Alexander McGillivray

Indian Leader

  • Born: c. 1759
  • Birthplace: Near present-day Montgomery, Alabama
  • Died: February 17, 1793
  • Place of death: Pensacola, Florida

Creek political and military leader

McGillivray was one of the earliest mixed-blood Creek leaders to use his bicultural abilities to protect both indigenous sovereignty and his own power. He negotiated trade agreements between the British and Spanish in the American South, led indigenous warriors to protect the American interests of the British, and persuaded his people to resist treaties with expansionist colonial Americans.

Areas of achievement Government and politics, diplomacy, military

Early Life

Alexander McGillivray was the son of Sehoy Marchand, a Creek-French woman, and Lachlan McGillivray, a Scottish trader from Georgia. McGillivray’s mother was a member of the influential Red Stick clan, a connection that would give the young man important influence in tribal politics. His father, on the other hand, was one of many Scots who had come to Georgia seeking fortune.

Tradition has it that the young McGillivray was taken by his father to Savannah, Georgia, where the youngster was to be educated. Unfortunately, there is no verifiable evidence of such schooling. One of his father’s fellow traders declared that the young McGillivray “was raised among the whites.” One bit of circumstantial evidence is that on the eve of the American Revolution, Alexander McGillivray signed for a cash advance against his father’s account at Cowper, Telfair, and Company, an Indian trading firm in Savannah. His signature is the bold rounded hand of a trained penman, the same flowing style found in his numerous letters located in the archives of the United States, Great Britain, and Spain.

When fighting erupted between Great Britain and its North American mainland colonies, Alexander’s father, Lachlan, was one of the king’s subjects who chose to return to his homeland. The wily trader returned to Scotland, leaving his son behind in Georgia. Once his father fled, Alexander had no safe choice but to return to indigenous life in the Creek towns among his mother’s people. Returning to the Upper Creek towns was in effect a return to family, since Creek social and political organization, like that of the other Southeastern tribes, was matrilineal. On his mother’s extended family Alexander could draw for political and economic support.

Quickly, McGillivray put his clerical talents to work by securing a position as an assistant commissary, or storekeeper, at the British trading post maintained by David Tait in McGillivray’s home village of Little Tallassees. Tait, another Scot who had come to Georgia seeking his fortune, had gained a position in the British Southern Indian Department as commissary to the Upper Creek. It was Tait’s responsibility to cultivate harmonious diplomatic relations with the Upper Creek on behalf of the British crown. Tait thus welcomed the young Alexander McGillivray as an ally in his struggle to maintain the British presence in the Creek towns and to keep some order in the often disorderly American Indian trade.

McGillivray’s value to Tait was more than political. In the late summer of 1777, as a result of anti-British activities by the Georgians, a band of pro-American Lower Creek plotted the assassination of David Tait. By virtue of his intelligence network in the tribe, McGillivray learned of the conspiracy and warned Tait in time for him to flee. During the fall and winter of 1777, McGillivray was, through Tait’s absence, the British agent in charge at the Upper Creek trading post. This was extremely valuable experience for the emerging Creek leader.

In addition to this position as a member of the British Southern Indian Department, McGillivray used the tribal connections he had inherited from his mother to good advantage. Thus he secured his own economic base at the same time that he was building political support both in his own village and in neighboring ones.

Life’s Work

During the years from 1775 to 1783, Alexander McGillivray gained a following as one of the young leaders among the Upper Creek. Nineteenth century accounts, especially those of the French adventurer Louis Milfort, disparage McGillivray and question his courage in time of war. British records reveal, however, that such accusations are untrue.

In January, 1779, McGillivray led a party of Creek warriors to assist the British army then invading Georgia. For several months thereafter, McGillivray and the warriors remained with the British forces as auxiliaries. When the Spanish besieged Pensacola in 1780, McGillivray organized and led seventeen hundred warriors to support the British defenders there. Even the Spanish commander, Bernardo de Gálvez, admitted that the presence of the forest soldiers helped persuade him to withdraw. Repeated cries of “wolf, wolf” by the British commander so disillusioned the Creek in late 1780 that McGillivray could not persuade the warriors to return to Pensacola when the Spanish besieged the town again in 1781.

