William McIntosh (c. 1775 – April 30, 1825), also known as Tustunnuggee Hutke (White Warrior), was one of the most prominent chiefs of the Muscogee Creek Nation between the turn of the 19th-century and his execution in 1825. He was a chief of Coweta tribal town and commander of a mounted police force. He became a large-scale planter, built and managed a successful inn, and operated a commercial ferry business.

Early European-American historians attributed McIntosh's achievements and influence to his mixed-race Scottish ancestry. Since the late 20th century, historians have argued much of McIntosh's political influence stemmed more from his Muscogee upbringing and cultural standing, particularly his mother's prominent Wind Clan in the Muscogee matrilineal system, and to other aspects of Muscogee culture.

Because McIntosh led a group that negotiated and signed the Treaty of Indian Springs in February 1825, which ceded much of remaining Muscogee lands to the United States in violation of Muscogee law, for the first time the Muscogee Creek National Council ordered that a Muscogee be executed for crimes against the Nation.

Early life and education

Tustunnuggee Hutke (or "White Warrior") was born in the Lower Creek Town of Coweta in present-day Georgia to Scottish-American soldier William McIntosh and to Senoya (also spelled Senoia and Senoy The senior McIntosh's mother was Margaret "Mary" McGillivray, believed to have been a sister of the Scot Lachlan McGillivray, a wealthy fur trader and planter in Georgia. After the Revolutionary War, Captain McIntosh moved from the frontier to Savannah to settle. There, he married a paternal cousin, Barbara McIntosh.

McIntosh gained his status and place among the Muscogee from his mother's clan. Benjamin Hawkins, first appointed as United States Indian agent in the Southeast and then as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the territory south of the Ohio River, lived among the Muscogee and Choctaws, and knew them well. He commented in letters to President Thomas Jefferson that Muscogee women were matriarchs and had control of children "when connected with a white man." Hawkins further observed that even wealthy traders were nearly as "inattentive" to their mixed-race children as "the Indians". What he did not understand about the Muscogee culture was that the children had a closer relationship with their mother's eldest brother than with their biological father, because of the importance of the clan structure. Married around McIntosh's twenty-fifth birthday, he and Eliza's marriage produced five children: Chillicothe (aka "Chilly"), Jane, Kate, Sallie, and Louis. Their daughter Jane married Samuel Hawkins, Kate married William Cousins, and their daughter Sallie's husband was George McLish.

Career

Chief McIntosh as a leader adopted certain elements of European-American culture. He was interested in introducing American education among the Muscogee, adopted the use of chattel slavery on his plantations, and played a role in centralizing the Muscogee Creek National Council over the years. As a successful merchant and gentleman farmer, he owned more than one hundred black slaves and two plantations where he grew cotton and raised livestock. He also operated two ferries, an inn, and a tavern.

He used his influence to improve a Creek trail connecting the Upper and Lower Towns, that ran from Talladega, Alabama, to the Chattahoochee River. He owned two plantations, Lockchau Talofau ("Acorn Bluff") in present-day Carroll County, and Indian Springs, in present-day Butts County His plantation of Acorn Bluff was at the eastern terminus of the McIntosh Road, where the chief developed a ferry operation across the Chattahoochee River. Acorn Creek, a tributary of the Chattahoochee located adjacent to the McIntosh estate, is named after the plantation. He owned numerous black slaves to cultivate cotton as a commodity crop on his plantations. He also built a resort hotel at Indian Springs, hoping to attract more travelers along the improved road. Parts of this route are still referred to as the McIntosh Road, or the McIntosh Trail. It passes through several northern counties in Alabama and Georgia.

Role in Creek War

Internal Muscogee tensions resulted in the Creek War (1813–1814), when tensions between the Lower Creeks and the traditional Red Sticks of the Upper Towns erupted into open conflict. McIntosh and other Lower Creeks allied with United States forces against the Red Sticks after 1813, during the War of 1812. The Red Sticks were allied with the British, as both wanted to limit American expansion in the Southeast. McIntosh fought in support of General Andrew Jackson and state militias in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, marking the defeat in 1814 of the Red Sticks and the end of the Creek War. McIntosh was appointed a brigadier general of the United States Volunteers by then-Major General Jackson and enjoyed the full emoluments, such as pay and allowances for subsistence, forage and servants, as officers of the same flag officer rank in the United States Army.

The Muscogee were forced to cede lands to the United States in the early 1800s. Maps mark the strips that were ceded over the years. McIntosh played a role in negotiations and cessions of 1805, 1814 (21 million acres after the Creek War), 1818 and 1821. For his role in completing the cession in 1821, American agents awarded McIntosh 1,000 acres of land at Indian Springs and 640 acres on the Ocmulgee River.

Annuities and African importation case of 1820

Like other prominent chiefs, McIntosh worked closely with Benjamin Hawkins, the U.S. Indian Supervisor in the Southeast for two decades until 1816. Hawkins was instrumental in gaining Muscogee cessions of land through that period, but he also supported McIntosh's efforts to bring European-American education to the territory by welcoming missionaries who set up schools.

