USA > North Carolina > Biographical history of North Carolina from colonial times to the present; > Part 12
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In the Convention which met at Fayetteville in November, 1789, and ratified the Constitution of the United States, Colonel Hawkins represented Warren County, and two of his colleagues in the Warren delegation were his brother, Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, and Wyatt Hawkins, a more remote connection.
The death of Colonel Hawkins occurred on the 28th of Jan- uary, 1833. An obituary, containing much valuable data concern- ing his life, appeared in the Raleigh Register of February 8, 1833 :
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"Died, at his residence at Pleasant Hill, in Warren County, on the 28th ult., Colonel Philemon Hawkins, the last of the signers of the Con- stitution of North Carolina in 1776. He was born on the 3d of Decem- ber, 1752; and, at the early age of sixteen, was sworn in as a Deputy Sheriff of the county of Granville, and performed the whole of the duties of that office for his principal, Leonard Bullock. He belonged to the troop of cavalry at the Battle of Allemance [sic.], which was fought on the 16th of May, 1771; and, for the distinction he merited on that oc- casion, was presented by the Commander-in-Chief, Governor Tryon, with a beautiful rifle. Before he was of age he was elected a member of the General Assembly for the county of Bute. He continued as a mem- ber of the Legislature, with the intermission of two years only, for thirteen years. The last term of his service was at Fayette- ville in 1789. He raised the first volunteer company in the cause of American Independence that was raised in the county of Bute, and which consisted of 144 men. In the year 1776 he was elected a colonel of a regiment by the Convention at Halifax, and in that command per- formed many services; but ultimately left the army and continued to act as a member of the Legislature. He was a member of the Convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States, and was frequently a member of the Executive Council. He was a man of strong mental powers, which he retained to the last, and possessed an accuracy of rec- ollection which enabled him to be the living chronicle of his times. He raised twelve children to adult age, but six of them preceded him to the grave, and his six youngest sons graduated at the University of North Carolina. Full of years and of all the comforts of this world, he died after a short illness, in so much tranquillity of mind, and apparently so free from pain, that his final departure was like a man in a sleep."
On the 31st of August, 1777, Colonel Philemon Hawkins, Jr., was united in marriage with Lucy Davis, and by her had thirteen children, as follows : William Hawkins ( Governor of North Caro- lina), who married Ann Swepson Boyd, and is the subject of a separate sketch in this work; Eleanor Howard Hawkins, who married Sherwood Haywood, one of the early settlers of Raleigh ; Ann Hawkins, who married William Person Little, of Littleton; John Davis Hawkins, who married Jane Boyd, and will be men- tioned later in a separate sketch; Delia Hawkins, who was the second wife of Stephen Haywood, of Raleigh; Sarah Hawkins, who was the second wife of Colonel William Polk; Joseph Haw- kins, who married Mary Boyd ; Benjamin Franklin Hawkins, who
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married Sally Person; Philemon Hawkins (Captain U. S. A.), who died unmarried; Frank Hawkins, who died unmarried; George Washington Hawkins, who died unmarried; Lucy Davis Ruffin Hawkins, who was the first wife of Honorable Louis D. Henry ; and Mildred Brehon Hawkins, who died unmarried.
From the above children of Colonel Hawkins have descended a numerous posterity, including branches of the families of Polk, Haywood, Blount, Badger, Little, Andrews, etc., as well as those who still bear the surname of Hawkins.
Marshall De Lancey Haywood.
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BENJAMIN HAWKINS
B BENJAMIN HAWKINS, public servant in many capacities, was born August 15, 1754, in what was then Granville, later Bute, and now Warren County, North Carolina. He was the son of Philemon and Delia ( Martin) Hawkins and came of a family which has been well known in the State and has filled many positions of trust and honor. His father's life forms the subject of a separate sketch in the present work. Benjamin Hawkins, the son, was reared in what is now Warren County, and like his neighbor, Nat Macon, was sent, along with his younger brother, Joseph, to Princeton and was a student in the senior class when the war of the Revolution began. Having acquired a knowledge of French, he left Prince- ton, was appointed on the staff of General Washington, and acted as his interpreter. But his duties as a member of Washington's military family did not cease with translating. He braved the rigors of the campaign, participated in the Battle of Monmouth, and won the respect of his superiors.