The surrender of the British garrison at Pensacola forced McGillivray to consider the options open to him as leader of the Upper Creek. If his people were to survive the onslaught of American expansionism, they needed someone to back them in resisting the intrusions of the land-hungry Georgians. The natural choice was Spain, which was ever alert to the possibility that avaricious neighbors might covet their territories. Not only did the Spanish governor in New Orleans recognize McGillivray’s position, but he also was willing to consider McGillivray’s recommendation that the Southern Indian trade be channeled through the British firm of Panton, Leslie, and Company, which was headquartered in Pensacola. McGillivray would be given a fractional share by the grateful firm. However mercenary this relationship might appear, as “Great Beloved Man” of the Upper Creek, McGillivray knew that trade was fundamental to Native American economic survival. Decades of trading with one or another European power had left the Creek, like all the tribes, totally dependent on the flow of goods arriving from Europe’s factories. Scarcity of supplies would depress Creek economic life and shorten McGillivray’s political career.

In the spring of 1782 McGillivray was able to take advantage of a political power vacuum. The longtime head warrior of the Upper Creek, Emistisiguo, was killed in a skirmish with American troops in Georgia. When news of this tragedy reached the Creek country, McGillivray turned his experiences and connections to advantage in persuading the Upper Creek to elect him as their head warrior in 1783.

It was then as head warrior that McGillivray approached the Spanish. On New Year’s Day, 1784, McGillivray wrote Arturo O’Neill, the Spanish governor at Pensacola, seeking an agreement between the Spanish and the Creek. The shrewd Creek leader warned O’Neill that hordes of Americans soon would descend the Mississippi into Spanish territory. Perhaps the Creek could be of assistance in stopping this invasion. McGillivray further warned the Spanish that the American officials intended to compete with the Spanish for the indigenous trade, so the Spanish would be well-advised to guarantee the trade. Most convenient for the Creek, moreover, would be a trade through Pensacola or Mobile. Indeed, in his initial overture, McGillivray suggested that he would be happy to be responsible for the trade himself.

As the selected leader of the Upper Creek towns, representing himself at times as head warrior of all the Creek peoples, McGillivray signed the Treaty of Pensacola with the Spanish in 1784. Until his death in 1793, McGillivray continued to cling to that agreement as his guarantee against immediate subjugation by the Americans.

Acting in his capacities as the elected leader of the Upper Creek towns, representative of Spanish interests, and partner in a British Indian trading firm, McGillivray performed a delicate diplomatic juggling act. In his capacity as headman of the Upper Creek he had to placate the many factions within the villages, keeping at bay his rivals for power. His entrepreneurial activities created additional friction for him, as jealous Creek and traders observed his growing personal wealth. On the other side of the Georgia frontier at the same time, active land speculators and state officials sought to bring the Creek into agreement about land cessions, transactions steadily opposed by McGillivray. He sought both to protect his peoples’ lands and to further the Spanish policy of keeping the American settlers as far away as possible. Furthermore, as long as he kept the Spanish happy and the Creek towns at peace, he was serving also the interests of Panton, Leslie, and Company, which wanted no disturbance in the flow of trade goods.

Because of such connections, virtually anyone doing business on the frontier of the old Southwest from 1783 to 1793 had to reckon with McGillivray. So extensive was McGillivray’s influence that when groups of American land speculators sought control of lands in the territory later to become the state of Mississippi, McGillivray was offered almost 300,000 acres of land for his cooperation. Had this scheme gone through, McGillivray might have been hard-pressed to explain his action to Spain.

In 1790, McGillivray added another ball to his diplomatic juggling act. At the invitation of George Washington, newly installed president of the United States, the head warrior of the Creek, along with several other Creek and Seminole chiefs, undertook the long journey to New York. President Washington hoped to impress McGillivray and his entourage; in turn, perhaps, he could persuade McGillivray that a treaty could be signed with the United States that might protect the Creek from the land speculators on the Southwestern frontier. Fearful lest British and Spanish representatives in New York discourage the Creek leaders from signing, the American diplomats kept McGillivray and his party well protected from outside influences.

Ever the cautious negotiator, McGillivray agreed that certain parts of the articles of the treaty be kept secret. Those could be revealed when and to whom he saw fit. He would, for example, need an extremely creative explanation for the article commissioning him a brigadier general in the American army at an annual salary of $1,200.

In some ways this “grand tour” of the United States was the last great public act of McGillivray’s career. For a decade he had dominated Creek politics through his wit and skill. Although still a young man, he was given to bouts of recurrent illness, especially gout, rheumatism, and respiratory infections. While visiting his friend and supporter, William Panton, in Pensacola, McGillivray died of pneumonia and complications of gout on February 17, 1793. For ten years he had fought successfully defending the Creek; they would never see his like again.

