Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees' Struggle for a New World

Do not pay attention to the other reviewer's (Lilley Fleming) unsubstantiated critique of the author's historical interpretation or writing ability. This solid monograph has been rightly praised by Charles Hudson, the American Historical Review, the Journal of American History, and Tony Hillerman (a guy who knows a lot about good writing). As a result of intense European American encroachment on their lands (state of Georgia, Andy Jackson and local militias) and assimilationist (Christian missionaries, federal agents) pressures on their culture, some Muscogees (Creeks) initiated a prophetic religious revitalization ("Redstick") movement to regain power and shape the future according to their own beliefs. Martin's scholarship is based on substantial research that accords with a long line of "post-contact religious resistance" by various Native communities in American Indian history (e.g., Pueblo Revolt (1680), Neolin - the Lenape (Delaware) prophet in Pontiac's Revolt (1763), the Seneca Handsome Lake and the Longhouse Religion (1799), Tecumseh and his brother the Shawnee Prophet(1811), and the various Ghost Dance movements (1870s and 1890s). The only reason for the four-star rating is Martin's occassional lapses into academic jargon.