Lachlan McGillivray
Encyclopedia
Lachlan McGillivray was a prosperous fur trader and planter in colonial Georgia with interests that extended from Savannah to what is now central Alabama. He was the father of Alexander McGillivray
and the great-uncle of William McIntosh and William Weatherford
, three of the most powerful and historically important Native American chiefs among the Creek of the Southeast.
family.
More probable is that he emigrated in the late 1730s to either Charleston, South Carolina
or Augusta, Georgia
, where members of his family had been engaging in the Indian trade for a generation. He may have arrived as an indentured servant
to his relative Farquhar McGillivray, a merchant with interests along the southeastern seaboard. Records attest that Farquhar McGillivray employed indentured servants, and it was not uncommon for such arrangements to be made between relatives.
to act as settler-soldiers protecting the frontiers of Georgia from the Spanish in Florida, the French in the Alabama basin, and their Indian allies. On January 10, 1736, Lachlan and 176 emigrants, including women and children, arrived on board the Prince of Wales to establish the town of Darien, Georgia
, originally known as New Inverness. The town was founded in January 1736 and named after the Darien Scheme
, a former Scottish colony in Panama
.
By the mid-1740s, McGillivray was well established as a trader in the Upper Creek nation in what is now central Alabama
. He established a fur trading post and plantation at Little Tallassee (also spelled Talisi in some documents) near today's Wetumpka, Alabama
, possibly on the site of the former Fort Toulouse
. He prospered and invested his trading and plantation profits in businesses on the Atlantic coasts of Georgia, eventually settling in Savannah, Georgia
as a man of considerable wealth. In a will drafted in 1767, long before his death, he planned the disposition of a 281 acres (1.1 km²) plantation on Hutchinson Island, Georgia
, 1000 acres (4 km²) plantation known as Vale Royal upriver from Savannah, Georgia
, and cash
bequests totalling more than £2,500, implying that he was in possession of that amount of currency, as well as numerous bequests of slaves and other valuable chattel.
named Jean-Baptiste Marchand
. Her mother was also named Sehoy, and she was a high-status woman of the Koasati (alternative spelling: Coushatta), of the Wind Clan. Hers was a politically powerful family of the Upper Creek nation, which had matrilineal system of descent and property. Sehoy's immediate family included several important chiefs
. The marriage was a strategic alliance for her family as well as for the ambitious trader; she could protect her children within the tribe.
Albert Pickett and other biographers portrayed Sehoy as a beautiful black-eyed Indian princess, with whom M'Gillivray was instantly lovestruck. Historical and circumstantial evidence suggest the marriage may have been strategic for both sides, as he gained by being allied with a high-status family of Creek, and Sehoy and her family had benefits from a connected European-American trader. They had three children: Alexander, Sophia and Jean (also spelled Jeanne) McGillivray (the latter named after Lachlan's sister.) The children lived most of the time with their mother in the Creek tribe and learned its language and ways, although the father sent Alexander to a European-American school in Charleston and Augusta.
Many Native American chiefs supported such alliances; European traders, who were men of capital, also sought the alliances of marriage into tribes to strengthen their relationships. Though the Creek tribes treated marriage
as a serious institution and had strong taboos against infidelity (especially by women), divorce
was permissible and easily achieved. A husband could divorce a wife by leaving her house, and a wife her husband by leaving his possessions outside of her door. To the matrilineal Creek tribe, the house always belonged to the wife; it was usually shared with her female relatives and their husbands. The Creek considered the mother's children as wholly Creek, regardless of partial European ancestry, due to the matrilineal kinship system of the Muscogee.
After the late 1750s, Sehoy married at least two other men (monagamously), with whom she bore at least two additional children, before McGillivray relocated to Savannah. McGillivray made neither provision nor mention of Sehoy in his 1767 will. She was the custodial parent of their son, Alexander McGillivray
, whom he did acknowledge and provide for. The younger McGillivray became a prominent Creek chief and planter
, and a slaveholder like his father.
