In the late 1600s, English traders moved into this area and established a trading post near a Creek village on the Ocmulgee River, which they called "Ochese Creek," leading them to call the natives living near the river the "Ochese Creek Indians." Over time, that name was shortened to Creek Indians, but the natives call themselves "Muscogee." Tensions between whites and the Creeks grew, and in 1813 the Creek War broke out in Alabama. A year later, the Creek lost the war effort and were forced to cede 23 million acres of Creek land to the government. In 1826, the Muscogee (Creek) ceded all their remaining land in Georgia and moved to Alabama and Florida, and later they were forcibly moved to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in their version of the Trail of Tears. William Bartram observed that Muscogee (Creek) households consisted of up to four structures arranged around a square courtyard, and that the town square stood at the center of Muscogee (Creek) social, political, and religious life. The town square consisted of four arbors, and in the middle was the sacred fire with four logs. Ceremonies were held near the sacred fire on the town square ground, including the annual Busk, or Green Corn Ceremony, which renewed purity and balance in Muscogee (Creek) spiritual life. The sacred fire is the prominent witness to all things, and the Green Corn New Fire restores order and balance from the chaos developed in the past year. The first written documentation of this as the ancestral sacred homeland of the Creek came from William Bartram, who traveled through the area in 1775, crossed the Ocmulgee River, and wrote in his journal about the Ocmulgee Old Fields, stating that this was where the Creek ancestors "first sat down."