As we've seen from the previous post, McGillivray was willing to treaty with anyone and everyone if it meant keeping his people safe and united. He had been a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War and his personal sympathies lay with the British. But he was pragmatic enough to see that the British weren't coming back to American anytime soon, so he was willing to deal with the new United States Government. He met with representatives of the Washington Administration at Rock Landing, Georgia in 1789 and didn't like what he was hearing. He left the talks and wrote directly to President Washington, complaining of the Indian Commissioners sent to negotiate the treaty. Washington sent a personal emissary, Colonel Marius Willett, to Georgia to speak to McGillivray and persuade him to come to New York to speak to Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox directly. This was more risky than it sounded. Other Native leaders who had put themselves in the hands of the Americans hadn't faired so well, see the post of Cornstalk of the Shawnee. Nevertheless, McGillivray agreed to go.Henry Knox was a former bookseller from Boston who'd discovered an odd-ball talent for artillery during the Revolutionary War, becoming Washington's top artillery commander and a personal trusted friend. Over three hundred pounds with a generally likeable spirit, it was Knox who, in concert with his commander, developed some basic ideas behind US Indian policy. First, they believed it was the prerogative of the federal government, not the states or private individuals, to make treaties with the tribes. Second, they believe that Native nations were sovereign entities who needed to be treated as such when it came to treaties asking them to cede land. However, because they were not separate nations, treaty-making with the tribes fell under the purview of the War Department, not the State Department.
McGillivray and several other Creek/Muscogee leaders arrived, having the power to treat for the Upper, Lower and Middle Creek towns, as well as the Seminoles in Florida. McGillivray and Knox developed a rapport and soon agreed a treaty whereby the Creek agreed to cede some land in exchange for keeping other portions of their ancestral territory. The Creek agreed to turn over any runaway slaves in their territory, though both Knox and McGillivray realized that likely wasn't going to happen. Creeks had the right to punish White trespassers on their land, but had to turn over persons, Creek or White, suspected of more serious or violent crimes. There was a secret corollary to this treaty. McGillivray himself received a Brigadier General's commission in the United States army, and permission to import goods through the port of Pensacola without paying duty fees. Whether Knox suspected that McGillivray held stock in the Pensacola firm of Panton, Leslie, or also had a similar agreement with Spanish authorities in Florida know one knows, but it was likely that he did. Washington met with McGillivray and the other leaders and presented McGillivray with a pocket watch that has been featured on the History Channel's series, Cajun Pawn Stars. While this would be looked upon in a modern context as self-dealing an unethical for Knox to offer and McGillivray to accept, per the customs of the time, gifts were always exchanged between Native leaders and governmental authorities in a treaty parley. Commissioning McGillivray would make it easier to recruit the Creek as auxiliaries if either the British came back for a rematch or the Spanish decided to use Florida as a base for an offensive, and giving the Natives the right to import trade goods duty free was cheaper than paying an annuity, so the arrangement benefitted all sides.
This treaty was the first treaty under the new federal government of the United States and was the first time Natives had come to the Nation's Capital to negotiate a treaty, rather than commissioners going to them. Native delegations would become a frequent site in New York, Philadelphia and later D.C.
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