Alexander McGillivray

Alexander McGillivray , 1759-93, Native American chief. He was born in the Creek country now within the borders of the state of Alabama, the son of Lachlan McGillivray, a Scots trader, and Sehoy Marchand, his French-Creek wife. Given a classical education at Charleston, S.C., he returned to his mother's people at the beginning of the American Revolution when Georgia confiscated the property of his Loyalist father, who thereupon returned to Scotland. In the war he was a British agent, influential in maintaining Creek loyalty to the crown. At Pensacola in 1784, McGillivray, now dominant in his nation's councils, concluded with the Spanish a treaty confirming the Creek in their lands, giving the Spanish a trade monopoly, and making him Spanish commissary. With arms provided by the Spanish, his warriors periodically attacked American frontier settlements from Georgia to the Cumberland River. In 1790, President Washington, seeking to end the depredations, invited him to a conference in New York City. McGillivray, an intelligent diplomat, accepted, meanwhile assuring Spanish authorities of his loyalty, and was well received. By the Treaty of New York (1790), the Creek acknowledged U.S. sovereignty over part of their territory, acquired lands claimed by Georgia, and agreed to keep the peace. McGillivray himself accepted a brigadier generalcy and a yearly pension. He continued in the pay of the Spanish, however; in 1792 when they increased his subsidy, he entered upon another treaty with them that practically repudiated his treaty with the Americans, and the Native American attacks were resumed.

Bibliography: See J. W. Caughey, McGillivray of the Creeks (1938).

McGillivray, Alexander (1751–1793), Isti acagagi thlucco (Great Beloved Man) of the Creek Indians and opponent of Georgia's expansion.Alexander McGillivray's father, Lachlan McGillivray, was a trader, planter, and colonial Georgia assemblyman. His mother, Sehoy Marchand of the Creek Wind Clan, was the daughter of a French officer and a Creek woman. Until age five or seven he lived at Little Tallassee in the Creek Nation. Later he lived in Augusta, Savannah, and Charleston, where he was formally educated. He apprenticed to a slave‐trading firm in Savannah. During the Revolutionary War he served the British Indian service in dealings with the Creeks, among whom he remained after 1783. His maternal connection to the Wind Clan provided his tribal status.

McGillivray led Creek efforts both to strengthen the Creek National Council and to coordinate Creek resistance to U.S. expansion. When town leaders Hoboithle Mico (Tame King) of Tallassee and Eneah Mico (Fat King) of Cusseta sold land to Georgia without the consent of the National Council, McGillivray had them disciplined. He secured aid from Spanish Florida and helped the British firm of Panton, Leslie, and Company operate in Spanish territory. Through these measures he sought to keep the Creeks independent of the United States and prepared to oppose Georgia with force. He gained federal promises of protection against Georgia in the Treaty of New York (1790), but the treaty both alienated the Spanish and, through secret clauses granting him a large American salary, damaged his later reputation. McGillivray died in Pensacola in 1793.
See also Colonial Era; Expansionism; Indian History and Culture: From 1500 to 1800.

Bibliography

John W. Caughey , McGillivray of the Creeks, 1938.
Edward J. Cashin , Lachlan McGillivray, Indian Trader: The Shaping of the Southern Colonial Frontier, 1992.

Gregory Evans Dowd