USA > Alabama > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 21
USA > Georgia > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 21
USA > Mississippi > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 21
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A company of forty Jews, acting under the broad princi- ples of the charter, which gave freedom to all religious, save that of the Romish Church, landed at Savannah. Much dissatisfaction, both in England and America, arose in colle. quence of the appearance of these Israelites, and Oglethorpe was solicited to send them immediately from the colony.
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He, however, generously permitted them to remain, which CHAPTER was one of the wisest acts of his life, for they and their VIII. descendants were highly instrumental in developing the com- mercial resources of this wild land. There also came, in the 1734 months of September and October, three hundred and forty- one Salzburgers, driven from Germany for their religious opinions, and Oglethorpe settled them above Savannah, on the river of that name, where they formed a town, and named it Ebenezer. These people were succeeded by many Highlanders, from Scotland, who, being brave and hardy, were located upon the banks of the Altamaha, the most exposed part of the colony, where they founded the town of 1736 January Darien.
In the meantime, Oglethorpe had made a voyage to England, taking with him Tomochichi, the Chief of Yama- craw, Senanky, his wife, Tooanhouie, their nephew, Ilillipili, the War Captain, and five Chiefs of the Cherokees. He was most graciously received by the ruling powers of England, and by her citizens; and his noble and disinterested exertions were universally approved. In due time he returned to Georgia, with his Indian friends.
The lands, between Ebenezer and Briar Creck, belonged to the Uchees, who refused to dispose of them. But to secure this part of the country, two forts were built on the South- Carolina side of the river, which answered the purpose. Establishments were also made at Silver Bluff, and at the falls of the Savannah, where the town of Augusta was laid out, warehouses erected, and a garrison thrown into a small
1736
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CHAPTER fort. Angusta immediately became a general resort for VIII. Indian traders, where they purchased annually about two thousand pack-horse loads of peltry. Six hundred white persons were engaged in this trade, including townsmen, pack-horse men, and servants. Boats, each capable of carry- ing down the river a large quantity of peltry, were built, and four or five voyages were annually made with them to Charleston. A trading highway was opened to Savannah on which few of the creeks were bridged, or marshes and swamps causewayed.
He who became the wealthiest and most conspicuous of all these Indian traders, was George Galphin, a native of Ireland. When quite a young man, he established himself upon the site of De Soto's ancient Cutifachiqui, where that remarkable adventurer first discovered the Savannah river, in 1540. Upon the site of this old Indian town, on the cast bluff of the Savannah, in Barnwell District, South-Carolina, now called Silver Bluff, and at present the property of Gov. Hammond, young Galphin first begun to trade with the Creek Indians. Although he made Silver Bluff his head- quarters, he had trading houses in Savannah and Augusta. He was a man of fine address, great sense, commanding per- son, untiring energy, and unsurpassed bravery. His power was felt and his influence extended even to the banks of the Mississippi. Among the Upper and Lower Creeks, Chero- kees, Chickasaws and Choctaws, he sent forth numerous pack- horse men, with various merchandize, who brought back to Georgia almost countless skins and furs, keys of bears' oil.
1737
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kickory-nut oil, snake rout and medicinal barks, which he shipped to England. He often went himself into these na- tions, fearlessly trading in the immediate vicinity of the French Fort Toulouse, upon the Coosa. Commercial policy and an amorous disposition led him to form connections with several females, who were called his wives, and from whom descended many intelligent and influential persons, now in- habiting Georgia, Alabama, and the Arkansas Territory.
Among the passengers who came out with Oglethorpe, upon his return to America, were the celebrated Methodists, John and Charles Wesley, who eat at the table of the philan- thropist, and who received from him much kindness and courtesy, during a stormy and dangerous voyage. Their object was to make religious impressions upon the minds of the Indians. Among the colonists, with whom they resided many years, they became not only mupopular, but very ob- noxious. They finally returned to England much mortified and much disappointed. Stevens thus speaks of these talented and pious men :- " The proceedings of the Wesley's in Georgia have, indeed, been violently assailed; and even writers, who can offer no excuse for their ignorance, accuse them of immorality and blame. But it was not so. They were men delicately brought up, of fine sensibilities, of culti- vated minds, of deep learning and of ardent devotion. *
Accomplished, though reserved in their manners,-associating from childhood with refined and learned society .- they could not conform at once to the tastes and habits of communities like those of Savannah and Frederica, but were rather repe !-
CHAPTER VIII. 1740 to 1775
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CHAPTER VIII.
