Makers and Romance of Alabama History Part 29

Nonplused by his absence, the commissioners of the government merely stated to those present that which congress desired to accomplish, and withdrew. This gave rise to fresh complications, which now a.s.sumed a three-cornered aspect, as the federal commissioners' plans were objected to by the commissioners of Georgia, on the one hand, and by the Indians, on the other. Conditions were growing worse instead of better, much to the delight of Alexander McGillivray, who would produce such a juncture as would eventuate in his final enrichment. Without the knowledge of either of the other parties, he was pulling the wires with the hand of an adept schemer. After all the negotiation, therefore, the whole affair proved a fiasco.

Still, something must be done. Conditions could not remain as they were, and border warfare was continually imminent. The government was prostrated by the Revolution, and a general war with the Indians might invite an interference on the part of both England and Spain. President Washington was much worried and perplexed, and summoned to his aid the ablest counselors. The situation was exceedingly grave, and a single misstep might plunge the country into the most disastrous of wars.

The next step led to the appointment of Dr. James White as the superintendent of the Creek Indians. Dr. White was cool and cautious, a skilled diplomat, and was familiar with Indian treachery, while he had the advantage of enjoying, to a degree, their confidence. He was not without a sense of self-reliance in the undertaking, and if he could not succeed in the ratification of a treaty, he would so probe into the situation as to glean facts which would enable the government the better to adopt proper policies. He knew McGillivray well, and was not averse to a tilt in diplomacy with this arch plotter and schemer. He at once wrote to McGillivray from Cusseta, setting forth his mission and that which he proposed to accomplish. The reply was one of equivocal phraseology, lengthy, shrewd, evasive. It might mean anything or nothing, and was susceptible to a variety of interpretations. The upshot of the correspondence was a meeting at Cusseta. This time McGillivray was present with a proposal to the national commissioner, which proposal was astounding and startling. Surrounded by a large number of chiefs, McGillivray submitted his unreasonable proposal. This occurred in April, 1787.

The proposal, in brief, was that the general government make large and unreasonable grants, with the alternative of a prompt acceptance, or that of a declaration of war on the first of the following August, just four months hence. McGillivray knew that the proposed conditions would not be acceptable, and he also knew the consequences of a war to the young nation. Matters were not growing better fast. Here was a juncture that called for the skill of the ripest statesmanship. The general government and the state of Georgia were as much out of accord, as were both, with the Indians. It was an opportunity which the keen McGillivray could not suffer to remain unused. It was a matter of bargain and trade with him, and the question uppermost with him was how much he could derive from it.

So astounding was the proposal, that Dr. White found himself a pigmy dealing with a colossus, and he could do nothing more than to report to the President the result of the meeting. All the while, McGillivray was shuffling with the Spanish authorities in such a way as to extort large sums of gold from them, while he was dissembling with the American government for a similar reason, using meanwhile the deluded Indian as an instrument to promote his designs. He would hold the Indian in his grip by an affected solicitude in his behalf, while he would promise certain results to Spain for given sums, and meanwhile agitate Washington with a threat of war. Men and interests, however sacred, were to him as puppets to be employed for the profoundest selfishness. He would create demonstrations of hostility on the part of the Indians, in order to extort from interested merchants tribute to quell the disturbance. He would threaten Spain with America, and America with Spain, thereby producing alarming conditions in the commercial world, and from nations and merchants alike, he reaped booty.

Exasperated to a pitch almost uncontrollable, Washington at one time thought of a war of extermination, but this would involve the lives and property of the people of the whole South, involve the country seriously with England and Spain, and leave a stain on the American government, and the idea was abandoned. Resourceful as he was, Washington had practically reached the limit of suggestiveness when it occurred to him to appoint a secret agent charged with the mission of inviting a big council of the Indian chiefs to repair on horseback all the way from Alabama and Georgia to New York, then the seat of national government, in order to confer with him in person in the adjustment of all grievances. Colonel Marinus Willett was chosen by the President for this delicate and difficult function.

Taking a ship at New York, Colonel Willett was just fourteen weeks reaching Charleston, from which point he immediately set out along the Indian trails on horseback for the region of the Chattahoochee. He was served by faithful Indian guides, and through many days of hard riding, he proceeded to his destination where he had arranged a meeting with McGillivray and all the great chiefs. Conditions were now favoring McGillivray, for he well knew that he had produced grave concern at the national capital, and was abundantly prepared for the result which he was now nursing. According to prearrangement, Colonel Willett and Colonel McGillivray met at the town of Ocfuske, on the Tallapoosa River.

