USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. II > Part 29
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The party devoted some days to the scenes and ex- citements of their new position ; and then measures were taken to bring McGillivray and the chiefs into such relationship as should make them disposed to treat with the United States. At first, the negotia- tions, according to the President's request, were con- ducted informally,-a measure rendered necessary,
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perhaps, by the fact, that no sooner did the Governor- General of Havana learn of the intended visit of McGillivray to New York, than he despatched the Secretary of East Florida thither; who, being fur- nished with a large sum of money, under the osten- sible purpose of purchasing a cargo of flour, was yet directed to use his money and his influence, as an offi- cer of his Catholic Majesty, to prevent McGillivray from forming a treaty with the United States; or, if not able to accomplish that, to embarrass his negotia- tions, and render them as nugatory as possible.
On the 6th of August, the President notified the Senate, that the adjustment of the terms of a treaty with the Creeks was far advanced, and that the time had arrived when the informal method, hitherto pur- sued, should give place to the regular form of negotia- tion; and hence he nominated General Knox as a Commissioner to conclude the treaty with the Indians.
General Knox found matters already shaped and prepared, so that his labors were merely the formal acts of putting the articles in due order, and, with the Indian chiefs, signing and sealing the same with the usual formalities.
The next day, therefore, Washington communicated to the Senate the treaty which had been made, and stated : " I flatter myself that this treaty will be pro- ductive of present peace and prosperity to our Southern frontier, and that it will, also, in its consequences, be the means of firmly attaching the Creeks and the neigh- boring tribes, to the interests of the United States." He also, in this message to the Senate, expressed the hope that the treaty would " afford solid grounds of satisfaction to the State of Georgia, as it contains a
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regular, full, and definitive relinquishment, on the part of the Creek nation, of the Oconee land, in the utmost extent in which it has been claimed by that State, and thus extinguishes the principal cause of those hostili- ties, from which it has more than once experienced such severe calamities."
The treaty which the President laid before the Se- nate for their ratification, was signed by Knox, sole Commissioner, on the part of the United States, and McGillivray and twenty-three chiefs, in behalf of them- selves and the whole Creek nation; and, having re- ceived the confirmation of this body, it was proclaimed by the President, on the 13th of August, 1790.
This treaty did not give satisfaction to Georgia, and was the occasion of much discord between the State and the General Government, as well as the occasion of much intestine trouble.
It has been seen how continually the Creeks kept up their depredations upon the frontier, stimulated or connived at by McGillivray and others in the Spanish interest. These perpetual irritations had caused Georgia to call forth her citizen soldiers, and also to appeal to the General Government for Federal troops, to repel aggressions and protect the frontier.
The minutes of the Assembly, and the letters of the Governors, show how much thought was bestowed upon our Indian relations, and how feverishly anxious the Georgians were made by the persistency of the Creeks in their predatory, and often sanguinary, warfare.
With mercenary speculators grasping after Indian territory, on the one hand ; and Spanish intrigue, stimu- lating savage passions, on the other ; it was no cause of wonder that so many atrocities were committed, and
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so much done to inflame both the white man and the red man with mutual hate and revenge. “It is need- less," says Governor Walton, writing to Washington, 11th March, 1789, " for commentaries on transactions so extraordinary and flagitious ; but I cannot forbear to observe, that whilst proceedings of this kind are permitted, it will be wholly out of the power of this State to preserve that peace with the savages which it would seem is so much the object of the Union." Ad- dressing the President of the Board of Wardens of Savannah, the Governor writes : " It is extremely dis- tressing to me to be under the necessity of informing the citizens of Savannah, that our prospects of peace have changed to inevitable war." "The late arrange- ments for an attack upon us, demonstrate, that so far from the Indians being disposed to meet the offers of peace, they are determined for war." After stating " that the Government, as well as the Commissioners of the Union, have done everything in their power this year (1789) to bring about a treaty," and " that it is demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubting, that the war is wholly continued on the part of the Indians," he adds, " I have directed Lieutenant-Colonel Fishbourne to aid your arrangements for the defence of your valuable town, which I sincerely hope will not be exposed to any danger."
