Early Native Americans in Butler County / Indian Trails and Travelers in Butler County

Early Native Americans in Butler County, also, Indian Trails and Travelers in Butler County. . Early Native Americans in Butler County. Native Americans lived in the land that would become Alabama for thousands of years before settlers arrived. They included the Creeks, a multiethnic confederacy of tribes descended from the Mississippians, whose complex societies had chiefdoms, towns and an extensive trade network. These native cultures left ancient mounds along Butler County's waterways described by local historian John B. Little in 1885. Projectile points, pottery and other artifacts have been found throughout the area., Contact with Europeans brought war and disease, and contributed to the Mississippian culture's collapse. The Redstick War of 1813-1814 ended with the Creeks ceding 21 million acres to the United States. Resentment over American intrusion and loss of their lands led to several Creek attacks on local settlers, including the Ogly-Stroud and Butler massacres in Butler County in March 1818. Government-forced removals in the 1830s displaced most of Alabama's remaining Indians to modern-day Oklahoma., Indian Trails and Travelers in Butler County. Two important Native American trading paths crossed Butler County. Artifacts indicate that Spanish explorers passed through northwestern Butler County in the 16th century and traded with local Creek tribes, traveling on an ancient trail that later became the Federal Road. William Bartram followed this route when he came through Butler County in the summer of 1775, and settlers poured into this area on the same road in the early 1800s., Another Indian path found on historical maps ran between Persimmon and Pigeon Creeks in eastern Butler County, near the later-established communities of Midway, Glasgow, Shell, and McKenzie. This trail was part of an important route between the Gulf Coast and the Creek town of Tukabatchee, on the Tallapoosa River. Some of today's county roads follow the same route through Butler County.