Historical Sketches of Colonial Florida

by Richard L. Campbell

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.