He soon returned to North Carolina, and in February, 1779, the State commissioned him as agent to obtain at home and abroad supplies of all kinds for the prosecution of the war, including arms and ammunition, blankets, hats, clothing, tent cloth, corn, salt, pork, etc. He was instructed to visit Holland, France and Spain (State Rec. XIII. 605-6) and did make a trip to St. Eustatia,
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a neutral island of the West Indies and a sort of Nassau of that day. Tobacco was used as a basis for purchases. It was bought in North Carolina and shipped to the West Indies and there ex- changed. Hawkins loaded a merchant ship and sent her to North Carolina with supplies, chiefly munitions of war, but she was captured by the British on the home trip, and her owner, John Wright Stanly, of New-Bern, failing to recover from the State, sued Hawkins in his personal capacity. The Courts decided that the purchases and contracts of the State's agent did not bind him personally (Ist Haywood's Reports). His efforts at importa- tion from foreign ports were not entirely without success, for in February, 1780, he had imported 878 stands of arms from St. Eustatia, but adds: "I could not procure anything on the faith of the State, or by barter for provisions or tobacco, as was ex- pected." (State Rec. XV., P. 337.) At home he was also employed in procuring food supplies, especially corn, salt and pork, and met with more success than in his foreign enterprises, for there were fewer obstacles to overcome. 1
He early impressed the Assembly with his fitness for activity on a wider field, for as early as February 3, 1779, he was nom- inated for, and on July 14, 1781, was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress in place of Charles Johnson, declined (State Rec. XIII. 585 ; XVII. 872). He first appears in the journals of that body on October 4, 1781 ; was re-elected May 3, 1782; again in May, 1783, and served until 1784. He was chosen December 16, 1786, for the remainder of the year, which had begun Novem- ber Ist, to supply a place then vacant and was again elected in December, 1787, but seems not to have served this last appoint- ment. While in the Continental Congress he was particularly in- terested in the navigation of the Mississippi, in the protection of the frontiers from the Indians, in a southern post route, in trade . and commerce, etc. In December, 1787, along with Robert Bur- ton and William Blount he gives a gloomy but accurate picture of the state of the Union. It was then on the eve of bankruptcy ; little had been paid on the foreign debt, and the Government was on the verge of dissolution. He resigned his post the same month.
Profef feastron s
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Hawkins had served in the North Carolina Assembly as early as the April and August sessions, 1778, and January session, 1779. He was again in the Assembly in April, 1784, as a rep- resentative from Warren. He played here a conspicuous part, being often on the floor and serving on such committees as that on the tax to be levied by the Continental Congress and on the Continental Line, and on sach special committees as those on con- fiscated estates, civil list, duties, Martinique debt, etc. He was nominated for membership in the Council of State this year, and it is known that he opposed the wholesale condemnation of Tories, acting in this connection with the conservatives and opposing such radicals as Bloodworth, Rutherford and Martin (State Rec- ords XVII. 145).
During the years immediately following the war the State was very much oppressed by the want of a fixed circulating medium. The paper money had depreciated till it was worth only 800 to 1 ; there was practically no gold and silver in circulation, and as a result the State was hard put to meet its current obligations, pay its officers, and raise its proportion of the foreign debt of the Con- federation. To meet this emergency State buyers of tobacco were appointed in various towns, who gathered and stored such amounts of merchantable tobacco as were available. This was then sold to the best advantage and the proceeds used in payment of the foreign debt. In 1787 Hawkins and William Blount, in addition to their other duties as delegates in the Continental Congress, were charged with the sale of this tobacco, which work was successfully accomplished.
In December, 1788, Hawkins was nominated along with Hugh Williamson and Abishai Thomas as agent to settle the accounts of North Carolina with the United States; the last two were chosen. In November of that year he was also nominated as a delegate to the proposed convention, whose work it was to be to further revise and democratize the new Federal Constitution. In November, 1789, he represented Warren County in the Fayette- ville Convention. He served on its committee on order and voted for the adoption of the Federal Constitution.
