In Bitterness And In Tears: Andrew Jackson's Destruction Of The Creeks And Seminoles

“Very highly recommended . . . a wealth of details and insight. In Bitterness and in Tears is an impressive contribution to American history and Native American studies reading lists.” --Midwest Book Review

The Creek War of 1813–1814 and its extension, the First Seminole War of 1818, had significant consequences for the growth of the United States. Beginning as a civil war between Creek factions, the struggle escalated into a war between the Creeks and the U.S. after insurgent Red Sticks massacred over 250 whites and mixed-bloods at Fort Mims on the Alabama River on August 30, 1813—the worst frontier massacre in U.S. history.
After seven months of bloody fighting, U.S. forces inflicted a devastating defeat on the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River on March 27, 1814. It was the most disastrous defeat ever suffered by Native Americans.
The defeat of the Creeks, the only serious impediment to U.S. westward expansion, opened millions of acres of land to white settlers, and firmly established the Cotton Kingdom and slavery in the Deep South. For southeastern Native Americans, the war resulted in the destruction of their civilization and forced removal west of the Mississippi. O’Brien presents both the American and Native American perspectives of this important episode in U.S. history. He also examines the roles of the neighboring tribes and African-Americans who lived in the Creek nation. In Bitterness and in Tears is a tale for the ages, thrilling and
moving, a pivotal point in the tragic and heroic saga that is our national history.

Sean Michael O’Brien is the author of Mountain Partisans: Guerrilla Warfare in the Southern Appalachians, 1861–1865, and Mobile, 1865: Last Stand of the Confederacy.