The reconstruction treaty of 1866 required the cession of 3.2 million acres - approximately half of the Muscogee domain. Eventually Muscogee citizens fought on both the Union and Confederate sides. For the majority of the Muscogee people, desired neutrality proved impossible.
The first three battles of the war in Indian Territory occurred when Confederate forces attacked a large of neutral Muscogee (Creeks) led by Opothle Yahola.
The American Civil War was disastrous for the Muscogee people. The Muscogee Nation as a whole began to experience a new prosperity. The tribal towns of both groups continued to send representatives to a National Council which met near High Springs. The Upper Muscogees re-established their ancient towns on the Canadian River and its northern branches. In the new nation the Lower Muscogees located their farms and plantations on the Arkansas and Verdigris rivers. Army enforced the removal of more than 20,000 Muscogee (Creeks) to Indian Territory in 1836 and 37. But for the majority of Muscogee people the process of severing ties to a land they felt so much a part of proved impossible. Many of the Lower Muscogee (Creek) had settled in the new homeland after the treaty of Washington in 1827. In the removal treaty of 1832, Muscogee leadership exchanged the last of the cherished Muscogee ancestral homelands for new lands in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). In the early 19th century, the United States Indian policy focused on the removal of the Muscogee and the other Southeastern tribes to areas beyond the Mississippi River. The Upper towns remained less effected by European influences and continued to maintain distinctly traditional political and social institutions. Due in part to their proximity to the English, the Lower towns were substantially effected by intermarriage and its consequent impact on their political and social order. The English called the Muscogee peoples occupying the towns on the Coosa and the Tallapoosa rivers, Upper Creeks, and those to the southeast, on the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, the Lower Creeks. Throughout the period of contact with Europeans, most of the Muscogee population was concentrated into two geographical areas. Within this confederacy, the language and the culture of the founding tribal towns became dominant. The confederation was also expanded by the addition of tribes conquered by towns of the confederacy, and, in time, by the incorporation of tribes and fragments of tribes devastated by the European imperial powers.
New tribal towns were born of "Mother towns" as populations increased. The confederacy was dynamic in its capacity to expand. Within this political structure, each tribal town maintained political autonomy and distinct land holdings. This union evolved into a confederacy that, in the Euro-American described "historic period," was the most sophisticated political organization north of Mexico. The Muscogee were not one tribe but a union of several. Present day Mound building located at the Tribal headquarters, houses the National Council Offices, Judicial Offices, and Tax Commission. The historic Muscogee later built expansive towns within these same broad river valleys in the present states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. Early ancestors of the Muscogee constructed magnificent earthen pyramids along the rivers of the this region as part of their elaborate ceremonial complexes. The Muscogee (Creek) people are descendents of a remarkable culture that, before 1500 AD, spanned all the region known today as the Southeastern United States.
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