The Beloved Land
originally published April 30, 2008
Steve Scurry is turning himself into a local treasure with his research, writing and speaking about the Creek Indians who inhabited this land before Georgians took it away from them. Steve is that rarity, a non-academic historian. Steve loves the land, and the land has given him hints of those who walked here leaving few traces. His love has driven him to follow those hints to the old, original documents that tell the story of early Georgia, the story not included in our textbooks. Steve presented his findings again Sunday night at Ciné to a big crowd, with enough time to take us along with the Creeks as they sought a solution to the increasing pressure from the land-hungry Georgians.
The Creeks called the Georgians “Virginians,” because most of them came from Virginia. My friend Dennis Waters, after hearing Steve, called the Virginians “developers.” The Creeks held all land in common, and this land here along the Oconee they called the “beloved land,” a title of honor, their sacred hunting grounds. The Georgians wanted to own it - the highest and best use, instead of a bunch of scraggly Indians keeping it to themselves. The Georgians tried to take it by force, but they couldn’t whip the Creeks, who repeatedly kicked their butts in combat. Did you know that’s why Georgia joined the new union, d.b.a. The United States of America, the fourth state to make that commitment? Can you imagine Georgia doing anything that progressive? Yeah, we did it so we could get federal troops in here to fight the Indians for us. So, long story short: the troops came in, and we got the land.
The unsung story of the Creeks tells us a lot about who we were and who we are and even who we might have been if we had respected the land as much as the Creeks did. Instead, we’ve got us a governor who’s a developer and a land dealer who just recently kept the State of Georgia from buying the Oaky Woods in Middle Georgia, last refuge of the black bears in that area. Turns out the governor’s friends wanted to buy that land, and, hey, it just happens to adjoin land he owns, and they’re going to put in a gigantic subdivision, which will greatly escalate the value of the governor’s land, and the only good bear is a dead bear anyway. The developers rule the Georgia legislature, and the ghosts of the Creeks must surely be watching these Georgians.
No need to twist Steve’s words for modern political purposes. He’s writing about the past and holding up to us the people who were the native Georgians before we got here, and it’s useless to ask “what if?” There is no “if.” The early history of our country is that we took the land from the Indians, and while doing that we proclaimed our independence from England based on the principle that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. “All men” did not include Indian men, just as it did not include the African men brought here to work as slaves, nor did it include women of any race, whose own struggle for rights has gone on ever since.
The Creeks were demonized by the Georgia settlers who pushed in to take the land and had to fight the “savages.” So, too, were the black slaves characterized. The stalwart women who worked the land alongside the men while also bearing their children and preparing their food were thought not capable of thinking and acting for themselves.
Our present national politics is forcing us to confront anew the role of African-Americans in our country and also our attitudes toward women. We’re all racist, and we’re all sexist, and if we can’t see that in ourselves, we can’t begin to understand how it colors our vision of other men and women. Whatever the outcome, the presidential campaign will make us all more aware of race and gender in our society and in our government. Before it’s all over, we may have to examine a lot of assumptions about old white men, too.
Meanwhile, here’s hoping Steve Scurry soon succeeds in assembling all his research into a book that we can read and re-read as a testament to those who lived with this land and loved it as much as they loved life. Steve’s vision helps us see ourselves and reminds us forcefully of William Faulkner’s admonition, “The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.”
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