(22) Lower Cherokee refugees (p. 55): "In every hut I have visited I
find the children exceedingly alarmed at the sight of white men, and
here [at Willstown] a little boy of eight years old was excessively
alarmed and could not be kept from screaming out until he got out
of the door, and then he ran and hid himself; but as soon as I can
converse with them and they are informed who I am they execute any
order I give them with eagerness. I inquired particularly of the
mothers what could be the reason for this. They said, this town was
the remains of several towns who [sic] formerly resided on Tugalo and
Keowee, and had been much harassed by the whites; that the old people
remembered their former situation and suffering, and frequently spoke
of them; that these tales were listened to by the children, and made
an impression which showed itself in the manner I had observed. The
women told me, who I saw gathering nuts, that they had sensations
upon my coming to the camp, in the highest degree alarming to them,
and when I lit from my horse, took them by the hand, and spoke to
them, they at first could not reply, although one of them understood
and spoke English very well."--Hawkins, manuscript journal, 1796,
in library of Georgia Historical Society.
(23) General Alexander McGillivray (p. 56): This famous Creek
chieftain, like so many distinguished men of the southern tribes, was
of mixed blood, being the son of a Scotch trader, Lachlan McGillivray,
by a halfbreed woman of influential family, whose father was a French
officer of Fort Toulouse. The future chief was born in the Creek Nation
about 1740, and died at Pensacola, Florida, in 1793. He was educated
at Charleston, studying Latin in addition to the ordinary branches,
and after leaving school was placed by his father with a mercantile
firm in Savannah. He remained but a short time, when he returned to
the Creek country, where he soon began to attract attention, becoming
a partner in the firm of Panton, Forbes & Leslie, of Pensacola,
which had almost a monopoly of the Creek trade. He succeeded to the
chieftainship on the death of his mother, who came of ruling stock,
but refused to accept the position until called to it by a formal
council, when he assumed the title of emperor of the Creek Nation. His
paternal estates having been confiscated by Georgia at the outbreak of
the Revolution, he joined the British side with all his warriors, and
continued to be a leading instigator in the border hostilities until
1790, when he visited New York with a large retinue and made a treaty
of peace with the United States on behalf of his people. President
Washington's instructions to the treaty commissioners, in anticipation
of this visit, state that he was said to possess great abilities
and an unlimited influence over the Creeks and part of the Cherokee,
and that it was an object worthy of considerable effort to attach him
warmly to the United States. In pursuance of this policy the Creek
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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