Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney
episode); author's personal information.
1465 words | Chapter 24
(22) Lower Cherokee refugees (p. 55): "In every hut I have visited I
find the children exceedingly alarmed at the sight of white men, and
here [at Willstown] a little boy of eight years old was excessively
alarmed and could not be kept from screaming out until he got out
of the door, and then he ran and hid himself; but as soon as I can
converse with them and they are informed who I am they execute any
order I give them with eagerness. I inquired particularly of the
mothers what could be the reason for this. They said, this town was
the remains of several towns who [sic] formerly resided on Tugalo and
Keowee, and had been much harassed by the whites; that the old people
remembered their former situation and suffering, and frequently spoke
of them; that these tales were listened to by the children, and made
an impression which showed itself in the manner I had observed. The
women told me, who I saw gathering nuts, that they had sensations
upon my coming to the camp, in the highest degree alarming to them,
and when I lit from my horse, took them by the hand, and spoke to
them, they at first could not reply, although one of them understood
and spoke English very well."--Hawkins, manuscript journal, 1796,
in library of Georgia Historical Society.
(23) General Alexander McGillivray (p. 56): This famous Creek
chieftain, like so many distinguished men of the southern tribes, was
of mixed blood, being the son of a Scotch trader, Lachlan McGillivray,
by a halfbreed woman of influential family, whose father was a French
officer of Fort Toulouse. The future chief was born in the Creek Nation
about 1740, and died at Pensacola, Florida, in 1793. He was educated
at Charleston, studying Latin in addition to the ordinary branches,
and after leaving school was placed by his father with a mercantile
firm in Savannah. He remained but a short time, when he returned to
the Creek country, where he soon began to attract attention, becoming
a partner in the firm of Panton, Forbes & Leslie, of Pensacola,
which had almost a monopoly of the Creek trade. He succeeded to the
chieftainship on the death of his mother, who came of ruling stock,
but refused to accept the position until called to it by a formal
council, when he assumed the title of emperor of the Creek Nation. His
paternal estates having been confiscated by Georgia at the outbreak of
the Revolution, he joined the British side with all his warriors, and
continued to be a leading instigator in the border hostilities until
1790, when he visited New York with a large retinue and made a treaty
of peace with the United States on behalf of his people. President
Washington's instructions to the treaty commissioners, in anticipation
of this visit, state that he was said to possess great abilities
and an unlimited influence over the Creeks and part of the Cherokee,
and that it was an object worthy of considerable effort to attach him
warmly to the United States. In pursuance of this policy the Creek
chiefs were entertained by the Tammany society, all the members being
in full Indian dress, at which the visitors were much delighted and
responded with an Indian dance, while McGillivray was induced to resign
his commission as colonel in the Spanish service for a commission of
higher grade in the service of the United States. Soon afterward, on
account of some opposition, excited by Bowles, a renegade white man,
he absented himself from his tribe for a time, but was soon recalled,
and continued to rule over the Nation until his death.
McGillivray appears to have had a curious mixture of Scotch shrewdness,
French love of display, and Indian secretiveness. He fixed his
residence at Little Talassee, on the Coosa, a few miles above the
present Wetumpka, Alabama, where he lived in a handsome house with
extensive quarters for his negro slaves, so that his place had
the appearance of a small town. He entertained with magnificence
and traveled always in state, as became one who styled himself
emperor. Throughout the Indian wars he strove, so far as possible,
to prevent unnecessary cruelties, being noted for his kindness
to captives; and his last years were spent in an effort to bring
teachers among his people. On the other hand, he conformed much to
the Indian customs; and he managed his negotiations with England,
Spain, and the United States with such adroitness that he was able
to play off one against the other, holding commissions by turn in the
service of all three. Woodward, who knew of him by later reputation,
asserts positively that McGillivray's mother was of pure Indian
blood and that he himself was without education, his letters having
been written for him by Leslie, of the trading firm with which he
was connected. The balance of testimony, however, seems to leave
no doubt that he was an educated as well as an able man, whatever
may have been his origin. Authorities: Drake, American Indians;
documents in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 1832; Pickett,
Alabama, 1896; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography; Woodward,
Reminiscences, p. 59 et passim, 1859.
(24) Governor John Sevier (p. 57): This noted leader and statesman
in the pioneer history of Tennessee was born in Rockingham county,
Virginia, in 1745, and died at the Creek town of Tukabatchee, in
Alabama, in 1815. His father was a French immigrant of good birth
and education, the original name of the family being Xavier. The son
received a good education, and being naturally remarkably handsome
and of polished manner, fine courage, and generous temperament,
soon acquired a remarkable influence over the rough border men with
whom his lot was cast and among whom he was afterward affectionately
known as "Chucky Jack." To the Cherokee he was known as Tsan-usdi',
"Little John." After some service against the Indians on the Virginia
frontier he removed to the new Watauga settlement in Tennessee, in
1772, and at once became prominently identified with its affairs. He
took part in Dunmore's war in 1774 and, afterward, from the opening
of the Revolution in 1775 until the close of the Indian wars in
Tennessee--a period extending over nearly twenty years--was the
acknowledged leader or organizer in every important Indian campaign
along the Tennessee border. His services in this connection have been
already noted. He also commanded one wing of the American forces
at the battle of King's mountain in 1780, and in 1783 led a body
of mountain men to the assistance of the patriots under Marion. At
one time during the Revolution a Tory plot to assassinate him was
revealed by the wife of the principal conspirator. In 1779 he had been
commissioned as commander of the militia of Washington county, North
Carolina--the nucleus of the present state of Tennessee--a position
which he had already held by common consent. Shortly after the close of
the Revolution he held for a short time the office of governor of the
seceding "state of Franklin," for which he was arrested and brought
to trial by the government of North Carolina, but made his escape,
when the matter was allowed to drop. The question of jurisdiction
was finally settled in 1790, when North Carolina ceded the disputed
territory to the general government. Before this Sevier had been
commissioned as brigadier-general. When Tennessee was admitted as a
state in 1796 he was elected its first (state) governor, serving three
terms, or six years. In 1803 he was again reelected, serving three more
terms. In 1811 he was elected to Congress, where he served two terms
and was reelected to a third, but died before he could take his seat,
having contracted a fever while on duty as a boundary commissioner
among the Creeks, being then in his seventy-first year. For more than
forty years he had been continuously in the service of his country,
and no man of his state was ever more loved and respected. In the
prime of his manhood he was reputed the handsomest man and the best
Indian fighter in Tennessee.
(25) Hopewell, South Carolina (p. 61): This place, designated in
early treaties and also in Hawkins's manuscript journal as "Hopewell
on the Keowee," was the plantation seat of General Andrew Pickens,
who resided there from the close of the Revolution until his death
in 1817. It was situated on the northern edge of the present Anderson
county, on the east side of Keowee river, opposite and a short distance
below the entrance of Little river, and about three miles from the
present Pendleton. In sight of it, on the opposite side of Keowee,
was the old Cherokee town of Seneca, destroyed by the Americans in
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