McGillivray found his match in Colonel Willett, who was as skilled in the art of diplomacy as was McGillivray, but without his unscrupulousness.

A NOVEL DEPUTATION

The diplomats met--Willett and McGillivray. Willett was polite, courtly of address, skillful of speech, resourceful, but wary. McGillivray was suave, excessive in politeness, equivocal of speech, deceitful, ostensibly generous, though as treacherous as a serpent. Both were able. Each had had much to do with men and affairs, but the motives of the two were as wide as the poles. In the a.s.sembled council, Willett showed that he was at home. Under the guise of excessive politeness, the two played against each other for advantage with the skill of trained fencers. There was a mastery of self-confidence that equally possessed both. Each spoke in a measured, cautious way. With mutual distrustfulness, each vied with the other in courtesy of tone. Objections were met and verbal blows were parried with a degree of politeness that approached the obsequious. It was Greek meeting Greek. The widest discretion was Willett's in arranging for the proposed council in New York, where the Indian chiefs were invited by the "great President" to meet him.

With the mastery of a skilled disputant, Colonel Willett addressed the a.s.sembled chiefs, including, of course, Colonel McGillivray. The pith of his speech was that "our great chief, George Washington," had sent him to convey to them a message of cordial affection, and to invite them to his great council house in New York, where he wished to sign with his own hand, along with Colonel McGillivray, a treaty of peace and of alliance.

He a.s.sured them of the high regard entertained for them by "our great chief," who did not want their lands, but wished to see them happy, contented, and protected. He further a.s.sured them that Washington would make a treaty "as strong as the hills and as lasting as the rivers." His tone of address and a.s.surance of sincerity greatly pleased the a.s.sembly.

The result of the meeting, which lasted for hours, was that a deputation of chiefs, together with Colonel McGillivray, would accompany Willett on horseback to New York. Arrangements for transporting the baggage on horses were made, and the day appointed for the departure. Accordingly, Colonels Willett and McGillivray, a nephew of Colonel McGillivray, and a body of Indian chiefs filed out of Little Talla.s.see, near Wetumpka, on the morning of June 1, 1790, for the distant capital. Along the way the party was reinforced by other chiefs on horseback, who were in wait for the arrival of Willett and McGillivray. At Stone Mountain, Georgia, the two great chiefs of the Cowetas and Cussetas joined the party. Onward the procession moved, exciting much interest, and in certain quarters, not a little sensation. On reaching the home of General Andrew Pickens, on the Seneca River, in South Carolina, they were received with the utmost cordiality by this distinguished gentleman, who arranged for more comfortable means of travel. Here the party fell in with the Talla.s.see king, Chinn.o.be, the "great Natchez warrior," and others. Henceforth the Indians rode in wagons, excepting the four who were the bodyguard of Colonel McGillivray, who accompanied him on horseback, while Colonel Willett rode alone in a sulky. At Richmond and at Fredericksburg the party halted to rest, at which places much consideration was shown to Colonel McGillivray.

Distinguished honor was shown the entire party at Philadelphia, where they were entertained for three days. Boarding a sloop at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, they were finally landed in New York.

Now began a series of demonstrations that lasted through a number of days.

The sachems of Tammany Hall turned out in full regalia, met the deputation at the water's edge in lower New York, which was at that time about all there was of the city, marched up Wall Street, then the princ.i.p.al thoroughfare of the city, past the federal building, where congress was in session, then to the home of the President, with that pomp and ceremony of which Washington was very fond. Each member of the deputation was presented to the President, while the eyes of the enchanted chiefs fairly glittered with delight as they unceremoniously gazed on the scenes about them in the mansion of the President. Washington could not outdo Colonel McGillivray in conventionality in the exchange of greeting. Both were men of splendid physique, McGillivray being just six feet high, with broad shoulders, well proportioned, and as straight as a flagstaff. From the home of the President the procession filed to the office of the secretary of war, thence to the mansion of Governor Clinton, all of which being over, they were marched for entertainment to the princ.i.p.al hostelry of the city, the City Tavern, where a banquet was spread for the unique deputation, when the functions of the first day were closed.

