History of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography, Volume II, Part 8

Author: Owen, Thomas McAdory, 1866-1920; Owen, Marie (Bankhead) Mrs. 1869-
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 724

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Stuart have left it on record that the Great Mortar, and Alabama Mingo of the Choctaw Upper Towns were allies of Pontiac in this great scheme of a general war against the English. This statement certainly implies that emissaries of Pontiac must surely have visited the Southern Indian chiefs in 1764. But whatever hopes they may have enter- tained were soon after dashed to earth by the ruin of Pontiac's cause. Still the evils of Pontiac's teachings lived after him. His emissaries had instilled into the minds of the various Indian nations that the English in- tended to surround them, extirpate them by cutting off their supplies, and then take pos- session of their lands. All this was fully helieved by these untutored peoples. In such an alarming state of affairs, it was a most serious consideration with the English offi- cials how to induce the Creeks, now so greatly under the influence of Great Mortar, to attend the congress that was proclaimed to be held in Pensacola. First it was needful to gain over the Great Mortar himself. Finally John Hanny and a Lieutenant Camp- bell were commissioned by Governor John- stone to go up into the Creek nation and in- duce him to attend the congress. They ac- quitted themselves well of their dangerous mission. The Congress in Pensacola was in session from May 26 to June 4, 1765. The Great Mortar was present and was the recip- ient of marked attention on the part of the English officers. He was a prominent speaker in the councils and was one of the thirty-one chiefs that signed the treaty then made be- tween the English and the Creeks. On the last day, after the signing of the treaty, the Great Mortar and three other "Jpper Creek chiefs were vested with the authority of great medal chiefs, and at the same time three Lower Creek chiefs were made small medal chiefs. The medals were given to them under the discharge of the great guns of the fort and of the ships in the harbor and with the music of drums and fifes. Captain Stuart then gave a charge to the chiefs, explaining the nature and duty of their offices, and then presented them to the Indians present as their chiefs, whom they must obey and respect as their superiors. This ceremony over, the Congress was closed with the drinking of the King's health. The Great Mortar was un- doubtedly a very superior Indian. But, as in the case of men of all undeveloped races, he was, viewed from the point of modern civ- ilization, like a child in some respects. Some- time after the Congress, on account of some trade regulations, he became very much of- fended with some traders, and received some affronts from them. This nettled him and with childish pettishness, he resigned his medal to Neahlatko, the Headman of Little Tallassee, with instructions for him to carry it back to Governor Johnstone. At a council held at Okchayi on May 16, 1766, which the Great Mortar attended, Neahlatko in a talk said that if ever the Great Mortar should visit England without the medal given to him by the English it would not look well, and he wished him to take it back, and the general

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talk of the people was that he should take it back. By keeping the medal, it might too induce him to live in the nation as now he lived far from it. If he resigned it, the peo- ple might think that he took no interest in the affairs of the nation. As now the gov- ernor had written to the King that the Great Mortar had accepted the medal, he insisted that the chief should keep it and wear it. The Great Mortar yielded to the force of Neahlatko's arguments and took back the medal. Notwithstanding this action, the Great Mortar at heart never was really friend- ly to the English,-"that bitter enemy of the English name," as he is styled by Adair. In 1768 war was raging between the Creeks and the Chickasaws. In April of this year, a dep- uty Superintendent convened a council of most of the headmen of the Creeks in order to induce them to make overtures by send- ing the Chickasaws a friendly mediating let- ter. The Creeks assented, and the letter, ac- companied with such peace tokens as eagle tails, swan wings, white beads, white pipes and tobacco, was entrusted to a white man who traded with the Chickasaws. The Great Mortar, animated by a bitter feeling against everything transacted by a British official, determined to render these peace measures of no avail. Soon after the departure of the trader, he set off with ninety men and trav- eled to within one hundred and fifty miles of the Chickasaw nation. Here he halted and sent seven of his staunchest warriors, under the command of his brother, to surprise and kill any one in the Chickasaw country they might encounter. The trader meanwhile ar- rived at his point of destination, delivered the letter and the peace tokens, assuring the Chickasaws besides that he had seen no tracks of any war party on the long trading path that he had traveled. With all such evi- dences of peace, the Chickasaws were thrown off their guard. It was now early in May. Two days after the delivery of the letter and the peace tokens, two women, who were hoe- ing in a field, were shot down, tomahawked and scalped by two of the Big Warrior's de- tailed party, who then gave the death whoop and bounded away in an oblique course so as to baffle their pursuers. The Chickasaws at once gave their shrill war whoop, and forty mounted men at once started in hot pursuit. Four sprightly young Chickasaws, outstrip- ping the others, intercepted the Creeks, killed the Great Mortar's brother, and recovered from him the scalp of one of the women, which was fastened to his girdle. The other six Creeks escaped by taking refuge in a large dense cane brake. With all this mishap, the Great Mortar succeeded in his scheme. All hopes of peace were broken and the war continued to rage between the Creeks and the Chickasaws. The last extant notice of the Great Mortar is his presence at the con- gress held at Augusta in June, 1773. Here he persuaded Captain Stuart to write a con- ciliating letter to the Choctaws. A white in- terpreter and a Creek chief named Meshee- steeke were the carriers of this letter, which was accompanied with the usual peace tokens.

