Lineage of Alexander McGillivray.—His Education—Made Grand Chief—His
Connection with Milfort—His Relations with William Panton—His
Administration of Creek Affairs—Appointed Colonel by the British—
Treaty with Spain—Commissioned Colonel by the Spanish—Invited to New
York by Washington—Treaty—Commissioned a Brigadier-General by the
United States—His Sister, Sophia Durant—His Trials—His Death at
Pensacola.
The people who have been called Creeks in previous pages, received that
name after their settlement in Alabama and Georgia; a name, it is said,
they derived from the number and beauty of the streams or creeks of the
country they inhabited. Before that they were known as Muscogees
according to English, and Othomis or Otomies, according to Castilian
orthography.
Their original seat was in northern Mexico. They were a warlike and
independent tribe, which, though lacking the comparative civilization of
the Aztecs and the Tlascalans, had yet received some rays of its light.
They had been confederates of the latter in their conflicts for
existence with the former. They had afterwards aided in the defence of
Tlascala against Cortez. Surviving warriors, however, carried back to
their people such accounts of that field of slaughter, and the prowess
of the foe, who seemed to be armed with supernatural weapons, that the
tribe became panic-stricken, and in a council, resolved upon a flight
beyond the reach of the invincible invader. The determination was
promptly put into execution.
The entire tribe, bearing off its movable effects, took its line of
march in an easterly course. After a journey which consumed many months,
they found themselves on the head waters of Red river. Reaching that
river, and following it, they at length found a suitable place for a
settlement, where they felt they were sufficiently remote from the
terrible foe who had inspired their flight. There they accordingly
established themselves, and remained for several years. Abandoning that
settlement, they proceeded northward to the Missouri, thence to the
Mississippi, and from there moved to the Ohio. That progress, however,
was not by a continuous march, but by periodic advances, interrupted by
settlements more or less long, and marked by conflicts with other
tribes, in which, according to their traditions, they were always
victorious.
They must have been living on the banks of the Ohio, when Soto made his
devastating march through the Creek country which was afterwards to be
their home. There they must have been likewise, when de Luna made his
explorations, and noted the sparseness of population, and abandoned
fields as before narrated; or, perhaps, they were then making one of
their intermittent advances southward, which were to bring them
eventually to the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Chattahoochee.
Like other Mexican tribes, the Muscogees were divided into septs or
fratries, the most notable of them being those of the Ho-tal-gee, or the
Wind, the Tiger, the Bear, and the Eagle. In the first, however, resided
the primacy, or hegemony of the tribe.
The traditions of their Mexican origin and emigration, collected by Le
Clerc Milfort under the most favorable conditions, as will be seen
hereafter, are fortified by their form of government, with its dual
executive for civil and military affairs; their glimmer of civilization,
as well as their federative tendency.
Soon after their settlement in the Creek country, they are found
absorbing other tribes; not by enslavement or incorporation, but as
confederates. They had their national councils, composed of the
principal chiefs of the confederacy, and suitable buildings at fixed
places for their accommodation. The head of the confederacy for civil
affairs was the Grand Chief, as the Tustenuggee, or Great Warrior, was
for war. They also had Town Governments, the Chief of each being the
Micco, an elective officer, and not a King, as often misrepresented.
Each town had its council house, in which local affairs were
administered.
The Grand Chief of the Muscogees held the position, and exercised the
functions which recent criticism has assigned to Montezuma, as the head
of the Aztec confederacy, to whom the Spaniards erroneously gave the
title, and attributed the powers of an emperor, in accordance with their
own habits of thought, as the subjects of an emperor.
The Indian trade that existed between the Creeks and the Atlantic coast,
which has already been mentioned, was an inviting field to cupidity and
enterprise, and many were the young adventurers from the old world who
engaged in it soon after their landing at Charleston or Savannah. Some
of them, too, fascinated by the wild life of the forest, made themselves
homes in the Creek nation, and found wives amongst the Creek maidens,
who in form, feature and habits, were superior to those of other tribes.
Amongst those adventurous spirits was Lachlan McGillivray, a youth of
good Scotch family, of Dumglass, Scotland. A few years found him a
successful trader. On one of his visits to the Hickory Ground, a
prominent Creek town on the Coosa, situated near the present site of
Wetumpka, Alabama, he became acquainted with Sehoy Marchand, a young
woman whose mother was a full blood of the Ho-tal-gee, or Wind family,
and whose father was a French captain who had been murdered by mutineers
at Fort Toulouse, a few miles from Hickory Ground. That meeting resulted
in marriage. Shortly afterward, McGillivray made a home, and established
a trading house, not far from where he had first met his Indian wife.
Of that marriage, Alexander McGillivray was the first born, Sophia the
next, and Jenette the third.