Though M'Gillivray made neither mention nor provision for his daughters in his will, their accounts attest to a relationship with him, as they visited him in Savannah, and Sophia named her oldest son, Lachlan McGillivray Durant, for him. McGillivray's will and other surviving writings frequently noted Alexander, referred to as his "natural son," a euphemism for illegitimate.
McGillivray, a patrilineal member of the Clan Chattan, may well have fought a kind of custody battle with his son's mother. As a member of the matrilineal Creeks, she considered her son and daughters as members of her own Wind Clan. As was traditional, Alexander was reared with his maternal uncle Red Shoes, who by varying accounts was either brother or uncle to his mother Sehoy. The role of maternal uncles in the upbringing of a male child was far more important to the Creek than that of the father, as they were of the same clan. The biological father belonged to a different clan. The uncle would mentor the boy through introduction to men's roles and societies.
McGillivray took an interest in Alexander, for he arranged and paid (at considerable expense) for the boy's education at Presbyterian academies in Charleston and Augusta. The father also arranged for the youth's apprenticeship in at least one mercantile house. He bequeathed him the substantial sum of £1,000 and made other bequests in his will. He bequeathed his most valuable assets, his plantations outside Savannah, to the "lawfully begotten" children of his Scottish siblings and cousins.
, but appeared to have identified as a citizen of North America
, the source and location of his considerable fortune. He took an active role in Savannah's administration, where his knowledge of Creek leaders and their languages/cultures were useful for negotiations of treaties between the tribes and the city.
In the Scottish insurrections of the early 18th century, his Clan Chattan had mostly sided with the cause of James the Old Pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie. In Savannah, M'Gillivray had signed petitions opposing certain Crown colonial policies (particularly parliamentary taxation).
But he also had many business interests with British merchants and, at the outset of the American Revolution, he was a Loyalist. As the war progressed, he and other Loyalists in Savannah earned enemies among the Patriot factions and the Continental Army. Continental soldiers arrested McGillivray and at least two of his McIntosh cousins as suspected spies. They were freed when the British captured the city, and briefly fled west of Savannah after the British evacuation at the end of the war. Following the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the new US government confiscated and sold the property of many Loyalists: McGillivray lost his lands, slaves, and much of his other property. He and several of his Loyalist relatives and friends liquidated whatever property they still possessed, and left for Scotland with whatever monies they could take out, returning to the McGillivray clan's estates in Dunmaglass, Scotland.
Lachlan McGillivray died in his native Scotland in 1799 at around 80 years of age. His estate and place of interment are not known. Alleck and Mary McGillivray were still living with him in Scotland at that time. Alleck died as a young adult shortly after his grandfather. Mary McGillivray's life has not been traced.
and Sehoy
They had the following:
Sehoy Marchand married again after McGillivray. She had a daughter Sehoy (Sehoy III). Sehoy III married a man named Weatherford, and one of their sons was William Weatherford
, better known to history by his Creek name, translated as Red Eagle
.
Alexander McGillivray
Alexander McGillivray, also known as Hoboi-Hili-Miko , was a principal chief of the Upper Creek towns from 1782. Before that he had created an alliance between the Creek and the British during the American Revolution...
and the great-uncle of William McIntosh and William Weatherford
William Weatherford
William Weatherford, also known as Lamochattee by the Creek , was a Creek chief of the Upper Towns who led the Red Sticks offensive in the Creek War against the United States...
, three of the most powerful and historically important Native American chiefs among the Creek of the Southeast.
Early life
Details of Lachlan McGillivray's early life are sketchy; he left no account and his biographers often romanticized his tale. They claimed that he was fleeing the Highland rebellion of 1745 and that he arrived penniless in a strange land, though probably neither of these is true. He was born into the McGillivray (or M'Gillivray, as he himself wrote the name) family of the Clan Chattan, a large Scottish clan traditionally led by members of the McIntoshMcIntosh
The McIntosh Red is an apple cultivar with red and green skin, a tart flavor, and tender white flesh. It ripens in late September....
family.
