Indian Agent: Benjamin Hawkins

Indian Agents played many roles.  They were both ambassador and consul, representing and executing the wishes of their government to the Native tribe or tribes to which they were assigned, and consul in transmitting the needs and grievance of the Natives to Washington.  In addition to seeing that Natives were treated fairly by traders, and that unlicensed or unscrupulous traders were weeded out, they also tried to keep trespassers off tribal land and ease the tensions between Natives and Settlers as best they could.  However, there was another side to Indian Agents, one that was never far from the surface.  We've seen how British Indian Agent William Johnson enriched himself with thousands of acres of Mohawk land given to hi as "gifts".  We've also seen how George Croghan, despite the general respect in which Natives held him, used his position as Johnson's deputy to enrich his own fur trading empire.  Being an Indian Agent could be a lucrative position, whether in terms of land, kickbacks from trading companies and the like.  And, it allowed opportunity for Whites to gain unprecedented access to Native society, often disrupting it beyond repair as Agents were apt to go outside the traditional process to elevate men as leaders with whom they thought they could deal, play some leaders or factions off the other, and generally involve themselves in tribal business.

Benjamin Hawkins (1754-1816), one of the first Indian Agents for the new United States government, fit the bill on many of these points.  Hawkins was born in what is now Warren County, North Carolina to a planter family and attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).  He quit school to join the Continental Army and rose through the ranks, becoming a member of Washington's staff.  He was discharged from the army and served both in the North Carolina legislature and later as a delegate for NC in the Continental Congress.  He was a delegate to the stat constitutional convention that ratified the Constitution.  Then, he became a U.S. Senator from North Carolina.  Thus, he was a career politician who made sure he made all the right moves in his career. 

His first foray into Indian affairs came in 1785, when Hawkins represented the Continental Congress in a proposed treaty with the Creeks over land concessions.  He was unsuccessful in concluding a treaty, but did convince the Creeks to tone down their raids after George Washington became involved in the negotiations at Hawkins' request.  In 1786, he and two others concluded a treaty with the Choctaw which set out the boundaries of their land and provisions for amicable relations between the tribe and the government.  In 1789, he was dispatched once more to the Creeks, to assess the boundaries of their land.  After some initial resistance, the Creeks agreed and found that there were relatively few trespassers on their land who were soon evicted. 

In 1796, Washington appointed his old staff officer as General Superintendent of Indian Affairs, dealing with all tribes south of the Ohio River.  He moved to Crawford County in Georgia and established a Creek Agency.  He also took the trouble to learn Creek, and was soon respected by them and adopted into the tribe.  He also began to teach the Creek European farming methods and this is where the line blurs.  As his farm grew, he also hired Black slaves to do some of the work.  He kept acquiring more land for his personal use.  Creek leaders were welcome at his home and he was often able to assist in settling disputes and generally won the respect of the tribe.  In all, he kept the peace for 19 years and when a fort was built east of where Macon, Georgia now stands, it was named Fort Benjamin Hawkins. 

However, there were some Crreks and Creek leaders were less than happy with the amount of American involvement in tribal business and weren't reconciled to Hawkins at all.  They coalesced around the Red Stick faction in 1812.  Hawkins, understanding better than anyone that this conflict was an internal Creek war and not a general Native uprising, helped organize willing warriors under William McIntosh's command.  He was present with the Native contingent when Georgia and Tennessee militias fought skirmishes against the Red Sticks that were generally not successful.  Things changed when Andrew Jackson took command, and eventually defeated the Red Sticks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.  Despite his amicable relations with the tribe, Hawkins pressured Creek leaders to agree to the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814, which exacted punishing land concessions on the Creeks.  He also rallied pro-American warriors to face any British threat in Georgia, but the war was soon over.  He died in what is now Roberta, Georgia and was buried along the Flint River.  Sources differ on whether his wife, Lavinia Downs, was or was not partially Creek, thus giving his children status among the tribe even after his death.