Alexander McGillivray

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Alexander McGillivray (December 15, 1750 – February 17, 1793) was a leader of the Creek (Muscogee) Indians during and after the American Revolution who worked to establish a Creek national identity and centralized leadership as a means of resisting European-American expansion onto Creek territory.

McGillivray was born Hoboi-Hili-Miko ("Good Child King") in the Coushatta village of Little Tallassee on the Coosa River, near present-day Montgomery, Alabama. His father, Lachlan McGillivray, was a Scottish trader (of the Clan MacGillivray chief's lineage) who built a trading-posts among the Upper Towns of the Muscogee confederacy, who had traded with French Louisiana. His mother, Sehoy Marchand, was the daughter of Jean Baptiste Louis DeCourtel Marchand, a French officer at Fort Toulouse, and Sehoy, a mixed-blooded Creek woman of the prestigious Wind Clan.

As a child, he briefly lived in Augusta with his father, who owned several large plantations and was a delegate in the colonial assembly. In 1773, McGillivray moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he learned Latin and Greek, then apprenticed at a countinghouse in Savannah, Georgia. He returned to Little Tallassee in 1777 after the revolutionary governments of Georgia and South Carolina confiscated the property of his Loyalist father, who then returned to Scotland. McGillivray obtained the rank of colonel in the British army, and brokered a British-Muscogee alliance. An inept military strategist, he rarely participated in battle, but was a skillful diplomat.

McGillivray became the principal chief of the Upper Creek towns after his predecessor, Chief Emistigo, died in the summer of 1782, leading a war-party to relieve the British garrison at Savannah, besieged by the Continental Army under General 'Mad' Anthony Wayne. At one time, he wielded great power, having from 5,000 to 10,000 armed followers.[1][2] He opposed the 1783 Treaty of Augusta, under which two Lower Creek chiefs ceded Muscogee lands from the Ogeechee to the Oconee rivers to the new state of Georgia. In June 1784 he negotiated the Treaty of Pensacola with Spain, which recognized Muscogee sovereignty over three million acres (12,000 km²) of land claimed by Georgia, guaranteed access to the British fur-trading company Panton, Leslie & Company, and made him an official representative of Spain, with a $50 monthly salary.[3]

McGillivray became a partner in Panton, Leslie & Co., and used his control over the deerskin trade to expand his power. He sought to end the traditional village autonomy that allowed individual chiefs to sign treaties by creating mechanisms of centralized political authority. Armed by British traders operating out of Spanish West Florida, the Muscogee raided back-country white settlers to protect their hunting grounds. From 1785 to 1787 Upper Creek war-parties fought alongside the Cherokee in the Chickamauga Wars in present-day Tennessee, and in 1786 a council of the Upper and Lower Creeks in Tuckabatchee declared war against Georgia. When Spanish officials informed him that they would have to reduce their aid, he entered into talks with the U.S.

A loyalist like his father, McGillivray resented much of American Indian policy; however, he did not wish to leave the United States. McGillivray became a leading spokesman for all the tribes along the Florida-Georgia border areas. Georgia's Yazoo land scandal convinced George Washington that the federal government needed to control Indian affairs, and in 1790 he sent a special emissary who convinced McGillivray to attend a conference with Secretary of War Henry Knox in New York City, then the capital of the U.S. The conference resulted in the Treaty of New York.

Alexander McGillivray was a man of remarkable ability is evident from the skill with which he maintained his control and influence over the Creeks, and from his success in keeping both the United States and Spain paying for his influence at the same time. In 1792 he was at once the superintendent-general of the Creek nation on behalf of Spain, the agent of the United States, the mercantile partner of Panton, and "emperor" of the Creek and Seminole nations. [4]

McGillivray and 29 other chiefs signed the treaty on behalf of the 'Upper, Middle and Lower Creek and Seminole composing the Creek nation of Indians.' The first treaty negotiated after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, it established the Altamaha and Oconee Rivers as the boundary between Creek lands and the U.S., with the federal government promising to remove illegal white settlers, and the Muscogee agreeing to return runaway black slaves who sought refuge with the tribe, a decision which angered the Seminoles, who included a large number of escaped slaves. Under the treaty, McGillivray became a brigadier general of the U.S., with an annual salary of $1,200. With this money, he acquired three plantations and sixty slaves.[5] The treaty pacified the Southern frontier, but the U.S. failed to honor its obligations.

In 1792 McGillivray repudiated the treaty and negotiated another treaty with Spanish officials in Louisiana, who promised to respect Muscogee sovereignty. He then became a resident of Pensacola and a member of the Masonic Order.

He died on February 17, 1793. Two of his nephews, William Weatherford and William McIntosh, were the most important Muscogee leaders in the early 19th century, fighting on opposing sides of the Creek War.