More probable is that he emigrated in the late 1730s to either Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
or Augusta, Georgia
Augusta, Georgia
Augusta is a consolidated city in the U.S. state of Georgia, located along the Savannah River. As of the 2010 census, the Augusta–Richmond County population was 195,844 not counting the unconsolidated cities of Hephzibah and Blythe.Augusta is the principal city of the Augusta-Richmond County...
, where members of his family had been engaging in the Indian trade for a generation. He may have arrived as an indentured servant
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
to his relative Farquhar McGillivray, a merchant with interests along the southeastern seaboard. Records attest that Farquhar McGillivray employed indentured servants, and it was not uncommon for such arrangements to be made between relatives.
Immigration to North America
Lachlan McGillivray was one of several Scottish Highlanders recruited by James OglethorpeJames Oglethorpe
James Edward Oglethorpe was a British general, member of Parliament, philanthropist, and founder of the colony of Georgia...
to act as settler-soldiers protecting the frontiers of Georgia from the Spanish in Florida, the French in the Alabama basin, and their Indian allies. On January 10, 1736, Lachlan and 176 emigrants, including women and children, arrived on board the Prince of Wales to establish the town of Darien, Georgia
Darien, Georgia
Darien is a city in McIntosh County, Georgia, United States. It lies on Georgia's coast at the mouth of the Altamaha River about 50 miles south of Savannah, and is part of the Brunswick, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population of Darien was 1,719 at the 2000 census. The city is the...
, originally known as New Inverness. The town was founded in January 1736 and named after the Darien Scheme
Darién scheme
The Darién scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "New Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s...
, a former Scottish colony in Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
.
By the mid-1740s, McGillivray was well established as a trader in the Upper Creek nation in what is now central Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. He established a fur trading post and plantation at Little Tallassee (also spelled Talisi in some documents) near today's Wetumpka, Alabama
Wetumpka, Alabama
Wetumpka is a city in Elmore County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 5,726.The city is the county seat of Elmore County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state....
, possibly on the site of the former Fort Toulouse
Fort Toulouse
Fort Toulouse is a historic fort near the city of Wetumpka, Alabama, United States, that is now maintained by the Alabama Historical Commission. The French founded the fort in 1717, naming it for Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse...
. He prospered and invested his trading and plantation profits in businesses on the Atlantic coasts of Georgia, eventually settling in Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
as a man of considerable wealth. In a will drafted in 1767, long before his death, he planned the disposition of a 281 acres (1.1 km²) plantation on Hutchinson Island, Georgia
Hutchinson Island, Georgia
Hutchinson Island is a river island in the Savannah River, north of downtown Savannah in Chatham County, Georgia, United States. The island is formed where the Back River breaks off to the north from the Savannah River...
, 1000 acres (4 km²) plantation known as Vale Royal upriver from Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, and cash
Cash
In common language cash refers to money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.In bookkeeping and finance, cash refers to current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immediately...
bequests totalling more than £2,500, implying that he was in possession of that amount of currency, as well as numerous bequests of slaves and other valuable chattel.
Marriage and family
Though there is no record of M'Gillivray having married in the Scottish Presbyterian tradition, he took as a consort a high-status Creek woman named Sehoy Marchand. Their marriage was recognized by the Creek. Early biographers claimed Sehoy Marchand was the daughter of a French officer at Fort ToulouseFort Toulouse
Fort Toulouse is a historic fort near the city of Wetumpka, Alabama, United States, that is now maintained by the Alabama Historical Commission. The French founded the fort in 1717, naming it for Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse...
named Jean-Baptiste Marchand
Jean Baptiste Louis DeCourtel Marchand
Jean Baptiste Louis DeCourtel Marchand was a French soldier. Little is known about Captain Marchands' early life. It is known that Jean was the French military commanding officer of the French colonial trading Fort Toulouse, near present day Wetumpka, Alabama...
. Her mother was also named Sehoy, and she was a high-status woman of the Koasati (alternative spelling: Coushatta), of the Wind Clan. Hers was a politically powerful family of the Upper Creek nation, which had matrilineal system of descent and property. Sehoy's immediate family included several important chiefs
Tribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
. The marriage was a strategic alliance for her family as well as for the ambitious trader; she could protect her children within the tribe.
