USA > Georgia > A standard history of Georgia and Georgians > Part 46
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* "Biog. Cong. Directory, 1774-1911," p. 26.
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of bloodshed operated as no deterrent to men of Cavalier antecedants .- "Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends, " L. L. Knight, Vol. I.
GEORGIA'S OLDEST MILITARY ORGANIZATION .- On May 1, 1786, before the adop- tion of the Federal Constitution, the martial enthusiasm of Savannah asserted itself in the organization of the oldest military company in Georgia : the Chatham Artillery ; and the initial appearance of the newly organized command was made some few days later at the funeral obsequies of the illustrious soldier, Maj-Gen. Nathanael Greene. On Independence Day following the company participated in the patriotic exercises; and, attired in full uniform, lent picturesque and dramatic interest to the occasion. Among the original members were several veterans of the Revolution; but, even in the faces of the youthful members, there glowed the defiant and intrepid spirit of '76. Capt. Edward Lloyd, a one-armed Revolutionary soldier, was the first commandant. The visit of President Washington to Georgia, in 1791, marked another important event in the life of the Chatham Artillery; and, so impressed was the nation's chief magistrate with the splendid appearance of the organization that, when he returned to Philadelphia he ordered two handsome bronze field-pieces to be forwarded to the Chatham Artillery with the compliments of the President of the United States. These proved to be six-pounders, both of which were trophies of war captured from the British; and, on one of them was inscribed these words: "Surrendered at the capitulation of York Town, October nineteenth, 1781. Honi soit qui mal y pense- G. R." It was cast in 1756 during the reign of George II; aud, besides the inscrip- tion, it bore the stamp of the imperial crown. Though no longer used in actual service the "Washington Guns" are still treasured among the most precious keep- sakes and mementoes of the ancient organization. The Chatham Artillery participated in the War of 1812 and in the war between the states. When hostilities with Mexico began in 1845 the services of the company were offered to the United States Govern- ment but they were not needed.
During the first week of May, 1886, the centennial jubilee of the Chatham Artillery was celebrated. Visiting companies from various states of the Union enjoyed the lavish hospitality of Savannah; fetes and tournaments were held in compliment to the city's distinguished guests; and round after round of merriment imparted an endless charm of variety to the historic festival. Serious business of every kind was suspended. Old soldiers held reunions; the hatchet was buried; and both the blue and the gray met in fraternal converse around the same camp-fires. It will ever be a source of the keenest satisfaction to the people of Savannah that they were privileged to entertain at this time the great leader of the lost cause. He was then an old man, near the end of his long life of four score years; and it marked one of the very few occasions, after the war, when the recluse of Beauvoir consented to appear in public. With him was Winnie, the beloved and only "Daughter of the Confederacy," whose birth in the White House at Richmond, during the last year of the war, gave her this peculiar and exclusive title of honor .- "Georgia's Land- marks, Memorials and Legends, " L. L. Knight, Vol. I.
GEORGIA'S OLDEST ORGANIZATION OF CAVALRY .- Emulous of the brave deeds of men like Sereven and Stewart and McIntosh, the sons of these men and of those who fought with them, met together and organized-either in 1791 or in 1792-the Liberty Independent Troop. It survives to the present day- the oldest cavalry organization in Georgia. With the single exception of the Chatham Artillery, it is the oldest military organization of any kind: a distinction of which the county may well be proud. In the various state tournaments which have been held from time to time, the Liberty Independent Troop has seldom failed to win the trophies. Its record in this respect is phenomenal. In 1845 another company was organized in the upper part of the county, viz., the Liberty Guards, an organization which likewise exists today. To quote Doctor Stacy: "These companies have never failed to make the offer of their services when needed by their country, and they have won laurels on every knighted field."-"Georgia 's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends," L. L. Knight, Vol. I.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OCONEE WAR-GROWS OUT OF CERTAIN INDIAN TREATIES NEGO- TIATED BY THE STATE WITHOUT CONSULTING THE GENERAL GOVERN- MENT-UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF ALEXANDER MCGILLIVRAY, AN ARTFUL HALF-BREED CHIEF OF THE CREEKS, THESE TREATIES ARE REPUDIATED-INDIAN DEPREDATIONS ON THE BORDER-THE CONTI- NENTAL CONGRESS INVALIDATES TWO OF THE GEORGIA TREATIES : GALPHINTON AND SHOULDER-BONE-DESULTORY WARFARE CONTINUES UNTIL WASHIINGTON BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES- THE TREATY OF NEW YORK-INDIANS GUARANTEED POSSESSION OF CERTAIN LANDS, INCLUDING THE TALLASSEE STRIP-THIS ANGERS GEORGIA AND BECOMES A SOURCE OF PROLONGED IRRITATION-UNREPRE- SENTED AT THE CONFERENCE IN NEW YORK-THE WAR CONTINUES- BUT THE DEATH OF MCGILLIVRAY AT LENGTH BRINGS HOSTILITIES TO AN END-THE TREATY OF COLERAINE IN 1795 RESTORES AN OLD FRIENDSHIP, THOUGH NO LANDS ARE CEDED-THE MORAVIAN MISSION AT SPRING PLACE IN THE COHUTTA MOUNTAINS.
