American Creation

Chapter 4 explores the failure of the young United States to treat the Native Americans justly. After winning independence, America had essentially two options for dealing with the tribes occupying land east of the Mississippi River—land that white people wanted for themselves. One was simply to push the Native Americans westward using military action; the other was for white settlers to move west, effectively, but not forcibly, displacing Native Americans. Both options assumed the land belonged to the United States “by right of conquest” (132).

Under the new Constitution, Secretary of War Henry Knox treated Native American tribes as foreign nations, giving the president authority to set policy. Knox had been a trusted compatriot of Washington’s during the Revolutionary War and felt both obliged and qualified to continue the legacy of the war. He thus wanted an Indian policy that was in keeping with the original ideals of the colonists, not one that merely swapped out the British Empire for an American one.

After conferring with Washington in the summer of 1789, Knox devised a plan to allow native tribes to stay on their lands east of the Mississippi even as American settlers moved west. Protected by federal troops if necessary, Native Americans would occupy enclaves that settlers moved around. Over time, tribes would be given the tools and training to rely more on agriculture than hunting, which would require less land.

The Creek tribe in the South was selected as a test case, and a government commission was sent to negotiate with their chief, Alexander McGillivray. Well educated and shrewd, McGillivray distrusted the Americans (having observed their broken promises to other tribes) and sought to play them off against the Spanish, who occupied Florida on the Creeks’ southern border and provided the tribe with supplies. McGillivray rejected the Americans’ offer, confident of the ability to defeat them in war, if it came to that. For their part, Knox and Washington saw a military option as too expensive, so they resolved to keep pressing for a diplomatic solution.

Events in Georgia then added another twist: the legislature planned to sell western lands occupied by the Creek to several companies. McGillivray felt he could defeat a military force, but knew had no chance against hordes of settlers moving in, and was thus pressed into seeking a solution with the federal government. Sensing the urgency, the Americans pulled out all the stops, inviting McGillivray to New York for one-on-one meetings with Washington. The ceremonious summit, the likes of which no European leader had been given, involved an extensive Creek delegation and lasted almost a month. An agreement called the Treaty of New York was signed in August 1790, with the entire Congress present.

It did not take long, however, for the agreement to break down. In the end, demographics won out, and the Georgian settlers moved west despite federal control of the area. The fledgling American army was too small to police such a large area, and the settlers eventually pushed the Creek out. Once McGillivray saw this happening, he reneged on the treaty and negotiated better terms with the Spanish two years later. Washington was furious with the settlers, bemoaning the fact that “a lawless set of unprincipled wretches . . . can infringe the most solemn treaties, without receiving the punishment they so richly deserve” (159).