Albert Pickett and other biographers portrayed Sehoy as a beautiful black-eyed Indian princess, with whom M'Gillivray was instantly lovestruck. Historical and circumstantial evidence suggest the marriage may have been strategic for both sides, as he gained by being allied with a high-status family of Creek, and Sehoy and her family had benefits from a connected European-American trader. They had three children: Alexander, Sophia and Jean (also spelled Jeanne) McGillivray (the latter named after Lachlan's sister.) The children lived most of the time with their mother in the Creek tribe and learned its language and ways, although the father sent Alexander to a European-American school in Charleston and Augusta.
Many Native American chiefs supported such alliances; European traders, who were men of capital, also sought the alliances of marriage into tribes to strengthen their relationships. Though the Creek tribes treated marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
as a serious institution and had strong taboos against infidelity (especially by women), divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
was permissible and easily achieved. A husband could divorce a wife by leaving her house, and a wife her husband by leaving his possessions outside of her door. To the matrilineal Creek tribe, the house always belonged to the wife; it was usually shared with her female relatives and their husbands. The Creek considered the mother's children as wholly Creek, regardless of partial European ancestry, due to the matrilineal kinship system of the Muscogee.
After the late 1750s, Sehoy married at least two other men (monagamously), with whom she bore at least two additional children, before McGillivray relocated to Savannah. McGillivray made neither provision nor mention of Sehoy in his 1767 will. She was the custodial parent of their son, Alexander McGillivray
Alexander McGillivray
Alexander McGillivray, also known as Hoboi-Hili-Miko , was a principal chief of the Upper Creek towns from 1782. Before that he had created an alliance between the Creek and the British during the American Revolution...
, whom he did acknowledge and provide for. The younger McGillivray became a prominent Creek chief and planter
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
, and a slaveholder like his father.
Though M'Gillivray made neither mention nor provision for his daughters in his will, their accounts attest to a relationship with him, as they visited him in Savannah, and Sophia named her oldest son, Lachlan McGillivray Durant, for him. McGillivray's will and other surviving writings frequently noted Alexander, referred to as his "natural son," a euphemism for illegitimate.
McGillivray, a patrilineal member of the Clan Chattan, may well have fought a kind of custody battle with his son's mother. As a member of the matrilineal Creeks, she considered her son and daughters as members of her own Wind Clan. As was traditional, Alexander was reared with his maternal uncle Red Shoes, who by varying accounts was either brother or uncle to his mother Sehoy. The role of maternal uncles in the upbringing of a male child was far more important to the Creek than that of the father, as they were of the same clan. The biological father belonged to a different clan. The uncle would mentor the boy through introduction to men's roles and societies.
McGillivray took an interest in Alexander, for he arranged and paid (at considerable expense) for the boy's education at Presbyterian academies in Charleston and Augusta. The father also arranged for the youth's apprenticeship in at least one mercantile house. He bequeathed him the substantial sum of £1,000 and made other bequests in his will. He bequeathed his most valuable assets, his plantations outside Savannah, to the "lawfully begotten" children of his Scottish siblings and cousins.
Loyalist and American Revolution
Lachlan McGillivray returned to Scotland for lengthy visits prior to the American RevolutionAmerican Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, but appeared to have identified as a citizen of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, the source and location of his considerable fortune. He took an active role in Savannah's administration, where his knowledge of Creek leaders and their languages/cultures were useful for negotiations of treaties between the tribes and the city.
In the Scottish insurrections of the early 18th century, his Clan Chattan had mostly sided with the cause of James the Old Pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie. In Savannah, M'Gillivray had signed petitions opposing certain Crown colonial policies (particularly parliamentary taxation).