The father became exceedingly prosperous, partly in consequence of his
alliance with the chief family of the Creeks, and in a few years found
himself the owner of two plantations on the Savannah river. His trading
journeys, however, still had their attractions for him. When Alexander
was fourteen years old he induced his wife to let the boy go with him to
Charleston, and remain there to be educated. After having been
instructed sufficiently for the purpose, he was placed in a
counting-house; but having acquired a taste for learning, that
occupation became intolerable to him. His father, accordingly,
determined to yield to the bent of the boy’s mind, and found him a
highly educated teacher in a clergyman of Charleston. With that
assistance, and sedulous application, he became a Greek and Latin
scholar, and besides, made rapid and extensive progress in other
departments of knowledge. He appears to have been a student up to the
age of thirty, which he reached about the year 1776. In that year he
left Charleston, an educated man, to return to his people, whom he, a
little semi-savage of fourteen, had left sixteen years before. The
impelling motive to that movement probably was, that being like his
father, a loyalist, residence in a rebel colony was no longer agreeable.
Possibly, however, he had purposely deferred his return to the Indian
nation until he had arrived at such an age as would justify him in
looking to the position of Grand Chief. But, be that as it may, the time
for his return was judiciously chosen, and consistently with that
sagacity which characterized his whole life, of acting opportunely in
all exigencies.
The white settlers of Georgia were beginning to press through what the
Creeks claimed as their frontier; and to that pressure was added the
hostility engendered by the revolution, now in its second year, against
any semblance of favor to the enemies of the patriotic cause. The West
Florida-English and their government were on the most friendly terms
with the Creeks; and that in itself was sufficient to beget hostility to
the latter on the part of the Whigs of Georgia and the Carolinas. This
was a new and complex condition of things to the Creeks, presenting
questions for solution with which their great council felt its inability
to deal. To whom could they look for guidance? They knew no
disinterested advice could come from the government at Pensacola, and it
would be folly to seek counsel from the Georgians, who regarded them as
enemies because they desired to be neutrals, living in peace between
hostile communities, engaged in a conflict in which the Indian could
feel no interest.
It was just at this juncture that Alexander McGillivray found himself
amongst his people. Long and impatiently had they awaited the advent of
the representative of the Ho-tal-gee, the grand chieftain, who for so
many years had been studying that wisdom of the white man, which made
him the Indian’s superior; that wisdom which now acquired by him, was to
be exercised for the salvation of his people. Great, therefore, was the
satisfaction produced the advent of such a disinterested counselor and
guide.
He is hardly well within the nation before a grand council is called at
Coweta, on the Chattahoochee, over which he was to preside, and formally
assume the hegemony of the Ho-tal-gee.
To a thoughtful mind there is a pathos in this scene which appeals to
every generous nature! It comes like the despairing appeal of infancy to
manhood for help! It is the ignorance of the savage stretching out its
supplicating hands to the white man’s wisdom as his only refuge.
One of the most striking powers which McGillivray possessed, was his
ability to win and retain the childlike confidence of his people, and
thereby exercise boundless control over them. He was not a soldier, or a
man of blood, in any sense of the term. He was essentially a statesman
and a diplomat. The conquests of peace only had any fascination for him.
His ambition was to save and civilize his people. That such a man should
bend to his will in the paths of peace a numerous population of warlike
savages, to whom the war-whoop was music, and scalping the most inviting
pastime, is a domination over brute instincts of which history contains
very few examples.
A remarkable instance of that influence occurred shortly after the
council at Coweta. He there made the acquaintance of Le Clerc Milfort,
mentioned in a previous page; an adventurous Frenchman, highly educated,
and possessing military qualities of no ordinary kind, as well as bodily
strength and endurance equal to any exertion. Their mental culture was a
mutual attraction.
Milfort went with him from Coweta to Hickory Ground, the home of
McGillivray’s childhood, where his mother and his sisters Sophia and
Jenette were living. He at once entered into Creek life, and united his
fortunes with McGillivray’s. The bright eyes of Jenette were not long in
winning Milfort’s heart, nor was there much delay in his winning hers.
They were married. By the marriage he acquired great consideration
amongst the Creeks.
As previously remarked, McGillivray was not a soldier himself; but as a
wise ruler, he felt the necessity of having an able commander in war,
when the exigency for it arose. Moreover, his policy as a civilized
ruler, was to have war conducted by a civilized leader, who might by his
example and influence, control the brutal instincts of his savage
forces. Milfort was the man for the place. An obstacle to his
appointment, seemingly insuperable, however, existed. The office of
Tustenuggee was an honor to which the Indian braves looked as the
highest attainable; and presumptively, they would refuse their consent
that this coveted prize should be conferred upon a stranger. But, that
stranger had married a Ho-tal-gee, and it was the wish of the Grand
Chief that he should receive it. It was, accordingly, conferred upon
Milfort with the sanction of the tribe.
McGillivray soon attracted the attention of the British government at
Pensacola, as well as that of the British officers in Georgia, with whom
he carried on an extensive correspondence. They at once saw that it
would be impossible for him to keep the Creeks in a state of neutrality,
founded, as it must be, upon good feeling for each of two bitter foes,
marked by such strict impartiality of conduct as to avoid any ground of
exception by either belligerent. McGillivray’s judgment soon led him to
the same conclusion; a conclusion which imposed upon him the necessity
of choosing one of the belligerents for the ally of his people. He,
accordingly, decided in favor of a British alliance, for which the
reasons were too obvious for hesitation.
