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GEORGIA AND GEOEGIANS 477
throughout this belt merged themselves into the belligerent elements on
the upper tributaries of the Alabama. There they stood at bay and
fought and fell in many a battle under the blows of Old Hickory.
Eventually in 1814, at -Fort Jackson, near the confluence of the Coosa
and the Tallapoosa rivers, Jackson received the absolute surrender of
the crushed nation. The spirit of the Creek Confederacy was broken.
Colonel Hawking was profoundly saddened by the fate of those whom
he had long cherished as his children. Undoubtedly it hastened his
death.
Even the three great friendly chiefs, Big Warrior, Little Prince, and
General Mclntosh were cut to the heart by the stern demands from
Washington City, dictating the terms of peace and marking the narrow
bounds of the vanquished savages. How much was taken from them and
how little was left to them, constitutes one of the most pathetic events
in our Anglo-American and Indian annals. Big Warrior, regarded as
one of Nature's great men, perhaps the ablest of Indian statesmen, up
braided Colonel Hawkins for having persuaded him and 'so many of his
chiefs to be neutral in the war against his people. For years after
ward the. story used to be told of how the big tears stood in the eyes
of the aged Indian agent as he listened in silence to a reproach which
he did not deserve but which he was powerless to answer.*
Buried on an eminence of land, overlooking the waters of the Flint,
at the old Indian Agency, in Crawford County, Colonel Hawkins today
sleeps in an unmarked grave; but steps have been taken looking toward
the erection of a monument on this hallowed spot. For years the burial
place of Colonel Hawkins was unknown. But recently, a gentleman,
Mr. N. F. Walker, while strolling over his uncle's plantation, in Craw-
ford County, chanced by the merest accident to come upon the old pa
triot's grave. It was found in the midst of a clump of bushes. The walls
of the tomb above ground had commenced to crumble and detached'
brick lay in confused heaps upon the ground. The ravages of time,
re-enforced by long neglect, had made it a pathetic spectacle; but the
identity of the grave has been well established by evidence. Since the
burial-place was discovered the Daughters of the Revolution have made
it an object of reverent care; but the United States Government owes it
to the memory of this pure patriot who, for the sake of his country,
lived and died among the savage Indians, to erect above his ashes a
monument which will serve to keep his name in green remembrance; and
when the shaft is built let it contain an inscription similar to the one
which follows: "Here lies the body of Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, a
soldier of the Revolution, a friend of Washington, a Senator of the
* Big Warrior was so named on account of his great size. Says Colonel Chappell:
"He was the only corpulent full-blooded Indian I ever saw, yet he was not so corpu
lent as to be unwieldly or ungainly. In fact, his corpulency added to the magnifi
cence of his appearance. In person, he was to a high, degree grand and imposing.
Tus-te-nug-gee Thluc-co was his Indian name. Colonel Hawkins first met him at
Coleraine in 1796, and they were great friends down to the treaty of Fort Jackson.
He was probably the most enlighted and civilized man of the full Indian blood
which the Creek Nation ever produced. He cultivated a fine plantation, with seventy
or eighty negroes, near Tuekabatehee, where he lived in a good house, furnished in a
plain but civilized style, and was a man of wealth."