Chapter 13

Undoubtedly McGillivray was unscrupulous, and the probability is that he was mercenary; but such charges may be brought against some of the ablest men who have figured in history. When all is said, the fact remains that Alexander McGillivray was one of the most accomplished and ingenious of the politicians of his time. If he had been on the side of the whites, and had managed their interests with the skill and ability which he displayed in behalf of the Creeks, history would have written him down as a great statesman. It was only by an accidental suit at law that some of his most characteristic letters were brought to light; but those that have been rescued from oblivion show that in wielding the pen he was more than a match for the many able men who corresponded with him.

In September, 1789, Washington sent General Andrew Pickens, with three other commissioners, to treat with McGillivray. They found the great chief at Rock Landing, on the Oconee, with two thousand Creek warriors, where he had been encamped more than a week. The Indian camp was on the western bank of the river. The commissioners pitched their tents on the eastern bank. They were received by McGillivray with great courtesy. Everything progressed favorably, so much so that the commissioners read to the assembled chiefs a copy of the treaty which they had drawn up. This treaty was all in favor of the whites. The Indians were offered no equivalent for the terms proposed. It is worthy of note that Andrew Pickens wholly dissented from the terms of the proposed treaty. He knew that the Indians would have to be paid for the valuable land which the Georgians were then cultivating in the neighborhood of the Oconee, and the commissioners had been advised by the Federal authorities to pay for these lands. McGillivray broke up his encampment and retired to the Ocmulgee, nor could he be induced at that time to renew the negotiations.

President Washington was urged by the Georgia delegation in Congress to declare war against the Creeks, and this indeed was his first impulse; but when he found, from a careful estimate, that the expenses of such a war would amount to fifteen millions of dollars, he prudently gave up the idea. He took the matter in hand in a more conservative way. He appointed Colonel Marinus Willett a secret agent to visit Mc-Gillivray, and urge him to visit President Washington in New York. In this Colonel Willett was entirely successful. Accompanied by McGillivray and a number of the leading men of the Creeks, Willett set out on his return journey. At Guilford Court House, McGillivray attracted great attention on account of a very pathetic incident that occurred there some years before. A man named Brown had been killed by the Creeks, and his wife and children captured and made slaves. Their unfortunate condition came to the notice of Alexander McGillivray, and, as he had done in the case of many other captive white women and children, he paid their ransom and redeemed them from slavery. He maintained them at his house for over a year, and finally assisted them to return to their friends. Mrs. Brown, hearing that McGillivray had arrived, went to see him. At that moment he was in the courthouse, the center of a large assembly of ladies and gentlemen who had gathered to pay their respects. But this was no obstacle to Mrs. Brown. She rushed through the assembly, and, in a flood of tears, expressed her gratitude to him for saving her life and the lives of her children. She also expressed her strong admiration for his character.

In due course, McGillivray arrived in New York, where he was treated with great consideration. He had long private conferences with Washington and other officials of the government, and was finally induced to make a treaty which was satisfactory to the United States, and would have been satisfactory to Georgia if it had been carried out, but in fact the terms of it were never fulfilled. While in New York, McGillivray made a secret treaty with Washington, a fact that was not discovered for many years. It provided, that after two years from date (August, 1790) the commerce of the Creek nation should be carried on through the ports of the United States, and in the mean time through the present channels; that a number of chiefs of the Creeks and of the Seminole nation should be paid one hundred dollars a year each, and be furnished with handsome medals; that the United States should feed, clothe, and educate Creek youth at the North, not exceeding five at one time; and that Alexander McGillivray should be constituted agent of the United States, with the rank of brigadier general, and the pay of twelve hundred dollars a year. In 1792, McGillivray was a British colonel, an American brigadier general, an agent of the United States, and an agent of Spain. This extraordinary man died in Pensacola on the 17th of February, having been seized with a fatal illness while returning from one of his plantations on Little River in Putnam or Baldwin.

Another famous Creek was General William Mcintosh, a half-breed. His father was Captain William Mcintosh, and his mother was an Indian of unmixed blood. He was not so brilliant a man intellectually as McGillivray; but he had a native force of character, and an inborn sense of justice, that McGillivray seems to have been a stranger to. History tells us little enough of Mcintosh, but that little is all to his credit. Almost from the days of Oglethorpe, there were two parties in the Creek nation, and the issue on which they divided was the treatment that should be accorded to the whites. The party division was geographical as well as political. The Upper Creeks, living upon the Alabama, Coosa, and Tallapoosa rivers, were not present at the Coweta town when James Oglethorpe treated with the Lower Creeks in August, 1730. At that time they were under the influence of the French, and afterwards they sought the protection of the Spaniards. They refused to recognize any of the treaties made by the Lower Creeks with the English, and the great body of them remained to the end the bitter enemies of the Georgians. On the other hand, the majority of the Lower Creeks were friendly with the English from the days of Oglethorpe; and that friendship continued, with but few interruptions, down to the days of Governor Troup.