After President James Monroe came to office, in November 1817 his administration appointed David Brydie Mitchell as the U.S. Indian Agent to the Muscogee Creek Nation. Mitchell had formerly been the governor of Georgia (1809–1813) (1815–1817), as well as holding other posts in the state. After the Creek War, the people suffered from the disruption. The U.S. provided food and supplies as part of the annuities for the land cessions, especially the 21 million acres the Muscogee were forced to cede following the war. Mitchell and McIntosh were suspected of controlling some of the distribution of food and annuities for their own benefit in this period, increasing McIntosh's power among the Muscogee. The brothers had both been educated at Princeton. Samuel had married McIntosh's daughter Jane, and Benjamin would later marry his daughter Rebecca. Then they set McIntosh's house on fire. Chilly McIntosh, the chief's oldest son, had also been sentenced to die, but he escaped by diving through a window. Etommee Tustunnuggee, another Muscogee chief who signed the 1825 treaty, was killed during the raid. The Muscogee had "adopted certain Anglo-American legal concepts, ... welded them to their own concepts of political independence and used them to serve decidedly Creek purposes." His burial site and part of his plantation have been preserved as the McIntosh Reserve in Carroll County, Georgia. The grave is located near a replica of McIntosh's home in McIntosh Reserve Park near Whitesburg. In this new treaty, the Muscogee received an immediate payment of $217,660 and a perpetual annuity of $20,000. The state of Georgia ignored the new treaty and worked to evict the Muscogee from their lands before official removal started in the 1830s.

Legacy

After William's death, his younger half-brother Roley McIntosh advanced to serve as chief of the Lower Creeks until 1859, moving with them to Indian Territory in the 1830s. His first wife had died and the widower married Susannah, the widow McIntosh. Both brothers later became Baptist ministers in the Indian Territory. Eight McIntosh men served with the Confederate Army during the war.

Daughter Catherine "Kate" McIntosh and her Eufaula husband Billy Cousins became a pre-statehood Florida pioneer family after settling in the sparsely populated Northwestern Florida Panhandle in September 1842.

Daughter Rebecca McIntosh married Benjamin Hawkins in the Western Muscogee Nation in 1831. In 1860, her "personal wealth was reported to have been $85,000, and her real estate valued at $35,000. She was the wealthiest person in Marion County, where her plantation Refuge was located. Most of her personal wealth was attributed to the value of the 102 people she held in bondage." By 2011 the Trail had received preliminary approval for its alignment, with the Three Rivers Commission due to review its corridor plan.

References in other media

  • Lydia Sigourney's poem was published in her 1827 collection of poetry.
  • William Gilmore Simms, wrote a poem about William McIntosh, "The Broken Arrow," published in The Book of My Lady: A Melange. By a Bachelor Knight (Philadelphia, 1833).
  • Betty Collins Jones, Clouds across the Moon (1991), romance novel.
  • Billie Jane McIntosh, a 3x great-granddaughter of McIntosh, wrote Ah-ko-kee, American Sovereign (2002), a novel featuring McIntosh's daughter Jane McIntosh Hawkins; this is not a history.
  • Billie Jane McIntosh also wrote a biographical novel about Jane's brother in From Georgia Tragedy To Oklahoma Frontier: A Biography of Scots Creek Indian Chief Chilly McIntosh (2008)
  • B.J. McIntosh wrote a screenplay about William McIntosh in 2014. Matt Collins is marketing the work through his company, Brit Nicholas Entertainment.

Notes

References

  • Green, Michael D. The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1982
  • Griffith, Jr., Benjamin W. McIntosh and Weatherford, Creek Indian Leaders , Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1998, text online
  • "McIntosh, William, Jr." in Hoxie, Frederick E. Encyclopedia of North American Indians. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996.
  • Theda Perdue, Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South (Google eBook), University of Georgia Press, 2003
  • Carole E. Scott, "Chief William McIntosh", Rootsweb ©, adapted with permission of the author.
  • "Captain William McIntosh", Floripedia

Further reading

  • George Chapman, Chief William McIntosh: A Man of Two Worlds (Atlanta, 1988).
  • R.S. Cotterill, The Southern Indians: The Story of the Civilized Tribes before Removal (Norman, Okla., 1954). In chapter IX, this book introduced the idea of the Creek War as a civil war within an Indian nation (rather than a war between the Creek and the United States).
  • Ebenezer H. Cummins, A Summary Geography of Alabama, One of the United States (Philadelphia, 1819). This short book includes an example of the praise heaped on McIntosh during his lifetime by white admirers.
  • Andrew K. Frank, Creeks and Southerners: Biculturalism on the Early American Frontier (Lincoln, Neb., 2005).
  • Michael D. Green, "William McIntosh: The Evolution of a Creek National Idea", in The Human Tradition in the Old South, ed. James C. Klotter (Wilmington, Del., 2003).
  • Bert Hodges, "Notes on the History of the Creek Nation and Some of Its Leaders," Chronicles of Oklahoma 43 (1965): 9–18.
  • Joel Martin, Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees' Struggle for a New World (Boston, 1991). An interesting take on the Creek War as a religious struggle.
  • John Bartlett Meserve, "The MacIntoshes" [sic], Chronicles of Oklahoma 10 (1932): 310–25.
  • Royce Gordon Shingleton, "David Brydie Mitchell and the African Importation Case of 1820," Journal of Negro History 58 (3) (July 1973): 327–340. (McIntosh and Mitchell's activities as slave smugglers).
  • Claudio Saunt, A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733–1816 (Cambridge, 1999).
  • Thomas S. Woodward, Woodward's Reminiscences of the Creek, or Muscogee Indians (Montgomery, 1859). Includes an admiring portrait of McIntosh's generalship by one who served under him.
  • "William McIntosh", Encyclopedia of American Indians;
  • "William McIntosh", Encyclopedia of Alabama
  • "William McIntosh - McIntosh Reserve, Carroll Co., GA"
  • McIntosh House historical marker
  • McIntosh Gate historical marker