Hippo-ilk-mico (The Good Child King).
McGillivray was raised among the Creek Indi-
ans until the age of 14, when his father took
him to Savannah and Charleston to be edu-
cated. Fluent in English and Creek, he moved
easily between both worlds and further distin-
guished himself by dint of intelligence and so-
cial polish. He was initially employed at his fa-
ther’s counting house and obtained an
excellent grasp of business and economics.
The onset of the American Revolution in
1775 disrupted McGillivray’s personal life
when his father, a Loyalist sympathizer, fled
the country and returned to Scotland. Venge-
ful patriots thereafter confiscated his prop-
erty, and the young man relocated back to Al-
abama and his tribe. Because the Creek
authority was passed down through the
mother’s side, the tall, handsome young man
was eligible to become a chief and did so with
little opposition. The ongoing war also served
to harden McGillivray’s attitude toward the
United States. The British commissioned him
a colonel and appointed him commissary offi-
cer in charge of Indian affairs. Moreover, he
led a series of raids against settlements near
Augusta, Georgia, to halt—or at least delay—
white encroachment. He subsequently rallied
some 600 warriors for the defense of English
Florida against Spain, and in 1780 his actions
were credited with saving Pensacola from
capture.
After the war ended in 1783, British influ-
ence in the New World diminished. Almost
immediately, new waves of American settlers
began pressing down upon Native American
lands from New York to the Georgia frontier.
Although determined to protect the Creek
homeland, McGillivray was astute enough to
realize that the tribesmen were disunited and
at a military disadvantage should full-scale
war erupt. Therefore, he used the trading firm
of Panton and Leslie to establish close ties
with the Spanish Empire, which now pos-
sessed Florida. On June 1, 1784, he signed a
treaty with Spain that initiated close commer-
cial ties with the Creek nation and guaranteed
a steady supply of firearms and gunpowder to
his warriors. Closer to home, McGillivray ex-
hibited considerable skill in arranging himself
to serve as “emperor” of the various Creek
peoples, thereby uniting them in a confedera-
tion for mutual defense. Part of this involved
the creation of an Indian force of “constables”
whose purpose was to enforce McGillivray’s
authority and destroy the property of chiefs
who opposed him. Neither was he above play-
ing his potential friends and adversaries
against one another. In 1784, he received com-
pensation for his confiscated estates from the
state of Georgia and made friendly overtures
toward the United States, provided it re-
spected Creek sovereignty. With English
money and Spanish weapons, he hoped to
keep the Americans at bay.
Despite McGillivray’s demonstrated reluc-
tance to initiate hostilities, by 1785 the pace
of American encroachment left the chief with
little recourse. He unleashed Creek warriors,
who attacked and burned settlements across
the southern frontier without mercy. The
newly independent United States, then hob-
bled by a weak confederation government,
could not muster anything beyond episodic
state militias to oppose him. His goal was no
less than restoration of the frontier to its 1773
boundaries, and the Creeks may very well
have succeeded. Unfortunately, their Spanish
allies, fearing that the conflict might spill over
onto their own territory, clamped down on
McGillivray’s gunpowder supplies and forced
him to seek a peaceful accord with America.
He did so sullenly, but only on the condition
that the United States renounce its claims to
Creek land. When the Georgian authorities
concurred, peace was restored.
The Creek triumph proved short-lived, for
in 1789 the United States adopted a stronger
central government under the U.S. Constitu-
tion. Under this arrangement, the new repub-
lic established a standing military establish-
ment better suited for operations along the
far-flung frontier. McGillivray watched these
developments warily and, concluding that his
Spanish allies were unreliable in any future
conflict, declared his intentions were peace-MCGILLIVRAY, ALEXANDER