Historical Sketches of Colonial Florida

by Richard L. Campbell

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.