Fort Mims Massacre]. Afterward, US militiamen, led by General Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), invaded Creek territory in central Alabama and destroyed two Indian villages -- Talladega and Tallasahatchee -- in the fall of1813. Jackson pursued the Creek, and on March 27, 1814, his 3,000-man army attacked and defeated them at that Battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River in eastern
Albabama. More than 800 Creek warriors were killed, and the power of the Creek nation was completely broken. At the Treaty of Fort Jackson on August 9, 1814, the Creek were compelled to cede 23 million acres (half of Alabama and part of southern Georgia) to the whites.
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