Alexander Mcgillivray Research Paper
In the summer of 1790, twenty-seven chiefs from the major tribes of the creek nation marched into New York City with one main purpose: to negotiate a peace treaty that would grant the Creek Nation the land they inherently deserved and to end the bloody war on the Southwestern Frontier. Seemingly leading the chiefs to New York City was the Native American version of George Washington, and his name was Alexander McGillivray. The McGillivray Moment was a point in time that we know very little about, for the official negotiations between the Creek Chiefs and our then loose federal government was oddly never recorded, so we can only speculate the topics they covered and their reactions to them by reviewing their final documents and papers. By
…show more content…
We miss the chance to find out the true motives of Washington (if there ever was one) and to discover if McGillivray was as good of a leader as people made him out to be. If the chance to witness this event first hand was an option, some muddled episodes would have been cleared up. Maybe the bribe that the Spanish had offered McGillivray was really a threat more than anything and risked the safety of his tribes. We can’t really say that McGillivray was trying to become the auctioneer that offered his loyalty to the highest bidder nor can we say that he was the innocent bystander and accepted every declaration and insult to his people and land. Although Washington had good intentions for the Creek Nation, he was blindly throwing around this notion that the Native Americans would have to completely assimilate into American ways and traditions, thereby eradicating their own. He wanted them to change from their hunter-gatherer ways to a more peaceful, farming lifestyle. This was like asking deer if they could live their lives without antlers. It violates their practice of existence that goes back generations. It is quite a shame that we cannot see the arguments and ideas that they posed, because it would have given us, as their descendents, a greater insight as to their
We miss the chance to find out the true motives of Washington (if there ever was one) and to discover if McGillivray was as good of a leader as people made him out to be. If the chance to witness this event first hand was an option, some muddled episodes would have been cleared up. Maybe the bribe that the Spanish had offered McGillivray was really a threat more than anything and risked the safety of his tribes. We can’t really say that McGillivray was trying to become the auctioneer that offered his loyalty to the highest bidder nor can we say that he was the innocent bystander and accepted every declaration and insult to his people and land. Although Washington had good intentions for the Creek Nation, he was blindly throwing around this notion that the Native Americans would have to completely assimilate into American ways and traditions, thereby eradicating their own. He wanted them to change from their hunter-gatherer ways to a more peaceful, farming lifestyle. This was like asking deer if they could live their lives without antlers. It violates their practice of existence that goes back generations. It is quite a shame that we cannot see the arguments and ideas that they posed, because it would have given us, as their descendents, a greater insight as to their