— Hawkins, manuscript journal,
1796, in library of Georgia Historical Society.
■ I':;! General Alexander McGilljvray (p. "->< ; > : This famous (reek chieftain,
like so many distinguished men of the southern tribes, was of mixed hi 1. being the
son of a Scotch trader. Lachlan McGillivray, by a halfbreed woman of influential
family, whose father was a French officer of Fort Toulouse. The future chief was
horn in the Creek Nation about 1740, and died at Pensacola, Florida, in 1793. lie
I'd ETH— 111 14
210 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ans.19
was educated at Charleston, studying Latin in addition to the ordinary branches, and
after leaving school was placed by his father witha mercantile firm in Savannah,
lh- remained but a short time, when he returned to the Creek country, where he soon
began to attract attention, becominga partner in the firm of Panton, Forbes & Leslie,
of Pensacola, which had almost a monopoly of the Creek trade. He succeeded to
tl hieftainship on the death of his mother, who came of ruling stock, but refused
to accept the position until called to it by a formal council, when he assumed the title
of emperor of the Creek Nation. His paternal estates having been confiscated by
Georgia at the outbreak of the Revolution, he joined the British side with all his
warriors, and continued to bea leading instigator in the border hostilities until 1790,
when he visited New York with a large retinue and made a treaty of peace with the
United States on In-half of his people. President Washington's instructions to the
treaty commissioners, in anticipation of this visit, state that he was