“No, no! I don’t think dat—in course ole Marster couldn’t go to hell—he wus too good an’ kind a man fur dat, an’ too nice a gemman; but I jes’ can’t xackly see how he cu’d go to heab’n. De good Book say you mustn’t kill an’ you mustn’t cuss, an’ you know ole Marster wus right peart at both.”
“Nigger,” said the other, with emphasis, “if ole Marster tuk a noshun to go into heab’n jes’ tell me who gwine ter keep him out—jes tell me!”
Great men are teeth in the cog-wheels of things, and sooner or later the grooves they were made to fit will come to them.
The opportunity that knocked at Jackson’s door came from the arm of as gallant an Indian as ever made his word his bond—William Weatherford, the Red Eagle, war chief of the fighting Creeks.
Years before, a Scotch boy, Lachlan McGillivray, sixteen years old, ran away from home in a ship bound for Charleston, S. C. He reached there penniless, joined some Indian traders, and drove their pack horses into the Creek nation—for a jack knife! He traded this to the Indians for some deerskins and laid the foundation of a fortune that made him the greatest man in the Creek Nation and a power that three nations—Spain, England and America—courted till his death. He married Sehoy Marchand, a half-breed, sixteen-year-old Indian girl, with the sprightliness of her French father and the black eyes of her princess mother, Sehoy, a full-blooded Creek of the tribe of the Wind. Their son, Alexander McGillivray, though three-quarters white, became the most powerful and influential Indian of his day. He held his own in diplomacy and statesmanship with England, France and Spain. He was more than a match for the feeble government at Washington. His sister, Sehoy McGillivray, married a Georgian, Charles Weatherford, who lived with the Indians, owned land by counties, upon it the first race track in Alabama, owned negroes, thoroughbred horses, sheep and kine, ran the first cotton gin and held the first place of power among his people.
Weatherford, the Red Eagle, seven-eighths white, was his son, and Sehoy McGillivray was his mother. In his veins was Scotch, English, French and she whose family was of the Wind. He was an extraordinary man.
“His bearing,” said Pickett, who knew him well, “was gentlemanly and dignified. His eyes were large, dark, brilliant and flashing. He was one of nature’s noblemen—a man of strict honor and unsurpassed courage.”
Tecumseh, the greatest of all Indians, and a general in the English army, stirred up the Creeks as they were never aroused before. Acting for England with Spain, holding Florida as a secret and treacherous ally, he induced Weatherford to lead his Indians against Ft. Mims, in South Alabama, filled with men, women and children who had fled there for safety and were guarded by a lot of drunken, bragging American troops. The tragedy was inevitable, for both Spain and England were behind the Indians, England offering a reward for every American scalp—man’s or woman’s or child’s. And when the sun went down on the 30th day of August, 1813, unless she lied to the Indians, as is likely, she paid for five hundred and thirty of them.
Money payment for the scalps of helpless women and children! Grand old England of Shakespeare, Drake and Wellington! Glorious vandals of Ft. Mims and Washington and New Orleans! When I think of her in those days I remember only Davy Crockett’s famous toast to her: “The British,” said old Davy, holding up a horn full of whiskey, “an’ may their ribs make the gridirons of hell!”