NOTES :-- THE BATTLE OF JACK'S CREEK.
We have reserved for the concluding chapter of this section an account of the Oconee war. Both of the treaties made at Augusta, in 1783, the one with the Creeks and the other with the Cherokees, were made without consulting the general government which, under the Articles of Confed- eration, was given jurisdiction over Indian affairs. The Continental Congress of 1785, therefore, dispatched commissioners to these tribes, with instructions to make definite peace and, if possible, to obtain further cessions. The state also appointed commissioners to attend these nego- tiations and to protest any measure which might seem to exceed the powers conferred by the Articles of Confederation." In due time, the Creeks were invited to a conference at Galphinton, but only a small delega- tion responded to this overture. The commissioners of the general government refused to negotiate a treaty under these circum- stances and left for Hopewell, South Carolina, to keep an engagement with the Cherokees. But the Georgians, seizing the strategic opportunity, made a treaty with the chiefs on the spot, obtaining from them a cession in the name of the whole Creek Nation, to the region south of the Alta- maha River, called Tallassee.t According to the treaty of Galphin- ton, a line drawn from the confluence of the Oconce and Ocmulgee rivers "to the most southern part of the stream called the St. Marys
* "Georgia and State Rights, " U. B. Phillips, p. 40.
+ Ibid., p. 40.
Vol. 1-22
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river," was declared to be the rightful boundary line between the Indians and the whites. This treaty was formally signed on Novem- ber 12, 1785. Georgia's two commissioners who negotiated it were: John Twiggs and Elijah Clarke .*
On November 3, 1786, at Shoulder-bone, in what is now the County of Hancock, a treaty was negotiated by Georgia commissioners, with a small delegation of Creeks, who assumed to act for the whole nation, under the terms of which agreement the Creek titles to all lands east of the Oconee were extinguished. On the part of the state, this instrument was witnessed by the following commissioners: John Habersham, Abraham Ravot, J. Clements, James O'Neil, John King, James Powell, Ferdinand O'Neil and Jared Irwin. On the part of the Creeks it was signed by fifty- nine chiefs, head-men and warriors.t
To these treaties, a large element of the Creeks were hostile claiming that, in each instance, the commissioners of Georgia had negotiated with a mere handful of chiefs who represented only a minority sentiment among the tribes to whom these ceded lands belonged. Moreover, it was claimed by the Creeks with sound logic that both of these treaties were null and void, having been negotiated by the State of Georgia, when the treaty making power was vested in the Continental Congress. Had there been a strong central government at this time, the treaties in question would undoubtedly have been abrogated and the Oconee war, with its train of horrors, would have been happily averted.
The commanding spirit among the hostile Creeks at this time was an Indian half-breed named Alexander McGillivray, an artful leader to whose Indian craft was added a lot of Scotch shrewdness. During the colonial period, his father, Lachlan MeGillivray, had made his appear- ance in the Creek Nation as a trader, and had married an Indian princess, from which union Alexander MeGillivray had sprung.
McGillivray was a man of decided gifts, of a somewhat delicate mold, well-educated for one whose life was to be spent in a wilderness, among savage tribes. He was ambitious to shape the destiny of his people, but if some of his critics are not unduly biased, he was destitute of any great amount of physical courage and was careful always to keep his person- ality in the background, while directing the hostile movements of his dusky warriors. To resist these treaties, he fired the whole Creek Nation.
On investigation, the Continental Congress declared the treaties made at Galphinton and Shoulder-bone illegal; but it possessed no strong arm of authority with which to overrule the people of Georgia. Consequently the Creeks, finding themselves withont recourse, began to make raids upon the white settlements and to convert the disputed border into a sav- age inferno, red alike with the blood of slaughtered victims and with the fire of burning habitations. This long protracted series of bloody ineur- sions upon the white settlements has sometimes been called the Creek war, but to distinguish it from other troublous affairs with these Indians it is perhaps best to call it the Oconee war. Despite the incessant bloodshed and havoc which followed, settlers at imminent peril to life continued to move over into these disputed lands, east of the Oconee, where they lived
* "Marbury and Crawford's Digest, Treaty of Galphinton," pp. 607-608.
t "Marbury and Crawford's Digest, Treaty of Shoulder-bone," pp. 619-621.