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After the State entered the new Federal Union there was an- other struggle between the two parties of the day, conservatives and radicals, or Federalists and anti-Federalists, later Republi- cans, over the senators to the new Federal Congress. The strug- gle began in the Assembly three days after the ratification of the Constitution. The nominees for senators were Samuel Johnston, Benjamin Hawkins, James White, Joseph McDowell, Timothy Bloodworth, Thomas Person, William Blount, John Williams, William Lenoir, John Stokes, Richard Dobbs Spaight and Wil- liam Polk, a goodly company, where the rankest Federalist was crowded and jostled by the extreme Radical. The Federals were in power, and it was proper that Samuel Johnston, the leading exponent of that party's political principles, should be chosen the first senator in Congress from North Carolina (November 27, 1789). After some skirmishing Hawkins was chosen on Decem- ber 9th as the second senator. He was the first to enter upon his duties, having qualified January 13, 1790, and winning the long term served till March 3, 1795. Johnston drew the short term and served from January 29, 1790, to March 2, 1793. In the meantime the political tide changed in North Carolina, and the Federalist and ultra-conservative Johnston was succeeded in 1793 by the more liberal Alexander Martin, while in 1795 Hawkins, aristocratic, conservative, proud and wealthy, gave way for the ultra-radical Bloodworth, who had begun life as a blacksmith and by sheer force of native intellect had worked his way to the front in public life.
It is of interest to make note here, merely as a sign of the times, that in 1790 the "alarming secrecy" of the Senate caused the North Carolina Assembly to instruct its senators to use their influence to make the debates of the Senate public when sitting in its legislative capacity ; "to correspond regularly and constantly with the executive during the recess of the Legislature" and at other times with the Legislature itself, and to secure the publica- tion of the journals of the Senate.
Hawkins had been appointed a commissioner on March 21, 1785, to treat with the Cherokees and "all other Indians southward
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of them" in accord with the act of Congress of March 15, 1785. The other commissioners were Daniel Carroll, William Perry, Andrew Pickens and Joseph Martin (q. v.). Carroll and Perry did not serve and their place was taken by Lachlan McIntosh. They were instructed to give due notice to the Governor of North Carolina. They were to treat with the Cherokees, and also with the Creeks, Chickasaws and Choctaws, and were authorized to draw on Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia for funds, and warned the executives of those States that funds must be forthcoming if the treaties were to be held. Caswell writes back that, while North Carolina was hard pressed, he would furnish one-third of the total sum asked for. The commissioners spent 1785 in making preparations; goods were purchased and sent to Charleston to go overland to Keowee. The Indians were slow in coming; the Creeks failed them entirely and the Con- tinental commissioners did not sign the treaty of Galphinton, which was the work of the agents of Georgia alone. On Novem-
· ber 28, 1785, Hawkins signed at Hopewell on Keowee with the Cherokees the treaty of Hopewell, than which perhaps no other Indian treaty was more roundly denounced by the whites. The object of this treaty was to define the claims of the whites and Indians respectively and so prevent encroachments of the former. William Blount was present as agent for North Carolina, and agents for Georgia were also in attendance. The treaty was mainly the work of Martin ; the chief question was that of bound- aries, and the Indians drafted a map showing their claims. They were induced to give up Transylvania, to leave out the Cumber- land section and the settlements on French Broad and Holston. The boundaries thus fixed were the most favorable it was possi- ble to obtain without regard to previous purchases and pretended purchases made by private individuals and others. The Indians yielded an extensive territory to the United States, but on the other hand the commissioners conceded to them a considerable ex- tent of territory that had been purchased by private individuals, though by methods of more than doubtful legality. The com- missioners agreed to remove some families from the Indian lands,
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but they did not agree to remove those between French Broad and Holston. This angered the Indians, who said that they had never sold those lands. The whites were angry because some favors had been shown the Indians and because there had not been further curtailment of territory, and the States were angry because the commissioners had encroached on their reserved rights. William Blount, as agent of North Carolina, protested, and efforts were made in Congress to destroy the treaty (State Rec., XVII. 578-9; XVIII. 49, 591-2, 490-1; XX. 762). En- croachments continued ; orders were issued by North Carolina and by the Continental Congress that settlers should leave the In- dian lands. These settlers were even threatened with the army ; but treaties, proclamations and threats were alike in vain, for the terms of the treaty were never fully executed. Hawkins, Pickens and Martin signed treaties with the Choctaws on January 3d, and with the Chickasaws January 10, 1786, at the same place.
