USA > Florida > Historical sketches of colonial Florida > Part 7
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That General Washington was satisfied with the apology of Galvez made through de Grasse may well be doubted. His dignity, however, forbade complaint. Besides, the promise violated was made to the French; if they were satisfied, respect for them imposed silence upon the Ameri- cans. But there is in the paragraph of the letter to Rendon, before quoted, a vein of irony, the sting of which, coming from such a man, Galvez must have keenly felt.
As already intimated, the above quoted pro- vision of the capitulation became substantially the Fifth Article of the treaty between Great Britain and Spain, signed on the twenty-eighth of January, 1783, at Versailles .*
The condition in which that treaty placed the Florida-English was peculiar. Spain was not opposed to foreigners living in her colonies, pro- vided they were Catholics; and it was well un- derstood, that any English who were, or should become, such would be at liberty to remain in Florida in the full enjoyment of their liberty and property.i
*White's Recopilacion, Vol. II., p.298.
¡White's Recopilacion, Vol. II., p. 301.
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History does not afford a more striking con- trast between the conduct of two nations under similar circumstances, to the honor of one, and the reproach of the other, than that between Spain and Great Britain, as they are presented by the treaties of Paris and Versailles. In the former, Spanish subjects were secured in their persons, religion, liberty and property. In the latter, Great Britain virtually stipulated for the banishment of hers, and the confiscation of their estates. The privilege of selling their property within eighteen months was but a mockery; for purchasers were notonly few, but well aware, likewise, that a trifling consideration would in the end be preferable to a total sacrifice.
The British government professed to compen- sate the victims of her policy; but her justice was confined to those whose claims upon it were the slightest; to the absentees owning large tracts of land which had been granted by the crown, and who did not see fit to go to the provinces to attempt to effect sales. * But no indemnity was provided for those who had .
*Id. p. 300.
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made their homes in the provinces, under the gilded representations and inviting promises of their governors in the name of His Protestant Majesty, George III., Defender of the Faith.
The conduct of Spain in this matter is hardly censurable, when it is remembered that it oc- curred in an age of religious intolerance. She was a Catholic power and wanted no Protestant subjects. Her own had left Florida in 1763, as soon as the Spanish flag was lowered. In the articles of capitulation and the treaty of 1783 she had enforced her traditional policy. And to her credit, be it said, that she did not enforce banishment and confiscation after eighteen months had expired under the former ; and when that period had elapsed under the latter, she granted an extension of four months. Great Britain, on the other hand, in yielding to Spain's demands was false to her faith, false to hertra- ditions, and false to that boasted principle of her constitution that her ægis covers every Englishman, in every land.
Eighteen months is but a fleeting span to a people, when it is but a respite from confisca- tion and exile, avoidable only by apostasy.
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Of the heartaches of the exodus of the Florida- English we have an illustration in the widow of the White House. She had lived out the eighteen months under the capitulation, and the like period under the treaty, when the ex- tension came to her like a respite to the con- demned.
Those four months embraced the days and nights of her struggle in the toils of temptation, foreshadowed in a previous page. Can she leave that home, consecrated by the graves of her hus- band and her child; that home where every ob- ject, tree, vine, shrub, sea, sky, and the very wild violets at her feet, brought up hallowed as- sociations and sacred memories which made them all parts of her very being? No! The surrender would beat the cost of as many bleeding heart strings. There is, however, an escape in apos- tasy. She has but to signify her wish to re- nounce her faith; that faith, however, with which she had consoled a dying husband, and in which she had buried a darling child. Home triumphs. The governor is notified.
Time wanes to the day of sacrifice. The bell tolls the sacrificial hour. The priest stands at
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the altar ready for the offering. But the vic- tim fails the tryst. Faith triumphs. The bonds of temptation are snapped. Turning her back upon home, she goes forth an exile; crowned, we may well believe, with the promiseto all the true of every creed who leave "lands" and "houses" for His name's sake, to swell the mighty host of woman martyrs; time's woeful harvest of blighted lives and broken hearts; victims of man's ambitions, his wars, his poli- cies, and his laws.