Now, McGillivray, in his day and time, represented the Upper Creeks of the Tallapoosa country and their policy, while William Mcintosh represented the Lower Creeks of the Coweta country and their policy. The division in the Creek nation was so serious, that, when the Upper Creeks took sides with the British in the War of 1812, they found themselves opposed in the field by a large party of Lower Creeks under the command of Mcintosh. Thus, at the battle of Autossee, William Mcintosh led a large band of Lower Creeks against those who were making war on the whites. He made himself so conspicuous in that affair, that General Floyd mentions him in the official report of the battle.

The treaty at Indian Spring, and the results that followed, cannot be clearly understood unless we bear in mind the political differences that existed between the Upper and the Lower Creeks. The Creek chiefs and the commissioners met at Indian Spring on the 15th of February, 1825. The chiefs and warriors of the Upper Creeks declared that no treaty could be made for a cession of lands, and on the night of the 11th they went home. On the 12th a treaty was signed with the Mcintosh party. Colonel John A. Crowell, agent for the Creek Indians, sent a letter to the secretary of war, in which he declared that the treaty was in direct opposition to the letter and spirit of the instructions to the commissioners; but the treaty was sent to Washington, and was ratified on the 3d of March, 1825. When the Indians of the Upper Creeks and their party learned that the treaty had been ratified, they became very much excited. Mcintosh and his party went to Milledgeville, and told the governor that they expected violent treatment at the hands of the Upper Creeks. They begged the protection of the State and of the United States, and this was promised them.

Out of this treaty grew a very serious conflict between the Federal and State governments. After a good deal of discussion, the President asked Congress to reconsider the treaty of Indian Spring, and presented a new one as a substitute, which was ratified and proclaimed; but popular indignation ran so high in Georgia, that Governor Troup felt justified in paying no attention to this new treaty. He proceeded to carry out the terms of the Indian Spring treaty. Charges were brought against Crowell, the Indian agent. The governor informed T. P. Andrews, the special agent, that he would hold no further correspondence with him. The conduct of General Gaines had been such that Governor Troup requested the Federal Government to recall, arrest, and punish him. In 1826 the State Legislature declared that the attempt to repeal the treaty of Indian Spring by the substitution of another treaty was illegal and unconstitutional. In September, 1826, Governor Troup ordered the districts ceded by the treaty of Indian Spring to be surveyed. When the Indians complained of this, the secretary of war wrote to Governor Troup that the President felt himself compelled to employ all the means under his control to maintain the faith of the nation by carrying the treaty into effect, meaning the treaty made at Washington, and intended to be a substitute for the Indian Spring treaty. In his reply, Governor Troup declared that he would feel it to be his duty to resist to the utmost any military attack which the President of the United States should think proper to make upon the Territory, the people, or the sovereignty of Georgia. "From the first decisive act of hostility," he wrote to the secretary of war, "you will be considered and treated as a public enemy. You have referred me, as the rule of my conduct, to the treaty of Washington. In turn I refer you to the treaty of prior date and prior ratification, concluded at the Indian Spring."

The President issued orders that the surveyors appointed by the State be prosecuted. Governor Troup thereupon ordered the proper officers, in every instance of complaint made of the arrest of any surveyor, to take all necessary and legal measures to effect their liberation, and to bring to justice all the parties concerned in such arrests, as violators of the peace and personal security of the State. He also ordered the major generals of the militia to hold the various regiments and battalions in readiness to repel any hostile invasion of the State. But no acts of violence were committed. The surveyors were not arrested, the surveys were made, and the lands ceded by the treaty of Indian Spring were divided by lottery in 1827.

The Upper Creeks, who had always been unfriendly to the Georgians, were so angry at the signing of the treaty of Indian Spring, that they determined to assassinate General William Mcintosh. They had never forgiven him for leading his party of Lower Creeks against them in the campaign that was made necessary by the terrible massacre of Fort Mims, and they now determined to rid themselves of him at once and forever.