But he also had many business interests with British merchants and, at the outset of the American Revolution, he was a Loyalist. As the war progressed, he and other Loyalists in Savannah earned enemies among the Patriot factions and the Continental Army. Continental soldiers arrested McGillivray and at least two of his McIntosh cousins as suspected spies. They were freed when the British captured the city, and briefly fled west of Savannah after the British evacuation at the end of the war. Following the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the new US government confiscated and sold the property of many Loyalists: McGillivray lost his lands, slaves, and much of his other property. He and several of his Loyalist relatives and friends liquidated whatever property they still possessed, and left for Scotland with whatever monies they could take out, returning to the McGillivray clan's estates in Dunmaglass, Scotland.
Death and legacy
In Scotland, M'Gillivray served as an advisor and guardian for the orphaned head of the Clan Chattan. He continued correspondence with his son Alexander and other friends and relatives in the United States. After his son's death in 1793, M'Gillivray paid for Alexander's orphaned children, Alleck and Mary (their mother had also died), to be brought to Scotland. He arranged for their education. Although not returning personally to the US, M'Gillivray took a role in the settling of his son's complicated estate. It was difficult for attorneys to ascertain what parts of McGillivray's lands belonged to him personally and which to the Creek tribe. Some of his assets in cattle and slaves had to be sold to pay off his many debts. Further complicating matters from a Scottish view, the younger McGillivray was a polygamist in the Creek tradition of successful men. He had other wives, who were also of mixed Creek and European ancestry.Lachlan McGillivray died in his native Scotland in 1799 at around 80 years of age. His estate and place of interment are not known. Alleck and Mary McGillivray were still living with him in Scotland at that time. Alleck died as a young adult shortly after his grandfather. Mary McGillivray's life has not been traced.
Marriage and issue
Lachlan married Sehoy Marchand, member of the Wind Clan of the Creek, a daughter of Jean MarchandJean Baptiste Louis DeCourtel Marchand
Jean Baptiste Louis DeCourtel Marchand was a French soldier. Little is known about Captain Marchands' early life. It is known that Jean was the French military commanding officer of the French colonial trading Fort Toulouse, near present day Wetumpka, Alabama...
and Sehoy
They had the following:
- Alexander McGillivrayAlexander McGillivrayAlexander McGillivray, also known as Hoboi-Hili-Miko , was a principal chief of the Upper Creek towns from 1782. Before that he had created an alliance between the Creek and the British during the American Revolution...
, became the leader of the CreeksCreek peopleThe Muscogee , also known as the Creek or Creeks, are a Native American people traditionally from the southeastern United States. Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. The modern Muscogee live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida...
as they attempted to prevent overrunning of Creek territory covering most of Middle and Southern Alabama and Georgia, as European settlers pushed inland from the Eastern seaboard. - Jean McGillivray, who married French officer Le Clerc MilfortLe Clerc MilfortJean-Antoine Le Clerc, also known as Louis Milfort, also spelled as Milford. , was a French military officer and adventurer who led Creek Indian warriors during the American Revolutionary War as allies of the British. He emigrated to the British Colonies in North America in 1775...
, later of service in the Napoleonic army and famed as a memoirist. - Sophia McGillivray who married Benjamin Durant and was mother to a large family and may have died at the Fort Mims massacreFort Mims massacreThe Fort Mims massacre occurred on 30 August 1813, when a force of Creek people, belonging to the "Red Sticks" faction under the command of Peter McQueen and William Weatherford "Red Eagle", his cousin by marriage, killed hundreds of settlers, mixed-blood Creeks, and militia at Fort Mims...
in which her nephew Red Eagle was involved.
Sehoy Marchand married again after McGillivray. She had a daughter Sehoy (Sehoy III). Sehoy III married a man named Weatherford, and one of their sons was William Weatherford
William Weatherford
William Weatherford, also known as Lamochattee by the Creek , was a Creek chief of the Upper Towns who led the Red Sticks offensive in the Creek War against the United States...
, better known to history by his Creek name, translated as Red Eagle
Red Eagle
- People :*Jay Red Eagle, Cherokee flutist*William Weatherford , Creek Indian known as Red Eagle-Military Units:*4th Infantry Division , known as the Red Eagle Division...
.