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in log huts erected at intervals along the river. Desultory warfare is always most vexations. Without decisive results, it makes existence a nightmare of uncertainty and prevents any settled conditions or habits of life. When a new central government was formed with Washington at its head, the promise of a speedy cessation of hostilities was offered, since authority in the realm of Indian affairs was then transferred to the Federal Government, with full power to act. But there was no immediate solution for this vexed problem. Washington was inclined to approve Georgia's contention, but his characteristic caution, re-enforced by a de- sire to be absolutely just, caused him to send a confidential agent to Me- Gillivray, with a message inviting him to a conference in New York.
This invitation was accepted; and on August 7, 1790, a compact known as the Treaty of New York was signed. Under this instrument the Creeks agreed for a monetary consideration to confirm the treaty at Shoulder- bone, ceding all lands to the east of the Oconee, but refused to recognize the treaty of Galphinton and insisted upon inserting in the new compact an article reserving the Tallassee country to the Creek nation. More- over, the Indians were guaranteed possession of all remaining lands .*
Here we find something entirely new. Nor was Georgia prepared quietly to acquiesce in any such perpetual guarantee of titles to savage tribes upon her soil. Says Mr. Phillips: t "The Georgians at once at- tacked this article as an unwarranted stretch of the Federal power. James Jackson declared in Congress that the treaty was spreading alarm among the people of Georgia, and complained that it ceded away a great region which was guaranteed to the State by the Federal Constitution. The State Legislature adopted a remonstranee, in which the fear was expressed that the giving of such a guarantee by the central government would lead to the conclusion that sovereignty over sueh lands belonged to the United States; whereas said sovereignty appertained solely to the State of Georgia, not having been granted to the Union by any compact whatsoever. The discord over the unoccupied lands was due to oppos- ing conceptions of the status of the Indian tribes. The theory of the co- lonial governments had been that these tribes were independent eommu- nities with the rights and powers of sovereign nations. But public opinion was beginning to revert to the original European conception that ยท the relations of the tribes to civilized nations were merely those of de- pendent communities without sovereignty and without any right to the soil but that of tenants at will. The reorganization of the Government in 1789 brought no change of Indian poliey so far as concerned the central authorities. On the other hand, the State governments were growing
more positive in their own views. * * The frontier sellers did not stop with coldly disapproving the treaty. They hotly declared that they would permit no line to be marked out as a permanent boundary between Georgia and the Creek lands denied to her. Further trouble was made by a party of the Creeks dominated by Spanish influence. Frontier dep- redations began again and continued spasmodically for several years. The Georgians became highly ineensed at the Indian ontrages, the more so because of the impossibility of deciding where retaliation should he
* "Marbury and Crawford's Digest, Treaty of New York, " pp. 621-625.
+ "Georgia and State Rights, " T. B. Phillips, pp. 42-43.
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made. A large number of the Creeks were known to be friendly, but exact knowledge of the attitude of each village could not be obtained."
Georgia was not represented at the New York conference, to which treatment she was inelined to demur. Gen. Elijah Clark, of Revolution- ary fame, resented so strongly this guarantee to the Indians that he illegally crossed the Oconee and sought to establish a settlement, but was foreed to desist by the state authorities .*
Since the Tallassee country still remained a bone of contention, the flames of war soon burst forth anew. Maranding expeditions against the white settlements increased in number to such an extent that Governor Telfair, then occupying the executive chair, proposed a chain of bloek houses reaching from Florida to North Carolina as a necessary means of defense to insure the safety of white settlers. Gen. John Twiggs, at the head of a militia force, 700 strong, was dispatched against the Creeks, but failure of supplies made the expedition abortive. Wash- ington was urged to intervene; but he opposed a national declaration of war against the Creeks many of whom were anxious for peace. Besides, such a course was more than likely to stir up strife among the Cherokees and bring on trouble with Spain.
But the death of Alexander McGillivray, in February, 1793, eaused an unexpected rift in the clouds which had long drooped heavily over the white settlements. The Creeks became disorganized. James Seagrove, an Indian agent, representing the United States Government, took up his residenee in Georgia for the purpose of tranquilizing conditions. Ile sue- eeeded in bringing about a friendly interview between Governor Mathews and a delegation of Creek chiefs, all of which may have had its effect in eausing the Legislature to approach the Federal Government on the sub- ject of treaty negotiations.
