Lachlan McGillivray
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Lachlan McGillivray (Dunmaglass, Inverness, Scotland, c. 1718 –1799) was a prosperous fur trader and planter in colonial Georgia with interests that extended from Savannah to central Alabama. He was the father of Alexander McGillivray and the great-uncle of William McIntosh, two of the most powerful and historically important Native American chieftains in the history of the Southeast.
Details of Lachlan McGillivray's early life are sketchy; he left no account himself and his biographers often romanticized his tale, making among other claims that he was fleeing the Highland rebellion of 1745 and that he arrived penniless in a strange land, though probably neither of these is true. He was born into the McGillivray (or M'Gillivray, as he himself wrote the name) family of the Clan Chattan, a large Scottish clan traditionally led by members of the McIntosh family. More probable is that he emigrated to either Charleston, South Carolina or Augusta, Georgia, where members of his family had been engaging in the Indian trade for a generation before his arrival, which was probably in the late 1730s. He may have arrived as an indentured servant to his relative Farquhar McGillivray, a merchant with interests along the southeastern seaboard, as existing records attest that Farquhar McGillivray employed indentured servants and it was not uncommon for such arrangements to be made between relatives.
It is known that by the mid-1740s McGillivray (or M'Gillivray, as he wrote his own name) was well established as a trader in the Upper Creek nation in what is now central Alabama. He established a fur trading post and plantation at Little Tallassee (also spelled Talisi in some documents) near today's Wetumpka, Alabama, possibly on the site of the former Fort Toulouse. He prospered and invested his trading and plantation profits in businesses on the Atlantic coasts of Georgia, ultimately owning interests in several businesses in Augusta and Savannah, Georgia, eventually settling in the latter as a man of considerable wealth. In his 1767 will he mentions a 281-acre (1.14 km²) plantation on Hutchinson Island, Georgia, a thousand acre plantation known as Vale Royal upriver from Savannah, and leaves cash bequests totalling more than £ 2,500, implying that he was in possession of that amount of currency, as well as numerous bequests of slaves and other valuable chattel.
There is no record of M'Gillivray having married in the legal sense at any point of his life, though he entered into a long-term marital relationship with a biracial Creek woman named Sehoy Marchand. Sehoy Marchand's father (at least according to early chroniclers) was Jean-Baptiste Marchand, a French officer stationed at Fort Toulouse in the early 18th century (and according to most records murdered there in a 1722 mutiny, though this contradicts historical evidence). Sehoy Marchand's mother, also named Sehoy, was a member of the Wind Clan, a politically powerful lineage, of the Upper Creeks and her immediate family included several important chieftains in the nation. As with M'Gillivray's youth, his "marriage" to Sehoy is much romanticized by Albert Pickett and other biographers, with Sehoy portrayed as a beautiful black-eyed Indian princess with whom he was instantly lovestruck, but historical and circumstantial evidence seem to portray the long-term relationship as a more pragmatic matter probably born of mutual convenience. The notion of the beautiful Indian princess is well attested to in American literature, and usually is the lense through which those Native American women who marry white men are seen.
