By: HISTORY.com Editors
Hundreds of Creek Indians die in Monmouth steamboat disaster
On the cold, rainy night of October 31, 1837, the overloaded Monmouth steamboat carrying between 600 and 700 Creek (Muscogee) Indians from New Orleans to Arkansas collides violently with a sailboat being towed by another steamship. The Monmouth splits in half and sinks just north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Casualty reports vary, but it is believed the accident kills about half the Native American people aboard.
It was the deadliest pre-Civil War steamboat disaster on the Mississippi River.
All the Indians on the Monmouth were in the process of being forcibly moved from their ancestral homelands. They were part of a group of 1,500 Creeks who had traveled from Alabama to New Orleans, where they were divided among three boats, including the Monmouth. The U.S. Army had commissioned the vessels to transport them north along the Mississippi River to newly designated reservation lands.
Trail of Tears
Show: The PresidentsFind out how Andrew Jackson's controversial Indian Removal Act paved the way for The Trail of Tears.
An op-ed in theWeekly Arkansas Gazette decried the callous disregard for human life, claiming that greed had led to the chartering of “rotten, old and unseaworthy boats,” which had been poorly manned and badly overcrowded. The boat’s owner defended his vessel as little more than 12 months old at the time of the accident and fully manned by trained seamen.
The relocation of Creek Indians occurred as part of the Trail of Tears, the period between 1830 and 1850 when the U.S. government forced some 100,000 Native Americans from various tribal nations to leave their homelands and move west. An estimated 3,500 of the 15,000 displaced Creek Indians died on the difficult journey.
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Citation Information
- Article Title
- Hundreds of Creek Indians die in Monmouth steamboat disaster
- Author
- HISTORY.com Editors
- Website Name
- History
- Date Accessed
- October 21, 2026
- Publisher
- A&E Television Networks
- Last Updated
- October 23, 2025
- Original Published Date
- October 23, 2025
