Were they Bill and Sally from Tallahassee? Tom and Jennifer from Alabama? Did it even really matter? Revis, 45, was born in Oklahoma to a father who was a full-blood descendent of the Muscogee Creek and Yuchi tribes.
Her mother was White. She listened to story after story about the lives of her people back in central Georgia long ago. They settled there during the Mississippian Period, around CE. Sophisticated builders, they harvested river cane to fortify their clay homes along the Ocmulgee River in Muscogee, Ocmulgee means bubbling waters. Decade after decade, they hauled pound baskets of dirt inland to create large, flat-topped mounds for rituals and burials.
When Spanish settlers arrived in , the Muscogee Creeks traded with them, teaching them to hunt, fish, and trap for hides. More settlers came. By the late 17th century, the tribe had erected a bona fide town along the river to serve as a central trading post.
Far and wide, the Ocmulgee River corridor became known as the capital of the Creek Confederacy, which extended across Georgia, Alabama, and North Florida. In , surveys were drawn outlining the boundaries of what would soon become Maconβboundaries that laid within Muscogee Creek territory. Nevertheless, the Muscogee Creeks were moved west to areas around the Chattahoochee River; Macon was founded in on land they left behind.
Eventually, the tribe was forced to walk the Trail of Tears for 10 months until they made it to Oklahoma. Their capital? Two years ago, Revis traveled to Macon with a few members of her tribe.