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CHAPTER XVI.
Boundary Lines-William Panton and Spain-Indian Trade -Indian Ponies and Traders -- Business of Panton, Leslie & Co.
THE treaty of Versailles re-adjusted the brok- en circle of Spain's empire on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, by restoring to it the segment taken from it by d'Iberville's settlement, as well as that cut from it by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
But British West Florida was not in its en- tirety acquired by Spain. By the Treaty of Paris of the third day of September, 1783, acknowl- edging the independence of the United States, the 31° parallel of north latitude was made the southern limit of the latter from the Mississippi river to the Appalachicola. Thence the boundary line was that river up to the Flint, thence in a straight line to the head waters of the St. Mary's and down that river to the Atlantic ocean. The
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Treaty of Versailles, on the other hand, made that line the northern boundary of the territory ceded to Spain. Those treaties therefore cut off a huge slice from British West Florida.
But, even within that narrow strip of terri- tory, Pensacola lost its primacy ; for in the es- tablishment of the Spanish colonial governments within it, the Perdido was made the western limit of West Florida. Pensacola was, there- fore, by that arrangement placed geographic- ally in reference to boundary lines as it stands to-day; the result, as before shown, of d'Arriola having made his settlement three years before the advent of d'Iberville to the gulf coast.
Those territorial changes dealt a withering blow to Pensacola. Instead of being the capital of a province, bounded by the Mississippi and the Chattahoochee, and a line from one to the other some miles north of Montgomery, it be- came but the chief town of a narrow strip of wilderness between the Perdido and the Appa- lachicola rivers. Lately regarded and fostered as the future commercial base on the gulf of Brit- ain's North American empire, it now became a garrison town, valued by Spain as only an out-
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post to guard against encroachments by other powers on the shores of a sea over which she sought supremacy.
Left to Spanish influences exclusively, it must have rapidly dwindled to the condition, com- mercially at least, in which Captain Wills found it in 1763. But from that fate it was saved by two men who have already been introduced to the reader.
The narrow religious prejudices of the Spanish court demanded the banishment of all Protes- tant British under the Fifth Article of the Treaty of Versailles; and they were rigidly obeyed by colonial officials with one exception. They knew that to banish William Panton was to insure for the town the fate above indicated, and they were equally aware that his presence would be more effective in the preservation of the peace of the provinces than a large military force, owing to his influence over Alexander McGillivray, and of the latter's over the powerful Creek Indians. Indeed, it is unquestionable, that without those influences, the Spanish government could not have been maintained in West Florida. But it would have been idle to hope that a man who
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had been loyal to an earthly monarch, under pain of confiscation and banishment, would in- cur the guilt of apostasy from a faith that was to him, at least, the symbol of allegiance to the King of Kings. Accordingly, the religious test was waived as to him, and for it was substituted an oath of allegiance to the Spanish King, whilst his residence and influence were secured by means the most inviting to his interest and flattering to his pride.
A treaty was entered into with him, as a quasi-sovereign, securing his firm in all its pos- sessions and rights, and bestowing upon its houses at Pensacola, Mobile and Appalachee a monopoly of the Indian trade. For these con- cessions the firm became the financial agent of the government at those points, and bound to wield its influence in promoting peace and good will between the Spaniards and the Indians.
The stipulations on both sides were faithfully fulfilled. At one time Spain was indebted to the firm in the sum of $200,000 for advances, and the debt was afterwards faithfully discharged. In humiliating contrast with the honor and fidelity which marked the dealings of the Scotch-
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men and Spaniards with each other, is the fol- lowing advice of an American agent, James Sea- graves, *to his government. "I think if the Spanish court were pushed in the business they will readily sacrifice Panton & Co., especially as they owe the concern $200,000 for Indian supplies."
This advice was given at a time when com- plications had arisen between the Spanish gov- ernment of Florida and the United States, grow- ing out of the energetic struggle of the Atlantic Indian traders to divert the Creek trade from Pensacola to Charleston and Savannah. The step suggested was, in effect, to transfer a com- mercial contest from the Indian wilds to Mad- rid, where an American minister was expected to perform the degrading task of attempting to induce the Spanish court to commit a fraud upon agents who had served it so long and faithfully, as well as to violate all its other obligations to them.
