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Published Tuesday, June 30, 2009 in Local

Author in Newnan for book signing

By Winston Skinner

The Times-Herald

Billie Jane McIntosh, a great-great-great-granddaughter of Chief William McIntosh, will be in Coweta County -- named in his honor as chief of the Cowetas -- Wednesday.

Ms. McIntosh, who arrived for her Georgia visit last Wednesday, explained that the Creek people were often associated with the town where they lived. Since William McIntosh was chief of Coweta, the people who lived there were referred to as "the Cowetas" and McIntosh as "chief of the Cowetas," she said.

Ms. McIntosh will be autographing copies of her new book, "From Georgia Tragedy To Oklahoma Frontier: A Biography of Scots Creek Indian Chief Chilly McIntosh," at Scott's Bookstore in downtown Newnan on Wednesday from 3-4:30 p.m.

Later that day she will give a talk about Chilly McIntosh's service as a Baptist minister. That event will be at 7:30 p.m. at Mt. Zion Baptist Church near Alvaton in Meriwether County. Refreshments will be served afterward, when Ms. McIntosh will sign copies of her book.

Thursday -- in a room bedecked with the flag of the United States and 19 other countries, Ms. McIntosh talked about the Creek Nation and her ancestors. The Muscogeee Genealogical Society sponsored a lunch-and-learn featuring the author in the Sara D. Spencer Event Hall at International House on the Columbus State University campus.

Later that afternoon, she visited Ft. Mitchell in Alabama.

Coweta, "the largest town in the Creek Nation," she said, was located just north of present day Columbus. Chilly McIntosh, William's oldest son and Billie Jane McIntosh's great-great-grandfather, was elected chief at Ft. Mitchell about the time he was 21 years old.

Ms. McIntosh's latest book was published earlier this year. At the Columbus State event, all available copies of the book were sold -- including the one the author brought with her.

While Billie Jane McIntosh has a quiet, contemplative side, she also showed her enjoyment in meeting new people in Columbus and later at events in Indian Springs and Whitesburg. "That's one thing about writing -- you make so many friends," she said.

While in western Georgia, she also shared her passion for telling the story -- the real story -- of her family. Ms. McIntosh's father said little about his Indian forbears, and she grew up feeling that people who knew of her ancestry would dislike her.

As a young mother, she began a McIntosh family file. Her research has led to two books so far -- the biography of Chilly and an earlier book about his sister, Jane McIntosh Hawkins. Billie Jane McIntosh has spent years researching Creek history and culture. Romanticized and overly simple analyses of Creek life can be frustrating to her.

Chilly McIntosh is a human illustration of how complex life could be for Creeks -- particularly Creeks of mixed blood -- in the early 1800s. As a young man, Chilly McIntosh often moved between the white and Indian worlds of that day. He was light on his feet at a dance and was considered handsome whether he was wearing the suit of a white gentleman or the colorful clothing of his mother's people.

A white woman who met Chilly in the 1820s wrote he was "the handsomest man I've ever seen."

"Chilly had white McIntosh relatives who lived on the Georgia coast. He had Creek relatives who lived on the Georgia-Alabama border," his descendant said.

"He was sent to white mission schools," she said. At 18, Chilly McIntosh was sent to study in Milledgeville, then the state capital.

Ms. McIntosh talked about contrasts between the Lower Creeks, including the McIntoshes, and the Upper Creeks. The Lower Creeks welcomed the European settlers and generally favored having mission schools, learning English and living much like the newcomers. The Upper Creeks, who were concentrated around the Tallapoosa River in what is now Alabama, rejected western ways and held fast to their language and traditions.

Sometimes called "the hostiles," the Upper Creeks "wanted to stick to the old ways," she said.

"They would get together and unify for a meeting," Ms. McIntosh said. Despite those gatherings -- including some with Chilly as the clerk -- the two groups often were on opposite sides of conflicts including wars between European powers fighting for control of their land.

As time passed, more and more Creek land came into the hands of the state or federal governments. There were cessions of land in 1790, 1805 and 1818. By far the largest transfer of property was after the Red Stick War in 1814. A large L-shaped piece of land that included significant parts of what is now Georgia and Alabama was lost by the Creeks.

Under the influence of Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader, the Upper Creeks sought to drive out the whites in 1814. "By that time, it was really impossible to do something like that," the author stated.

In early 1825, Marquis de Lafayette visited the United States. Chilly McIntosh escorted the hero across the Chattahoochee "on their way to Ft. Mitchell," Ms. McIntosh said.

Later that year, Chief William McIntosh -- as speaker for the Creek Nation -- signed the Treaty of Indian Springs that opened west central Georgia to settlement. Chilly McIntosh, as clerk of the Creeks, witnessed the treaty.

"Chilly was the eldest son of Chief William McIntosh. Chilly was the only son for 21 years," Billie Jane McIntosh said. Chilly McIntosh was greatly influenced by his father. His mother was Eliza Grierson/Greison McIntosh. She also was of mixed heritage. Her father was a trader, and Greison Trail in Newnan is a remnant of a path her father used in trading with the Indians. Cattle trading made Grierson wealthy.

Eliza McIntosh's mother was an Upper Creek.

Many Creeks were polygamous. William McIntosh subsequently married two Cherokee women and had three more sons.

William McIntosh was murdered by Creeks angry over the treaty. The killing took place at his home at McIntosh Reserve near what is now Whitesburg. "They didn't get Chilly. I'm glad -- since I'm his great-great-granddaughter," the writer said with a smile.

"He had a strong body and could swim across that river fast," she said, "When Chilly's father died in 1825," he became the head of the family, she noted.

In 1827, Chilly McIntosh led the first group of 738 Creeks -- "family, friends and some slaves" -- to Indian Territory, McIntosh said. "They became landowners, ranchers, farmers."

Some were entrepreneurs -- operating trading posts and toll bridges. Many became educators and -- converting to Christianity -- clergy.

The move of the Creeks from Georgia to Oklahoma shows "how a tribe was pushed out of their homeland by a tsunami of emigrants," Billie Jane McIntosh reflected.

"We're always complaining about how our culture is changing. Imagine how the Native Americans felt in the 1830s with their culture being pulled right out from under them," observed Callie McGinnis of the MHS.

By the time Chilly McIntosh began leading his people west, there were four Europeans for every Indian in what is now western Georgia. "They needed land for farms," she said.

Though the forced removal of the Indians certainly had a cruel aspect, Billie Jane McIntosh said it was partly benevolent, as well. Government leaders sent the Indians to Oklahoma in part so the Native Americans could "be protected from the unruly colonists who were treating them like wild animals," she said.

Historians have looked at William McIntosh through varying lenses. Some have seen him as a visionary who saw the coming future and made the best deal he could for his people. Others have depicted him as a self-serving traitor.

Menewa, one of the Creeks involved in his murder, later said that -- if he had it to do over again -- he would go after "those who lied to me about him."

Billie Jane McIntosh spent Saturday at Indian Springs in Butts County. Chief McIntosh built the Indian Spring Hotel, which still stands and where he signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, in 1825.

She has also given two talks in Carrollton, read to children at the Whitesburg Public Library and spoken after a Monday picnic at McIntosh Reserve south of Whitesburg. Today she is in Tuscumbia, Ala., which also has a historical association with her great-great-grandfather.

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