Mary Musgrove
Encyclopedia
Mary Musgrove facilitated in the development of Colonial Georgia
and became an important intermediary between Creek Indians
and the English
colonists. She bridged the gap between two distinctly different societies and became a cultural mediator, who not only translated but counseled those who acknowledged her capabilities. She attempted to carve out a life that merged both cultures and fought for her rights in both worlds.
Born Coosaponakeesa, she was the daughter of a Yamacraw
Creek Indian woman and Edward Griffin, a Carolina trader from Charles Town, South Carolina. Her mother died when she was nine years old, and soon after, she was taken into custody of her father. She later became known by her Christian and married names, Mary Musgrove Matthews Bosomworth.She decided that she would be named Mary by having her father read her a story of a woman who was royal from the bible. Coosaponakeesa was born in the key Creek town of Coweta, and she came from a prestigious matrilineal family. Her mother was claimed to be the sister of Brims, an important headman of Coweta.
Coweta was connected by a trading path to the Upper Creek town of Tuckabatchee. It is likely that Coosaponakeesa’s family traveled, traded, and lived in both towns and had kin in each town, which may account for some historians considering her a Tuckabachee Creek. Coosaponakeesa herself stated she was born in Coweta and lived with the Creeks until the age of seven when she “was brought Down by her Father from the Indian Nation to Pomponne in South Carolina; There baptized, Educated and bred up in the principles of Christianity.” After being baptized her Christian name became Mary. Mary continued to live in Pon Pon until the Yamasee War
of 1715 broke out and then she returned to her Creek home.
Captain John Musgrove Sr. was a South Carolina trader and planter. He was employed by the Carolina
Assembly to arrange peace between the Creeks and the English. Musgrove’s party was welcomed in Coweta by “Chieftainess Qua” who most probably was the elder sister of Brims, and if not her mother, at least the aunt of Mary. John Musgrow met the Coweta headman Brims, who the English had earlier designated as “Emperor” so that in the eyes of the English at least Brims could speak for the other Chiefs or headmen. In talks with Brims it was decided a young niece from Brims family would be betrothed to Musgrove’s son, so as to maintain the native rules of kinship and reciprocity and thus help reinforce the peace treaty. Captain Musgrove was married to a Creek woman and therefore his son Johnny Musgrove, like Mary, was of “mixed blood.”
Mary and Johnny Musgrove in time married and lived amongst her Coweta kin which was the traditional practice of matrilineal cultures such as the Creeks. But in 1725 the couple moved to Pon Pon. By the 1730s they had four sons, but none of their children lived to adulthood. John and Mary owned land in Colleton County and in 1732 they were asked by the Carolina Governor and the Yamacraws, a group of Creeks and Yamasees, to start a trading post near the Savannah River
. Their trading post was well established by the time James Oglethorpe
(1696-1785) and his colonists landed near Georgia.
James Oglethorpe
and a group of trustees had been granted a Royal charter
by King George II
(r. 1727-1760) to start a settlement colony in Georgia. Oglethorpe, a pastor, a physician and 114 colonists arrived in Charles Town in January 1733 before embarking south to ascertain a suitable site. Oglethorpe met the chief of the Yamacraw
s, Tomochichi
(d. 1739) on February 1, 1733 and after several weeks of ritual kinship building on Tomochichi’s part and Oglethorpe’s responsive acts of reciprocity, quasi-kinship ties were established. Tomochichi granted land to Oglethorpe which violated previous Creek Treaties with South Carolina that prohibited English settlements south of the Savannah River
. A three day conference was held which resulted in the Articles of Peace and Commerce allowing Oglethorpe to settle “upon the river Savannah as far as the tide flowed and along the Sea Coast, excepting the three Islands, Sapalo [Sapelo], St. Catherine’s and Ossabaw.”
John Musgrove traveled as the interpreter for Tomochichi, his wife and other Creeks who sailed with Oglethorpe to England to meet the King In 1734. During this time the Musgrove’s English partner Joseph Watson drank heavily, caused extensive problems in the trading post, bragged that he helped an Indian drink himself to death, slandered Mary as a witch, tried to shoot her, and caused a sequence of events where Musgrove’s slave Justice was killed. Mary filed actions against Watson, who was fined, but in the end he had to be jailed for his own protection.
