Emmy Award Documentary, "The Forgotten Creeks", Now Showing On Alabama Public Television

The fifty-third Annual Thanksgiving Pow Wow held by the Poarch Creek Indians is scheduled this year for Thursday and Friday (November 27th and 28th, 2025). And ahead of their famous Annual Thanksgiving Day Pow Wow, Alabama Public Television is airing the Emmy Award winning documentary about the Poarch Creek Indians entitled, "The Forgotten Creeks". Produced by Jacksonville State University's Longleaf Studios with Seth Johnson as the executive producer, the documentary is just shy of an hour in length and focuses on the story of how the Poarch Creek Indians became a federally recognized sovereign nation in 1984.

As "The Forgotten Creeks" explains, the Poarch Creek Indians are descended from the mound builder Indians that were present in the Southeastern part of The United States, 12,000 years ago. When the Spanish explorer, Hernando DeSoto, arrived in 1540, the Creek Indians along with the other tribes he encountered, suffered an 80 to 90% loss in population. For DeSoto and his men brought with them something even more lethal than the rudimentary guns that they carried: smallpox, chickenpox, measles, and the black plague.

Nevertheless, the Creek Indians managed to be one of the few surviving tribes after this disease-ridden contact with the Spanish explorers. With some of the Creeks even working as interpreters for the Patriots during The American Revolution. After The American Revolution, the Creek Indians then fought amongst themselves as to how to deal with this continual influx of European settlers displacing them from their lands. An internal conflict which resulted in the Creek Civil War that ended when Andrew Jackson forced them to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson on August 09th, 1814. This treaty would directly lead to the formation of the State of Alabama as the Creek Nation as a part of the treaty ceded their lands which amounted to nearly half of present-day Alabama to the federal government. Alabama then became a state in 1819.

After facing diseases, civil war, and the ceding of much of their lands, the Creek Indians were then faced with another hurdle in their struggle for survival, the 1830 Indian Removal Act, commonly known as "The Trail of Tears". The United States army would hire contractors to round up the Indians in Alabama in Wetumpka before heading over to Oklahoma. But, many of the Indians would escape from Wetumpka and return home to Poarch Creek in South Alabama. Deeming it too much of a hassle to try and round up the Native Americans in rural South Alabama, the U.S. army focused its resources on the other Native Americans. Thus, the Poarch Creek Indians continued to live as farmers in the region.

While eking out a living off of the land, the Poarch Creek Indians were then faced with discrimination when it came to obtaining any kind of education. With this discrimination to obtaining education being a main focus of "The Forgotten Creeks" documentary. As the Poarch Creek Indians express gratitude to the Mennonite, Episcopalian, and Baptist missions for setting up Church schools for them during the early 19th Century. With these Church schools enabling them to learn to at least read and write. However, during the Jim Crow era in Alabama, they were faced with segregation and not allowed to further their education. A limitation that the various members of the Poarch Creek Indians feel deeply throughout the documentary.

Then in 1946, the Indian Claims Land Commission was formed. A commission which set the path for the Poarch Creek Indians to receive federal recognition as a sovereign nation. As their Chief, Calvin McGhee, led them to organize the band into a government with elected tribal leaders and laws on October 19th, 1950. Chief McGhee subsequently dedicated his life's work to helping his tribe obtain this important federal recognition. Being a blue-eyed gentleman, he realized that the politicians and leaders Washington D.C. didn't take him seriously as an Indian when he dressed up in a suit and tie. So, he shunned that attire in favor of a headdress and colorful ribbons, to make him stand out as a Native American. As part of his campaign to stand out more as a Native American, he helped establish the first Pow Wow for the Poarch Creek Indians for which they are now famous throughout the state.

While Chief Calvin McGhee passed away in 1970, before the Poarch Creek Indians received their federal recognition. He did get to meet with President John F. Kennedy in 1962, an event which was impacting for all of the members of the Poarch Creeks. And in 1984, the Poarch Creek Indians were at last granted their long sought after federal recognition as a sovereign nation. With the focus of their tribal council, as chronicled in "The Forgotten Creeks" documentary, being to "pull their people out of poverty". Which with the passage of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, they've been able to successfully do. As they now have ample sources of income and they provide $100,000 to every member of their tribe to pursue higher education. Leading to some of the older generation of Poarch Creeks who remember the days of yore to state in "The Forgotten Creeks", that nowadays, their tribe has more lawyers than high school graduates in their day.

For those who aren't able to catch a showing of "The Forgotten Creeks" on Alabama Public Television, it is also available online at https://pci-nsn/gov/our-story/the-forgotten-creeks/ And for those who are interested in attending the Annual Poarch Creek Thanksgiving Pow Wow, more information can be found here: https://pci-nsn.gov/culture-and-events/annual-thanksgiving-pow-wow/

Luisa Reyes is a Tuscaloosa attorney, piano instructor, and vocalist.