During the two previous years, as appears by a return of depredations, made by Governor Walton to the United States Commissioners, October 4, 1789, the Creeks had murdered eighty-two persons, wounded twenty-nine, taken prisoners one hundred and forty, burnt eighty-nine houses, and carried away horses and
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cattle and goods to the value of many thousand dol- lars.
However fair the promise held out by the treaty with the Creeks, at New York, seemed to be, in its provi- sions, yet there were two causes which led to con- tinued disturbance between Georgia and the Indians : one, growing out of the treaty itself, and the other, out of the character of the chief, McGillivray.
It had been all along asserted by the Creeks, as a cause of their hostilities, that the treaty of Galphin- ton, in November, 1785, was made by only a portion of the chiefs, who had no right to act for the whole nation ; that the lands ceded by that treaty were ceded under the influence of threats and the implication of force ; and that they really did not comprehend, at the time, the value of the cession which the treaty de- manded. The answer to these charges is found in the full refutation of them by George Walton, as Governor of Georgia (letter to Commissioners, October 4th, 1789), and by the report of General Lincoln, Colonel Humphreys, and the Hon. Cyrus Griffin, the United States Commissioners, who, after careful investigation of the subject, declared that the Galphinton treaty was made with a proper representation of the Creek chiefs ; that the lands were not ceded under threats, or fear, or force; and that all the doings in reference to the treaty were according to the usual forms of such ne- gotiations. These opinions, by men who had no inte- rest in Georgia, supported by the views of the very intelligent Governor of the State, and by the unani- mous voice of the General Assembly, were, however, virtually ignored in the treaty at New York; for the whole claim of Georgia, arising out of the Galphinton
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treaty, " of land to the eastward of a new temporary line, from the forks of the Oconee and the Ocmulgee, in a southwest direction to the St. Mary's River," was yielded up by General Knox, as McGillivray and the chiefs under his influence absolutely refused to sur- render it. This concession was regarded as an unjust surrender, by the United States, of land, the title of which had already been extinguished by Georgia, and which consequently belonged to Georgia; and the ex- citement which this produced drew after it most dis- astrous consequences.
It brought the Indians nearer to the white settle- ments on the Oconee; it gave them license to break other treaty stipulations; it lowered in their minds their idea of the power and rights of Georgia; it pro- voked the unjustifiable settlements and military occu- pation of the disputed territory by General Clark; it excited hostilities and bloodshed along the frontier line ; and was an occasion of continual annoyance to the citizens and government of the State.
McGillivray, upon whose promises so much reliance had been placed, and whose honor was in the keeping of the highest bidder, found himself soon opposed and weakened by the machinations of an adventurer, whose history is as romantic as the shifting scenes of the most exciting drama.
William Augustus Bowles was born in Maryland, in 1764, and when a mere lad, joined the British army, in which he was appointed Ensign to a provincial com- pany. He was present with his corps at the battle of Monmouth, and, in the autumn of 1778, embarked at New York, with his company, first for Jamaica, and thence for Pensacola, in Florida. A wild, thoughtless
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boy, unfit to be intrusted with a commission, his reckless conduct brought upon him mortification and disgrace. He had not been a year in the army, before his name was stricken from the roll: and the young Ensign, friendless and almost penniless, was turned adrift from the garrison, and abandoned to the dangers and vicissi- tudes of a frontier life, in an inhospitable clime, and among savage tribes. Turning away with disgust from his former friends, and flinging his uniform into the sea, he attached himself to a party of Creeks, then at Pensacola, and about to return to the Indian nation ; and with them he penetrated to the frontier of Georgia. In a few months, he returned to Pensacola, discontented with his uncivilized companions; and, after suffering many hardships along the coast, he again fell in with a party of Creeks, and returned with them to their wilderness homes. Here he remained for two years, during which period he acquired their language, mar- ried the daughter of one of the chiefs, and was taken into favor by the headmen of the nation.