The Americans could reach his people upon one frontier only, and even
then their attention would be distracted by their contest with the
British. The British, on the other hand, could without danger of
interference, assail the Creeks from Pensacola; and in case they
crushed, the Georgians would be at liberty to attack them from the east.
But, although he sided with the British, it was with the secret
resolution that the alliance should be maintained at the least possible
sacrifice to his people. His policy was, not to permit their spirit to
be broken, or their numbers diminished, by entering with their full
strength into a conflict with which they had no concern. Nor would he
permit them to inflict such extensive injuries upon Georgia as would be
a barrier to future reconciliation.
In order to spur the Creeks to great efforts against the Americans,
Tait, a British colonel, was stationed on the Coosa; and at the same
time McGillivray received from the British government the commission and
pay of colonel in its service. But both expedients proved ineffectual to
materially change the policy the latter had adopted. Raids, it is true,
were made upon the Georgians, necessarily attended by some blood-shed
and rapine, but they were limited in number, character, and consequence,
by the mental reservation with which McGillivray had entered into the
British alliance. With that limited exertion, however, the British were
fain to be content, as it was better for them than strict neutrality,
and still more so than the hostility of such a powerful tribe directed
against themselves.
Milfort was the commander intrusted with the expeditions against the
Georgia settlements; and, doubtless, being fully aware of the
conservative policy of the Grand Chief, he made every effort to observe
it. A Frenchman, of his ability, was the very man to make such a show of
warfare as would impose on the British, and at the same time to render
it so barren in results as to make but a transient impression upon those
against whom it was directed. That a man should have been selected so
eminently qualified to execute such a singular task, affords the highest
evidence of the capacity of the mind that made the selection. Such
ability, is, indeed, after all, the surest test of the capacity of a
ruler.
Though a band of the Creeks, as already mentioned, assisted the British
at the time of Galvez’s operations against Pensacola, it is remarkable,
that neither McGillivray, who was a colonel in the British army, nor
Milfort, the Great War Chief, seem to have taken any part in the
contest. Such a force as could have been raised by the Creeks and their
confederate tribes, could have rendered great service to the British in
resisting, if not, indeed, in defeating Galvez’s invasion. But an
explanation is readily found in the Grand Chiefs policy of preventing
his people from taking any large part in the quarrels and conflicts of
the whites. Besides, he was doubtless impressed with the smallness of
the British force in West-Florida, compared with the host the Spaniards
had at their command; justifying the conclusion, that as the latter had
been able to conquer the country west, they would prove equal to the
conquest of that east of the Perdido. He, therefore, wisely refrained
from such an interference as would array the Spaniards against his
people, after they had expelled the British from the country. If the
British proved victorious, the assistance rendered by the Creeks, aided
by the Choctaws and Chickasaws, could be urged as the fulfillment of the
obligations of an ally. On the other hand, if the Spaniards were
successful, it was an easy matter to disavow the action of an adventurer
like Bowles, at the head of a handful of Creeks and other Indians, as
one in which the tribe had no concern; an explanation the more
acceptable, as the conqueror would naturally seek to cultivate the like
friendly relations with the Indians which the conquered had enjoyed.
Soon after McGillivray became Grand Chief of his tribe, he met William
Panton at Pensacola. Panton was deeply impressed with his ability. It is
probable, too, that he was acquainted with the elder McGillivray, and
sympathized with him as a fellow victim, who, like himself, had suffered
banishment and confiscation, for no other crime than loyalty to their
King. That sympathy with the parent naturally inspired good will toward
the son. But, aside from such a sentimental consideration, each soon
discovering the great advantage he could be to the other, it was not
long before they were united by the more practical bonds of mutual
interests. McGillivray likewise saw great advantages to his people in
dealing exclusively with a house of such great wealth and influence as
that of Panton, Leslie & Co., whilst Panton was as quick to see, that by
the management of the Grand Chief the firm could secure a monopoly of
the entire Indian trade. It was immediately after this understanding
between them was reached, that they had that meeting with Governor
Chester in the Council Chamber of Fort George, of which a glimpse was
had in a previous page.
The war in Georgia and South Carolina had cut off the Creek trade with
the Atlantic coast; and consequently, McGillivray had no difficulty in
directing the whole of it to Pensacola. But after peace was established,
the Atlantic traders were again ready, with their pack ponies, to take
the trails that led to western Georgia and eastern Alabama. Panton at
once saw that the monopoly of his house was in danger; and that to avert
it, he must bring about an understanding between the Spanish government,
himself, and McGillivray, like that which he had previously effected
with the British. He, accordingly, entered into the treaty with the
Spaniards, of which mention was made in the previous chapter. To be
effective, however, he knew that treaty must be supplemented by another
between the Indians and the Spaniards.
