Like many indigenous peoples of the southeastern woodlands, the Muscogee (Creek) were first introduced to Christianity by Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries in seventeenth-century Spanish Florida. Unlike the Choctaw and Cherokee, however, Muscogees resisted Christianization efforts well into the nineteenth century. It was only after the 1832 Treaty of Cusseta that forcibly removed all remaining southeastern Muscogees to the Indian Territory that Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist missionaries gained sustained access to the nation. The first Muscogee hymnal published in the Indian Territory appeared in 1845, preceding the earliest translations of scripture that appeared in 1855. Nineteenth-century texts continue to form core Muscogee hymn repertoire. Sung from the contemporary text-only hymnal Esyvhigetv: Muskogee Hymns or by memory for both religious services and communal cultural gatherings, hymn-singing remains a valued expression of Muscogee spirituality and tribal identity.

—Erin Fulton