On June 25, 1795, Washington appointed three commissioners to treat with the Creek Indians, in the hope of a satisfactory settlement. These commissioners were: Benjamin Hawkins, George Clymer and Andrew Pickens.t Coleraine, an Indian post, on the St. Mary's River. forty-five miles above St. Mary's, afterwards the site of Fort Piekering, was selected as the place for this important conference; and here, on June 29, 1796, a treaty of peace and friendship between the President of the United States and the Creek Nation of Indians was negotiated.
This solemn document was signed by numerous kings, head-men and warriors of the Creek Nation and by all the commissioners representing the Federal Government. There were commissioners present from Geor- gia, but they took no formal part in these proceedings. As soon as all was over, they protested in a formal manner against certain items. It was merely as onlookers delegated to keep a watchful eye upon the state's interests that they were present at these negotiations; but they typified a sentiment which was steadily growing more and more power- ful in Georgia, a sentiment partial to extreme State Rights. Georgia's conservatism in the Federal Convention of 1787 was pronounced, as we shall see in a succeeding chapter. She needed the protection which only a strong eentral Government could give to hier exposed borders.
* See Chapter 3, Section III.
t "Marbury and Crawford's Digest, Treaty of Coleraine," pp. 632-637.
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But to be ignored entirely by the Federal authorities in negotiations which vitally affected her welfare and to be forced into accepting guarantees offensive to her sovereignty, under which guarantees Indian titles to her soil had been confirmed, these were well calculated to arouse her consciousness of independent statehood and to transfer her alle- giance from Federalism to Democracy.
Under the Treaty of Coleraine no lands were ceded, but the Treaty of New York was ratified, leaving the beautiful Tallassee lands still in possession of the Creeks. Only a part of this territory was ceded in 1802, and it was not until after the War of 1812 that Georgia finally obtained undisputed possession of all these lands to the south and west of the Altamaha River.
But while the state was thus embroiled in constant warfare, with the Creeks a far happier picture invites our gaze as we conclude this chapter with a scene enacted in the peaceful land of the Cherokees. Spring Place, the county seat of Murray, is associated with the early efforts of a quaint religious seet to evangelize the children of the forest. Here, in the beautiful heart of the Colutta Mountains, in 1801, the Moravians established a mission and began to labor for the spiritual uplift of the Cherokee Indians. Commissioned by the Society of United Brethren, Rev. Abraham Sterm, first penetrated the wilds of this mountain re- gion during the latter part of the eighteenth century; and, though he pressed the matter with great vigor in the council of the nation, he was refused. On a similar errand, in 1800, he failed again; but David Vann, an influential chief of mixed blood, agreed to help him this time, and land was given him on which to start his experiment. In the course of time, opposition on the part of the other chiefs was withdrawn, and the mission began to prosper. Many of the Cherokees were eventually baptized and brought into the church. There was a manual school opened in connection with the mission at Spring Place. The first wagon built by the pupils was given to the chief who contributed the land to the mission. But he was severely criticized by his tribe for aecepting this present. The objection was: "If we have wagons, there must be wagon roads; and if wagon roads, the whites will soon be among us." Another mission was established in 1821 at Oothealoga. Both were in a flourishing condition, when removed to the West at the time of the deportation. The Cherokee Indians loved the gentle Moravians, by whom they were never deceived or defrauded.
THE BATTLE OF JACK'S CREEK .- On September 21, 1787, there was fought in a thick cane-brake, near the site of the present Town of Monroe, a famous engagement between a party of Creek Indians and a band of pioneer settlers. The principal actors in the drama, on the side of the whites, were distinguished veterans of the Revolution, one of whom afterwards became governor of the state. The attack upon the enemy was made in three divisions. Gen. Elijah Clarke, the illustrious old hero of Kettle Creek, commanded the center; his son, Maj. John Clarke, led the left wing; while Col. John Freeman commanded the right. The story is best told in the language of the elder (larke. Says he, in his report of the battle, dated Long Cane, September 24, 1787: "I had certain information that a man was killed on the 17th of this month by a party of six or seven Indians and that on the day before, Colonel Barber, with a small party was waylaid by fifty or sixty Indians and wounded, and three of his party killed. This determined me to raise what men I could in the course of twenty-four hours and march with them to protect the frontiers; in which
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space of time I collected 160 men, chiefly volunteers, and proceeded to, the place where Colonel Barber had been attacked. There 1 found the bodies of the three men mentioned above, mangled in a shocking manner, and after burying them I proceeded on the trail of the murderers as far as the south fork of the Ocmulgee where, finding that I had no chance of overtaking them, I left it and went up the river till I met with a fresh trail of Indians, coming toward our frontier settlement. I immediately turned and followed the trail until the morning of the 21st, between 11 and 12 o'clock, when I came up with them. They had just crossed a branch called Jack's Creek, through a thick erane-brake, and were encamped and cooking upon an eminence. My force then consisted of 130 men, 30 having been sent back on account of horses being tired or stolen. I drew up my men in three divisions: the right commanded by Colonel Freeman, the left by Major Clarke, and the middle by myself. Colonel Freeman and Major Clarke were ordered to surround and charge the Indians, which they did with such dexterity and spirit that they immediately drove them from the encampment into the cane-brake, where, finding it impossible for them to escape, they obstinately returned our fire until half past four o'clock, when they ceased, except now and then a shot. During the latter part of the action, they seized every opportunity of escaping in small parties, leaving the rest to shift for themselves." White states that in this engagement there were not less than 800 Indians. They were commanded by Alexander McGillivray, a famous half-breed.
