announced to the family, "He will do more than any of you." Pleasant Porter was educated at the Tullahassee Mission School on the Creek Nation, where he studied for five years. He grew up in a bi-cultural environment, and he was fluent in both Muscogee and English. This gave him an advantage in operating in both the white and Creek worlds as an adult. He supplemented this basic education by developing a lifelong habit of study at home. After leaving school, he clerked in a store for some time. He traveled to New Mexico, where he drove cattle until the outbreak of the Civil War. Civil War service During the Civil War, Porter served in the First Confederate Creek Regiment. Most of the Creek had allied with the Confederacy, whose leaders promised to establish an all-Indian state if they were victorious. He had enlisted as a Private under the command of Col. D. N. McIntosh. (He was the son of chief William McIntosh, who had been a prominent leader in the treaty party. They had agreed to cede communal lands in the homeland and remove to Indian Territory without gaining consensus. McIntosh was later executed by opponents for this action.) Porter participated in several battles, including Round Mountain, Chusto-Talasah (Bird Creek), Chustenahlah, Pea Ridge and Honey Springs. He was wounded three times, once in the thigh. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Twice he was wounded in the head. His highest rank was Quartermaster Sergeant. Creek political life In 1865, after the end of the war, Porter served as a guard for Creek commissioners who traveled to Fort Smith, Arkansas to begin peace negotiations with U. S. government representatives. The US required a new peace treaty following the war, one that included emancipation of Creek-owned enslaved African Americans. The Creek government reorganized in 1866. Porter was asked by Creek Nation leaders to reorganize the schools, which had been disrupted by the war. Most of the missionaries who had established schools had left the Territory during the war. In 1871, Porter was reelected as Superintendent of Schools, but declined a second term. Tribal insurrections The "Sands Rebellion" of 1871 was the culmination of grievances between two Creek factions. These had roots to divisions in the society from the Southeast, between the Lower Creek, who tended to have lived more closely near European Americans and had more