McGillivray, Alexander. A mixed blood Creek chief who acquired considerable note during the latter half of the 18th century by his ability and the affection in which he was held by his mother's people. Capt. Marchand, in command of the French Ft Toulouse, Ala., in 1722, married a Creek woman of the strong Hutali or Wind clan, from which it was customary to select the chief. One of the children of this marriage was Sehoy, celebrated for her beauty. In 1735 Lachlan McGillivray, a Scotch youth of wealthy family, landed in Carolina, made his way to the Creek country, married Sehoy, and established his residence at Little Talasi, on the east bank of Coosa river, above Wetumpka, Elmore county, Ala. After acquiring a fortune and rearing a family he abandoned the latter, and in 1782 returned to his native country. One of his children was Alexander, born about 1739; he was educated at Charleston under care of Farquhar McGillivray, a relative. At the age of 17 he was placed in a counting house in Savannah but after a short time returned to his home, where his superior talents began to manifest themselves, and he was soon at the head of the Creek tribe.

Later his authority extended also over the Seminole and the Chickamauga groups, enabling him, it is said, to muster 10,000 warriors. McGillivray is first heard of in his new role as "presiding at a grand national council at the town of Coweta, upon the Chattahoochie, where the adventurous Leclerc Milfort was introduced to him" (Pickett, Hist. Ala., 345, 1896). Through the advances made by the British authorities, the influence of Col. Tait, who was stationed on the Coosa, and the conferring on him of the title and pay of colonel, McGillivray heartily and actively espoused the British cause during the Revolution. His father had left him property on the Savannah and in other parts of Georgia, which, in retaliation for his abandonment of the cause of the colonists, was confiscated by the Georgia authorities. This action greatly embittered him against the Americans and led to a long war against the western settlers, his attacks being directed for a time against the people of east Tennessee and Cumberland valley, whence he was successively beaten back by Gen. James Robertson. The treaty of peace in 1783 left McGillivray without cause or party. Proposals from the Spanish authorities of Florida through his business partner, Win. Panton, another Scotch adventurer and trader, induced him to visit Pensacola in 1784, where, as their "emperor," he entered into an agreement with Spain in the name of the Creeks and the Seminoles. The United States made repeated overtures to McGillivray for peace, but he persistently refused to listen to them until invited to New York in 1790 for a personal conference with Washington. His journey from Little Talasi, through Guilford Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Philadelphia, was like a triumphal march, and the prospective occasion for such display was a strong inducement for the shrewd chief to accept the invitation. According to Pickett (p. 406) there was, in addition to the public treaty, a secret treaty between McGillivray and Washington which provided "that after two years from date the commerce of the Creek nation should be carried on through the ports of the United States, and, in the meantime, through the present channels; that the chiefs of the Okfuskees, Tookabatchas Tallases Cowetas Cussetas and the Seminole nation should be paid annually by the United States $100 each, and be furnished with handsome medals; that Alexander McGillivray should be constituted agent of the United States with the rank of brigadier-general and the pay of $1,200 per annuls; that the United States should feed, clothe, and educate Creek youth at the North, not exceeding four at one time." The public treaty was signed Aug. 7, 1790, and a week later McGillivray took the oath of allegiance to the United States. Nevertheless he was not diverted from his intrigue with Spain, for shortly after taking the oath he was appointed by that power superintendent-general of the Creek nation with a salary of $2,000 a year, which was increased in 1792 to $3,500.

The versatile character of McGillivray was perhaps due in part to the fact that there flowed in his veins the blood of four different nationalities. It has been said that he possessed "the polished urbanity of the Frenchman, the duplicity of the Spaniard, the cool sagacity of the Scotchman, and the subtlety and inveterate hate of the Indian." Gen. James Robertson, who knew him well and despised the Spaniards, designated the latter "devils and pronounced McGillivray as the biggest devil among them" half Spaniard, half Frenchman, half Scotchman, and altogether Creek scoundrel." That Alexander McGillivray was a man of remarkable ability is evident from the consummate skill with which he maintained his control and influence over the Creeks, and from his success in keeping both the United States and Spain paying for his influence at the same time. In 1792 he was at once the superintendent-general of the Creek nation on behalf of Spain, the agent of the United States, the mercantile partner of Panton, and "emperor" of the Creek and Seminole nations. As opulence was estimated in his day and territory, he was a wealthy man, having received $100,000 for the property confiscated by the Georgia authorities, while the annual importations by hire and Panton were estimated in value at .£40,000 (Am. St. Papers, Ind. Aff., 1, 458, 1832). Besides two or three plantations, he owned, at the tine of his death, 60 Negroes, 300 head of cattle, and a large stock of horses. In personal appearance McGillivray is described as having been six feet in height, sparely built, and remarkably erect; his forehead was bold and lofty; his fingers long and tapering, and he wielded a pen with the greatest rapidity; his face was handsome and indicative of thought and sagacity; unless interested in conversation he was inclined to be taciturn, but was polite and respectful. While a British colonel he dressed in the uniform of his rank; when in the Spanish service he wore the military garb of that country; and after Washington appointed him brigadier-general he sometimes donned a uniform of the American army, but never when Spaniard were present. His usual costume was a mixture of Indian and American garments. McGillivray always traveled with two servants, one a half-blood, the other a Negro. Although ambitious, fond of display and power, crafty, unscrupulous in accomplishing his purpose, and treacherous in affairs of state, the charge that he was bloodthirsty and fiendish in disposition is not sustained. He had at least two wives, one of whom was a daughter of Joseph Curnell. Another wife, the mother of his son Alexander and two daughters, died shortly before or soon after her husband's death, Feb. 17, 1793, at Pensacola, Fla. He was buried with Masonic honors in the garden of William Panton, his partner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_McGillivray

