Family Ties: the Wind Clan of the Creek

For our second theme week, we're looking at families who co-existed and intermarried Natives.  In the centuries before Indian Removal, such interracial marriage didn't carry the stigma it did in later years.  One such family was the extended children, grandchildren and in-laws of three Coushatta Creek womenn named Sehoy.

As with many Eastern Woodlands societies, the Creek or Muscogee traced kinship snd inheritance through the female line.  Children were born into their mother's clan and inherited their property and status though her clan.  In Creek society, the most prestigeous clan was the Wind Clan and, though Wind women weren't princesses, they had a great deal to offer their children in terms of status.  The fact that some of these children were mixed-race wasn't held against them.  If their mother was Creek, so were they, no distinction made about blood quantum

The story begins with a woman named Sehoy (1702-1772), called Sehoy I to avoid confusion.  Sehoy married a Frenchman named Louis Marchand.  Louis was a captain of French Royal Marines stationed at Fort Toulouse in what is now Elmore County, Alabama.  He and Sehoy I had two children.  A boy, Red Shoes, who became a Creek chief, and a girl, Sehoy II.   Then Louis was killed a mutiny in 1722 and Sehoy married a Choctaw chief.  One of their daughters married a White silversmith with the last name of Francis.  Their son, Josiah, whom we already met, would become the Red Stick prophet.

Meanwhile, Sehoy II grew up and married a Scottish trader, Lachlan McGillivray.  They had a son, Alexander.  Though Lachlan provided his son with a White education, Uncle Red Shoes gave Alexander his warrior training and sponsored his rise as an up-and-coming leader.

Straightforward so far, but then it gets real confusing, so hang on.  Sehoy II and Lachland had several daughters.  One of them, Sehoy III would marry a man named Weatherford and their son, William, became Red Stick war leader William Weatherford, or Red Eagle, whom we've run across in the Creek War.

Sehoy III's sister Betsy would marry a man named Durant and their daughter would marry Peter McQueen, another Red Stick leader.

Meanwhile, Lachlan McGillivray had died and Sehoy II married again to a man named McPherson.  Their daughter would marry into the McIntosh family and bear a son William, who became a chief, as well.  William was of the White Stick faction and would be assassinated by his own people for signing away Creek land in treaties.  Even in a close family, there's drama.

Then McPherson died and Sehoy II married again, to a man named Moniac.  Though it wasn't the done thing for a man and woman of the same clan to marry, their daughter Hannah married her cousin Josish Francis and had daughters, one of whom was Milly, whom we've seen in a previous post.

Sehoy II and Moniac's son Sam also married a cousin and his son, Major David Moniac, grew up to do the family proud before being killed in battle in 1836.

And just to show that all this chaos does make perfect sense, David married Polly Powell, a sister or cousin of Osceola and great-niece of Peter McQueen.