A gripping account of the Creek War of 1813, the Seminole War of 1818, and the tragic displacement by the U.S. Army of the defeated Creeks and other Native Americans to marginal lands west of the Mississippi.

"Independent historian O'Brien writes about the Creek War of 1813-1814 in Alabama during the War of 1812, and its extension, the Seminole War of 1818, in Spanish Florida. The Creek or Red Stick War secured for Andrew Jackson his reputation as a military hero and paved the way for the removal of all the southeastern Indians.... Recommended."--Choice

"[a] definitive study of the Creek War of 1813-1814 and the First Seminole War of 1818.... Very highly recommended reading which offers a wealth of details and insight, In Bitterness and in Tears is an impressive contribution...."--Internet Bookwatch

The Creek War of 1813 - 1814 and its extension, the First Seminole War of 1818, had significant consequences for the growth of the United States. Beginning as a civil war between Creek factions, the struggle escalated into a war between the Creeks and the United States after insurgent Red Sticks massacred over 250 whites and mixed-bloods at Fort Mims on the Alabama River on August 30, 1813 - the worst frontier massacre in U.S. history.
After seven months of bloody fighting, U.S. forces inflicted a devastating defeat on the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River on March 27, 1814. It was the most disastrous defeat ever suffered by Native Americans.
The defeat of the Creeks - the only serious impediment to U.S. westward expansion - opened millions of acres of land to white settlers, and firmly established the Cotton Kingdom and slavery in the Deep South. For southeastern Native Americans, the war resulted in the destruction of their civilization and forced removal west of the Mississippi. O'Brien presents both the American and Native American perspectives of this important episode in U.S. history. He also examines the roles of the neighboring tribes and African Americans who lived in the Creek nation. In Bitterness and in Tears is a tale for the ages, thrilling and moving, a pivotal point in the tragic and heroic saga that is our national history.

Sean Michael O’Brien is the author of Mountain Partisans: Guerrilla Warfare in the Southern Appalachians, 1861–1865, and Mobile, 1865: Last Stand of the Confederacy.