Alexander McGillivray, also known as Hoboi-Hili-Miko (December 15, 1750 – February 17, 1793), was a principal chief of the Upper Creek (Muscogee) towns from 1782. Before that he had created an alliance between the Creek and the British during the American Revolution. He worked to establish a Creek national identity and centralized leadership as a means of resisting European-American expansion onto Creek territory.

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[edit] Early life and education

McGillivray was born Hoboi-Hili-Miko (Good Child King) in the Coushatta village of Little Tallassee on the Coosa River, near present-day Montgomery, Alabama. His father, Lachlan McGillivray, was a Scottish trader (of the Clan MacGillivray chief's lineage) who built trading-posts among the Upper Towns of the Muscogee confederacy, who had traded with French Louisiana. Alexander's mother, Sehoy Marchand, was the daughter of Sehoy, a mixed-race Creek woman of the prestigious Wind Clan, and of Jean Baptiste Louis DeCourtel Marchand, a French officer at Fort Toulouse. Alexander and his siblings were born into the Wind Clan, as the Muscogee had a matrilineal system.

As a child, Alexander briefly lived in Augusta with his father, who owned several large plantations and was a delegate in the colonial assembly. In 1773, the boy was sent to school in Charleston, South Carolina, where he learned Latin and Greek, and was apprenticed at a countinghouse in Savannah, Georgia. He returned to Little Tallassee in 1777. The revolutionary governments of Georgia and South Carolina confiscated the property of his Loyalist father, who returned to Scotland.

Career

During the American Revolution, Alexander McGillivray was commissioned as a colonel in the British army. He brokered a British-Muscogee alliance. A skillful diplomat, he was an inept military strategist and rarely participated in battle.

In 1783, McGillivray became the principal chief of the Upper Creek towns. His predecessor, Chief Emistigo, died while leading a war-party to relieve the British garrison at Savannah, which was besieged by the Continental Army under General 'Mad' Anthony Wayne. At one time, McGillivray wielded great power, having from 5,000 to 10,000 warriors.

McGillivray opposed the 1783 Treaty of Augusta, under which two Lower Creek chiefs ceded Muscogee lands from the Ogeechee to the Oconee rivers to the new state of Georgia. In June 1784 he negotiated the Treaty of Pensacola with Spain, which recognized Muscogee sovereignty over three million acres (12,000 km²) of land claimed by Georgia, guaranteed access to the British fur-trading company Panton, Leslie & Company, and made McGillivray an official representative of Spain, with a $50 monthly salary.

McGillivray became a partner in Panton, Leslie & Co., and used his control over the deerskin trade to expand his power. He sought create mechanisms of centralized political authority to end the traditional village autonomy, by which individual chiefs had signed treaties. Armed by British traders operating out of Spanish West Florida, the Muscogee raided back-country European-American settlers to protect their hunting grounds. From 1785 to 1787, Upper Creek war-parties fought alongside the Cherokee in the Chickamauga Wars in present-day Tennessee. In 1786 a council of the Upper and Lower Creek in Tuckabatchee declared war against Georgia. When Spanish officials informed McGillivray of plans to reduce their aid, he entered into peace talks with the U.S.

A loyalist like his father, McGillivray resented much of American Indian policy; however, he did not wish to leave the United States. McGillivray became a leading spokesman for all the tribes along the Florida-Georgia border areas.

Georgia's Yazoo land scandal convinced President Andrew Jackson that the federal government needed to control Indian affairs. In 1790 he sent a special emissary to the Southeast, who persuaded McGillivray and other chiefs to attend a conference with the Secretary of War Henry Knox in New York City, then the capital of the U.S. The conference resulted in the Treaty of New York.