Significance

Alexander McGillivray’s contribution to Native American history lies in the model of leadership he established during his decade in control. McGillivray emerged at a particularly critical juncture in the affairs of both his people and the fledgling United States. As of 1783 the established patterns of frontier diplomacy were disrupted. The longtime nemesis of the Creek, the colonial settlers, were now unleashed. Gone was the British Indian Department, which had given lip service to the idea of indigenous rights. In its place stood representatives of a newly victorious government that assumed the triumphant attitude of the victor claiming the spoils of war. In the logic of American thought, the Creek had been the allies of the British in the war, the British had been defeated, and, therefore, the Creek had been defeated. Creek land was the trophy the Americans demanded.

Son of a father who had once held many acres in colonial Georgia, and of a mother whose people once controlled those same lands, McGillivray held the unique perspective of a bicultural leader. Since he knew the appetite for land that drove the Americans, he knew the only answer was to deny them even the smallest morsel. One nibble and they would be even more unrelenting in their demands. Consequently, McGillivray practiced a firm and consistent policy—no land cessions. Whenever the Georgians or others persuaded a handful of chiefs to sign a treaty, McGillivray denounced it, whatever the terms.

By courting the Spanish, backing a trading firm that favored him, and cultivating his Creek power base, McGillivray kept the Americans at bay for almost a decade. Time and circumstance favored him, but his own diplomatic and intellectual abilities were fundamental to the success he enjoyed. He was the first of the Creek mixed-blood leaders. None of those who followed him equaled him in skills or accomplishments; no one could truly replace him as the “Great Beloved Man” of the Creek.

Bibliography

Cashin, Edward J. Laclan McGillivray, Indian Trader: The Shaping of the Southern Colonial Frontier. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. A biography of McGillivray’s father, Lachlan McGillvray, which follows Lachlan’s career as an American Indian trader to examine the interaction of European settlers and the indigenous Americans in the colonial south.

Caughey, John W. McGillivray of the Creeks. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1938. Caughey’s volume remains the classic, basic study for understanding McGillivray’s career. The bulk of the volume consists of translations of selected letters from McGillivray to Spanish officials and others, written between 1783 and 1793. The biographical introduction is brief and based primarily on nineteenth century sources.

Coker, William S., and Thomas D. Watson. Indian Traders of the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Panton, Leslie and Company and John Forbes and Company, 1783-1847. Pensacola: University of West Florida Press, 1986. A volume based on the papers of Panton, Leslie, and Company, now gathered on microfilm or in copies and housed at the University of West Florida. This study aids in understanding the relationship of the trading firm with McGillivray as well as his diplomatic machinations.

Corbitt, D. C., trans. and ed. “Papers Relating to the Georgia-Florida Frontier, 1784-1800.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 20-25 (1936-1941). Papers fundamental to an understanding of McGillivray’s career during this period. Researchers, however, should also consult the John W. Caughey volume.

Ethridge, Robbie. Creek Country: The Creek Indians and Their World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. A comprehensive history of the Creek Indians, including information about McGillivray.

Kinnaird, Lawrence. “International Rivalry in the Creek Country, Part I: The Ascendancy of Alexander McGillivray, 1783-1789.” Florida Historical Quarterly 10 (1931): 59-85. Kinnaird explores the importance of Panton, Leslie’s trading activities as fundamental to McGillivray’s diplomacy. This is another study that tends to de-emphasize McGillivray’s Creek connections and his personal abilities.

O’Donnell, James H., III. “Alexander McGillivray: Training for Leadership, 1777-1783.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 49 (1965): 172-186. In this article the author chronicles McGillivray’s experiences in the British Indian Department and how these prepared him for his later role as tribal leader. This publication represents the beginning of the newer scholarship about McGillivray.

Wright, Amos J., Jr. The McGillivray and McIntosh Traders on the Old Southwest Frontier, 1716-1815. Montgomery, Ala.: NewSouth Books, 2001. A history of two Scottish clans that traded in the colonial United States. Includes a chapter entitled “Alexander McGillivray: The Creek Chief” and another chapter on McGillivray’s father.

Wright, J. Leitch, Jr. “Creek-American Treaty of 1790: Alexander McGillivray and the Diplomacy of the Old Southwest.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 51 (1967): 379-400. This well-known student of the old Southwest places McGillivray within the context of the intrigue and negotiation that seemed the constant companion of frontier diplomacy. Wright knows frontier history well and succeeds in giving this account a balanced perspective.

Great Events from History: The Eighteenth Century, 1701-1800: September 22, 1711-March 23, 1713: Tuscarora War; June 20, 1732: Settlement of Georgia; May 28, 1754-February 10, 1763: French and Indian War; October 5, 1759-November 19, 1761: Cherokee War; May 8, 1763-July 24, 1766: Pontiac’s Resistance; May 24 and June 11, 1776: Indian Delegation Meets with Congress; October 18, 1790-July, 1794: Little Turtle’s War; 1799: Code of Handsome Lake.