Other notable attentions charmed the visiting chiefs, whose elation over the novel scenes in which they were the princ.i.p.al sharers was equaled alone by the concern of Colonel McGillivray regarding what all this might mean for him. The chiefs of the wilds were easily beguiled by these profuse attentions, but not so the wily McGillivray. With sedulous care he kept the chiefs well under his thumb, lest they might fall into other hands, by means of which they might be alienated from himself.

After some days, negotiations were entered on between McGillivray and the Indian chiefs, on the one hand, and Henry Knox, the chosen representative of the government, on the other. With cautious vigilance on the part of both Knox and McGillivray, each step in the proceeding was taken. Knox knew his man, and McGillivray knew what he wished, and all else was made subservient to that purpose. McGillivray was as free in the ply of his art in the metropolis, as he was beneath the native oaks of his tribe on the distant Coosa. Nothing daunted him, and with dexterity he employed his art as the situation was gone into. A sensational episode occurred in connection with the proceedings. Washington learned that the Spanish of Florida and of Louisiana, having heard of the departure on this mission of McGillivray and his chiefs, had dispatched a secret agent with a bag of Spanish gold, by ship to New York, to bribe the chiefs and prevent a treaty. McGillivray wore their uniform, bore a commission as colonel in their army, and was their agent, but their confidence in him was naught, hence the mission of the agent. This agent was detected on his arrival, and was shadowed by an officer from the moment he touched the soil of the city. The agent was never able to reach the Indians. With consummate skill the contest continued from day to day, McGillivray determined to force the initiative in the offer to be made, before he would agree to commit himself. He was a plausible enigma to the statesmen at New York, whom he forced to show their hands before he would agree to disclose his purposes and wishes.

THE TENSION RELIEVED

While several previous articles have been devoted to the notorious career of Alexander McGillivray, there was a phase of the situation which logically belongs to the interesting proceedings in New York which should not be omitted, and when read in connection with facts already presented, adds increased interest to the narrative.

Keeping his plans well to himself, McGillivray was quietly breeding schemes with which to baffle the able men at the national capital. For days together, the negotiations were kept up, and they were days of serious concern and of lingering suspense to President Washington. The parleying and dallying led to the apprehension that McGillivray would propose terms so startling, as to end the whole affair with a fiasco, and in view of the recent demonstration, reduce the situation to governmental mortification. On the other hand. McGillivray was apprehensive that his intended proposals would be rejected, hence his tactical delay and parley.

Knox was patient, McGillivray impatient. At last Knox was able to force from the wily trickster and supple diplomat the condition on which he would be willing to sign the treaty. It proved to be an occasion of as much elation to the one as to the other. McGillivray chuckled over his success, while the government congratulated itself on the settlement of terms so easy.

When, at last, McGillivray stated his terms, they were that fifteen hundred dollars in gold should be paid him outright by the government annually, together with other easy emoluments, yet to be named, and a certain quant.i.ty of merchandise, with certain limited sums of money to the Indians each year, for which consideration the vast domains of the Oconees were to be surrendered, while they were to remain under the peaceable protection of the United States, and form no treaties with any others.

Yet, on account of that which occasioned this treaty so cheaply, much suspense and terror had been created and much blood spilled, and not a few whites were even then in bondage to the Indians. These slaves were to be liberated, and the two powerful tribes, the Creeks and the Seminoles, were to become subject to the general government. Paltry as the consideration was, McGillivray got the utmost of his wishes, and crowed over the result.

The infamy of this malicious character grows in depth with the probing.

Back of his tampering with different emba.s.sies in the past, his Judas-like dealing with different nations at the same time, his instigation of the tribes to outbreak, his dragging these Indian chiefs across the country all the way to New York, lay the sinister and sordid selfishness of this perfidious man, already named, McGillivray provided for himself by being made a brigadier general in the regular American army on full pay, which was at that time twelve hundred dollars, while he was to derive additional remuneration as the government agent to the Indian tribes.

Intoxicated with delight at his success, McGillivray headed the procession homeward bound, after an exchange of congratulations with President Washington, where each vied with the other in stilted conventionality.

McGillivray flattered the artless Indians into the belief that he had won for them a victory, and they shared with him in the gusto of his elation.

