William McIntosh, also known as White Warrior, was the son of Captain William McIntosh, a member of a prominent Savannah, Georgia family sent into the Creek Nation to recruit them to fight for the British during the Revolutionary War. His mother, a Creek named Senoya, was a member of the prominent Wind Clan. Raised as an Indian, he never knew his Tory father who, after fathering a second son by another Creek woman, returned to Savannah. Because among the Creeks, descent was determined through one's mother; the fact that his father was white was of little importance. McIntosh was a cousin of Georgia Governor George M. Troup
During the War of 1812, a civil war between the Upper and Lower Creeks broke out, and McIntosh was selected to head a kind of national police force established by Benjamin Hawkins, an Indian agent, to deal with the nativistic Creek Red Sticks. He gained the enmity of (Alabama's) the Upper Creek Indians by leading General Andrew Jackson's Indian troops during the Creek Indian War of 1813 - 1814, during which the Upper Creeks were defeated. For his services at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and elsewhere, he was commissioned a Brigadier General in the United States Army.
After the Creek Indian War, McIntosh built a plantation on the Chattahoochee River in Carroll County called Lockchau Talofau (Acorn Bluff) that was worked by 72 slaves. (It is near Whitesburg and is today maintained as a park by Carroll County.)
In an 1817 letter written to President Madison and signed by McIntosh, Madison was told that, while the more influential Cherokees of mixed blood wanted to swap their land, the "not so much civilized" pure bloods feared the mixed-bloods would--as they did--swap all their land, leaving them "without any land to walk on." The Creeks feared that these Cherokees might--as they already had--take land from the Creeks.
McIntosh also fought for the United States in the First Seminole War. He gained fame during this war by playing a major role in the capture of the so-called Negro Fort located on the lower Apalachicola. (Georgia slaves escaped and took refuge with the Seminoles in Spanish-held Florida.) The fort was occupied by about 300 black men, women, and children, 20 renegade Choctaws, and a few Seminole warriors. Its defenders were led by a black named Garcon. The downfall of the fort was brought about by an American cannon ball heated red hot setting off a tremendous explosion when it landed in the fort's magazine.
Despite the fact the Upper Creeks had vowed to kill anyone who signed away any more Indian land, McIntosh, along with eight other chiefs, on February 12, 1825 signed the Treaty of Indian Springs; thus relinquishing all the Creeks' land in Georgia in exchange for $400,000. Whether he signed the treaty for personal gain or because he believed signing it was in the best interests of the Creek Nation is still argued.
Despite Governor Troup's promise to protect him, on April 30th about 200 Creeks set fire to McIntosh's plantation and killed him. If his enemies had waited much longer, McIntosh wouldn't have been there, as he was planning to leave soon to look over land promised him along the Arkansas River.
After his death, his wife Peggy complained in the Cherokee Advocate that, "I do not blame the Creeks, the Creeks treat me well, the Cherokees treat me well--it was by Government my husband lost his life--Government say to my husband 'Go Arkansas, go to Arkansas, and you will be better off.' My husband wished to please the Government--my house is burned, myself and my children run--my children naked--no bread--one blanket, is all--like some stray dog, I suffer; with one blanket I cover my three children and myself--the Government say 'Go!' The Indians kill him; between two fires my husband dies; I wander--Government does not feed me--Creek does not feed me--no home, no bread, nothing! nothing! Till Gen. Ware gives me a home, I suffer like some stray Indian dog."
Reference
edit- Adapted from an article on William McIntosh at Rootsweb © with permission of the author.
- Benjamin W. Griffith, McIntosh and Weatherford, Creek Indian Leaders (University of Alabama Press, 1988) ISBN 0817303405