his services to the American cause,
and on account of his knowledge of French and other modern languages was
appointed by Washington his staff interpreter for communicating with the French
officers cooperating with the American army. He took [part in several engagements
and was afterward appointed commissioner for procuring war supplies abroad. After
the close of the war he was elected to Congress, and in 1785 was appointed on the
commission which negotiated at Hopewell the first federal treaty with the Cherokee.
He served a second term in the House and another in the Senate, and in 1796 was
appointed superintendent for all the Indians south of the Ohio, lie thereupon
removed to the Creek country and established himself in the wilderness at what is
now Hawkinsville, Georgia, where he remained in the continuance of his office
until hisdeath. As Senator he signed the deed by which North Carolina ceded
Tennessee to the United States in 17! HI, aid as Indian superintendent helped to nego-
tiate seven different treaties with the southern trihos. lie ha. I an extensive know I
edge of the customs and language of the Creeks, and his "Sketch of the Creek
212 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19
Country," written in 1799 and published by the Historical Society of Georgia in
1848, remains a standard. His journal and other manuscripts are in possession of
the same society, while a manuscript Cherokee vocabulary is in possession of the
American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Authorities: Hawkins's manuscripts,
with Georgia Historical Society; Indian Treaties, 1837; American State Papers:
Indian Affairs, i, 1832; n, 1884; Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; Appleton, Cyclo-
paedia of American Biography.
(27) Governor William Blount