When war was declared between Great Britain and Spain, he repaired to Pensacola with a war party from the Creek nation, and was kindly received by General Campbell, who reinstated him in the corps from which he had been expelled. Here he fought bravely, and did good service, until, on the reduction of West Florida, he went with the troops to New York, and there re- mained on parole until exchanged.
Having received a furlough from Lord Dorchester, he again repaired to the Creeks, visiting, on his way thither, his father, a planter, in Maryland. By the Creeks he was warmly welcomed, though his stay with them was brief, as he shortly went to the Bahamas,
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where the versatility of his mind displayed itself in establishing him on the stage, as a manager and actor; and among the people of New Providence, as a portrait painter. These occupations, however, were only masks, to cover up his real designs, which, all the while, through secret agents, he was actively carrying on; and, though at one time suspicion was aroused against him, and the grand jury of the island presented him " as a dangerous and suspected person, whom it behooved Government to secure," yet he adroitly extricated himself from these difficulties, and boldly vindicated, through the public press, " The Lu- cayan Royal Herald," his injured reputation. In 1789, in a vessel chartered by him, he set sail for St. Marks, in Florida ; and, having arranged with the Creeks to meet him there, he was enabled, in the face of the Spanish authorities, to land his contraband goods and secure their transportation to the Indian country.
These trading voyages he repeated ; and at last, hav- ing taught five Indians the art of seamanship, he bought a small vessel, armed it with six four-pounders, manned it with his Indian sailors, and then, as captain of the piratical craft, he cruised about the Bay of Appalachi- cola, capturing whatever he could take, and even fight- ing off the Spanish Guarda Costa, which had been sent from the Havana to take him.
The large reward of six thousand dollars, and fifteen hundred kegs of taffia (rum distilled from molasses), was offered for his capture by the Spanish authorities ; but he evaded his pursuers, and, temporarily abandon- ing the sea, he returned to the Creek country, and was elected one of the chiefs and counsellors of the nation.
This step brought him at once into rivalry with, and
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opposition to, McGillivray, and was the origin of a series of intestine wars, and contentions among the southern Indians, destructive alike to the peace and prosperity of the red people and the white.
McGillivray, so soon as he learned that Bowles was assuming a chieftain's authority, ordered him to leave the nation,-which Bowles did, though in a manner which he contrived to turn to his ultimate advantage. Proceeding to New Providence, one of the Bahamas, where Lord Dunmore was Governor, he so ingratiated himself with that officer, and so represented to him the desire of the Creeks for alliance with England, and their willingness, if aided by England, to break with their Spanish and American friends ; that his lordship sent him to England, at the head of a delegation of Creeks and Cherokees, to represent their case at the British Court, and secure its favor to his plans. Accordingly, he ap- peared in England, as the "ambassador from the united nations of Creeks and Cherokees to the Court of London," being appointed, as was stated, "by the unanimous voice of twenty thousand warriors, ready to hazard their lives at the command of their beloved brother, son, and chief."4
His mission, however, was not as successful as he had anticipated. He received, together with the In- dians, valuable presents, and excited much public cu- riosity; but his plans were not approved, and he returned to New Providence, to sink back, for a time, into a privateersman, directing his attacks principally against the vessels of Panton, the commercial partner
4 " Authentic Memoirs of William Augustus Bowles, Esq'r, Ambassador from the United Nations of Creeks and Cherokees to the Court of London." London : Printed for R. Faulder, New Bond Street, MDCCXCI.
VOL. II.
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of McGillivray, several of which he captured,-and made himself rich and influential with his booty. Re- appearing among the Creeks, as the head of a party, he made a bold stand against McGillivray, whose in- fluence he succeeded in lessening, and stirred up against McGillivray much hatred and opposition. McGillivray found it difficult to withstand the opposing current ; and, apparently yielding to, it for a time, he repaired to New Orleans, and did not return until the strongest remonstrances had been sent to him, reproaching him for his pusillanimous conduct, and urging him to come back and reassert his half-vacated rights, and rule. Bowles gave it out through the Indian nation, that he was an accredited agent of the King of England ; that the Americans, when they made peace with England, had no right to take the Indian lands, because the In- dians were under the power of the Crown, which did not cede their lands with the territory of the thirteen colonies ; hence, that the Americans had no right to their soil, or their services, and must be held as intru- ders, whom it was the duty of the Indians to drive away.