McGillivray and 29 other chiefs signed the Treaty of New York on behalf of the 'Upper, Middle and Lower Creek and Seminole composing the Creek nation of Indians.' The first treaty negotiated after ratification of the U.S. Constitution, it established the Altamaha and Oconee rivers as the boundary between Creek lands and the U.S. The US government promised to remove illegal white settlers from the area, and the Muscogee agreed to return fugitive black slaves who sought refuge with the tribe. This provision angered the Seminole of Florida, who had provided refuge to numerous escaped slaves, and had intermarried with some. The Black Seminoles by this time had communities allied with the Seminole.

Under the treaty, McGillivray became a brigadier general of the U.S., with an annual salary of $1,200. With this money, he acquired three plantations and 60 African-American slaves. The treaty temporarily pacified the Southern frontier, but the U.S. failed to honor its obligations.

In 1792 McGillivray repudiated the treaty with the US. He negotiated another with Spanish officials in Louisiana, who promised to respect Muscogee sovereignty. McGillivray was a man of remarkable ability, as evident from his control and influence over the Creek people, and from his success in keeping both the United States and Spain paying for his influence at the same time. In 1792 he was the superintendent-general of the Creek nation on behalf of Spain, the Indian agent of the United States, the mercantile partner of Panton, and "emperor" of the Creek and Seminole nations.

McGillivray became a resident of Pensacola and a member of the Masonic Order.

McGillivray died on February 17, 1793. Two of his maternal nephews, William Weatherford and William McIntosh, who were also born into the powerful Creek Wind Clan, became the most important Muscogee leaders in the early 19th century. They fought on opposing sides of the Creek War, a conflict that arose between traditionalists and those who believed it was necessary to adapt and take on useful European-American customs. In part the conflict arose because of the peoples' geographic positions; those closer to European-American settlement already were being affected by encroachment, as well as the benefits and changes of more trade and interaction.

A controversial Creek Indian leader in the 1780s and 1790s, Alexander McGillivray was one of many Southeastern Indians with a Native American mother and European father. He played off European powers to protect Creek interests, initiated nationalist reforms within Creek society, and used trade to increase his own position on the southern frontier.

McGillivray was born probably in 1750 in Little Tallassee near present-day Montgomery, Alabama. The son of Scottish trader Lachlan McGillivray and a Creek woman named Sehoy, McGillivray grew up in matrilineal Creek society as a full member of his mother's Wind Clan. In addition to learning the unwritten rules and expectations of Native American society, McGillivray also became comfortable in the colonial society of his father. Before returning to Creek society in 1777, he had lived in Augusta, received a European-style education in Charleston, South Carolina, and held a business apprenticeship in Savannah.

At the start of the American Revolution (1775-83) McGillivray permanently returned to Little Tallassee and Creek society when the revolutionaries confiscated his Tory father's property in South Carolina. Upon his return to the Creeks McGillivray discovered that his linguistic ability and understanding of Creek and colonial societies allowed him to take on increasingly important roles. During the war he held a commission as a colonel in the British army, worked for British Superintendent of Indian Affairs John Stuart, as well as Stuart's successor, Thomas Brown, and orchestrated alliances between Creek and British forces.

McGillivray embodied many of the wider cultural and economic changes within Southeastern Indian society. He participated in the deerskin trade, owned African slaves, herded cattle, embraced literacy, and ran a plantation. At the same time he participated in busk rituals (ceremonial activities corresponding to the new year and to the change of the seasons), followed the obligations of his matrilineal clan, and in accordance with Creek custom, had multiple wives.

After the Revolution, McGillivray used his growing influence within Creek society to resist Georgia's attempt to confiscate three million acres of land and to otherwise protect what he viewed as the sovereign rights of the Creek people. He persuasively argued that Creeks had legitimate claims to their land. To these ends, in 1784 he negotiated the Treaty of Pensacola with Spain, which protected Creek rights in Florida and guaranteed access to the British trading firm of Panton, Leslie, and Company. Afterward he relied on his alliance with Spain to help convince officials of Georgia and the United States to respect Creek boundaries.

McGillivray also used his influence to shape Creek domestic policy. The political decentralization of Creek society, which allowed villages to sign treaties as autonomous entities, threatened his ability to protect Creek sovereignty. As a result, McGillivray tried to create mechanisms of centralized power within the Creek Nation. This deviation from traditional village autonomy faced many threats from within Creek society. McGillivray used his connections as the nephew of Red Shoes, the Koasati leader, and his control of trade goods to weaken his opposition. The Yazoo land grants by Georgia and the federal government's desire to take control of Indian affairs led to U.S. president George Washington's signing of the 1790 Treaty of New York, in which the United States promised to defend Creek territorial rights. This treaty created a formal relationship between the United States and the Creek Nation and affirmed McGillivray's position as a legitimate national leader.

McGillivray died in Pensacola, Florida, on February 13, 1793.

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