Muscogee Creek Nation · Northeast Alabama

The Story of Chief Ladiga

1832 — 1833

Chief Ladiga was a Muscogee Creek chief whose territory covered what is now Calhoun and Cleburne counties in northeastern Alabama. A trail 40 miles long carries his name. Most of the people who walk it don’t know his story.

Who He Was

A Muscogee Creek Chief

Calhoun and Cleburne Counties, Alabama

Chief Ladiga led a band of the Muscogee Creek Nation in the piedmont foothills of northeastern Alabama. His people had lived in this landscape for generations, along the Coosa River and its tributaries, in the land that rises toward Georgia.

Much of Ladiga’s life before the treaty of 1832 is not documented in sources that survive. What remains is what the United States government recorded: the fact of his signature, the terms he was given, and what happened to his land afterward.

The Treaty

The Treaty of Cusseta

March 24, 1832

On March 24, 1832, the United States concluded the Treaty of Cusseta with the Creek Nation. The treaty extinguished Creek land titles across Alabama. Under its terms, individual Creek citizens could claim personal allotments on lands they had previously held communally. The Creek Nation ceded everything else.

Chief Ladiga signed the treaty. He was permitted to retain a personal allotment of approximately 640 acres within his territory.

Benton County · Late 1832

The county created from the ceded Creek lands in 1832 was originally named Benton County. It was later renamed Calhoun County, for John C. Calhoun, the South Carolina senator and former vice president.

The Land Sale

Drayton, Then Jacksonville

1833

The year after the treaty, Ladiga sold a portion of his personal allotment to a group of land speculators led by Charles White Peters. The price was $2,000.

The tract was platted and named Drayton. Within the year it was renamed Jacksonville — to honor Andrew Jackson, the president whose administration had negotiated the removal of Ladiga’s people. On July 20, 1833, Jacksonville was officially incorporated.

Jacksonville State University sits on that land today. The town where students register for classes, where the campus clock tower marks the hours — that town was built on land Chief Ladiga personally owned and sold.

The Price

$2,000 was the recorded sale price for the portion of Ladiga’s allotment that became Jacksonville. Whether the transaction was voluntary in any meaningful sense — or whether it was made under the pressure of a nation already being removed — the sources do not say plainly. The dollar amount is what survives.

What Came After

The Railroad. The Removal. The Trail.

The railroad that eventually ran through this corridor was built through the former Creek territory after removal. The Creek Nation was forced west — the removal carried Ladiga’s people to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma.

The rail line operated for generations. When it closed, the corridor sat unused. In 1990, the City of Piedmont received a Land and Water Conservation Grant to purchase the abandoned rail bed. The Chief Ladiga Trail opened in stages over the following years.

His name is on the signs at every trailhead. His people built no railroad. His people were removed so one could be built.

Where He Is Buried

Near Piedmont, Alabama

Chief Ladiga is buried near Piedmont, Alabama — at the far eastern end of the trail that carries his name. He died on or near his former land, in the county his people were removed from.

Most people who walk the trail from Anniston to the Georgia line do not know he is buried at the end of it.