In playing his cards, Panton was looking solely to the advantage of his
house. But it was far otherwise with McGillivray. If he induced his
people to make such a treaty, it was because he saw clearly it was to
their advantage. He rejoiced, too, to find that he was about to reap the
fruit of that policy by which he had brought them through the period of
the Revolutionary War, stronger, and more numerous than they ever were
before; a condition which excited the fears of the Spaniards, and
disposed them to seek the alliance of such a powerful tribe by liberal
concessions. Accordingly, a treaty between the Creeks and the Seminoles
represented by McGillivray, and Spain by Governor Miro of New Orleans,
assisted by O’Niell, Governor of West-Florida, and Don Martin Navarro,
Intendent General of Florida, was entered into on the first of June,
1784, at Pensacola.[42] The relations created by that treaty between the
Indians and Spaniards were close and intimate, and seem to have been
observed substantially, although not always in form, up to the last day
of Spanish rule in Florida.
Its conclusion was followed by McGillivray obtaining a commission with
the pay of Colonel in the Spanish army.
By that treaty he felt, as he had reason to feel, that he had secured
for his tribe an alliance with a strong European power, one that had
just expelled the British from the Floridas; and, that thus fortified,
he was in a condition to meet the Americans on the eastern frontier in a
manner that would prevent their threatened encroachment upon the rights
of his people; not by war, however, in which the Creeks were to engage
with the United States, for such a course, his judgment told him, would
end in their destruction. His treaty with the Spaniards was but a card
which he proposed to use, to give his nation the imposing aspect of one
to be courted rather than despised. To render its attitude still more
imposing, he announced his determination to prevent any further
encroachments by the whites upon the Indian territory in Georgia.
These cards won the game, according to the calculations of the sagacious
brain which conceived it. The United States met the threatening aspect
of affairs in Georgia, by appointing commissioners in 1785, to treat
with the Indians. One of them, Andrew Pickens, addressed a letter to
McGillivray, expressing the wish of the government amicably “to adjust
matters on an equitable footing.” This was the point for the attainment
of which the treaty with the Spaniards, and the threats of hostility
against the Georgians had been made. For it was the strength of the
Creeks, which his policy had so successfully fostered in the midst of
war, backed by the Spanish alliance, that induced the United States,
exhausted by the Revolutionary struggle, to resort to peaceable means to
avoid a conflict with such a powerful tribe.
The reply of McGillivray so clearly illustrates his profound policy,
which previous pages have endeavored to unfold as the moving spring of
all his actions as Grand Chief, that it must be given in extenso,
especially as any attempt to present it by extracts would prove a
mutilation in which its force would be impaired, if not destroyed.
LITTLE TALLASEE, 5th Sept., 1785.
SIR:—I am favored with your letter by Brandon, who, after
detaining it near a month, sent it by an Indian, a few days ago.
He, perhaps, had some reasons for keeping himself from this
region.
The notification you have sent us is agreeable to our wishes, as
the meetings intended for the desirable purpose of adjusting and
settling matters, on an equitable footing, between the United
States and the Indian nations. At the same time, I cannot avoid
expressing my surprise that a measure of this nature should have
been so long delayed, on your part. When we found that the
American Independence was confirmed by the peace, we expected
that the new government would soon have taken some steps to make
up the differences that subsisted between them and the Indians
during the war; to have taken them under their protection, and
confirmed to them their hunting-grounds. Such a course would
have reconciled the minds of the Indians and secured the States
their friendship, as they considered your people their natural
allies. The Georgians, whose particular interest it was to
conciliate the friendship of this nation, have acted, in all
respects, to the contrary. I am sorry to observe that violence
and prejudice have taken the place of good policy and reason, in
all their proceedings with us. They attempted to avail
themselves of our supposed distressed situation. Their talks to
us breathe nothing but vengeance, and, being entirely possessed
with the idea, that we were wholly at their mercy, they never
once reflected that colonies of a powerful monarch were nearly
surrounding us, to whom, in an extremity, we might apply for
succor and protection, and who, to answer some ends of their
policy, might grant it to us. However, we yet deferred any such
proceeding, still expecting that we could bring them to a true
sense of their interest; but still finding no alteration in
their conduct towards us, we sought the protection of Spain, and
treaties of friendship and alliance were mutually entered into—
they guaranteeing our hunting-grounds and territory, and
granting us a free trade in the ports of the Floridas.
How the boundary and limits between the Spaniards and the States
will be determined a little time will show, as I believe that
matter is now on foot. However, we know our limits, and the
extent of our hunting-grounds. As a free nation, we have
applied, as we had the right to do, for protection, and obtained
it. We shall pay no attention to any limits that may prejudice
our claims, that were drawn by an American and confirmed by a
British negotiator. Yet, notwithstanding we have been obliged to
adopt these measures for our preservation, and from real
necessity, we sincerely wish to have it in our power to be on
the same footing with the States as before the late unhappy war,
to effect which is entirely in your power. We want nothing from
you but justice. We want our hunting-grounds preserved from
encroachments. They have been ours from the beginning of time,
and I trust that, with the assistance of our friends, we shall
be able to maintain them against every attempt that may be made
to take them from us.