The Government of Great Britain, when called upon to state whether they acknowledged Bowles as their agent, distinctly repudiated him. Mr. Hammond (his Britannic Majesty's Minister to the United States), in a letter to Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State, assured the Government "in the most explicit manner, that the assertions said to have been made by Mr. Bowles, of his pretensions having been encouraged or counte- nanced by the Government of Great Britain, or of his having been furnished by it with arms and ammuni- tion, are entirely without foundation."
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Between the usurpations of Bowles, and the double- dealing of McGillivray, the treaty line, as agreed upon at New York, was not run. The United States ap- pointed surveyors and commissioners ; but they were not permitted to act, in consequence of these intestine broils. The Government felt called upon to do all in its power to crush Bowles, and to throw its support in favor of McGillivray; yet the latter was unworthy of any confidence, and his hesitating and tortuous course was the occasion of much trouble both to the Indians and to the Georgians; was the cause of most of the difficulties of the State Government; and gave the Federal Government continual anxiety and alarm.
Bowles, now styling himself "General," was at last captured by the Spanish authorities, taken to New Orleans in chains, and thence sent as a state prisoner to Madrid. His capture removed from the nation one element of discord, though it did not contribute towards the accomplishment of the purposes of the Federal Government, viz., the establishing of well-defined boundaries, the protection of the frontier, and the se- curing of peace among the Southern tribes.
Owing to the supineness of Seagrove, the double- dealing of McGillivray, the freebooting settlement of General Clarke, the intrigues of Panton and the Spanish officials in Florida, and the irritated feeling of the Georgians at the way in which their wishes had been disregarded and opposed; the stipulations of the New York treaty were not carried out; and the horrors of a border warfare with savage tribes still hovered over the Southern frontier of Georgia.
In 1793, McGillivray, having returned the previous
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autumn from New Orleans, where he had been cour- teously entertained by the French Governor, repaired once more to Pensacola, to enjoy the hospitality of the Spanish authorities, and the counsel of his merchant- friend Panton. It was his last visit. Already en- feebled in health, he was taken ill on his way to Florida, and died, on the 17th February, 1793, at the house of Mr. Panton, eight days after his arrival in Pensacola ; and was buried, with civic and masonic honors, in his friend's beautiful garden, then redolent of the blossoms of spring, and green with the vernal glories of that land of flowers.
McGillivray was a man of strong natural abilities, which, had they been properly cultivated, would have made him eminent; and, even though imperfectly developed, he yet exhibited diplomatic powers which enabled him to baffle treaty commissioners, Indian agents, heads of departments, Governors of States, and even impose on the carefully formed judgment of Washington.
As a chief, he lacked vigor and decision ; and, lower- ing himself from the position which he occupied, as the head of the confederacy of Creeks, he stooped to engage in trade, and bound himself down by such commercial fetters to Spanish merchants, as weakened his influence, drew off his attention from state affairs, and caused him to turn all his efforts towards enrich- ing himself and extending his trade; while the inte- rest of the nation of Creeks was unheeded, except when some great outside pressure roused him to action. He was, moreover, a great dissembler; and so adroitly did he manage his dealings with the Americans, Eng- lish, French, and Spanish, that each feared to break
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with him; while each distrusted his loyalty, and watched him with ill-concealed suspicion.
His indecision, and mercantile trammels, were the cause of much of the troubles which so long afflicted Georgia ; while his want of promptness and energy, enabled Bowles almost to beard him in his native forests, and well-nigh wrest from him the sceptre of the nation.
As for Bowles, after still further escapes and adven- tures by land and sea, he ended his life as a prisoner of state in the dungeons of Moro Castle, in Havana.
Matters had now reached such a crisis that Governor Telfair, having applied to the General Government in vain for such aid as he thought the exigencies of the frontier demanded, resolved to conduct the military operations of the State himself; and summoned a coun- cil of general officers to meet him in Augusta, on Thurs- day, 8th August, 1793.
