When the war ended, Jackson and friends of his began
buying up the seized Creek lands. He got himself appointed
treaty commissioner and dictated a treaty which took away half the
land of the Creek nation. Rogin says it was "the largest single
Indian cession of southern American land." It took land from Creeks
who had fought with Jackson as well as those who had fought against
him, and when Big Warrior, a chief of the friendly Creeks, protested,
Jackson said:
Listen....The United States would have been justified by the Great
Spirit, had they taken all the land of the nation....Listen--the truth
is, the great body of the Creek chiefs and warriors did not respect
the power of the United States--They thought we were an insignificant
nation--that we would be overpowered by the British....They were fat
with eating beef-- they wanted flogging....We bleed our enemies in
such cases to give them their senses.
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