led by the gross immoralities and offensive manners of the early colonists. Their error was, especially in John, of hold- ing too high ideas of ecclesiastical authority, and the being too rigid and repulsive in their pastoral duties. They stood firmly on little things, as well as on great, and held the reins of church discipline with a tightness unsuitable to an infant colony. But no other blame can attach to them."*
1738
The colony of Georgia had prospered under the wise guidance of Oglethorpe. Five principal towns had been surveyed and settled: Augusta, Ebenezer, Savannah, New Inverness, and Frederica, besides forts and villages. More than one thousand persons had been sent to Georgia, on the account of the trustees alone, while hundreds of other enii- grants came at their own expense. The colonists being from different nations, were various in their characters and religous creeds. Vaudois, Swiss, Piedmontese, Germans, Moravians, Jews from Portugal, Highlanders, English, and Italians were thrown together in this fine climate, new world and new home. With all these people, in their various costumes, were often intermingled different tribes of Indians. What a field for a painter the colony presented ! What materials for a scribbling tourist !
1737
January
Having thus colonized the northern, southern, and eastern borders, Oglethorpe returned to England, and presented to his majesty and the Parliament an account of the affairs of Georgia. Hle asked, at their hands, a sufficient supply of
* Stevens' History of Georgia, vol. 1, pp. 339-349.
$
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military stores and men to defend the province from an CHAPTER invasion contemplated by the Spaniards of the Floridas. VIII. The colonization of Georgia had given great offence to Spain. That power claimed the whole of Georgia, but made no serious opposition, so long as the English settlements were confined to Savannah river, but when Oglethorpe planted his Highlanders upon the Aitamnaha, the Spaniards resolved upon their expulsion. A long succession of border wars and difficulties ensued, which having but little connection with the history of Alabama, are omitted. It should be observed, however, that Oglethorpe succeeded in his applications to the Court, and was appointed general of the forces in South-Caro- lina and Georgia. In September, he was made colonel of a regiment to be employed in defence of the colony, which he had so successfully established. He returned to Georgia with his army, and disembarked his artillery at St. Simond's 1738 September 19 Island.
No sooner had Gen. Oglethorpe placed his feet upon Georgia soil, than he saw the necessity of renewing his treaty with the Creeks, and of cultivating their alliance, for fear that they might form a dangerous connection with the Spaniards. He went immediately to Savannah, where he had an interview with the Chiefs of four towns, and succeeded in strengthening their fidelity to the English. But in order to accomplish a complete alliance with the brave Creeks, he resolved to attend the great council of that nation, which was to assem- ble at Coweta, in July and August following. It was a long and perilous journey. Coweta lay upon the west bank of
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CHAPTER VIII.
the Chattahoochie river, three miles below the falls, at which the city of Columbus is now situated, and within the limits of the present Russell county, Alabama. The distance from Savannah to that point was not only considerable, but lay over extensive pine forests, dismal swamps, and rapid and dangerous rivers, while the solitary trail was not unfrequently beset by Indian banditti. However, when the time arrived, he, who had so courageously fought under Prince Eugene, upon the frontiers of Hungary, was not to be dismayed by obstacles like these. With only a few attendants, and some pack-horses, laden with goods, designed as presents for the Indians, Oglethorpe set off on his journey. IIe crossed the Ogechee, Oconee, Ockmulgee, and the Flint, carrying over his effects in canoes, and sometimes upon rafts. Finally, he halted upon the banks of the Chattahoochie. He had camped out every ight in the woods, exposed by day to the heat of the sun, and often to pelting showers of rain. Crossing the Chattahoecliie, and ascending its western bank, the great and good Oglethorpe soon arrived in the town of Coweta, upon Alabama soil. Forty miles in advance, the Indians had met him and at various points upon the route, had deposited provisions for his subsistence. They now received him in . their capital with every demonstration of joy.
