The Treaty of Fort Jackson (also known as the Treaty with the Creeks) was signed on this day in 1814 at Fort Jackson in Alabama. The treaty was agreed upon in the aftermath of the defeat of Red Stick (Upper Creek) resistance by U.S. forces at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
The treaty was the "largest single Indian cession of southern American land", according to historian Michael Rogin - around 23 million acres in Alabama and Georgia. The U.S. forces won with the battle with the help of allied Cherokee and Lower Creek forces friendly to the American side.
The terms of various treaties with the Creek nation would go on to be consistently violated by Americans colonizing the south.
I'm aware of how being here benefits me, and I don't let it become an identity.
Being Black in AmeriKKKa has led me to try to seek more melanated communities within the empire, but in my experience, even the most "radical" Black people I tend to encounter do not want to question their AmeriKKKan exceptionalist, imperialist brainworms.
Here I strive my hardest to be unapologetically Afrikan, and I don't buy into colonial beliefs around hair, skin, speech, the poor, or anything else. I like to question myself a lot, though. Though I've overcome so much internalized racism these past few years, I always wonder if anything else is lingering.
I dream of being able to live in South Africa one day, especially since I already have family there, and those family members are pretty much the only family members I keep some form of contact with. Right now, especially since I only recently started working, I don't have much to prepare for leaving, but it is a goal. Talking to my uncle a little more about the process tells me it might be pretty difficult, but I want to try. Not only do I have to prepare for handling South Africa's racial dynamics, but I have to navigate being there as an androgyne, and that can be rough, too.