Finding our representations to the State of Georgia of no
effect, in restraining their encroachments, we thought it proper
to call a meeting of the nation, on the subject. We then came to
the resolution to send our parties to remove the Georgians and
their effects from the lands in question, in the most peaceful
manner possible.
Agreeably to your requisition, and to convince you of my sincere
desire to restore a good understanding between us, I have taken
the necessary steps to prevent any future predatory excursions
of my people against any of your settlements. I could wish the
people of Cumberland showed an equal good disposition to do what
is right. They were certainly the first aggressors, since the
peace, and acknowledged it in a written certificate, left at the
Indian camp they had plundered.
I have only to add, that we shall meet the commissioners of
Congress whenever we shall receive notice, in expectation that
every matter of difference will be settled, with that liberality
and justice worthy the men who have so gloriously asserted the
cause of liberty and independence, and that we shall, in future,
consider them as brethren, and defenders of the land.[43]
I am, with much respect, sir,
Your obedient servant,
ALEXANDER MCGILLIVRAY.
HON. ANDREW PICKENS.
How politic and graceful the allusion to American independence! Could
the alliance with Spain have been touched more artfully? How firm is the
insistance of the rights of his people! How striking is the regulation
of the force exerted in the removal of trespassers from the Indian
domain! How worthy of the spring days of republican America is the
closing paragraph!
The reader must be induced to read another letter, not merely as
illustrative of the style and springs of action of the Grand Chief, but
as a narrative of events bearing upon his life, which no pen can so well
narrate as his own. It is in reply to a letter of James White,
superintendent of the Creek Indians.
LITTLE TALLASEE, 8th April, 1787.
SIR:—It is with real satisfaction, that I learn of your being
appointed by Congress, for the laudable purpose of inquiring
into and settling the differences that, at present subsist
between our nation and the Georgians. It may be necessary for
you to know the cause of these differences, and our discontents,
which, perhaps, have never come to the knowledge of the
honorable body that sent you to our country.
There are Chiefs of two towns in this nation, who, during the
late war, were friendly to the State of Georgia, and had gone,
at different times, among those people, and once, after the
general peace, to Augusta. They there demanded of them a grant
of lands, belonging to and enjoyed as hunting-grounds by the
Indians of this nation, in common, on the east of the Oconee
river. The Chiefs rejected the demand, on the plea, that these
lands were the hunting-grounds of the nation, and could not be
granted by two individuals; but, after a few days, a promise was
extorted from them, that, on their return to our country, they
would use their influence to get a grant confirmed. Upon their
return, a general convention was held at Tookabatcha, when these
two Chiefs were severely censured, and the Chiefs of
ninety-eight towns agreed upon a talk, to be sent to Savannah,
disapproving, in the strongest manner, of the demand made upon
their nation, and denying the right of any two of their country
to make cession of land, which could only be valid by the
unanimous voice of the whole, as joint proprietors in common.
Yet these two Chiefs, regardless of the voice of the nation,
continued to go to Augusta, and other places within the State.
They received presents and made promises; but our customs did
not permit us to punish them for the crime. We warned the
Georgians of the dangerous consequences that would certainly
attend the settling of the lands in question. Our just
remonstrances were treated with contempt, and these lands were
soon filled with settlers. The nation, justly alarmed at the
encroachments, resolved to use force to maintain their rights,
yet, being averse to the shedding of the blood of a people whom
we would rather consider as friends, we made another effort to
awaken in them a sense of justice and equity. But we found, from
experience, that entreaty could not prevail, and parties of
warriors were sent, to drive off the intruders, but were
instructed to shed blood, only, where self-preservation made it
necessary.
This was in May, 1786. In October following we were invited by
commissioners, of the State of Georgia, to meet them in
conference, at the Oconee, professing a sincere desire for an
amicable adjustment of our disputes, and pledging their sacred
honors for the safety and good treatment of all those who should
attend and meet them. It not being convenient for many of us to
go to the proposed conference, a few, from motives of curiosity,
attended. They were surprised to find an armed body of men,
prepared for and professing hostile intentions. Apprehensions
for personal safety induced those Chiefs to subscribe to every
demand that was asked by the army and its commissioners. Lands
were again demanded, and the lives of some of our Chiefs were
required, as well as those of some innocent traders, as a
sacrifice to appease their anger. Assassins have been employed
to effect some part of their atrocious purpose. If I fall by the
hand of such, I shall fall the victim of the noblest of causes,
that of maintaining the just rights of my country. I aspire to
the honest ambition of meriting the appellation of the preserver
of my country, equally with the Chiefs among you, whom, from
acting on such principles, you have exalted to the highest pitch
of glory. And if, after every peaceable mode of obtaining
redress of grievances proved fruitless, a recourse to arms to
obtain it be a mark of the savage, and not of the soldier, what
savages must the Americans be, and how much undeserved applause
has your Cincinnatus, your Fabius, obtained. If a war name had
been necessary to distinguish that Chief, in such a case, the
Man-Killer, the Great Destroyer, would have been the proper
appellation.