1739 August 1
Making Coweta his head-quarters, Oglethorpe occasionally rode to some of the towns in the vicinity, the most prominent of which were Uchee, Cusseta and Ositehe, couversing with these people through his interpreters, and engaging their af- fections by his liberality and irresistible address. He drank
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with them the black drink-smoked with them the pipe of CHAPTER peace-and lounged with them upon the cool cane sofas with VIII. which their ample public houses were furnished. In the meantime, the Chiefs and warriors from the towns of Coweta, Cusseta, Ufaula, Hitchitec, Ositche, Chehaw, Oconee and Swagles, assembled in the great square. After many cere- monious preliminaries, they made a treaty of alliance with 1733 August 21 Oglethorpe. It was declared that all the lands between the Savannah and the St. John's, and from the latter to the Apa- lache bay, and thence to the mountains, by ancient right, did belong to the Creek nation. That neither the Spaniards nor any other people, excepting the trustees of the colony of Georgia, should settle them. That the grant on the Savan- nah river, as far as the river Ogechee, and those along the sea-coast as far as the St. John's river, and as high as the tide flowed, with the islands previously granted to the English at Savannah, should now be confirmed. The Chiefs again re- served all the lands from Pipe Maker's Bluff to the Savannah, with the Islands of St. Catharine, Osabow and Sapelo.
After signing the treaty, Oglethorpe left with the Chiefs, for their protection against English encroachments, the follow- ing singular paper :-
By James Oglethorpe, Esquire, General and Commander-in- Chief of all His Majesty's forces in South-Carolina and Georgiu, d'c .: To all His Majesty's subjects to whom these presents shall come, greeting :-
KNOW YE, that you are not to take up or settle any land beyond the above limit, settled by me with the Creek nation,
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CHAPTER VIII. at their estates held on Saturday, the eleventh day of August, Anno Domini, 1739, as you shall, through me, at your peril answer.
Given under my hand and seal, at the Coweta town, this, the 21st day of August, Anno Domini, 1739.
JAMES OGLETHORPE.
1735
We desire it to be borne in mind, by the reader, that none of the Upper Creek Indians, who lived upon the Alabama, Coosa, and Tallapoosa rivers, were present at this treaty. They never recognized any of the treaties made in the Lower Creek nation with the Georgians. At this time, they were under the influence of the French; afterwards, they placed themselves under the wing of the Spaniards. Although the English built a fort and occupied it for many years, with a garrison, in the town of Oefuske, on the east side of the Tallapoosa river, within forty miles of the French fortress, Toulouse, and partially succeeded in alienating some of the Up- per Creeks from the French, yet the great body of these people forever remained the implacable enemies of the Georgians.
1739 September 23
October 5
Oglethorpe departed from Coweta, and after a disagreeable journey, reached Savannah. He there assisted in the funeral ceremonies of his friend, Tomochichi, who died at Yamacraw Bluff. The body, brought down the river in a canoe, was received by Oglethorpe, and was interred in Percival Square, amid the sound of minute guns from the battery."
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* Stevens' History of Georgia, vol. 1, pp. 89-158. McCall's Ilis- tory of Georgia, vol. 1, pp. 32-142. Georgia Historical Collections, vol. 1, pp. 18-22-262-182.
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CHAPTER IX.
JESUIT PRIESTS OR MISSIONARIES.
SINCE the revolt of the French garrison at Fort Toulouse, CHAPTER upon the Coosa, things at that place had remained in rather IX. an undisturbed condition. It is true that the English had given them much uneasiness, and had occasionally cut off some of the couriers de bois. In order to cultivate a better understanding with the Lower Creeks, a Jesuit priest,- Father de Guyenne,-went to Coweta, upon the Chattahoo- chie, and succeeded in building two cabins, one at that place, and the other at Cusseta. His object was to learn the lan- guage of the Indians, and to instruct them in the Christian 1735 religion ; but the English of the province of Georgia prevailed upon the Indians to burn up these houses. The zealous father was therefore forced to retreat to Fort Toulouse. Father Moran had been stationed, some years, at Fort Toulouse, and used to live occasionally at Coosawda.
"The impossibility, however, of exercising his ministry there, for the benefit of either the Indians or the French, has induced the superior to recall him, that he might be entrusted with the direction of the nuns, and of the royal hospital, which is
توو بو .
