William McIntosh William McIntosh ( 1775 – April 30 , 1825 ) , also known as " Taskanugi Hatke " ( White Warrior ) , was one of the most prominent chiefs of the Creek Nation between the turn of the nineteenth century and the time of Creek removal to Indian Territory . He was a leader of the Lower Towns , the Creek who were adapting European - American ways and tools . In 1817 he was implicated with David Brydie Mitchell , former Georgia governor and US Indian agent to the Creek , of smuggling African slaves in from Spanish Florida , in violation of US law against the international slave trade . ( SOURCE needed ) For decades , European - American historians attributed McIntosh ' s achievements and influence to his Scots / European ancestry ; more recently , historians have understood how his power related to the Creek matrilineal culture and his heritage . Early life and education . " Taskanugi Hatke " ( White Warrior ) was born in the Lower Towns in present - day Georgia to " Senoya " ( also spelled " Senoia " and " Senoy " ) , a member of the Wind Clan , which was prominent in the Creek Nation . As the Creek had a matrilineal system of property and hereditary leadership , his mother ' s status determined that of White Warrior . Also called William McIntosh , the boy had a Scots - American father , Captain William McIntosh , connected to a prominent Savannah , Georgia family . Captain McIntosh , a Loyalist , had worked with the Creek to recruit them as allies to the British during the American Revolutionary War . His mother was Jennet ( or Janet in some sources ) McGillivray , believed to have been a sister of the Scot Lachlan McGillivray , a wealthy fur trader and planter in Georgia , who was of the Clan MacGillivray Chiefs Lineage ) . After the war , Captain McIntosh moved to Savannah and married his cousin , Barbara McIntosh . White Warrior gained his status and place among the Creek from his mother ' s clan . 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 . He commented in letters to President Thomas Jefferson that Creek women were matriarchs and had control of children " when connected with a white man . " Hawkins further observed that even wealthy traders were nearly as " inattentive " to their mixed - race children as " the Indians " . What he did not understand about the Creek culture was that the children had a closer relationship with their mother ' s eldest brother than with their biological father , because of the importance of the clan structure . Through both his mother and father , McIntosh was related to numerous other influential Creek chiefs , many of whom at the time were of mixed race . They were descendants of strategic marriages between high - status Creek women and the mostly Scots fur traders in the area . The most prominent was Alexander McGillivray , the son of Sehoy , a Wind Clan mother , and Lachlan McGillivray ; and William Weatherford ( better known in history as Red Eagle or " Lamochatta " ) , also born to the Wind Clan . Both men became well established as Creek chiefs and wealthy planters but Weatherford became aligned with the traditionalist Red Sticks of the Upper Towns . Marriage and children . McIntosh married a Creek woman named Susanna Coe , and they had several children , including a son named Chilly . Two of their daughters married the brothers Samuel and Benjamin Hawkins . As a successful Creek man , McIntosh took a second wife , Peggy , who was Cherokee . His third wife lived on a plantation 50 miles away . She was Eliza Hawkins , the daughter of Stephen Hawkins . Personal . William McIntosh was of mixed Creek and European descent , chiefly Scots . As his mother was Creek , he was raised as a member of her clan within the Creek nation , which was matrilineal . His father was Captain William McIntosh , part of the powerful McGillivray family of Savannah . The son McIntosh became a wealthy planter and slaveholder ; he was influential in both Creek and European - American society . This pattern was similar to that of several of his high - ranking , mixed - race Creek relatives . For generations , Creek chiefs had approved their daughters ' marriages to fur traders in order to strengthen their alliances and trading power with the wealthy Europeans . Career . McIntosh used his influence to improve a route from Talladega , Alabama to his ferry on the Chattahoochee River , which was a source of revenue . Parts of it are still referred to as the McIntosh Road . He also developed a plantation and owned black slaves . The Creek were forced to cede lands to the United States in the early 1800s . While influential , McIntosh was said to have collaborated with the US Indian Agent Mitchell on defrauding the Creek of annuity monies from their land cessions . After the United States prohibited the international slave trade in 1808 , he arranged to smuggle African slaves into the Mississippi Territory from Spanish Florida . The Creek Nation struggled with internal tensions after the American Revolutionary War and during the War of 1812 , when both sides tried to engage them as allies . The Lower Towns , which comprised the majority , were adapting some elements of European culture , as had been encouraged by the British and later Americans . This included education in English ; for some , adoption of