I had appointed the Cussetas, for all the Chiefs of the Lower
Creeks to meet in convention. I shall be down in a few days,
when, from your timely arrival, you will meet the Chiefs, and
learn their sentiments, and I sincerely hope that the
propositions which you shall offer us will be such as we can
safely accede to. The talks of the former commissioners, at
Galphinton, were much approved of, and your coming from the
White Town (seat of Congress) has raised great expectations,
that you will remove the principal and almost only cause of our
dispute, that is, by securing to us our hunting-grounds and
possessions, free from all encroachments. When we meet, we shall
talk these matters over.
Meantime, I remain,
With regard, your obedient servant,
ALEXANDER MCGILLIVRAY.[44]
HON. JAMES WHITE.
The foregoing letter illustrates the troubles the Georgians were giving
the Creeks, and the call they made upon McGillivray’s abilities and
influence over his people, in order to avoid a state of war. No result
was reached by the Cussetas talk. Matters remained in the same
unsatisfactory condition after as before it, and so continued until
after General Washington became President of the United States in 1789.
He appointed a new set of commissioners to effect a settlement, but
these, like the others, failed to reach a favorable result. On the other
hand, their reports were so alarming that he at first regarded war as
the only remedy for the troubles existing between the Georgians and the
Creeks. But, wisely concluding that the country was not then able to
bear the burden of such a costly corrective, he determined to make
another effort at conciliation. In this frame of mind the happy thought
occurred to him, that a personal interview between him and McGillivray
might be attended by results which commissioners had failed to reach.
Acting upon it, he sent an agent to the Creek nation, in the person of
Colonel Marius Willet, to induce McGillivray to visit New York. The
mission was successful. McGillivray in June, 1790, at the head of thirty
of the principal chiefs of the confederacy, set out on their long
journey mounted on horses.
A stage of the journey brought them to Guildford Court House, where they
were honored by a large assembly of the neighborhood. Suddenly the
throng around the Great Chief opens to a woman, who rushes up to him,
her face bathed in tears, and then, with blessings upon him, expresses
her gratitude for a good deed done by him years before, of which she and
her children were the beneficiaries. In an Indian raid her husband had
been killed, and she and her children carried into captivity. Her
benefactor hearing of their melancholy fate redeemed them, and gave them
a home in his own house, until an opportunity was afforded of sending
them to their friends. He was received with distinguished consideration
at Richmond and Fredericksburg. Philadelphia honored him and his company
with a three days’ entertainment. Colonel Willet, who accompanied them,
tells us that upon their landing in New York, the Tammany Society, in
full regalia, received them, attended them to Congress Hall, and thence
to the residence of General Washington. And then and there, were brought
face to face, the most remarkable white man, and the most remarkable red
man the western hemisphere had then produced.
Whilst the chiefs of the two confederacies are settling their relations,
an interesting event calls our thoughts from New York to Alabama. The
impressive influence of the Great Chiefs presence was no sooner
withdrawn, than a large number of the restless Creeks conceived the
purpose of destroying the white settlements on the Tensas, which had
been increasing rapidly under his protection. The plan, and the time for
its execution were at last fixed. But, fortunately, they were revealed
to Mrs. Sophia Durant, the sister of McGillivray.
She possessed remarkable command of the Muscogee language, coupled with
the gift of oratory. She often addressed councils at the instance of her
brother, who, owing to his long absence from his people in his youth, as
well as the study of other tongues, had lost the full command of his
own.
At the time she was informed of the bloody scheme, she was at her farm
on Little river. Although far under the shadow of maternity she
determines, at every risk to herself, by prompt action, to save an
unsuspecting population from the terrible fate hanging over them. She
orders two horses to be saddled on the instant. She mounts one and her
trusty negress the other. More than twice two score human lives depend
upon her reaching Hickory Ground in time, and that required a ride of
sixty miles. Night and day those two women ride on that errand of mercy.
The only pause was when an opportunity offered to summon a chief to the
Hickory Ground Council House. The notice flies from chief to chief, that
the sister of the Grand Chief has called a council, to tell them,
doubtless, what he had said to her on “talking paper.” From all
quarters, prompted by interest and curiosity, there is a rush for the
Hickory Ground. By that device, worthy the genius of her brother, the
council is promptly assembled. She addresses them with a tone of mingled
authority and persuasion. She tells them of the scheme that had been
disclosed to her; upbraids them for ingratitude to her brother, then
with the Great White Chief, who might exact from him and his thirty
companions the lives of the murdered whites; warns them, too, of the
vengeance which he would be compelled, with the assistance of the
whites, to visit upon the murderers; adding all those appeals which in
such an exigency would come swelling up from the heart of a noble woman.