History is silent as to its reception. The Great Mortar's design in this matter is left to conjecture. Suffice it to say that Stuart's action was censured by the traders, who ever considered it the worst kind of policy to inter- vene in Indian inter-tribal wars, for during the continuance of such wars, there was gen- erally more or less peace upon the frontiers, the pitiless wrath of the uncontrollable young Indian warriors being then vented against people of their own race.

REFERENCES .- Adair's American Indians (1775), pp. 253-256, 268-272; Mississippi Provin- cial Archives (1912), vol. i, pp. 184, 189-191, 198-210, 516, 517, 525-531; The Colonial Records of Georgia, vol. 9, pp. 70-74; Ibid, vol. 8, p. 539; Drake's Indians, p. 384.

NEHEMATHLA MICCO, or NEAMATHLA MICCO, Creek chief. Nothing has been left on record as to the early life of this chief. The war of 1813 finds him a chief of Atossa, and a partisan of the hostile faction. He was present at the massacre of Fort Mims. After the defeat at the Horse-Shoe, he and Josiah Francis temporarily placed their people on the Catoma, just above the Federal crossing; thence they all went to Florida, where the two chiefs became leaders of the hostile In- dians, and at last by one act, Neamathla won an infamous celebrity. On November 30, 1817, Lieutenant Richard W. Scott, in com- mand of forty United States soldiers, with seven soldiers' wives and four children, in a large open boat, was slowly ascending the Apalachicola River. They were within a mile of the confluence of the Chattahoochie and the Flint, and were passing along by a swamp densely covered with trees and cane, the boat within a few yards of the shore. Here lay in ambush Nehemathla with a large band of warriors. Not a soul of the whites had the least suspicion of danger. Suddenly the ambushed Indians poured a deadly volley into the closely crowded party on the boat, killing or wounding nearly every man. After firing other volleys, the Indians arose from their ambush, rushed forth, took possession of the boat, and then there took place a hor- rible scene of indiscriminate killing and scalp- ing. Four men, two of them wounded, made their escape by leaping overboard and swim- ming to the opposite shore. In twenty min- utes the affair was over. The lives of five persons were spared, one being Lieutenant Scott, who was wounded, and one a Mrs. Stu- art, the only person unhurt. The five prison- ers were bound and carried to a Mikasuki vil- lage. Here Mrs. Stuart was given to an In- dian, named Yellow Hair, who, it is stated, treated her humanely during all her captivity. But an awful doom, by order of Nehemathla Micco, was reserved for Lieutenant Scott. During the entire day he was subjected to the fire torture in every conceivable form before being put to death. During all this time Nehemathla Micco stood by and enjoyed the prisoner's agony. The enormity of this act was too great for pardon, and four months later the day of reckoning came. In April, 1814, he and Josiah Francis were both cap-

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tured and both executed. The torture of Lieutenant Scott was the very charge upon which Nehemathla was hanged by order of General Jackson. An eye witness of the ex- ecution described him as "a savage-looking man, of forbidding countenance, indicating cruelty and ferocity. He was taciturn and morose."

In Buell's History of Jackson, the first syl- lable of this chief's name is elided, and emathla converted into Himallo,-Himollo- micco. In an official letter of General Jack- son it is strangely spelled Hornattlemico,-a pen or printer's slip, perhaps a combination of both. In another letter he spells it Ho- mattlemicco, which excepting the loss of the first syllable closely approaches Nehemathla- micco. General Jackson's epithet, "the old Red Stick," shows that he was familiar with his career as a Red Stick during the Creek War.