We have seen that General Mcintosh, and his party of Lower Creeks, suspecting that an attack would be made on them by the powerful tribes on the Tallapoosa, went to Milledgeville to beg the governor to protect them. Protection was promised, but never given. Meanwhile the Upper Creeks held a secret council, and selected a hundred and seventy of the boldest warriors in the nation to murder Mcintosh. They marched in the most cautious way. They reached the neighborhood of Mcintosh's home, and concealed themselves, to wait for night to fall. About sundown, or a little before, the Indians saw from their hiding place two persons riding along a trail. One was Mcintosh, and the other a man named Hawkins, who had married one of Mcintosh's daughters. It would have been an easy matter for the savages to have killed Mcintosh at this time; but they had made up their minds to kill him upon his own premises, so that his blood might stain the land that had been granted him by the State. While still in sight of the men who had been sent to slay him, Mcintosh bade Hawkins good evening, wheeled his horse, and rode back on the trail toward his home. Although he was now alone, the Indians would not kill him. They had fixed up a different plan, and they carried it out.

Before dark the Indians gathered together a supply of "fat lightwood," as the resinous pine was called. This they split into convenient length, and made up into three bundles to be carried on the backs of their warriors. They remained hidden within half a mile of Mcintosh's house till three o'clock in the morning, and then silently and swiftly marched to the place. They had taken along with them a man named James Hutton to act as interpreter, the reason for this being that Mcintosh was in the habit of entertaining travelers.

It was to be Hutton's duty to assure such as might be found there that they would not be disturbed in any manner. Guests of Mcintosh were commonly lodged in an outhouse in the yard; and Hutton, accompanied by two Indians, went to this building to see who might be sleeping there. They found a peddler in one bed, and Chilly, a son of General Mcintosh, in another.

Young Mcintosh, as if instinctively understanding the nature of the visit, sprang from the bed and leaped out at a window. He was fired upon by the Indians, but was not touched, and succeeded in making his escape. The peddler was nearly scared out of his wits; but his pack of goods was removed to a place of safety, and the house in which he had been sleeping was soon in flames.

Meanwhile most of the Indians had surrounded Mcintosh's house, and torches of the fat pine were used to set it on fire. The red men danced around the burning building, yelling, and crying out, "Mcintosh, we have come, we have come! We told you if you sold the land to the Georgians we would come. Now we have come!" At the first alarm Mcintosh had barricaded his front door. He stood near it; and when it was broken down, he fired upon his assailants. At that moment, one of his firmest friends, Toma Tustenuggee, who had thrown himself upon the party at the door, fell on the threshold, riddled with bullets. General Mcintosh then retreated to the second story with four guns, which he continued to fire from the windows.

The flames drove him from the second story to the first floor again. He fought bravely to the end, but was soon compelled to expose himself to the fire of his enemies. He fell to the floor, pierced by many bullets, and was dragged into the yard by his heels. He breathed defiance to the last, and was finally stabbed to death. After this savage deed, the Indians plundered the houses, killed such cattle as they could find, and committed other outrages. A small party of the Indians had followed Hawkins the evening before. His house was surrounded about daybreak the next morning, and he was ordered to come out. He refused, and defended himself the best he could; but he was finally taken prisoner and tied, until the fate of Mcintosh was known. Then he was murdered, and his body thrown into the river near where he lived. The Indians marched back to the Tallapoosa country with the scalps of these unfortunate men. Mcintosh's scalp was suspended from a pole in the public square of Ocfuskee, and young and old danced around it with shouts of joy.

General Mcintosh was a cousin of Governor Troup, being the son of Governor Troup's uncle, Captain William Mcintosh, who was frequently on the Chattahoochee before the breaking-out of the Revolution.

REMOVAL OF THE CHEROKEES.

When Georgia had begun to recover its breath, after the difficulties with the Creeks, the people had time to discover that they had a much more serious problem to deal with in the Cherokee nation, which occupied all the northwestern portion of the State. Those who mingled thrift with their benevolence, and had the courage to think about the future of the whites as well as the future of the savages, thought that both ends would be attained by making a permanent settlement for the Indians beyond the Mississippi River. Those whose benevolence was a mixture of sentimentality and romantic misinformation thought the Indians ought to be left where contact with the whites would tend to civilize and Christianize them. Consequently there were two parties to the discussion, and a good deal of practical selfishness at the bottom of it all. There used to be an old song running in this wise,--

"All I want in this creation, Is a pretty little wife and a big plantation Away up yonder in the Cherokee nation,"--

and this song no doubt represented the real feeling behind the whole matter. The big plantation was what was really wanted. At the same time it should not be forgotten that it was for the benefit of the Indians as well as the whites that they should be settled in a section where they would remain undisturbed. This policy has been proven by time to be the true one.

Travelers and romancers have done no end of harm by exalting the Indian character, covering up its faults, and exaggerating its merits. Romance has made great heroes of the Indians; but in the whole history of the red men, so far as it has been faithfully chronicled, the names of the Indians of unmixed blood who are worth remembering can be counted on the fingers of two hands.