His maneuvers were just such as to produce fresh plans of conspiracy and of intrigue for the future. On his return home, he doffed the uniform of the Spanish colonel, and donned that of the American brigadier, all of which heightened the admiration of the Indians, while it afforded newer opportunity to the general to lay deeper schemes and reap richer rewards.

This course was occasioned by the reasons now to be given.

One of our modern investigations would have disclosed the fact that while the treaty was based on the conditions named, there lay beneath it, out of the sight of the general public, a secret treaty between President Washington and General McGillivray, on condition that he would manage the Indians as the President might desire. As a sort of secret agent, and in order to enhance his position in the estimation of the Indians, McGillivray was made a channel for the transmission of certain gifts and privileges, which he was to use to the advantage of the government, for which he cared not a thread, and he would never have become the secret purveyor, without the prospect of personal enrichment. He was to give to the Indians, in his own way, the a.s.surance that their commerce was to find exit through the Gulf and ocean ports, while he was to present to each chief, as from himself, but really from the government, a handsome gold medal, besides a yearly gift of one hundred dollars in gold. Besides still, the government was in the same secret way to educate annually four of the Indian youth, free of all charge. All this was to be done in such manner, as to have it appear how strong was the hold and influence of McGillivray on the general government, and thus maintain his grip on the Indians. This looks a little nebulous, from the government side, but it is a matter of history, and at the time, was known only to the favored few.

History, like the sea, has hidden depths. That which Washington wished, was to keep in subjection the troublesome Indian; that which McGillivray wished was the enhancement of his importance, in order to the gratification of his personal vanity, and in order, too, to a plethoric purse. At any rate, such are the facts. What our modern muckrakers might make of a proceeding like this now, deponent knoweth not. While in the state councils of New York, there was silent and suppressed glee over the result, in the heart of Alexander McGillivray, at the same time, there were fresh schemes being incubated, as in daily meditation he southward rode. Washington thought he had McGillivray bagged, while McGillivray knew he had Washington hoodwinked. Later developments afford fresher revelations of the diabolical character of Alexander McGillivray.

A season of tranquillity ensued which Washington regarded as auspicious, when as a matter of fact it was ominous. McGillivray never intended to execute the terms of the treaty, only in so far as they would conduce to his personal ends, for on his return to the South, he at once entered into secret negotiations with the Spanish. He explained to them that his jaunt to the capital was a mere ruse, in order to gather information, the better to aid the king of Spain, and that he was just now ready to render to Spain the most efficient service. Here, then, was an American general disporting himself in the national uniform, spurs, boots, epaulettes, and all, betraying the government into the hands of a foreign foe. While drawing the pay of a brigadier, he was, as a secret emissary of Spain, the recipient of a sum much larger.

In order, at last, to promote his schemes, he fomented strife and agitation among the chiefs, by instigating them to protest against the terms of the treaty. Meanwhile, he informed the government at New York that he was doing his utmost to enforce the terms, and must have broad discretion and ample time, in order to accomplish the end in view. Between himself and the secretary of war an active correspondence was kept up in which correspondence the atrocious Alexander McGillivray was more than a match for the cabinet officer of Washington. Thus went events for years together.

THE CURTAIN FALLS

In the records of the race, it would be difficult to find embodied in the life and career of any one, more strange and incongruous elements than those which entered into the history of General Alexander McGillivray.

Though unquestionably a man of ability, that ability was turned into the most wicked of channels; highly gifted with the elements of leadership, these were devoted to the single end of the enhancement of his purse; gracious in manner, courteous, and ostensibly obliging to an astonishing degree, yet, at bottom, all this demonstration was only so many decoys to catch the unsuspecting, and even to the suspicious they were oftener than otherwise availing; cool and collected, placid and serene, it was but the charm to wheedle the confidence in order to sinister consummation, and, while emphatic sometimes with a make-believe sincerity, it was only to delude.

McGillivray's only idea of right was that of self-gratification. If to do right at any time was most productive of methods of self-promotion, why he would adopt that course, but only as a means of convenience. Unhampered by a sense of obligation and unchecked by conscientious scruple, his prodigious intellect and fertility of resource made Alexander McGillivray the most dangerous of men. Yet he could descant at length with all the mein of a moral philosopher on duty and obligation, the rights of man, the turpitude of wrong, the cruelty of injustice, the inhumanity of deception, and all else in the catalogue of morality. His familiarity with all these afforded him room for the amplest guilt. Self was his measuring rod, laid with accurate hand on the most contradictory of conditions.