REFERENCES .- American State Papers, Mili- tary Affairs (1832), vol. i, p. 700; Woodward's Reminiscences of the Creek or Muscogee In- dians (1859), pp. 43, 53, 54, 97; Parton's Life of Jackson (1861), vol. ii, pp. 430, 431, 455-458; Buell's History of Jackson (1904), vol. ii, pp. 123-125.

OPOTHLEYAHOLO, Creek chief, born probably in Tuckabatchee, year of birth un- known, died in Kansas about 1866, was the son of Davy Cornells, who was the son of Joseph Cornells by a Tuckabatchee woman. On good Creek authority the etymology of the name is "hupuena," child, "hehle," good, and "Yaholo," holloer, whooper. Davy Cornells, the father, was killed by a party of lawless whites in June, 1793, while going under a white flag to see James Seagrove, the Creek agent, at Coleraine. No facts have been pre- served of the early life of Opothleyaholo, ex- cept that he was considered a promising youth, nor is it known when he rose to the position of speaker of the councils of the Upper Creek towns. His residence was in Tuckabachee, near the great council house. His first public service was in February, 1825, at the treaty of Indian Springs, whither he went as the representative of the Upper Creeks to remonstrate with General McIntosh against the cession of any part of the Creek country. In his speech before the commis- sioners, he told them that the chiefs present had no authority to cede lands, which could only be done in full council and with the con- sent of the whole Nation, and this was not a full council. While perfectly respectful to the commissioners, in his speech he warned General McIntosh of the doom that awaited him if he signed the treaty. Opolthleyaholo left the treaty ground for home the next day. McIntosh signed the treaty and paid for this action with his life. Opothleyaholo was at the head of the Creek chiefs that soon after went to Washington to protest against the validity of this treaty, and to execute one that would be more acceptable to his people. In all the negotiations that followed, "he con- ducted himself with great dignity and firm- ness, and displayed talents of a superior or-

der. He was cool, cautious, and sagacious; and with a tact which would have done credit to a more refined diplomatist, refused to enter into any negotiation until the offensive treaty of the Indian Springs should be annulled. The executive being satisfied that the treaty had not been made with the consent of the nation, nor in accordance with its laws, but in oppo- sition to the one, and in defiance of the other, disapproved of it, and another was made at Washington in January, 1826, the first arti- cle of which declared the treaty of the Indian Springs to be null and void. Under the new treaty the Creeks ceded all their lands in Georgia except a small strip on the Chatta- hoochee, which after much negotiation was ceded to Georgia in 1827. On the death of Little Prince in Opothleyaholo became practically the principal chief of the Creeks, though he still continued to exercise the functions of speaker of the councils. In the Creek troubles of 1836, Sangahatchee, an Upper town, was the first to rise in revolt, and its painted warriors began to waylay and murder travelers on the highways. Without delay Opothleyaholo arrayed the warriors of Tuckabatchee, marched against the insurgent town, captured it, and delivered the prison- ers captured into the hands of the military authorities. He next, at the request of Gov- ernor Clay, called a council of his warriors at Kialgee, and there, taking fifteen hundred of them, he marched to Talladega and offered their services to General Jessup, there in com- mand of the regular troops. The offer was accepted, and Opothleyaholo, promoted to the rank of colonel, was appointed commander of all the Indian troops. The united regular and Indian forces, all under the command of General Jessup, now marched without delay to the town of Hatcheechubbee, where were embodied the hostiles, who, overawed by such an imposing force, surrendered, and the trou- ble was over.

Shortly after this came the enforced migra- tion of the Creeks from their native land. Opothleyaholo had ever been extremely averse to emigration west. One of his ob- jections was that the Upper and Lower Creeks could not live harmoniously in close contiguity with each other in the new coun- try, cherishing, as they did, the bitter feelings engendered by the death of General McIntosh. His forebodings were not realized, for after settling in the new country, the old feud was in a measure forgotten, and Opothleya- holo still continued in his office as chief speaker in the Creek councils. At the out- break of the great war of 1861, the Creeks divided, the more ignorant position, influ- enced by Opothleyaholo, adhered to the Fed- eral cause, while the educated and progres- sive element, under the McIntoshes, were strong adherents of the Confederacy. A civil war ensued, with the result that Opothleya- holo with his partisans, in great destitution, retreated in December to Coffey County, Kan- sas, where the old chief died shortly after the war. But little is known of the domestic life of Opothleyaholo, whether he had one or more wives. He had a son, born about 1816, who

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was educated at the Choctaw Academy in Kentucky, and named Colonel Johnson, in honor of Colonel Richard M. Johnson. He had several daughters, said to have been handsome women.

