Creek War Chief. Born the son of Charles Weatherford, a Scottish trader, and Sehoy, a Creek woman of the Wind clan, at Coosada, a Creek village in what is today Alabama. In the society of the tribe, his kin network linked him to some of the most powerful Creek of the age. Known as Billy during his childhood, after he proved himself a warrior, he was given the name of Hopnicafutsahia (Truth Teller or Truth Maker). His first appearance in the historic record was 1801, when he was part of the group to seize insurgent, William Augustus Bowles. He learned the traditional Creek ways and language from his mother, and the Anglo ways and language from his father. He acquired slaves, planted commercial crops, and bred and raced horses, but he ultimately aligned himself with the Creek when it came to conflict. By 1811, encroaching settlers infringed on Upper Creek lands who resented the intrusion, and they were then brought into conflict with the more assimilated Lower Creek. By 1813, civil war divided the Creek people, and he assumed leadership of the militaristic Red Stick faction. He, Far-off Warrior, and Paddy Walsh led the attack against the garrison at Fort Mims where on August 30, about 700 warriors destroyed the defenses and killed most of the defenders and civilian inhabitants. The tribal civil war then exploded into an American-Creek war as news of the massacre was disseminated. He and the Red Sticks established a fortified village at Econochaca where in December 1813, he led the defense of the town against an attack by General Ferdinand Claiborne the Third U. S. Infantry, Mississippi militia, and Choctaw irregulars. After completing the evacuation of the village, he escaped by famously leaping, on horseback, from a bluff into the Alabama River. He regrouped with Red Stick forces, raising some 1,300 warriors. After the Red Stick stronghold at Autossee was burned by Georgia militia, he apparently pulled out of the counter offensive after a tactical disagreement. A militia of 3,500 organized to suppress the Creek, led by Andrew Jackson, destroyed a company of Creek at Tallushatchee, and in January of 1814, proceeded to Horseshoe Bend where Weatherford was entrenched with almost 1,000 warriors. He lost almost two-thirds of his men and their ability to continue the fight. He surrendered to Jackson a few days later. Admiring his courage, Jackson released him without predjudice; and he then openly cooperated with Jackson to conclude the war. Resented by both Americans and Creek from the opposing side of the civil war, his powerful family waged a spin campaign, downplaying his part in the massacre at Fort Mims, and celebrating his bravery and horsemanship, turning his horseback leap from the bluff and his surrender to Jackson into feats of hardy heroism. He then retired to a plantation in south Alabama, distancing himself from tribal affairs. Despite its current almost universal use, the name 'Red Eagle' was not one he ever used, it first appeared in a poem by A. B. Meek, published in 1855; 'The Red Eagle: A Poem of the South,' which offered a highly romanticized saga based loosely on Weatherford's exploits.