Panton, Leslie & Co. were engaged in that trade at Charleston and Savannah long before
*American State Papers, Vol. III. p. 311.
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the American revolution; a trade which, even then, extended through the Coosa country in the heart of the Creek nation. With a full knowl- edge of it, in all its details, they established themselves at Pensacola with a view of draw- ing a part of it there. This was the beginning of the commercial struggle which is continued to this day, between the gulf and Atlantic ports for the trade of Central Alabama. It began with the Indian ponies as a means of transporta- tion ; it is carried on now by the steam horse ; and a future generation may see it continued by electricity.
The pony used by the trader was a strong, hardy little creature, which with ease carried one hundred and eighty pounds and travel- ed twenty-five miles a day. The rich and abun- dant pasturage in those times enabled him to supply himself with sufficient food at noon and at night to meet his requirements. There was often oddity in his load. It might be a minia- ture chickenhouse, or two kegs of taffi, hung to his sides, with a pack of merchandise on his back; or two pendant firkins of honey-comb,
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with a pile of hides, skins, or beeswax towering between.
One driver for ten animals was the usual pro- portion ofman and beast. Thecompanies were generally from fiveto ten, making a long line of march, following the main and lateral trails mentioned in a previous chapter. But as all the Indian settlements were visited, their move- ments could not akvays be on the ridge. Some- times creeks and rivers had to be crossed. On such occasions, when the stream was not ford- able with safety to the packs, they were ferried over on rafts composed of logs or masses of matted cane, guided where the current was strong by a grapevine rope stretched across the stream.
Regarded by their savagecustomers as friends, who came periodically to administer to their wants, and gratify their taste for taffi, the traders made their journeys in perfect security. Like their class everywhere, they were joyous men, full of fun and jokes, news and gossip, to which full play was given, under the spur of a cup of taffi, when caravans met.
Beside the trade thus carried on, there was one
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equally as great, if not greater, carried on by the Indians themselves, without the intervention of the traders. The business required Panton, Leslie & Co. to keep up a stock of $50,000 at least, and a large corps of clerks to wait on their savage customers.
Other business sprung up and brought popu- lation. Sawmills were erected, brickyards opened and a tanyard established, which added leather to the exports of the town.
Such were the fruits of William Panton's pres- ence in the province. Idle, however, would have been his labor, his wealth and talents, though backed by the Spanish Government, but for the co-operation of McGillivray. Had the great Chief pointed his long, slender finger to Savan- nah and Charleston as the sources of supply for his people, the commercial life of Pensacola would have withered and perished like a tree girdled by the woodman's axe.
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CHAPTER XVII.
Lineage of Alexander McGillivray -- His Education-Made Grand Chief-His Connection with Milfort-His Rela- tions with William Panton-His Administration of Creek Affairs-Appointed Colonel by the British- Treaty with Spain-Commissioned Colonel by the Spanish-Invited to New York by Washington-Treaty -Commissioned a Brigadier-General by the United States-His Sister, Sophia Durant-His Trials-His Death at Pensacola.
THE people who have been called Creeks in previous pages, received that name after their settlement in Alabama and Georgia; a name, it is said, they derived from the number and beauty of the streams or creeks of the country they inhabited. Before that they were known as Muscogees according to English, and Otho- mis or Otomies, according to Castilian orthog- raphy.
Their original seat was in northern Mexico. They were a warlike and independent tribe, which, though lacking the comparative civiliza-
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tion of the Aztecs and the Tlascalans, had yet received some rays of its light. They had been confederates of the latter in their conflicts for existence with the former. They had afterwards aided in the defence of Tlascala against Cortez. Surviving warriors, however, carried back to · their people such accounts of that field of slaughter, and the prowess of the foe, who seem- ed to be armed with supernatural weapons, that the tribe became panic-stricken, and in a council, resolved upon a flight beyond the reach of the invincible invader. The determination was promptly put into execution.