REFERENCES .- McKenney and Hall's Indian Tribes of North America (1854), vol. ii, pp. 7-15; Pickett's History of Alabama (Owen's Edi- tion), (1900), pp. 84, 652; Brewer's Alabama (1872), p. 18; Transactions of the Alabama Historical Society (1899), vol. 3, pp. 163-165; Transactions of the Alabama Historical So- ciety (1904), vol. iv, p. 114; Handbook of American Indians (1910), part 2, pp. 141, 142; Official War Records, Serial Nos. 8, 19, 111, 117, 128; Sparks' "The Memories of Fifty Years (1872), pp. 467-478.

PENICAUT, JEAN, author, born in La Rochelle, France, in 1680. He was a ship carpenter by occupation, but must have re- ceived otherwise a fair education. He came in 1698 with Iberville to Louisiana. On ac- count of his aptitude for the Indian lan- guages he accompanied all the French ex- ploring parties. He was a man of family, and a slave holder, and the owner of a conces- sion near Natchez, which he purchased in 1720. He sailed to France in 1721, at the advice of Bienville, to secure a treatment for an affection of his eyes. He returned to Louisiana, and was one of the few French- men who escaped the massacre of 1729. The date and place of his death is unknown. Penicaut's Annals of Louisiana from 1698 to 1722, is a most important record of the col- onization of Louisiana.

PERRIN DU LAC, FRANCOIS MARIE, French administrator and traveler, was born in 1766 in Chaux de Fonds, France; died July 22, 1824, in Rambouillet, Seine et Oise, France. In 1789 he entered the civil service in Santo Domingo. In the troubles that en- sued he was loyal to the royal government, and was bitterly opposed to the revolution- ary decree freeing the blacks. In 1791 he visited the United States to secure the help of the American government against the ne- gro insurgents of Santo Domingo. His mis- sion proving nseless, and the war between England and France preventing his return home, he traveled extensively over many of the American States and territories. Late in 1803 he returned to France and in 1805 he published his American travels. With the exception of a brief interval he lived in retire- ment, until the accession of Louis XVIII, when he held a position in the navy depart- ment. In 1819 he was appointed "Sous pre- fet" of Sancerre, whence he was transferred to Rambouillet, where he lived until his death.

PITCHLYNN, JOHN, United States inter- preter for the Choctaw Nation, born in South Carolina, but supposed by others in the Island of St. Thomas, about 1757. The in- ference drawn from Colonel G. S. Gaines' sketch that he was born about 1770 is very erroneous; died at Waverly in Clay county,

Mississippi, in May, 1835. Nothing is known of his parents except that his father was a British commissary. He was, however, in some manner, a blood relative of the Lince- cum family of Mississippi and Louisiana. About 1773 he accompanied his father on a journey from South Carolina to the Natchez settlement on the Mississippi River. While in the Choctaw Nation the elder Pitchlynn sickened and died, leaving his son alone among the Indians. Some circumstances show that this was in the Sukinatcha coun- try, where lived the Indian countryman, Nathaniel Folsom. There is no record of young Pitchlynn's early Indian life, save that it was a hard one and that at one time he was grievously afflicted with the mange, caught by sleeping in too close proximity to the Indian dogs.

Notwithstanding all the unpleasant sur- roundings of his young manhood, Pitchlynn hecame a wealthy and influential man among the Choctaws. As was the case with others living among the Indians, he was a sympa- thiser with the American Revolution. After a residence of several years in the Sukinatcha country, Pitchlynn with others moved up on Hashnqua Creek in Noxuhee county, where he lived until about 1805, when he estab- lished a home at the mouth of Oktibbeha creek in Lowndes county, at the place known as Plymouth. Pitchlynn was the United States interpreter for the Choctaws for more than forty years, serving as such at the treaty of Hopewell in 1786, at the Nashville conference in 1792, and at the treaties of 1802, 1803, 1805, 1816, 1820, 1825, and 1830, and often served at councils that were called for various purposes by the Choctaw agents. He himself once served as agent for fourteen months, during the absence of Mr. Dinsmoor. He was generally called Major Pitchlynn, but as far as known, there is no evidence that this rank was ever officially conferred upon him.

