Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

382 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
copy of the constitution now to be found. But in the first volume of
the "American State Papers on Indian Affairs" there is preserved a
letter from General Clarke to the Committee of Safety, dated Fort
Defiance, September 5, 1794, which places beyond doubt the adoption of
the constitution and the other facts of organization.*
'The new trans-Oconee Republic was too splendid a scheme for the
petty numbers and resources of General Clarke's command. Stevens.
in his history of Georgia, has mixed matters. He represents the Oconee
war as eventuating in the French project, with which General Clarke
became identified. On the contrary, it was the failure of the French
project which led to the Oconee war.
In justification of General Clarke V course may be pleaded the ani
mosity which had long prevailed between the State of Georgia and the
Creek Indians. The latter had been the allies of the British. In the
Treaty of Augusta, in 1783, they had ceded the Oconee lands, but had
refused to let Georgia enjoy them. They kept no faith; and, during
the next year, not only raised the warhoop again, but rushed into an
alliance with Spain. Later they were parties to another treaty, by
which they ceded the Tallassee country, in the lower part of the state,
only to repudiate it afterwards. Both at Augusta and at Galphinton,
General Clarke had been one of the commissioners for Georgia. He
was actuated less by the prevailing land-greed than by sagacious states
manship, and he looked to a permanent preservation of peace with the
Indians. Still another treaty had been signed at Shoulder Bone, in
1876. Yet the war had not ceased.
Such was the status of affairs when the new Government of the
United States was launched in 1789 and "Washington called to the helm.
It was barely a year thereafter that the Treaty of New York was con
summated, abrogating the other treaties and buying peace at the price
of a retrocession of Tallassee, in addition to a perpetual guarantee to
the Indians, on the part of the United States, regardless of Georgia's
paramount, rights. Yet the Indian did not keep even this treaty, because
it did not concede to them everything else which they claimed.
General Clarke was speedity overwhelmed by public censure and
total discomfiture. National and state governments acted in concert
against him and finally put him down. Governor Mathews, with his
revolutionary laurels untainted at this time by the Yazoo fraud, thun
dered at the obnoxious general, prompted by Washington, who preferred
wisely to remain behind the scenes and to be neutral where the author
ities of the states were adequate to deal with the local situations. Judge
Walton also condemned him in charges to grand juries, though in lan
guage of marked consideration and respect. These, however, were not
sufficient. The next step was more decisive. The citizen soldiery were
called out; and, to General Clarke's surprise, they promptly obeyed
orders. As the storm thickened around him, there were none to come
to his succor. Even his hosts of friends stood aloof. They could not
*"American State Papers, Indian Affairs," Vol. I, pp., 500-501, Library of
Congress, Washington, District of Columbia.