Long before the removal of the Creek Indians from their Alabama homes to the West, many of their leading men saw the war clouds rising and heard the distant though distinct rumbling of the guns that were to banish them forever from the homes of their forefathers and make them strangers in a strange land beyond the Mississippi. Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, agent and commissioner of the United States government, had, for several years, displayed much wisdom and policy in managing them, but they always remained dissatisfied, and were particularly so when, in 1811, a portion of their chiefs granted a public road through the heart of their country. It was known as the Federal Road, and extended from the Mims Ferry upon the Alabama to the Chattahoochie.