William Weatherford
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William Weatherford | |
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Creek Leader of the Red Sticks | |
Personal details | |
Born | 1765 or 1780 Koasati village |
Died | March 24, 1824 Monroe County, Alabama |
Nickname | Red Eagle |
Military service | |
Battles/wars | |
William Weatherford, also known after his death as Red Eagle (c. 1765 – March 24, 1824), was a
One of many mixed-race descendants of Southeast Indians who intermarried with European traders and later colonial settlers, William Weatherford was of mixed Creek, French, and Scots ancestry. He was raised as a Creek in the
Early life and education
William Weatherford was born in 1781 (Griffith Jr. analysis), near the Upper Creek towns of Coosauda.
Benjamin Hawkins, first appointed as United States Indian agent in the Southeast and then as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the territory south of the Ohio River, lived among the Creek and Choctaw, and knew them well.[citation needed] He commented in letters to President Thomas Jefferson that Creek women were matriarchs and had control of the children "when connected with a white man."[1]: p. 10f Hawkins observed that almost all of the traders, some wealthy, were likewise as "inattentive to their children as the Indians".[1]: p. 10f As Griffith explains (based on John R. Swanton), the lack of fatherly concern was not an "unnatural indifference," given the Creek culture and clan kinship system, and which established a closer relationship of children to their mother's eldest brother (more so than with their biological father).[1]: p. 10f [verification needed][relevant?]
As a boy William Weatherford was called "Billy"[
Through his mother's family, Weatherford was a cousin of William McIntosh, who became a chief of the Lower Creek towns.[citation needed] The Lower Creek, who comprised the majority of population, lived closer to the European Americans and had intermarried with them, adopting more of their ways, as well as connecting to the market economy.[citation needed]
Career
This section possibly contains original research. (March 2017) |
Weatherford learned traditional Creek ways and language from his mother and her clan, as well as English from his father. As a young man, he acquired a
The Creek of the Lower Towns were becoming more assimilated, but the traditional elders and the people of the Upper Creek towns were more isolated from the European-American settlers. They kept more traditional ways and opposed the new settlements. Weatherford and other Upper Creek leaders resented the encroachment of settlers into their traditional Creek territory, principally in what the
After the Americans improved the Trading Path as the National Road in 1811, more American settlers came into the hunting territory and laid claim to homesteads. Various bands of Creeks, especially among the Upper Creek, resisted in a number of armed conflicts. But most of the more assimilated Lower Creek towns were forced to make land concessions to the United States in 1790, 1802, and 1805.
The Lower Creek were among the Five Civilized Tribes who adopted some European-American style farming practices and other customs. As a result, most of the Creek managed to continue as independent communities while slowly becoming almost indistinguishable from other frontier families. The Upper Creek towns resisted the changes in the territory. In these debates, Weatherford counseled neutrality in the rise of hostilities. Conflict broke out within the Creek Nation between those who were adapting to assimilation and those trying to maintain the traditional leadership.
Leaders of the Upper Creek began diplomatic overtures with Spanish and British colonial officials to develop allies against the United States. In the debates in Creek councils, those advocating resistance ("war") rather than cooperation or assimilation became known as Red Sticks, and they soon became the dominant faction in Creek politics, which were highly decentralized. Red Stick bands went to Spanish Florida to purchase arms.
Americans learned that the Red Sticks were bringing back arms from Florida. Hastily organizing a militia, American frontiersmen intercepted and attacked a Red Stick party at Burnt Corn Creek. The latter were returning to the Upper Creek towns with arms purchased in Pensacola in present-day Florida. While the Alabama militia tried to secure the arms and ammunition in the Indian baggage train, the Red Sticks regrouped and fought off the Americans. In reaction to the United States attack on its men, the Creek "declared war" on the United States. Already involved in the War of 1812 against the US, the British encouraged the Creek resistance.
