Historical Sketches of Colonial Florida

by Richard L. Campbell

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.