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CHAPTER now under cur charge. The English trade, as well as the IX. French, among the Alabama Indians. You can easily imag- ine what an obstacle this presents to the progress of religion, for the English are always ready to excite controversy."* Among the Choctaws there were several missionaries, besides those stationed at Mobile. "The reverend Father Baudouin, the actual superior-general of the mission, resided eighteen years among the Choctaws. When he was on the point of reaping some fruits from his labors, the troubles which the English excited in that nation, and the peril to which he was evidently exposed, obliged Father Vitri, then superior- general, in concert with the governor, to recall him to New-Orleans."*
While the English of Carolina and Georgia engaged in various schemes to rid the territory of the present States of Alabama and Mississippi, of its French population, by un- scrupulous intrigues with the natives, the French were but little behind them in similar enterprises. The Jesuits were adventurous and brave, and men of captivating address, and obtained much influence over the leading Chiefs, wherever they appeared. An account of the artful intrigues of a German Jesuit, named Christian Priber, as related, in his singular style, by James Adair, an old British trader, who lived forty years among the Cherokees and .Chickasaws, will now be introduced.
Letter of Father Vivier, of the company of Jesus, to a father of the same company.
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"In the year 1736, the French sent into South-Carolina CHAPTER one Priber, a gentleman of a curious and speculative temper. IX. 1736 He was to transmit them a full account of that country, and proceed to the Cherokee nation, in order to seduce them from the British to the French interest. He went, and though he was adorned with every qualification that consti- tutes the gentleman, soon after he arrived at the upper towns of this. mountainous country, he exchanged his clothes and every thing he brought with him, and by that means made friends with the head warriors of the Big Tellico river. More effectually to answer the design of his commission, he ate, drank, slept, danced, dressed, and painted himself with the Indians, so that it was not easy to distinguish him from the natives; he married, also, with them. Being endowed with a strong understanding and retentive memory, he soon learned their dialect, and by gradnal advances, impressed them with a very ill opinion of the English, representing them as a fraudulent, avaricious and encroaching people. He, at the same time, inflated the artless savages with a prodigi- ous high opinion of their own importance in the American scale of power, on account of the situation of their country, their martial disposition and the great number of their warriors, which would baffle all the efforts of the ambitious and ill-designing British colonists.
" Having thus infected them by his smooth, delnding art, he easily formed them into a nominal republican government. He crowned their old Archi-Magus, emperor, after a pleasing new savage form, and invented a variety of high sounding
.Z .
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CHAPTER titles for all the members of his imperial majesty's red court IX. and the great officers of state. He himself received the honor- . able title of his imperial majesty's principal secretary of state, 1739 and as such he subscribed himself, in all the letters he wrote to our government, and lived in open defiance of them. This seemed to be of so dangerous a tendency, as to induce South- Carolina to send up a commissioner, Colonel Fox, to demand him as an enemy to public repose. He took him into custody in the great square of their state house. When he had almost concluded his oration on the occasion, one of the warriors rose up and bade him forbear, as the man he intended to enslave was made a great beloved man, and had become one of their own people. Though it was reckoned our Agent's strength was far greater in his arms than in his head, he readily de- sisted, for, as it is too hard to struggle with the Pope in Rome, a stranger could not miss to find it equally difficult to enter abruptly into a new emperor's court, and there seize his prime minister by a foreign authority, especially when he could not support any charge of guilt against him. The warrior told him that the red people well knew the honesty of the seere- tary's heart would never allow him to tell a lie, and the see- retary urged that he was a foreigner, without owing any allegiance to Great Britain. That he only travelled through some places of their country, in a peaceable manner, paying for every thing he had of them. That in compliance with the request of the kind French, as well as from his own tender feelings for the poverty and insecure state of the Cherokees, he came a great way, and lived with them as a
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brother, only to preserve their liberties, by opening a water CHAPTER communication between them and New-Orleans. That the I.X. distance of the two places from each other proved his motive to be the love of doing good, especially as he was to go there and bring up a sufficient number of Frenchmen, of proper skill, to instruct them in the art of making gun-powder, the materials of which, he affirmed, their lands abounded with. 1741 IIe concluded his artful speech, by urging that the tyrannical design 'of the English commissioner towards him, appeared plainly to be levelled against them, because, as he was not accused of having done any ill to the English, before he came to the Cherokees, his crime must consist in loving the Cherokees. An old war-leader repeated to the commissioner the essential part of the speech, and added more of his own similar thereto. *
* The English beloved man had the honor of receiving his leave of absence and a sufficient passport of safe conduct, from the imperial red court, by a verbal order of the secretary of state, who was so polite as to wish him well home, and ordered a convoy of his own life-guards, who conducted him a conside- rable way, and he got home in safety.
