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338 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
river," was declared to be the rightful boundary line between the
Indians and the whites. This treaty was formally signed on Novem
ber 12, 1785. Georgia's two commissioners who negotiated it were:
John Twiggs and Elijah Clarke.'*
On November 3, 1786, at Shoulder-bone, in what is now the County of
Hancock, a treaty was negotiated by Georgia commissioners, with a small
delegation of Creeks, who assumed to act for the whole nation, under
the terms of which agreement the Creek titles to all lands east of the
Oconee were extinguished. On the part of the state, this instrument was
witnessed by the following commissioners: John Habersham, Abraham
Ravot, J. Clements, James 0 'Neil, John King, James Powell, Ferdinand
0 'Neil and Jared Irwin. On the part of the Creeks it was signed by fifty-
nine chiefs, head-men and warriors.!
To these treaties, a large element of the Creeks were hostile claiming
that, in each instance, the commissioners of Georgia had negotiated with a
mere handful of chiefs who represented only a minority sentiment among
the tribes to whom these ceded lands belonged. Moreover, it was claimed
(by the Creeks with sound logic that both of these treaties were null and
void, having been negotiated by the State of Georgia, when the treaty
making power was vested in the Continental Congress. Plad there been
a strong central government at this time, the treaties in question would
undoubtedly have been abrogated and the Oconee war, with its train of
horrors, would have been happily averted.
The commanding spirit among the hostile Creeks at this time was an
Indian half-breed named Alexander McGillivray, an artful leader to
whose Indian craft was added a lot of Scotch shrewdness. During the
colonial period, his father, Lachlan McGillivray, had made his appear
ance in the Creek Nation as a trader, and had married an Indian princess,
from which union Alexander McGillivray had sprung.
McGillivray was a man of decided gifts, of a somewhat delicate mold,
well-educated for one whose life was to be spent in a wilderness, among
savage tribes. He was ambitious to shape the destiny of his people, but
if some of his critics are not unduly biased, he was destitute of any great
amount of physical courage and was careful always to keep his person
ality in the background, while directing the hostile movements of his
dusky warriors. To resist these treaties, he fired the whole Creek Nation.
On investigation, the Continental Congress declared the treaties made
at Galphinton and Shoulder-bone illegal; but it possessed no strong arm
of authority with which to overrule the people of Georgia. Consequently
the Creeks, finding themselves without recourse, began to make raids
upon the white settlements and to convert the disputed border into a sav
age inferno, red alike with the blood of slaughtered victims and with the
fire of burning habitations. This long protracted series of bloody incur
sions upon the white settlements has sometimes been called the Creek war,
but to distinguish it from other troublous affairs with, these Indians it is
perhaps best to call it the Oconee war. Despite the incessant bloodshed
and havoc which followed, settlers at imminent peril to life continued to
move over into these disputed lands, east of the Oconee, where they lived
*"Marbury and Crawford's Digest, Treaty of Galphinton," pp. 607-608.
t "Marbury and Crawford's Digest, Treaty of Shoulder-bone," pp. 619-621.