Alexander McGillivray

Alexander McGillivray (ca. 1759-1793) was the American Indian chief of the Creek nation during the period of Spanish and American rivalries for Florida.

Alexander McGillivray lived until the age of 14 at his father's trading post on the Tallapoosa River. His mother belonged to a clan of the Creek Indians and was half French; his father, a Scot, was a trader with political influence among the Creeks. In 1773 McGillivray went to Charleston, S.C., and then to Savannah, Ga., where he received a good education. He then worked in a mercantile firm and continued to study history.

During the American Revolution, McGillivray's father served the British. Because he was a loyalist, his property was confiscated, and he fled to Scotland; McGillivray returned to his mother's people. After the war, McGillivray's alliance with British traders in Spanish Florida against the Americans was of great importance, for, at his mother's death, the council chose him as their tribal leader. Soon he was called Emperor of the Creek Nation, a title he fancied.

McGillivray's goal was to form an alliance of southern Indians and use aid from England and Spain to force the United States to withdraw from Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In 1784 he signed a treaty with Spain making him a colonel on a salary of $50 per month. In return Spain would monopolize trade with the Creeks, and McGillivray was to expel the Americans.

Hating the Americans for confiscating his family's property, McGillivray began a war on the United States; battles soon were being fought from Georgia to Cumberland, Tenn. This war was so successful that in 1787 a congressional agent visited McGillivray. Possibly the Creek chief suggested that the Creeks be organized and admitted as a state. That same year the Spaniards stopped supplying munitions to McGillivray. This supplying resumed in 1789, but the Spaniards never fully trusted him again.

With the organization of a stronger U.S. government, President George Washington sent agents to negotiate with the Creeks. The first attempt failed. But in 1790 McGillivray was persuaded to journey to New York City; there he repudiated his treaty with Spain and signed an agreement with the United States ceding some Creek lands and making him a brigadier general with pay of $1,200 per year. With his income McGillivray became owner of three plantations and 60 slaves.

Soon after his return from New York, McGillivray made a new agreement with Spain repudiating the Treaty of New York; he received $2,000 per year from the Spaniards (raised later to $3,500 annually). On Feb. 17, 1793, while negotiating with the Spaniards to raise another Indian confederation to oppose the United States, he died of a fever.

Further Reading

The best work on McGillivray is John Walton Caughey, McGillivray of the Creeks (1938). Other details may be secured from John Pope, A Tour through the Southern and Western Territories of the United States (1792), and David H. Corkran, The Creek Frontier, 1540-1783 (1967). □

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

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).