Col. Absalom H. Chappell, in discussing General Clarke's account of the battle, makes this comment. Says he: "It is striking to read his report of this battle to Gov. Mathews. No mention is made in it of his having a son in the battle, though with a just paternal pride, commingled with a proper delicacy, he emphasizes together the gallant conduct of Colonel Freeman and Major Clarke, and baptizes the hitherto nameless stream on which the battle was fought, by simply saying that it was called Jack's Creek-a name then but justly bestowed by admiring comrades in arms in compliment to the General's youthful son on this occasion. Long after the youth had ceased to be young and the frosts of winter had gathered upon his warlike and lofty brow, thousands and thousands of Georgians used still to repeat the name of Jack Clarke, without prefix of either Governor or General and to remember him too as the hero of the well-fought battle of Jack's Creek."-"Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends," L. L. Knight, Vol. I.
SECTION III
THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH PERIOD, OR THE BEGINNING OF A GREAT STATE
CHAPTER 1
GEORGIA THE FOURTH STATE TO RATIFY THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION- HER REMOTENESS FROM THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT ALONE DENIES HIER THE FIRST HONORS-NEARLY A MONTH ELAPSES BEFORE A COPY OF THE NEW COMPACT OF UNION IS RECEIVED BY THE STATE AUTHORITIES -GEORGIA'S ACTION UNANIMOUS-THREE STATES, NEW YORK, RHODE ISLAND AND NORTH CAROLINA, AT FIRST REJECT THE INSTRUMENT BECAUSE IT INVOLVED A SURRENDER OF TOO MUCH SOVEREIGN POWER -WHY GEORGIA FAVORED A STRONG CENTRAL GOVERNMENT-THE GREAT CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787-WASHINGTON ITS PRESIDENT-AN ASSEMBLAGE OF MASTER-MINDS-GEORGIA'S DELE- GATES-THREE GREAT COMPROMISES OF THE CONSTITUTION-GEORGIA, LOOKING TO THE FUTURE, FAVORS AN UNEQUAL REPRESENTATION IN THE LOWER HOUSE, BASED UPON POPULATION-HIER VOTE DIVIDED AS TO REPRESENTATION IN THE SENATE-THE EXISTING PARITY OF THIE STATES DUE TO ABRAHAM BALDWIN'S VOTE ON THE CONNECTICUT COMPROMISE-AN EXCITING MOMENT-SLAVES TO BE COUNTED ON A BASIS OF THREE-FIFTHS IN FIXING A RATIO OF REPRESENTATION- GEORGIA MAKES AN UNSUCCESSFUL EFFORT TO SECURE A FULL COUNT OF SLAVES-THE STATE IS GIVEN THREE REPRESENTATIVES IN THE LOWER HOUSE-GEORGIA DEMANDS A CONTINUANCE OF THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE-IS SUPPORTED BY SOUTH CAROLINA IN THIS DEMAND FORCES NEW ENGLAND TO SUPPORT A TWENTY-YEAR EXTENSION OF THE TRAFFIC-THE YEAR 1808 FIXED AS THE TIME WHEN THE IN- PORTATION OF SLAVES MUST CEASE-DELEGATIONS FROM ALL THE STATES SIGN THIE CONSTITUTION, RHODE ISLAND ALONE EXCEPTED- GEORGIA'S RATIFICATION ANNOUNCED BY A SALUTE OF THIRTEEN GUNS-THE AUGUSTA CONVENTION-ITS MEMBERSHIP-EFFECT OF GEORGIA'S ACTION UPON THE OTHER STATES,
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