Weatherford joined the Red Sticks along the frontier, where they tried to repulse American settlers from Creek territory. In late August 1813, with
An Alabama militia followed up with another Ranger unit and maneuvered the Red Sticks into battle at the Battle of Holy Ground. Weatherford barely escaped capture, jumping from a bluff into the Alabama River while on horseback. Having repelled the Red Stick invasion in a number of skirmishes and forced them on the defensive, the Americans regrouped for a final offensive.
The federal government did not have forces to spare. Major General
Meanwhile, Weatherford and some other 200 Red Sticks escaped. Most of the Red Sticks retreated to
Weatherford negotiated a new peace through a new treaty with the US; although he had to accept a permanent reduction in Creek territory, he gained retention of most of their territory, including areas where they had homes. Weatherford subsequently moved to the southern part of
Marriage and family
This section possibly contains original research. (March 2017) |
William Weatherford married Mary Moniac (c. 1783 – 1804), who was also of mixed race. They had two children, Charles and Mary (Polly) Weatherford. After Mary's death, Weatherford married Sopethlina Kaney Thelotco Moniac (c. 1783 – 1813). She died after the birth of their son, William Weatherford, Jr., born 25 December 1813. About 1817, Weatherford married Mary Stiggins (c. 1783–1832), who was of Natchez and English heritage. They also had children, Alexander McGillivray Weatherford, Mary Levitia Weatherford, Major Weatherford (who died as a child), and John Weatherford.
Weatherford's nephew, David Moniac, son of his sister Elizabeth Weatherford, was the first Native American graduate of the United States Military Academy.
William Weatherford may have been a blood relative of the Shawnee Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa whose mother and father were of Creek and Shawnee lineages. Their relationship may have been the foundation of the strong alliance between Chief Red Eagle and Chief Tecumseh during the Indian Wars.
Notes
- ^ Griffith's analysis of Weatherford's date of birth is based on the death of his mother's first husband in the summer of 1780, see below and Griffith Jr., op. cit., p. 5.
- ^ Several sources[who?] state that Weatherford was born in 1765, the date recorded on a tombstone located in Little River, Baldwin County, Alabama.[citation needed] Many sources state that his mother, Sehoy III, was born in 1759, and his siblings are documented as being born in the 1780s.[citation needed]
- ^ Sehoy III's children had her clan status, the same as her male clan relatives. In this kinship system, property and other inheritance were passed through the maternal line, and a boy's maternal uncle was more important to his upbringing than his biological father.[citation needed]
References
- ^
- ^ Deer, Sarah (2013). "Muscogee Constitutional Jurisprudence: Vhakv Em Pvtakv". Tulsa Law Review. 49 (1): 130.
- ^ "Petition 20582202: To the Honbl H M Brackenridge Judge of the Superior Court of West Florida (BRACKENRIDGE, Henry M.)", Race and Slavery Petitions Project, Escambia County, Florida: The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, August 4, 1822, retrieved February 21, 2018
Further reading
- Source contending Weatherford was not at Horseshoe Bend: James, Marquis (2008). Andrew Jackson: The Border Captain. Read Books. p. 82. ISBN 9781443727778.
- Mason, Augustus Lynch (1883). "XXI: The Romance of Red Eagle". The Romance and Tragedy of Pioneer Life: A Popular Account of the Heroes and Adventurers who, by their Valor and War-Craft, Beat Back the Savages from the Borders of Civilization and gave the American Forests to the Plow and the Sickle. Cincinnati, Ohio: Jones Brothers and Company.
- Braund, Kathryn (January 30, 2017). "Creek War of 1813-14". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Birmingham and Auburn, AL: Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University Outreach. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
- Green, Michael D. (1985) [1982]. "The Erosion of Creek Autonomy, 1540-1814 [Ch. 2]". The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis. ACLS Humanities E-Book (Bison books ed.). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 17–44, esp. 38f and passim. ISBN 0803270151. Retrieved March 6, 2017.
- Jones, Pam (Fall 2004). "William Weatherford and the Road to the Holy Ground". Alabama Heritage (74).
- Lewis, Herbert J. (May 12, 2015). "Canoe Fight". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Birmingham and Auburn, AL: Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University Outreach. Retrieved March 5, 2017.