" From the above, it is evident that the monopolizing spirit of the French had planned their dangerous line of cireumvalla- tion, respecting our envied colonies, as early as the before mentioned period. The choice of the man, also, bespoke their judgment. Though the philosophie secretary was an utter stranger to the wild and mountainous Cherokee nation, yet his sagacity readily directed him to choose a proper place,
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CHAPTER an old favourite religious man, for the new red empire, which IX. he formed by slow and sure degrees, to the great danger of our Southern colonies. But the empire received a very great shock, in an accident that befel the secretary, when it was on the point of rising into a far greater state of puissance by the ac- 1731 quisition of the Muscogee, Choctaw, and the Western Missis- sippi Indians.
"In the fifth year of that red imperial era, Priber set off for Mobile, accompanied by a few Cherokees. He proceeded by land as far as the navigable part of the Tallapoosa river, and arriving at Tookabatcha, lodged there all night. The traders of the neighboring towns soon went there, convinced the inhabitants of the dangerous tendency of his unwearied labors among the Cherokees, and of his present journey. They then took him into custody, with a large bundle of manuscripts, and sent him down to Frederica, in Georgia. The governor committed him to a place of confinement, though not with common felons, as he was a foreigner, and was said to have held a place of considerable rank in the army. Soon after, the magazine took fire, which was not far from where he was confined, and though the sentinels bade him make off to a place of safety, as all the people were running to avoid danger from explosion of the powder and shells, yet he squat- ted on his belly upon the floor, and continued in that position without the least hurt. Several blamed his rashness, but he told them that experience had convinced him it was the most probable means of avoiding danger. This incident displayed the philosopher and soldier. After bearing his misfortunes a
1:44 March 23
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considerable time with great constancy, happily for us, he died CHAPTER in confinement, though he deserved a much better fate. In IX. the fifth year of his secretaryship, I maintained a correspon- dence with him. But the Indians becoming very inquisitive to know the contents of our papers, % he told them that in the very same manner, as he was their great secretary, I was the devil's clerk, or, an accursed one, who marked on paper the bad speech of the evil ones of darkness. Accord- ingly, they forbade him to write any more to such an accurs- ed one. As he was learned, and possessed of a very sagacious, penetrating judgment, and had every qualification that was 1745 requisite for his bold and difficult enterprise, it is not to be doubted, that as he wrote a Cherokee dictionary, designed to be published at Paris, he likewise set down a great deal that would have been very accessible to the curious, and serviceable to the representatives of South-Carolina and Georgia, which may be readily found in Frederica, if the manuscripts have had the good fortune to escape the despoiling hands of military power."*
William Bacon Stevens, formerly professor of belles lettres and history, in the University of Georgia, and now an Episco- palian minister, in Philadelphia, has published one volume of the History of Georgia, in which we find the following inter- esting account of Priber, which we copy, at length, in his own style. In alluding to the arrival of Oglethorpe, at Frederica, Dr. Stevens says : "On the return of the general from Florida,
* Adair's American Indians : London, 1775 ; pp. 240-213.
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CHAPTER he ordered his strange prisoner to be examined, and was not IX. a little surprised to find, under his coarse dress of deer-skins and Indian moccasins, a man of polished address, great abilities, and extensive learning. He was versed not ouly in the Indian language, of which he had composed a dictionary, but also spoke the Latin, French and Spanish fluently, and English perfectiy. Upon being interrogated as to his design. he acknowledged that it was 'to bring about a confederation of all the Southern Indians, to inspire them with industry, to instruct them in the arts necessary to the commodities of life, and, in short, to engage them to throw off the yoke of their European allies of all nations.' He proposed to make a settlement in that part of Georgia which is within the limits of the Cherokee lands, at Cusseta," and to settle a town there of fugitive English, French and Germans, and they were to take under their particular care the runaway negroes of 1745 the English. All criminals were to be sheltered, as he proposed to make his place an asylum for all fugitives, and the cattle and effects they might bring with them. He expected a great resort of debtors, transported felons, ser-
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