It was a common practice for European born traders throughout North America to take wives among the tribes with whom they traded, regardless of whether they were already legally married to white women, and there is some evidence that the Indian women in question did not feel particularly violated or betrayed by the often temporal nature of these relationships. Though the Creek tribes treated marriage as a very serious institution and had strong taboos against infidelity (especially by women), divorce was also not only permissible but easily achieved (a husband could divorce a wife and by simply leaving her house, a wife her husband by leaving his possessions outside of her door [to the matrilineal Creeks, the house always belonged to the wife and was usually shared with her female relatives and their husband). In his 1767 will M'Gillivray makes no provision for or even mention of Sehoy (though she was still alive), he did not reside with her for his last decade in America and in fact relocated to Savannah without her, and she is known to have born at least one child (a daughter, again named Sehoy) to another man during the course of their acquaintance, and thus it is reasonable to believe the marriage, if ever there was one, was considered over by the time of his will. Their union did, however, result in the births of at least three children- a son named Alexander and daughters named Sophia and Jean (also spelled Jennet and Jeanne in various sources, and the same name as M'Gillivray's favorite sister who was married to a McIntosh). Though M'Gillivray again makes neither mention of nor provision for his daughters in his will (though at the same time it is known from their own accounts that they had a relationship with him and had visited Savannah), his will and other writings make frequent mention of Alexander, referred to by his father in writings as "my natural son" (a euphemism for illegitimate, for he refers to the "lawfully begotten" issue of his relatives). M'Gillivray, a patrilineal member of the Clan Chattan, may well have fought a kind of custody battle with his son's mother, who as a member of the matrilineal Creeks saw her son (and daughters) as members of her own Wind Clan exclusively, for Alexander seems to have been reared in both the Creek and European traditions. Regardless of the details, M'Gillivray seems to have had a close relationship with his son, arranged and paid for his education and apprenticeships in mercantile houses, and included him as a major beneficiary in his will, leaving him £ 1,000 and other bequests. (M'Gillivray's most valuable assets, his estates outside of Savannah, he bequeathed to his legitimate McGillivray/McIntosh cousins and, perhaps significantly due to his exposure to the Creek tribe [where a woman's brothers played more paternal than avuncular roles in the rearing of her children] he bequeathed more property to the "lawfully begotten" sons of his sister Jean than to his own biological son Alexander.)
Though it is known that he returned to Scotland for lengthy visits prior to the Revolution, M'Gillivray seems to have considered himself a citizen of North America where his substantial fortune was centered. He had begun to play a progressively active role in the city's administration and in the first years of the American Revolution used his knowledge of Creek leaders and their languages/cultures to serve as intermediary for treaties between the tribes and Savannah. He also supported and lent his clout and signature to colonial policies opposing parliamentary taxation, but as the war progressed his ultimately Loyalist political leanings (though they were not uncommon in Savannah) earned him enemies among the Patriot factions and the Continental Army. M'Gillivray and his cousin were arrested for a time by Continental soldiers, liberated when the British captured the city (which they held for the remainder of the war), and may have briefly gone into self imposed exile by the end of the war, but regardless of the case following the surrender at the Battle of Yorktown and the 1783 Treaty of Paris M'Gillivray was left in an uneasy position. Ultimately his lands were confiscated and sold by the new national government and M'Gillivray, along with whatever movable property he still possessed (which was probably substantial, though the confiscation of his lands, slaves, horses, livestock and other properties, most certainly deprived him of the lion's share of his wealth) returned permanently to his birthplace of Dunmaglass.
In his native Scotland Lachlan seems to have enjoyed in his final years high respect and responsibility, serving as an advisor and guardian for an orphaned head of the Clan Chattan. He continued a correspondence with his son Alexander and probably his daughters, and upon his son's death Lachlan paid for his orphaned grandchildren (their mother was also dead) to be sent to him in Scotland and there arranged for their education. Lachlan died in his native Scotland at the age of 80, his grandson Alleck and granddaughter Mary still in residence with him. (Alleck McGillivray died as a young adult shortly after his grandfather's death while the fate of his sister is not certain, but it is not believed either returned to America.)
[edit] Marriage and issue
Lachlan married Sehoy Marchand, member of the Wind Clan, a daughter of Jean Marchand and Sehoy
They had the following:
- Alexander McGillivray, became the leader of the Creeks as they attempted to prevent overrunning of Creek territory covering most of Middle and Southern Alabama and Georgia, as European settlers pushed inland from the Eastern seaboard.
Sehoy Marchand was also the mother of a daughter named Sehoy (Sehoy III), whose father may have been but was probably not Lachlan McGillivray. Sehoy III's many children by three husbands included William Weatherford, better known to history by his Creek name of Red Eagle.
McGillivray and Marchand did have at least two daughters together:
- Jean McGillivray, who married French officer Le Clerc Milfort, later of service in the Napoleonic army and famed as a memoirist.
- Sophia McGillivray who married Benjamin Durant and was mother to a large family and may have died at the Fort Mims massacre in which her nephew Red Eagle was involved.
[edit] References
- Cashin, Edward J. Lachlan McGillivray, Indian Trader: The Shaping of the Southern Colonial Frontier. University of Georgia Press, 1992. Covers Trading Life.