The amplitude of his personal forces enabled McGillivray to do what the fewest can successfully--wind his sinuous course through the most tangled conditions, while dealing with a number of conflicting agencies and causes, and yet equally dupe all, and if apprehended, be able so to summon to his defense a sufficiency of plausibility as actually to invest the whole situation with a sheen of fairness. Contradictory at many points, he could give to all the aspect of consistency.

The only service that Alexander McGillivray rendered was that of preventing a general outbreak of the Indian tribes, which fact was due, not to his horror of blood, so much, as to the fact that using the deluded red man, he was able to hold him up as an object of fear, and thus elicit by agitation and apprehension, that which would conduce to his emolument.

He never did right unless it was to his profit, and falsehood was preferable to truth, if it would serve a turn to his personal profit. He derived abundant encouragement from the conditions of his environment, to which his character was exactly adapted. The man and the occasion met in Alexander McGillivray.

As the agent of the government entrusted with the dispensation of the financial and commercial gifts to the Indians, in accordance with the secret treaty with President Washington, no one ever knew how much, or how little, the poor red men ever received. The fact that the arrangement was a secret one, was much to the purpose and pleasure of McGillivray. The government promptly met its obligation, and there is not wanting evidence that there all sense of obligation ended. This notorious man went to his grave invested with the deepest suspicion. Nor was it altogether restricted to suspicion, this outrageous conduct of Alexander McGillivray.

Detection was unescapable under certain conditions. Secret agents of a suspicious government, spying out his varied transactions, exposed his atrocity time and again, but in each instance, it was found that he had so successfully woven a network of defense, that to undertake to eliminate him by force, would have been like tearing a new patch from an old garment, according to the sacred parable, the rent of which would have been made the worse thereby.

The government sought by indirection and not always in the most creditable way, to uproot the confidence of the Indians by due exposure, but McGillivray was never found unprovided with means to account for the reasonableness of each separate charge. With the strategy of a Napoleon, this extraordinary man could outgeneral all who were pitted against him.

Such was the character, such the career of Alexander McGillivray.

He was now an old man. The stylus of care and of responsibility, a.s.sumed in an arena the most atrocious, had drawn deep grooves on his brow. His silver hair and tottering gait admonished him of the brief time that was his, but so far from relaxing his grip on the things which had actuated him throughout, this condition only served to tighten it. Experience had sharpened his wits, and villainy had made him impregnable in plying his art. His was a master pa.s.sion that gave fresh desperateness in view of the approaching end. A vast fortune was his, and with the pa.s.sion of the man who never had a higher dream than that of personal gain, he hugged it with a tenacity common to men under conditions of advancing age, yet knowing meanwhile, that with his end would come that of the use of his immense means.

He lived to see himself repudiated by all alike. He was rejected by the American government, cast out by the Spaniards, and, by degrees, came to be distrusted even by the Indians. All sense of remorse was gone, all the finer emotions which shrink from public exposure of wrong, long ago deadened. Moral obliquity was complete, and hardened iniquity made him insensible to the frown of reproach with which he was everywhere met.

Worn out by the criminality of a long life, McGillivray sought a home, in his last days, at Little River, in the lower part of Monroe County, where he died on February 17, 1793. His remains were taken to Pensacola and interred in the s.p.a.cious gardens of William Panton, a wealthy Scotch merchant, with whom McGillivray had long been a.s.sociated in business connections. His very aged father survived him, and was still living at Dummagla.s.s, Scotland, to whom William Panton wrote of the death of his notorious son. Thus pa.s.sed away the greatest diplomat Alabama ever produced, but he left to posterity nothing worthy of emulation.

LORENZO DOW

So far as can be ascertained, and the fact seems beyond doubt, the first protestant that ever preached in Alabama was the eccentric Methodist minister, Lorenzo Dow. He combined in his character a number of strange elements, some of which were quite strong, and by his stentorian preaching he stirred the people wherever he went. He was unique in his make-up, and no conjecture could be had of what he would ever say or do. Mr. Dow reached the distant frontier settlements of Alabama along the Tombigbee as early as 1793. He was a fearless, stern, plain, and indefatigable preacher of the old-time type, who spurned all danger, and boldly faced the direst of perils on the border, that he might preach the gospel. He had a notable career, though still a young man, before he found his way to the vanguard of western civilization.