The entire tribe, bearing off its movable effects, took its line of march in an easterly course. After a journey which consumed many months, they found themselves on the head waters of Red river. Reaching that river, and following it, they at length found a suitable place for a settlement, where they felt they were sufficient- lvremote from the terrible foe who had inspired their flight. There they accordingly establish- ed themselves, and remained for several years. Abandoning that settlement, they proceeded northward to the Missouri, thence to the Mis-
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sissipi, and from there moved to the Ohio. That progress, however, was not by a continuous march, but by periodic advances, interrupted by settlements more or less long, and marked by conflicts with other tribes, in which, accord- ing to their traditions, they were always victo- rious.
They must have been living on the banks of the Ohio, when Soto made his devastating march through the Creek country which was after- wards to be their home. There they must have been likewise, when de Luna made his explora- tions, and noted the sparseness of population, and abandoned fields as before narrated; or, perhaps, they were then making one of their in- termittent advances southward, which were to bring them eventually to the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Chattahoochee.
Like other Mexican tribes, the Muscogees were divided into septs or fratries, the most notable of them being those of the Ho-tal-gee, or the Wind, the Tiger, the Bear, and the Eagle. In the first, however, resided the primacy, or hegemony of the tribe.
The traditions of their Mexican origin and em-
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igration, collected by Le Clerc Milfort under the most favorable conditions, as will be seen here- after, are fortified by their form of government, with its dual executive for civil and military affairs; their glimmer of civilization, as well as their federative tendency.
Soon after their settlement in the Creek country, they are found absorbing other tribes ; not by enslavement or incorporation, but as confederates. They had their national councils, composed of the principal chiefs of the confeder- acy, and suitable buildings at fixed places for their accommodation. The head of the confeder- acy for civil affairs was the Grand Chief, as the Tustenuggee, or Great Warrior, was for war. They also had Town Governments, the Chief of each being the Micco, an elective officer, and not a King, as often misrepresented. Each town had its council house, in which local affairs were administered.
The Grand Chief of the Muscogees held the position, and exercised the functions which recent criticism has assigned to Montezuma, as the head of the Aztec confederacy, to whom the Spaniards erroneously gave the title, and attrib-
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uted the powers of an emperor, in accordance with their own habits of thought, as the sub- jects of an emperor.
The Indian trade that existed between the Creeks and the Atlantic coast, which has already been mentioned, was an inviting field to cupidity and enterprise, and many were the young adventurers from the old world who en- gaged in it soon after their landing at Charles- ton or Savannah. Some of them, too, fasci- nated by the wild life of the forest, made them- selves homes in the Creek nation, and found wives amongst the Creek maidens, who in form, feature and habits, were superior to those of other tribes.
Amongst those adventurous spirits was Lachlan McGillivray, a youth of good Scotch family, of Dumglass, Scotland. .A few years found him a successful trader. On one of his visits to the Hickory Ground, a prominent Creek town on the Coosa, situated near the present site of Wetumpka, Alabama, he became acquainted with Sehoy Marchand, a young woman whose mother was a full blood of the Ho- tal-gee, or Wind family, and whose father was a
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French captain who had been murdered by mu- tineers at Fort Toulouse, a few miles from Hick- ory Ground. That meeting resulted in marriage. Shortly afterward, McGillivray made a home, and established a trading house, not far from where he had first met his Indian wife.
Of that marriage, Alexander McGillivray was the first born, Sophia the next, and Jenette the third.
The father became exceedingly prosperous, partly in consequence of his alliance with the chief family of the Creeks, and in a few years found himself the owner of two plantations on the Savannah river. His trading journeys, however, still had their attractions for him. When Alexander was fourteen years old he in- duced his wife to let the boy go with him to Charleston, and remain there to be educated. After having been instructed sufficiently for the purpose, he was placed in a counting-house ; but having acquired a taste for learning, that occupation became intolerable to him. His father, accordingly, determined to yield to the bent of the boy's mind, and found him a highly educated teacher in a clergyman of Charleston.