With this preliminary experience Hawkins was somewhat pre- pared to undertake the difficult and dangerous work of an Indian agent. His term as senator expired March 3, 1795. In June of that year Washington appointed him along with George Clymer, of Pennsylvania, and Andrew Pickens, of South Carolina, to treat with the Creek Confederacy and to investigate the anomalous political relationship caused by the treaty of Galphinton in 1785, where the Creeks had acknowledged themselves as within the limits of Georgia and members of the same, and the treaty of New York, signed August 7, 1790, where they placed themselves under the protection of the United States alone and bound themselves not to enter into any treaty with any other individual, State or power.
In 1796 Washington appointed Hawkins agent of the United States among the Creeks and general superintendent of all the tribes south of the Ohio River (Chappell's "Miscellanies ;" his commission was renewed by Jefferson in 1801). From this time, 1796, the remainder of the life of Benjamin Hawkins was de- voted entirely to the Indian. It is said that his family opposed this determination, for it was ambitious and wealthy. It is possible
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that there was an element of pique at the change in the political tide in North Carolina, but it is certain that Hawkins had al- ready been much among the Indians; he had penetrated the mighty forests and had tasted the freedom that comes with life in the woods; he had felt what a modern novelist has keenly denominated the "call of the wild," and when this spirit ha's once entered into and mastered the soul of man it is seldom that he again willingly submits to the restraints of civilization. When Hawkins accepted this position as Indian agent he practically quit civilized society, buried himself in the remote and savage woods and among a still more savage people, with whom the remainder of his days were spent.
On June 29, 1796, Hawkins negotiated with the Creeks the treaty of Coleraine which served as a useful supplement to the treaty of New York and by which the boundaries of the earlier treaty were confirmed. From this time for twenty years Colonel Hawkins as United States agent among the Creeks wielded a pro- " consular sway over a scope of country regal in extent : Begin- ning at St. Mary's the Creek boundary ran across to the Altamaha ; thence it turned up and along the west bank of that river and of the Oconee to the High Shoals of the Appalachee, where it inter- sected the Cherokee line; thence through Georgia and Alabama to the Choctaw line in Mississippi ; thence south down the Choc- taw line to the 31st parallel; thence east to the Chattahoochee, and then down that river to its junction with the Flint; thence to the head of St. Mary's River, and thence to the beginning.
Hawkins began his work as agent by a careful study of the people and of their country. He did much to initiate and encourage them in the lower forms, the basal elements, of civilization ; pastur- age was brought into use ; agriculture was encouraged by example as well as precept, for he brought his slaves from North Carolina and at the agency on Flint River cultivated a large plantation and raised immense crops of corn and other provisions, thus setting a high example of how to do by doing. He owned great herds of hogs and cattle and practised towards the Indians a profuse hospitality which always wins their friendship and esteem. Other
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treaties were negotiated with the Creeks at Fort Wilkinson, Georgia, in 1802 and at Washington, D. C., in 1805; also with the Chickasaws and Choctaws in 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1805, in which Hawkins was more or less of a participant and all of which meant a further cession of lands to the United States by the Indians who were under his control. But peaceful and friendly relations were generally maintained by Hawkins between advancing white and retreating Amerind for about sixteen years. With the war of 1812 the times changed. It was no longer possible for him to control the Creeks, who fell under the influence of British emis- saries. Tecumseh had visited them in 1811 on a mission of war. Hawkins met the great warrior of the north at Tuckabatchee, the Creek capital, while holding a great council of the nation, but Tecumseh kept silent as to the object of his mission till the de- parture of Hawkins. Then, through that fierce Indian eloquence of which he was master and by the fanatical religiosity of his brother, the Prophet, a great Indian war was kindled, which spread far and wide over the frontier. But that part of the Creek country bordering on Georgia and extending west from the Oc- mulgee to the Chattahoochee never became the seat of actual war- fare, and hence the eastern frontier was spared its horrors. This was due very largely to the fact that Hawkins's seat was on the Ocmulgee, opposite the present Macon, and afterwards on the Flint at the place since known as the Old Agency, and that his influence was naturally greater on the eastern than on the western border of the Creek country. The eastern Creeks were actually organized into a regiment of defence of which Hawkins became titular colonel, the actual command devolving on the half-breed chief, William McIntosh.
