Ocmulgee

The Ocmulgee River winds through central Georgia, past wooded banks and broad floodplains. Native peoples built towns and ceremonial earthworks along its valley over many centuries. The great mounds near the river stood above fertile bottomlands where communities cultivated maize, while other settlements occupied the surrounding waterways and the higher ground nearby.

In the late seventeenth century, towns from the Chattahoochee moved east to the Ocmulgee, which English traders called Ochese Creek. A British trading post served the cluster of Muscogee- and Hitchiti-speaking communities. During the Yamasee War of 1715, Carolinian forces destroyed Ocmulgee Town, and many townspeople moved west again toward the Chattahoochee. In 1805 Creek leaders ceded lands east of the river, making it a boundary of their remaining territory.