From all sides of the assembly come pledges that the ringleaders shall
be seized, and the enterprise crushed; and promptly and efficiently it
was done. History, story and art have commemorated the saving of a
single life by Pocahontas; but how insignificant was that act compared
with the one just described! The action is further glorified by the
fact, that within two weeks after the noble woman had saved so many
human beings, she added another life to the long roll of the living.[45]
A treaty was speedily negotiated between the Creeks and the United
States, by which the Oconee lands referred to in the foregoing letter
were ceded for an annual payment of fifteen hundred dollars, and a
distribution of merchandise. Questions of boundary were settled; the
Indian territory was guaranteed against farther encroachment; a
permanent peace was provided for; the Creeks and Seminoles placed
themselves under the jurisdiction of the United States, and renounced
their rights to make treaties with any other nation. All the Indian
Chiefs besides McGillivray participated in the negotiation and execution
of the treaty.
But besides that open one, there was a secret treaty to which the Grand
Chief and the United States only, were parties. It contained a
stipulation, that after two years the Indian trade should be turned to
points in the United States. It provided for annual stipends to be paid
to designated chiefs. McGillivray himself was appointed Indian agent of
the United States, with the rank of a Brigadier-General, and the yearly
pay of twelve hundred dollars.[46]
These treaties were the grounds of severe criticism upon McGillivray. By
the open treaty, it was said, he made a surrender of the Oconee county
for an inadequate consideration. But the obvious answer to that
objection was, that he had exhausted every expedient that his clear and
fertile mind could command, to stay the encroachments of the Georgians
without a war, an alternative which would have eventually ended in
crushing his people. Besides, the plighted faith of the United States,
that no farther encroachments should be made upon them, was to them a
consideration far exceeding every other; for history had not then
declared, as it has since, how frail a barrier against encroachments
upon Indian territory is the plighted faith of the nation.
Whatever personal advantages he derived from the secret treaty, whether
pecuniary or in dignity, inured to the benefit of his people. To honor
him was to give consideration to them; and they regarded the tributes
which his abilities drew from the British, the Spaniards, and the
Americans, as so many offerings made to the power of the nation. That
each of those tributaries complained that he was not their dupe, is
alike a proof of his ability, and his fidelity to his people.
For a short time after the New York Treaty he seemed to be losing the
confidence of his people, through the machinations of the self-styled
General Bowles, who, it will be remembered, assisted with a body of
Choctaws, Chickasaws and Creeks, in the defense of Pensacola against
Galvez. He was a bold, unprincipled mischief-maker, who would stop at
nothing that could be turned to his own advantage; one of those
characters who breed suspicion and create confusion for their own profit
and consideration. To sap the confidence of the Creeks in their Grand
Chief, was to bring about an unsettled condition of things in which he
would find himself in his element; and for that purpose he availed
himself of the New York Treaty. It would have been an easy matter for
McGillivray to have him driven out of the nation, or by the judgment of
a council to have taken his life; but neither of these courses suiting
his policy, he resolved upon one more subtle and yet as effectual. He
visited New Orleans, where it was conjectured he held a consultation
with Governor Carondolet, on the subject of ridding the nation of the
mischief-maker. Shortly afterwards, Bowles was seized by the Spaniards
and sent to Spain. Of the end of his exile we are informed by a letter
of General Washington’s dated at Mount Vernon, fifth of August,
1793.[47] “On my way to this place I saw Captain Barney at Baltimore,
who had just arrived from Havana. He says, the day before he left that
place, advice had been received, and generally believed, that Bowles,
who was sent to Spain, had been hanged.” Thus ended a chequered life,
full of adventures, strange phases, and bad deeds, which it would be
interesting to follow were this the proper place.
The New York Treaty was an object of suspicion both to Panton and the
Spaniards, although they knew nothing of its secret feature; but they
naturally inferred that some other considerations, besides those made
public, must have induced the United States to honor McGillivray with
the commission and pay of Brigadier-General.
The suspicion, however, resulted profitably to McGillivray. Before he
went to New York he complained to Panton of the parsimonious conduct of
the Spanish government to him, from whom it expected, and obtained, so
much care and labor. Believing this supposed slight on their part was
the cause of the favor he manifested for the Americans, that government
at once took steps to remove it. He was appointed the Spanish
Superintendent-General of the Creek nation, with a salary of two
thousand dollars, to which fifteen hundred more were shortly afterwards
added.
Soon after McGillivray received that appointment, the Spanish government
sent to the Hickory Ground, as its resident agent, Captain Pedro
Olivier, accompanied by an interpreter. This man soon became engaged in
intrigues to prevent the running of the boundary lines provided for by
the New York Treaty; and in this matter he was assisted by William
Panton, who visited the Creek nation for that purpose.