The uprising of the Creeks was crushed in fire and blood by Jackson early in 1814; by the treaty of Fort Jackson their limits were greatly reduced and their strength broken forever. This treaty was the death-knell of the nation ; even the friendly chiefs withered under its influence, and the passing of the people for whom he had so long and faithfully labored perhaps hastened the death of Hawkins himself, which occurred at Hawkinsville,
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Georgia, June 6, 1816. Wheeler states in his "Reminiscences" that Hawkins married and left one son, Madison, and three daughters.
Colonel Hawkins was a man of liberal education, high attain- ments and much experience. He was far above the average In- dian agent of that day and of this in general culture and grasp of affairs. Further, he was a man of approved honesty, and his life, as seen in his published letters, shows clearly that he was de- voted to the material upbuilding of the Indians under his care and to their intellectual advancement. The eminent position that the Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Choctaws now occupy among the civilized tribes of the Indian Territory is to be traced beyond question in part to the fostering and fatherly care shown them a hundred years ago by one who sought not to exploit his protégés for his own material benefit, but strove rather, by ex- ample as well as precept, to lift them to a higher life, and whose efforts they recognized and rewarded in the significant title Iste- chate-lige-osetat-chemis-te-chaugo-Beloved Man of the Four Nations.
Colonel Hawkins also devoted much time to the study of In- dian History, especially that of the Creeks. Much of his material was destroyed by fire, but eight manuscript volumes escaped and are in possession of the Georgia Historical Society. These vol- umes relate to the history of the various tribes with whom he treated and are filled with details of treaties, his correspondence on behalf of the Indians with the State and General Governments, vocabularies of Indian languages, records of the manners and customs, religious rites, civil polity, etc. His "Sketch of the Creek Country in 1798 and 1799" was published in 1848 as Part I of Vol- ume 3 of the Historical Collections of the Georgia Historical So- ciety. It is filled with matters relating to the life, manners and customs of the Creeks and to the natural features of their coun- try. His journal of a "Tour Through the Creek Country," November 19, 1796, to May 21. 1797, is still in manuscript and is owned by the same society. While in many respects Hawkins's studies have been superseded by later and more scientific ones, they are in others still of great value, and if published would
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serve as a valuable picture of Creck Indian life at a time when that powerful nation had come little in contact with the English-speak- ing world by whom they were to be in part destroyed, in part absorbed.
This sketch is based on the sketch of Hawkins in his "Creek Country," on that in Chappell's "Miscellanies of Georgia," on the "North Carolina State Records" and on Royce's "Indian Land Cessions in the United States."
Stephen B. Weeks.
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WILLIAM HAWKINS
HEN hostilities between America and Great Britain opened for a second time in 1812, the W Governor of North Carolina was William Haw- kíns, a native of the county of Bute, and a citi- zen of the county of Granville at the time of his election as Chief Magistrate. Two years after the birth of Governor Hawkins the name of Bute County was expunged from the map, and its territory divided into the counties of Warren and Franklin. This action-taken while the Revolutionary War was in progress-was done to perpetuate the names of two honored patriots in lieu of that of Lord Bute, one of the ministers of King George. Upon the division of Bute, Warren County became the home of the Hawkins family. This family had stamped its name on the history of North Carolina long before William Hawkins added to its honors. Governor Hawkins was a son of Colonel Philemon Hawkins, Jr. (subject of one of the preceding sketches), and his wife, Lucy Davis.
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William Hawkins was born on the Ioth of October, 1777, and was reared at Pleasant Hill, his father's seat in Warren County. His early childhood was passed in the troublous times of our War for Independence, but comparative quiet reigned in his native county, for "there were no Tories in Bute." After receiving a good preliminary education, he took up the study of law in Gran- ville County under Judge John Williams. About the time he be-
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