The council, consisting of Governor Telfair as Com- mander-in-chief, Major-Generals John Twiggs, James Jackson, and Elijah Clarke, and Brigadier-Generals Glascock, Morrison, Clarke, Irwin, and Gunn, took into consideration what measures were proper to be adopted for the safety and protection of the citizens of the State. They determined that it was necessary to make an expedition against the hostile towns of the Creeks, in October; and that, for this purpose, "at least two thousand horse and three thousand foot ought to be ordered to camp for the objects that may arise in the intended expedition," to serve, after their arrival in camp, for sixty days.5
5 American State Papers, iv, Indian Affairs, 370.
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This line of operation was not agreeable to the views of Washington, who directed the Secretary of War, General Knox, to say to Governor Telfair, "that he utterly disapproved the measure" proposed, giving his reasons in full for such disapproval, and to express his desire that the offensive expedition should not be undertaken.
This letter put a stop to the active preparations that were going on to carry out the views of the military council, and drew from the Governor a reply, of blended remonstrance and appeal, expressive of his deep disappointment at being compelled to desist from pursuing the only measure which, in his opinion, could give ease and security to persons and property along the frontier. It required great forbearance on the part of the Georgians to refrain from carrying into execu- tion the plans devised by the council at Augusta ; and, irritated as they were by the manifold annoyances to which they were subjected, through the duplicity of McGillivray, the machinations of Bowles, the timidity of Seagrove, the recklessness of Clarke, and the ima- gined supineness and indifference of the Federal Government,-they displayed a commendable submis- sion to law and authority, in ceasing to press forward the expedition which had been so enthusiastically planned.
In this feverish and unsettled condition the relations of the Government, the State, and the Indians, con- tinued, with occasional exacerbations and remissions- now breaking out into bloody hostilities, and now ap- parently soothed to peace-until 1796, when Washing- ton, having made a treaty with the Cherokees, at Holston River, and quieted all troubles with them,
SETTLEMENT OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 455
again sought to establish friendly relations with the turbulent and restless Creeks. Having determined, in accordance with the request of the General Assembly of Georgia, to hold another treaty with the Creeks, the President, on the 25th of June, 1795, nominated to the Senate Benjamin Hawkins, of North Carolina, George Clymer, of Pennsylvania, and Andrew Pickens, of South Carolina, "to be Commissioners for holding a treaty with the Creek nation of Indians." The place selected for holding this treaty, was Coleraine, in Camden County, and about forty-five miles above St. Mary's.
Thither the Federal Commissioners repaired, in May, 1796; there they were joined by three Commis- sioners, on the part of the State of Georgia, viz., James Hendricks, James Jackson, and James Simms.
The formal conferences were opened on the 16th of May, and were continued from day to day, during which speeches were made to the Indians by Benjamin Hawkins, on the part of the United States, and General James Jackson, on behalf of the Georgia Commis- sioners; the latter pointing out to the Indians, with great force, their faithlessness to former treaties, and presenting to them a long list of grievances unredressed, and property unrecovered, directly contrary to the pro- visions of the New York treaty.
After many anxious conferences with the Indians, a treaty was concluded, on the 29th of June, and signed by the Commissioners of the United States and the chiefs who represented the Creek nation.
The State Commissioners protested against this treaty, under seven distinct heads; and so decidedly were they in the right, as it respected the unconstitu-
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tionality of the Government's obtaining cessions of land from the Indians within the territorial limits of the State, that when the treaty was before the Senate for ratification, in March, 1797, that body put in a modifying proviso, which obviated that objectionable feature, and gave to Georgia pre-emption rights, and left untouched her territorial sovereignty.
In Washington's speech to Congress, December 7, 1796, he says, that the meeting of Creeks, at Coleraine, had for a principal object the purchase of a parcel of their land by Georgia. It broke up without its being accomplished, the nation having previously instructed the delegates against it. All the benefits were, that pre-existing treaties were confirmed, and permission was obtained to establish among the Creeks trading- houses and military posts.
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