Major Pitchlynn, to make use of his usnal title, ever showed himself desirous of pre- serving unimpaired friendly relations between the Choctaws and the United States govern- ment. In following this principle, he used all his influence in 1811 against Tecumseh, who visited the Choctaw Nation in that year for the purpose of bringing the Choctaws over into his hostile Indian confederacy. Major Pitchlynn, in like manner, was of great serv- ice in the ensuing Creek War in arraying the Choctaw warriors on the side of the Amer- icans,-a fact gratefully acknowledged by Colonel John McKee, Choctaw agent. Even before the actual outbreak of the war he ad- vised the raising of a few Choctaw and Chick- asaw companies for the defense of the fron- tiers, and for the protection of the whites traveling through the Indian country.

Perhaps above everything else, Pitchlynn was a great friend of education. He not only took care to have his own children well edu- cated, but constantly encouraged the Choc- taws to send their children to the schools established by the missionaries.

Major Pitchlynn was twice married. His

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first wife was Rhoda, daughter of Ebenezer Folsom, an elder brother of Nathaniel Fol- som. His second wife was a widow, Mrs. Sophia or Sophy Howell, a daughter of Nathaniel Folsom. She spoke no English. As seen, his wives were cousins and half- breeds. He was the father of five sons and three daughters. His sons were John or Jack, James, Silas, Peter and Thomas. His daughters were Betsy, Eliza and Kizziah. Jack was certainly a son of the first mar- riage. But it is uncertain as to James and Silas.

By the treaty of Dancing Rabbit, Major Pitchlynn was provided with two sections of land on the Robinson road, four miles west of Columbus. "Here he built a large house, where he lived in a style befitting his position in life. According to the Choctaw census of 1831, he was the owner of fifty negro slaves, and had two hundred acres of land in culti- vation. In addition to this valuable prop- erty, he dealt largely in horses and cattle. He was also joint owner with the elder Rob- ert Jemison, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in a stage line over the Robinson road to Jackson, Mississippi, having personal supervision of that part west of Columbus. In 1834 he sold his lands on the Robinson road, and at the time of his death was living at Waverly, now in Clay county." Major Pitchlynn is de- scribed by those who knew him as a hand- some man, a litle above the middle size, with dark hair and eyes, but becoming somewhat bald in his latter years. He was a hospitable man and ever loyal to his friends; as Colonel Gaines states, he was a "natural gentleman." And in spite of his long residence on the bor- ders of civilization, it can be truly said that there have been but few men that ever lived a more active and useful life than Major John Pitchlynn.

PERIER, RENE BOUCHER DE LA, gov- ernor of Louisiana, was probably a native of France, but of his nativity and early life nothing appears to be available. On August 9, 1726, he was appointed governor of Lou- isiana. Dumont describes him as "a brave marine officer, to whose praise it can be said that he caused himself to be loved by the troops as well as by the inhabitants, for his equity and benevolent generosity." He ar- rived in New Orleans in October, and at once zealously began the work of establishing the colony on a more prosperous basis. Gayarre says: "Governor Perier signalized the be- ginning of his administration by some im- provements of an important nature. On the 15th of November he had completed in front a levee of 1,800 yards in length, and so broad that its summit measured 18 feet in width. This same levee, although considerably re- duced in its proportions, he caused to be continued 18 miles on both sides of the city, above and below." The encouragement of agriculture during Perier's administration was seen in the fields of rice, tobacco and in- digo, and the fig and orange recently intro- duced, was soon thriving everywhere. Negro slaves sent to the colony by the West India

Company were impartially distributed by Perier among the various plantations. This promotion of agriculture necessarily added to the value of land and increased the number of land owners. Governor Perier was a se- cret partisan of Spain in the war existing be- tween that country and England in 1727. In furtherance of this policy he put an end to all the small Indian wars among the tribes from the Arkansas to the Balize and then excited a feeling of hostility among these tribes towards the English. The most noted event of Perier's administration was the great Natchez war, which terminated in the expul- sion of the Natchez from their ancestral seats. In 1732, Bienville was reappointed governor of Louisiana, but as a reward for his services Perier was subsequently promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. Gayarre thus characterizes Perier as a man and governor. "Perier had been over six years governor of the colony, and retired with the reputation of a man of integrity and talent, but of stern disposition, and of manners somewhat bor- dering on roughness. There was at the bot- tom of his character a fund of harshness from which the Indians had but too much to suf- fer, and which made itself felt even by his French subordinates."

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History of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography, Volume II, Part 8

Author: Owen, Thomas McAdory, 1866-1920; Owen, Marie (Bankhead) Mrs. 1869- Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 724

Author: Owen, Thomas McAdory, 1866-1920; Owen, Marie (Bankhead) Mrs. 1869-
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 724