Independence Lost : Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution (9781588369611) by Duval Kathleen

Author:Duval, Kathleen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Digital
Published: 2015-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

The Ambitions of Alexander McGillivray

As with the Chickasaws, Creek sovereignty and control over the land endured in the midst of change. After Emistisiguo’s death outside Savannah in 1782, Alexander McGillivray’s prominence grew in both Little Tallassee and the Creek Confederacy. He had established valuable connections in many Creek towns and had shown the potential to become a prominent headman and diplomat. However, as the British withdrew from the southeast, he lost his European connections. McGillivray and the Creeks had to decide what they would do in a world without the British.62

At first, McGillivray explored the possibility of continuing the fight. In the spring of 1782, he traveled to Chickasaw country to discuss Creeks and Chickasaws fighting together against the Spanish and the Americans. As their official policy was peace, however, the Chickasaws said no. McGillivray also considered linking his efforts with James Colbert. He visited Colbert’s camp while Nicanora Ramos was held captive there. In McGillivray’s presence, probably trying to impress him, Colbert boasted of the many ways he was going to damage the Spanish “with fire and blood.”63 McGillivray chided him: “You talk very freely, and are making our projects known” to the captives, who “will not forget to publish our intention.”64 This encounter seems to have persuaded McGillivray that Colbert was too much like the irresponsible and unconnected James Willing.

McGillivray again had the chance to leave Creek country for good. According to McGillivray, Georgians repeatedly proposed “restoring to me all my property and that of my father.” But he declined the offers.65 Similarly, when McGillivray was in St. Augustine in the fall of 1783, British General Archibald MacArthur offered to evacuate him along with the other loyalists. He could have sailed to Jamaica or Britain or even joined his father in Scotland.66

But Alexander McGillivray chose to return to his mother’s town and his growing family. By 1783, he and Elise Moniac had their own children, Alexander (Aleck), Margaret (Peggy), and Elizabeth (Lizzie), all of whom, in Scottish patrilineal tradition, he considered his own and taught to speak English. Because their mother was Chickasaw, they belonged to a matrilineal Chickasaw clan as well as being part of a Creek household in Little Tallassee. Even more important, McGillivray was the mentor of the children of his sisters, Sophia, Jeannette, and Sehoy. McGillivray envisioned a prosperous life in Little Tallassee with his family, slaves, plantations, and cattle as well as a future as a Creek leader. McGillivray would live the rest of his life in Creek country—“my country.”67

But McGillivray’s previously most useful connection—the British—was now largely irrelevant. Indians in the north had persuaded Britain to retain its Great Lakes posts, in defiance of the Treaty of Paris; however, once the British turned St. Augustine over to the Spanish, there were no British on Creek borders. Headmen Hoboithle Miko of the Upper Creek town of Great Tallassee (also known as Tallassee King or Tame King) and Neha Miko of the Lower Creek town of Cussita (also known as Fat King) were in charge of negotiations with the formerly British colonies of Georgia and the Carolinas.

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