George Colbert, also known as Tootemastubbe (c. 1764–1839), was a Native American leader of the Chickasaw people in the early 19th century. He commanded 350 Chickasaw auxiliary troops, whom he had recruited, as a militia captain under Andrew Jackson during the Creek War of 1813-1814. Later he joined the US Army under Jackson for the remainder of the War of 1812. At the time of Indian Removal when he had succeeded his late brother Levi Colbert as chief, he was a planter who owned significant land and more than 100 slaves in Mississippi, and a ferry in northwestern Alabama.
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The second of six mixed-race sons of James Logan Colbert, a North Carolinian settler of Scots descent and his second wife Minta Hoye, a Chickasaw, George Colbert was born in present-day Alabama about 1764.[1] As a youth he began to rise in prominence in the Chickasaw nation, as he gained status from his mother's clan as well as his actions. The Chickasaw had a matrilineal system, in which children were considered born into their mother's clan; positions of hereditary leadership were passed through the mother's line.
Colbert was said to serve with American troops under Arthur St. Clair in 1791 and Anthony Wayne in 1794 during the Northwest Indian Wars. During the Creek Wars, he recruited 350 Chickasaw warriors and assisted Andrew Jackson against the Red Sticks, and later during more of the War of 1812.[1]
By the early 1800s, George Colbert established Colbert's ferry near Cherokee, Alabama. It was a significant crossing of the Tennessee River along the Natchez Trace, an important trade route. Colbert was able to accumulate land and became an influential planter; he also raised livestock and was a trader. He owned an estimated 150 enslaved Africans as labor on his plantation.
He and his brothers Levi and James were among the primary negotiators of treaties between his people and the United States government in the early 19th century.[1] The Chickasaw ended up ceding much of their land to European-American settlers in an attempt to preserve peace with the United States, but the Colberts received several valuable tracts for their service.
In the late 1830s, Colbert was serving as chief of the Chickasaw, following his brother Levi Colbert. Together with most of his fellow Chickasaw, he removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) under the Indian Removal Act. In the 1850s, his nephews Winston and Holmes Colbert helped develop the constitution and government organization of the Chickasaw in Oklahoma after removal.
He married three times, and fathered a total of six sons and two daughters. Colbert family tradition states that he did not want one of his daughters to have to move to Oklahoma with Indian Removal. He married her to a white man named Hezekiah Tharp so she could stay in present-day Alabama. Although he had resisted removal during negotiations, by 1839 Colbert moved with his family and 150 slaves to Ft. Towson, Oklahoma, where he established a sizable farm.[1]
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