Historical Sketches of Colonial Florida

by Richard L. Campbell

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.