Sequoia, or George Guess, who invented the Cherokee alphabet, was the grandson of a white man. This invention, however, was a very remarkable achievement, and it is worthy of a word here. Sequoia was altogether illiterate. He could neither write nor speak English, but he saw that the whites could talk with each other by means of pieces of paper. So he set himself to work to examine his own language. He found that sixty monosyllables could be so combined as to represent every word in the Cherokee language, and for each of these syllables he formed a character. Many of these characters were taken from an English spelling book which he managed to get hold of. Some are Greek characters, and others are letters of the English alphabet turned upside down; but each character in the Cherokee alphabet stands for a monosyllable. It happened, too, from the structure of the Cherokee language or dialect, that the syllabic alphabet is also in the nature of a grammar; so that those who know the language by ear, and master the alphabet, can at once read and write. Owing to the extreme simplicity of this system, it can be acquired in a few days. Some have learned it even in one day. Thus it happened that the Cherokees, who were at the beginning of one year ignorant and illiterate, had become in the course of a few months able to read and write their own language. They accomplished this without going to school, and without expense of time or money.

This curious and useful invention is dwelt on here because it stands alone. The Indian grandson of a white man remains to-day the only man, in the long history of the aborigines, who has done anything for the real and lasting benefit of his race.

When the people of Georgia insisted on the removal of that nation to the Far West, the Cherokees were neither better nor worse than the rest of the Indians. Some of the half-breeds had indeed begun to put on the airs of civilization, and many of them had put off their barbarian garbs; but from time to time they gave evidence that contact with the whites had only whetted their savage appetites for cruelty. The Indian in Cooper's novels and the Indian in real life are two different creatures. They were tall and straight because they refused to do manual labor. The drudgery was left to the women, who hoed the corn when at home, and carried the burdens when the warriors were moving about. They cultivated the passion of revenge. Those who know them best have declared in a thousand ways that they never found in the red men any solid substantial, or agreeable quality. They were brave, but so is a bulldog.

There is no wonder that Georgia wanted to get rid of them as neighbors. The people showed their anxiety in this matter when, in 1802, they conveyed to the United States Government all the valuable lands that now form the States of Alabama and Mississippi; the consideration being that the General Government would secure from the Indians, and open up to settlement, the lands which they then held in the State. In 1808 the Cherokees asked the United States to allow them to examine the public land west of the Mississippi, and, if pleased, to settle on it. Permission was given, and the Cherokees sent a party to explore the lands. The country suited them so well that many of the Indians emigrated at once. The General Government thus had an opportunity to carry out the contract of 1802, but failed to do so. It had another opportunity in 1814, when the conquered Creeks sued for peace. The General Government had the right to demand of them the cession of the land they occupied in Georgia. Instead, it took land in Alabama, which it sold for its own benefit.

And so the matter went on from year to year, and the people waited patiently; for they had become aware, from costly experience, that one of the prices they have to pay for popular government is the occasional rule of the political demagogue.

In 1827, when the people of Georgia began to grow restive under the failure of the government to carry out its contracts, the Cherokees had declared themselves to be an independent state. They had their own printed constitution and code of laws. So that here in the limits of Georgia there were three governments going on at one and the same time. The United States prohibited any person from settling on Indian territory, or trading with any Indian, without a special license from the proper authority. In addition to this, the State of Georgia had found it necessary to extend her criminal courts over the Cherokee territory, in order to protect her own citizens.

The half-breeds among the Cherokees were very shrewd and unscrupulous. They had caused some of their tribe to take possession of lands ceded to Georgia by the Creeks, and in this way sought to add confusion to the discussion that was then going on. The Indians took possession by force. They were armed and painted, and led by Chief Ridge. Fourteen or fifteen houses were burned by these savages, and the white women and children were left exposed to the weather, the ground being covered with snow.

The great trouble with the Cherokees then and afterwards was, that the government of their nation had fallen into the hands of half-breeds, whose education only gave them fresh opportunities to gain wealth and power at the expense of the rest of the tribe. They owned trading houses, big plantations, numbers of slaves, had charge of the ferries, and controlled all the traffic between the whites and the Indians. As these half-breeds became wealthier, the rest of the tribe became poorer. They had forsaken their primitive habits and customs, and taken up those of the most depraved whites who lived among them. It is worthy of note that the most progressive spirits among the Cherokees were in favor of emigration beyond the Mississippi. The leaders of this party were natives of unmixed blood, who saw that the control of the corrupt half-breeds was carrying the nation to ruin. Several of these leaders were waylaid and shot down by the agents of those whose policy they were opposing. The alarm in some sections was very great. The citizens met, and adopted resolutions requesting the government to station troops at suitable points, for the protection of the lives and property of the whites and friendly Indians.