Christianity ; as well as forms of European dress and houses - to show they were equally " civilized " . They expanded their farms and some of the elite purchased chattel African slaves to work their plantations . Internal Creek tensions resulted in the Creek War ( 1813 - 1814 ) , when the Red Sticks of the Upper Towns attacked some Lower Creek settlements . McIntosh and other Lower Creek allied with United States forces against them after 1813 . McIntosh fought with General Andrew Jackson and state militias in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , marking the defeat of the Red Sticks and the end of the Creek War . He was made a brigadier general . After the wars , European - American settlers were increasingly migrating to the interior of the Southeast from the coastal areas . First Seminole War . Remnants of Creek , other American Indian tribes , and fugitive slaves had migrated to Spanish Florida during the late 18th century , when they formed a new tribe , known as the Seminole . Georgia slaves had escaped and also taken refuge in Spanish - held Florida , where the Crown offered them freedom and land . After the War of 1812 , the British withdrew and turned over Fort Gadsden , on the lower Apalachicola River , to blacks in the area . It was occupied by about 300 black men , women , and children , 20 renegade Choctaw , and a few Seminole warriors , led by a black named Garcon . Georgia slaveholders called it the " Negro Fort , " and worried that the independence of the blacks would encourage their slaves to escape or rebel . McIntosh fought for the United States in the First Seminole War and helped capture Fort Gadsden . When the Americans shot a heated cannonball into the fort , it struck the magazine and set off a huge explosion . Most of the people within the fort died immediately . Letter to Madison . In 1817 McIntosh wrote to President James Madison , telling him that the more influential Cherokee leaders of mixed blood wanted to swap their land with the US government , which had been pushing for American Indian removal west of the Mississippi River . He wrote that the " not so much civilized " full bloods feared that the mixed - bloods would swap all the Cherokee land , leaving them " without any land to walk on . " African importation case of 1820 . After President James Monroe came to office , in November 1817 his administration appointed David Brydie Mitchell as US Indian agent to the Creek . Mitchell had formerly been the governor of Georgia ( 1809 - 1813 ) ( 1815 - 1817 ) , as well as holding other posts in the state . He and McIntosh became implicated in the African importation case of 1820 , tried as " Miguel de Castro v . Ninety - five African Negros " ( 1819 - 1820 ) in Admiralty Court , because it was in violation of the US law , effective 1808 , to end the international slave trade . The Africans had been taken by the privateer " Commodore " Aury from a Spanish ship bound for Havana , and transported to Amelia Island off Florida , for smuggling into the United States . McIntosh and Mitchell discussed accepting the slaves under Creek sovereignty independent of the United States . Treaty of Indian Springs , 1825 . Under pressure from the United States and the state of Georgia , some Creek chiefs had ceded land . The United States was trying to encourage the Creek and other Southeast tribes to cede their lands in exchange for payments and land west of the Mississippi River , in what was called Indian Territory ( present - day Oklahoma and Arkansas . ) The National Council , including McIntosh , passed legislation making it a capital crime to alienate communal land . On February 12 , 1825 , McIntosh and eight other chiefs , including his sons - in - law Samuel and Benjamin Hawkins , signed the Treaty of Indian Springs . They ceded all the Creek land in Georgia to the United States in exchange for $ 200 , 000 . The fifth article of the treaty stipulated , " That the treaty commissioners pay the first $ 200 , 000 directly to the McIntosh party . " Historians continue to argue over whether McIntosh ceded the land for personal gain , or because he believed removal was inevitable and he was trying to achieve some security for the Creek Nation . Death . The National Council ruled that the signatories had to be executed for ceding the land . On April 30 , 1825 , the Red Stick leader " Menawa , " and 120 - 150 Law Menders from towns in the ceded territory , set McIntosh ' s house on fire . McIntosh escaped from the house with " Etommee Tustunnuggee , " another Creek chief who signed the 1825 treaty . They were killed by gunfire . Later that day , the Law Menders found the Hawkins brothers ; they hanged Samuel and shot Benjamin , but he escaped . Members of the National Council , including Menawa , went to Washington to protest the 1825 treaty . The US government rejected the 1825 treaty as fraudulent , and negotiated the 1826 Treaty of Washington , which allowed the Creek to keep about in Alabama . In this new treaty , the Creek received an immediate payment of $ 217 , 660 and a perpetual annuity of $ 20 , 000 . The state of Georgia ignored the new treaty and worked to evict the Creek from their lands before removal started in the 1830s . His interment was at the McIntosh Reserve in Carroll County , Georgia .