Great Leader: Benjamin Perryman of the Creek

Some leaders shape events, others are left to make the best of a bad situation.  Benjamin Perryman, the subject of an 1836 painting by George Catlin at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, falls into the latter category.

Benjamin Perryman was the son of a Settler named Theodore Perryman, and of a Creek woman.  He had a brother named Samuel.  The two Perryman sons took their status from their mother's family and Benjamin became the headman of a town in Alabama.  He sided with the White Stick faction of the Creeks represented by William McIntosh, though he wasn't known to be the signatory of any treaties ceding Creek land.  After McIntosh and his sons were condemned for ceding Creek land and McIntosh executed in 1825, his sons fled to Oklahoma with families who were either allied by marriage or otherwise supported them.  Benjamin and Samuel Perryman their families chose to remove to Oklahoma, years before the rest of their people did so.

Once in Oklahoma, the Creeks and other tribes tried to reconstitute their society as best they could.  Chili McIntosh asserted his father's claim as leader of the Creeks, a position that many of his fellow Creeks adamantly disagreed with.  The dispute was settled by the commander at Fort Gibson, Col. Arbuckle, who mediated in favor of McIntosh.  Perryman was present at this counsel and signed the written agreement that arose from it.  He was also present at another counsel at Fort Gibson in 1834.  He lived out the remainder of his life in Oklahoma.  Two of his descendants were David McKellop Hodge, a translator and lawyer in Oklahoma Territory, and Pleasant Porter, Principal Chief of the Creek Nation, 1899-1907.