I am a Creek Indian and I have heard both interpretations but, although I done considerable research on Hawkins’ interactions with my people, I’ve never seen it in his writings or seen a traceable cite.
“Some people?” I thought it was always just a variant pronunciation. It’s actually considered a separate word?
This is how it’s always been in my family. I’ve always thought of my ancestors more as hillbillies than rednecks.
Sure, but my point is that “crick” is a part of the meme as I’ve always heard it. People who would normally say “creek” will say “crick” when using this expression. It seemed odd, and relevant to the OP that everyone else knew it under the more standard pronunciation.
Also, I usually hear it with “The Good Lord Willing…” I don’t know why I truncated that part.
Down in this part of the country, it’s invariably “The good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”
I’ve only ever heard it, so I can’t speak to the capitalization of the word ‘creek’.
That’s the way I always heard it, and the way it appeared on this 1953 Hank Williams concert bill.
The Creek Indian explanation smells like post hoc folk etymology to me.
While I am inclined to agree that the Creek Indian explanation is folk etymology, I’m not sure I see how your cite makes the case one way or the other.
The fact that Benjamin Hawkins evidently didn’t write it still doesn’t establish one way or another whether the phrase originally referred to Creek Indians.
However, I am more inclined to think it originally referred to the fact that when the creeks (small ‘c’) rose, they were rendered un-fordable, cutting off travel routes.
I’ve never heard this expression in my life. I saw it on James Carville’s shirt during the oil thing and wondered what the heck it meant.
You are all wrong. 
I have always herd the phrase as:
The good lord willing and the river don’t rise
Kinda takes the Indians out of it.
But it doesn’t flow nearly as well.
Heh…“flow.”
For the record, I also grew up with “Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.”
But it’s a pretty good one, isn’t it? Points for style, at least.
Yes, that was always my understanding.
I’ve heard a tale or two about the things people got up to when stranded by the risen creek.
Well, in the general etymological sense of course it’s the same word no matter how spelled or pronounced.
But I meant to point out that there are people who pronounce “crick” and would write “creek” if transcribing themselves, whereas others will say and write it as “crick.” The second case, “crick” as a variant word, seems to connote a smaller, twistier* kind of waterway, often somewhat hidden, the kind of thing you can probably jump across. “Creeks” may be larger, faster-running, maybe even navigable for shallow boats. The people who use the word “crick” for a trickle running through the woods behind their house might identify someone else’s “creek” as a “river.”
- I used to own one we called Watson Crick.
You can go to your room, now. 