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With that assistance, and sedulous application, he became a Greek and Latin scholar, and besides, made rapid and extensive progress in other departments of knowledge. He appears to have been a student up to the age of thirty, which he reached about the year 1776. In that year he left Charleston, an educated man, to return to his people, whom he, a little semi-sav- age of fourteen, had left sixteen years before. The impelling motive to that movement prob- ably was, that being like his father, a loyalist, residence in a rebel colony was no longer agree- able. Possibly, however, he had purposely deferred his return to the Indian nation until he had arrived at such an age as would justify him in looking to the position of Grand Chief. But, be that as it may, the time for his return was judiciously chosen, and consistently with that sagacity which characterized his whole life, of acting opportunely in all exigencies.
The white settlers of Georgia were beginning to press through what the Creeks claimed as their frontier; and to that pressure was added the hostility engendered by the revolution, nowinits second year, against any semblance of favor to
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the enemies of the patriotic cause. The West Florida-English and their government were on the most friendly terms with the Creeks; and that in itself was sufficient to beget hostility to the latter on the part of the Whigs of Georgia and the Carolinas. This was a new and com- plex condition of things to the Creeks, present- ing questions for solution with which their great council felt its inability to deal. To whom could they look for guidance? They knew no disinterested advice could come from the government at Pensacola, and it would be folly to seek counsel from the Georgians, who regarded them as enemies because they desired to be neutrals, living in peace between hostile communities, engaged in a conflict in which the Indian could feel no interest.
It was just at this juncture that Alexander McGillivray found himself amongst his people. Long and impatiently had they awaited the advent of the representative of the Ho-tal-gee, the grand chieftan, who for so many years had been studying that wisdom of the white man, which made him the Indian's superior; that wisdom which now acquired by him, was to be
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exercised for the salvation of his people. Great, therefore, was the satisfaction produced by the advent of such a disinterested counselor and guide.
He is hardly well within the nation before a grand council is called at Coweta, on the Chat- tahoochee, over which he was to preside, and formally assume the hegemony of the Ho-tal- gee.
To a thoughtful mind there is a pathos in this scene which appeals to every generous nature! It comes like the despairing appeal of infancy to manhood for help! It is the ignor- ance of the savage stretching out its supplicat- ing hands to the white man's wisdom as his only refuge.
One of the most striking powers which Mc- Gillivray possessed, was his ability to win and retain the childlike confidence of his people, and thereby exercise boundless control over them. He was not a soldier, or a man of blood, in any sense of the term. He was essentially a states- man and a diplomat. The conquests of peace only had any fascination for him. His ambition was to save and civilize his people. That such
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a man should bend to his will in the paths of peace a numerous population of warlike sav- ages, to whom the war-whoop was music, and scalping the most inviting pastime, is a domi- nation over brute instincts of which history contains very few examples.
A remarkable instance of that influence occur- red shortly after the council at Coweta. He there made the acquaintance of Le Clerc Milfort, mentioned in a previous page; an adventurous Frenchman, highly educated, and possessing military qualities of no ordinary kind, as well as bodily strength and endurance equal to any exertion. Their mental culture was a mutual attraction.
Milfort went with him from Coweta to Hick- ory Ground, the home of McGillivray's child- hood, where his mother and his sisters Sophia and Jenette were living. He at once entered into Creek life, and united his fortunes with McGillivray's. The bright eyes of Jenette were not long in winning Milfort's heart, nor was there much delay in his winning hers. They were married. By the marriage he acquired great consideration amongst the Creeks.
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As previously remarked, McGillivray was not a soldier himself; but as a wise ruler, he felt the necessity of having an able commander in war, when the exigency for it arose. Moreover, his policy as a civilized ruler, was to have war con- ducted by a civilized leader, who might by his example and influence, control the brutal instincts of his savage forces. Milfort was the man for the place. An obstacle to his appoint- ment, seemingly insuperable, however, existed. The office of Tustenuggee was an honor to which the Indian braves looked as the highest attainable; and presumptively, they would re- fuse their consent that this coveted prize should beconferred upon a stranger. But, that stranger had married a Ho-tal-gee, and it was the wish of the Grand Chief that he should receive it. It was, accordingly, conferred upon Milfort with the sanction of the tribe.
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