This state of things naturally excited the suspicion of the United
States, that McGillivray was co-operating with Panton and Olivier. Of
any active co-operation by him, however, there is no evidence, as there
is none of his active opposition to their machinations. He was too
sagacious a man, and had the good of his people too much at heart to
engage in the latter. The boundary line fixed by the treaty, had from
the first, been exceedingly objectionable to the Creeks, so much so,
that even the influence of their Grand Chief had failed to reconcile
them to it. Indeed, he himself feared that such a reconciliation was
beyond his ability. In self-vindication, in the midst of Olivier’s
intrigues, he writes to General Knox, Secretary of War: “You recollect,
sir, that I had great objection to making the south fork of the Oconee
the limit; and when you insisted so much, I candidly told you that it
might be made an article, but I would not pledge myself to get it
confirmed.” It was against the running of that boundary line, that the
intrigues of Olivier and Panton were ostensibly directed; but their real
object was to keep the Creeks in a ferment in order to exclude their
trade from the Atlantic cities, and confine it to Pensacola; the
question of boundary being seized upon as a means of accomplishing that
end. McGillivray’s position was one of great delicacy and
responsibility. For him to resist by active opposition those who opposed
the running of the boundary line, was not only to do something he had
never undertaken to do, but to take a stand that might divide his people
into two hostile camps, the most calamitous condition that could befall
them.
In the midst of these trials, death came to his relief on the
seventeenth of February, 1793, at Pensacola, whilst on a visit to
William Panton. He was buried with masonic honors, and, it is said, in
Panton’s garden. Unfortunately the identity of the spot has defied
diligent investigation, and generations have unconsciously desecrated
his dust, as they have that of another distinguished man already
mentioned. But the suspicion arises that to a different cause must be
attributed the oblivion that has befallen the last resting place of the
Great Chief, from that which has been assigned in the case of General
Bouquet’s. Had Panton erected a respectable brick monument even, over
the remains of one for whom he professed so much friendship, and who had
done so much to increase his fortune, reverently protecting it up to the
time he left Florida, this generation might be able to direct the
footsteps of the stranger to the tomb of the most remarkable man to whom
Alabama ever gave birth, and the most extraordinary man to whom Florida
has furnished a grave.
He has been accused of deceit and duplicity in his dealings with the
British, the Spaniards and Americans. But truth and candor, if not
exotics, are not virile growths in the domain of state craft, while
necessity is the ever ready plea on which adepts in the art, or their
apologists, rest their vindication. When, therefore, the Great Indian
stands condemned at the Bar of Eternal Truth, well may other statesmen
and diplomatists whose achievements history delights to record, shrink
from the Judgment Seat.
The Grand Chief watched without interference the struggle of the Spanish
and British for supremacy in West-Florida, because the true interests of
his people pointed to neutrality. Cavour, the ablest and purest
statesman of recent times, from a like patriotic motive stood ready, in
case of failure, to disavow the invasion of Naples by Garibaldi, which
he had, nevertheless, secretly promoted. If the New York treaty was a
gross violation of the Pensacola treaty of 1784, Washington and his
cabinet invited, and encouraged, whatever of bad faith there was in the
transaction.
The defense of such characters must rest at last upon the final judgment
of their own nation upon their life work. So judged, McGillivray is
entitled to no low place on the roll of patriotic statesmen.
For seventeen years, dating from the Creek troubles in 1776, up to his
death, he had been the guide and shield of his people. For them those
were years of comparative peace, growth, and preparation for the white
man’s civilization, by the example afforded in his own person of its
benefits and attractions. With war raging around them, under his
guidance, they reached a condition which caused him to be honored, and
their alliance sought by two monarchs and a Great Republic. He moved
amongst them enjoying the reverence and honor of a patriarchal sheik.
Intrigue and detraction brought him under a transient cloud. But when
they learned his life was closed in death, their hearts were smitten as
those of a family when it loses its head. There went up from the Creek
land an universal wail; and again, like a sinister prophecy of evil,
there came over it the shadow it was under before the council of Coweta.
Bitter, too, to his people, was the thought, that he slept in the “sands
of the Seminoles,” and not on the banks of the beautiful Coosa, which he
loved so well; where he was born, where he had presided over councils,
and made “paper talk” for their good, and where his hospitality was ever
ready, alike for the distinguished stranger and the humble wayfarer.
* * * * *
The fate of Milfort may interest the reader. After the death of
McGillivray he returned to France, where in 1802 he published
the “Memoire De Mon Sejour Dans La Nation Crëck,” to which we
owe the preservation of the traditions of that people. But sad
to relate, forgetting his Indian wife, he married a French
woman. He was made General of Brigade by the Emperor Napoleon.
He died in 1814. His French wife was burned to death at an
advanced age at Rheims.
-----
Footnote 42:
American State Papers, Vol. 10, pp. 223-227.
Footnote 43:
Indian Affairs, Vol. I., pp. 17-18.
Footnote 44:
Indian Affairs, Vol. I., pp. 18-23.
Footnote 45:
Pickett’s History of Alabama, Vol. II. p. 127.
Footnote 46:
2 Pickett’s History of Alabama, Vol. II. pp. 110-11.
Footnote 47:
The same letter speaks of the death of “our friend McGillivray,”
Sparks, Vol. 10, p. 335.
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