McIntosh and Menawa
Real history is always more complex and multilayered than the history told by the modern media and even in most basic academic history books. The relationship between the Scots-Irish and certain Indian tribes was complex. The often were are war with one another, yet they also intermarried, made alliances, and lived together and shared the same values; Clan, tradition, blood, a warrior culture, honour, were of paramount importance to both peoples.
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| William McIntosh Jr. 1778-1825 |
McIntosh
William McIntosh Jr.
1778-1825, also known as Tustunnuggee Hutkee (White Warrior), was born
around 1778 in the Lower Creek town of Coweta to Captain William
McIntosh, a Scotsman of Savannah, and Senoya, a Creek woman of the Wind
Clan. He was raised among the Creeks, but he spent enough time in
Savannah to become fluent in English and to move comfortably within both
Indian and white societies.
He was a leader of the Lower Towns,
the Creek who were adapting European-American ways and tools to
incorporate into their culture. He became a planter who owned slaves and
also had a ferry business. McIntosh was among those who supported the
plans of U.S. Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins to "civilize" the Creeks.
While McIntosh's support of white civilization efforts earned him the
respect of U.S. officials, more traditional Creeks regarded him with
distrust and contempt.
He was instrumental in the United States
victory at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. In the wake of that war, the
Creeks suffered famine and deprivation for many years. In 1825
cousins William McIntosh, a Creek leader, and George Troup, the governor
of Georgia, signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, which authorized the
sale of Creek lands in the state to the federal government. McIntosh
allied himself with Indian agent David B. Mitchell, Hawkins's successor,
to coordinate the distribution of food and supplies from the U.S.
government to the Creeks. This alliance assured McIntosh's control over
resources and he became a very wealthy man.
In 1821 the new
Indian agent severed McIntosh's access to resources, weakening
McIntosh's influence among the Creeks, who were then compelled to sell
some of their land to pay debts and acquire food and supplies. However,
for his role in the Treaty of Indian Springs, McIntosh received 1,000
acres of land at Indian Springs and another 640 acres on the Ocmulgee
River. He himself owned two plantations with slaves, Lockchau Talofau
(Acorn Bluff) in present-day Carroll County, and Indian Springs, in
present-day Butts County.
McIntosh's participation in the 1825
Treaty of Indian Springs cost him his life. According to a Creek law
that McIntosh himself had supported, a sentence of execution awaited any
Creek leader who ceded land to the United States without the full
assent of the entire Creek Nation. Just before dawn on April 30, 1825,
Upper Creek Chief Menawa, accompanied by a large force over 100 Creek
“Law Menders” (warriors), attacked McIntosh at Lockchau Talofau
(McIntosh’s home and plantation overlooking the Chattahoochee River near
Whitesburg, worked by 72 slaves and also served as a tavern and inn,
owing to its location on the Federal Road and a strategic crossing of
the river) to carry out the sentence.
They set fire to an
outbuilding in order to light up the yard so as to prevent anyone from
escaping. They called to the white guests and women to come out, saying
they would come to no harm. McIntosh's son Chilly and another
mixed-blood escaped from an outbuilding they were sleeping in because
there wasn't room for everybody in the main house.
Shot in the
front doorway of his home, McIntosh managed to climb the stairs to the
second floor, from which he began shooting at his assailants. Forced to
leave when they set fire to the house, he was shot and dragged some
distance from the house. Raising himself on an elbow, he gave them a
defiant look as he was stabbed in the heart. An eyewitness estimated
that his corpse was shot about 50 times. After destroying what they
could not carry away; slaves, horses, and cattle, produce, the assassins
left.
Later that day they caught Samuel and Benjamin Hawkins,
his sons-in-law and also signatories to the treaty. They hanged Samuel
and shot Benjamin, but he escaped.
Menawa
Menawa (1765-1836),
was second in command of the Red Sticks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend
in 1814, when they were defeated by General Andrew Jackson commanding
militias of Tennessee, Georgia and the Mississippi Territory, as well as
allied Cherokee. More than 800 Red Stick warriors died. Menawa was
wounded seven times during the battle, but he escaped and survived his
wounds. By his own account he lay among the dead until nightfall and
then crawled to the river, climbed into a canoe, and disappeared into
the darkness.
Some major Creek chiefs passed a resolution to
kill McIntosh, and Menawa headed the assassination party. McIntosh was
surrounded at his tavern on the old Federal Road in Georgia and shot to
death.
By 1836 the Creek Indians had been repressed and were
defeated a second time trying to save their ancestral lands. The U.S.
was planning a general removal of the Nation. Menawa proposed that the
Creek Nation give up their collective rights, though each individual who
wanted to remain be given a plot of land. This proposal was defeated
and the removal was commanded. Menawa had been given an exclusion from
relocating by the U.S. but a local judge ordered him to join the exiles
to the west.
Menawa reportedly stayed up all the night watching
sunset and sunrise over his home Oakfuskee (located on the Tallapoosa
River in present-day Alabama). As he joined his people traveling to an
unknown place he said, "Last evening I saw the sun set for the last time
and its light shine on the treetops and the land and the water, that I
am never to look upon again."
Heartbroken, Menawa died on his way to the new Creek territory in the west. His burial place is now unknown. Menawa was not only brave and skillful, but was a gentleman in
appearance and manners. Although he was a savage in the field, or in the
revel, he could at any moment assume the dignity and courtesy proper to
his high station. In after years, he regretted his role with the Creek
Law Menders in 1825, saying that he would freely lay down his life, if
by; so doing, he could bring back to life Billy McIntosh.
(credit:
John Stewart Longhunter Facebook page)
