The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-11

shaping tho policy of all Spanish Florida.
 Back to old Home
 He had now attained his majority. Often in the passing years during his waking hours and in his dreams had he recalled his boyish sports with arrow and blow gun, his moth CT and their home beside the limpid Coosa, in which he and the compan- ions of his own age had bathed and fshed, the many needs recounted to him of the prowess and valor of his ancestors, his bright-eyed sis ters, Sehoy and Jeanette; and, one day, turning his back upon the civ ilization which he had given proof that he could adorn, he suddenly de- parted for his boyhood home, thence forth to cast his life with his tribal Creeks.
 These had been anxiously hoping that he would come and place him self at the head of their govern ment, to which position, as de- scendant of the Wind tribe, he was justly entitled.
 He arrived among the Creeks at a time when the nation was getting into trouble with the Georgians, who, TOT many years, had been making en- croachments upon the eastern boun- dary of the Creek territory The Georgians laid claim to this land, asserting that it had been ceded to tEem by delegation of Creeks as- semb1ed at Augusta. Alexander's first public act, of which we learn, after coming to his tribe. was to preside at the grand national council i. ( f- tahoochie. The British were most eager to win McGillivray to their side in the war of the revolutions; and with this purpose in view they stationed Colonel Tait of their army upon the Coosa. The chieftain finally allied his Creeks with the royalist cause, being rewarded therefor with the rank and pay of colonel.
 But Colonel McGillivray was not suited either by inclination or habit to be leader in war. His greatNtal- ent lay in diplomacy, and in his abil- ity to control men. He therefore rarely accompanied the expeditions of the warriors; but for the most part remained at home, and by the strong power he exerted over the chiefs forced them to raise armies for the British.
 Father Forced to Flee
 At the close of the Revolutionary war, when King Georges forces evac- uated Savannah, Lachlan McGillivray, who was an ardent royalist, was forced to flee with them to his na- tive land. He got together large sum of money, but his extensive plan tations with all his negroes were abandoned. He hoped that his chil- dren and their mother, whom he was leaving upon the Coosa, might be all lowed to become the interiors of tEese estates; but they were confis- catd by the whigs. no part of all this valuable property escaping their clutches.
 Besides the loss of her 1S colonies in America, Great Britain, in 17S3 in "a treaty with Spain, confirmed to the latter the West Province of Florida and ceded to her East Florida. After Spain acquired the Floridas she has, tened. by advice of William Panton of Pensacola. who owed his success principally to Colonel McGillivray. to form an alliance with that chieftain, who going by arrangement to Pensa- cola met the representatives of Spain
 McGillivray at this conference rep resented Creeks and the Seminoles. Besides pledging the peace of these two nations. he guaranteed to es- tablish a general peace of other sur rounding tribes with Spain. The Spaniards, in return, granted to the Indians permanent terms of com merce which was stipulated to be car