On June 12, 1735 John Musgrove died of a fever. Mary married her former English indentured servant Jacob Matthews who was several years her junior in the spring of 1737. Between 1737 and 1738 Mary assisted Oglethorpe in securing land sessions from the Creeks. Under his request she established trading posts along the Altamaha so as to monitor Creek loyalty and Spanish activities. Both trading posts had to be eventually abandoned causing financial losses for Mary. For a decade Mary continued to be interpreter, mediator, and advisor to Oglethorpe helping him to secure treaties and land cessions. The minister John Wesley (1703-1791) also visited her and commented that “Tomochichi’s interpreter was one Mrs. Musgrove. She understands both languages, being educated amongst the English. She can read and write, and is a well-civilized women. She is likewise to teach us the Indian tongue.”
Mary became a widow once more in 1742. The next year Oglethorpe left for London and never returned to Georgia, leaving Mary £100, an unfulfilled promise of £100 a year, and the diamond ring from his finger. Though Oglethorpe had relied on Mary as an important intercessor who entertained important leaders and helped keep Creeks aligned with English interests, the remaining trustees and leaders did not.
she had moved cattle and started plowing fields and constructing buildings.
After many memorials and petitions Mary chose to invite Creek headmen to Savannah to collect their gifts and help convince the English to recognize her Creek land grants.
Malatchi and others arrived in the summer of 1749 but Mary was ignored as a translator and had to wait outside of the conference. After several hours an angry and humiliated Mary interrupted the meeting and started to give her speech before the male assembly. One white eyewitness scorned her actions:
[She] rushed into the Room, in the most violent and outrageous manner, that a Woman spirited up with Liquor, Drunk with passion, and disappointed in her Views could be guilty of…declared, She was Empress of the Upper and Lower Creeks, Yea, went so far in her imaginary Sovereignty, as to call herself King, and that she should command every Man in these Nations to follow her, and We should soon know it our cost.
Her angry outburst outraged the colonial magistrates who then arrested her. Thomas Bosomworth had to publicly apologize for her and promise no future outbursts. Mary’s behavior also estranged her from her male kin and she spent the next year in the Creek Nation trying to restore her standing. By 1752 the Bosomworths were in Charles Town waiting to sail to England to plead their case in person. They were delayed for two years as they assisted the South Carolina governor in establishing peace between the Creek and the Cherokee. After a year in England the Bosomworths came back to Savannah empty handed. With the arrival of Henry Ellis the new governor of Georgia in 1757 the problem was begrudgingly settled. Mary and Thomas were given title to St. Catherines Island
and gave up the other two islands and the Yamacraw lands which were to be sold and the proceeds given to Mary for her past salary and losses. The matter was finally resolved in 1759 with Mary’s acceptance of £2100.00. Governor Ellis utilized Mary’s talents as representative, interpreter and mediator a few last times before she settled quietly on St. Catherines Island
. Mary Musgrove Matthews Bosomworth died in the summer of 1765.
Creek society was matrilineal; therefore a person’s status and identity were determined through their mother. Fathers were not considered blood relatives, but only related by marriage. Both males and females traced their ancestral lineage through their mother and social connections were based on matrilineal kinships. Several matrilineal kinship groups claimed the same mythical ancestor thus forming a clan, such as the Wind, Bear, or Turtle clans. The Creeks consisted of many clans and there were over thirty to forty different known clans to have existed within the Creek nation.
The Creeks, like many kinship based societies, did not know how to behave or respond to people who were not connected by lines of kinship. Therefore Creeks created kinship ties by adoption or marriage, but also through rituals fashioned to signify simulated kinship relationships. Mary Musgrove’s first marriage was one such example of using marriage to create kinship ties with whites. Tomochichi’s initial encounters with James Oglethorpe were designed to create fictitious lines of kinship to facilitate reciprocity.
Creek women could own land and possessions separate from their husbands. Mothers had control over their children and supervised their upbringing. Benjamin Hawkins
an Indian agent felt “that a white man by marrying an Indian woman of the Creek nation so far from bettering his condition becomes a slave of her family.” A more sympathetic onlooker was the naturalist William Bartram
who noted that “the traders are fully sensible how greatly it is to their advantage to gain their [Creek women’s] affections and friendship in matters of trade and commerce.” White traders married Creek women to gain kinship ties and these mixed marriages produced children that technically spanned two cultures. Coosaponakeesa was one of these children.
The only blood relatives in Creek society were that of the mother, fathers were not considered to be a blood relation but only related by marriage and the rules of kinship. Therefore a child’s closest and most important male relatives were their maternal uncles. Which was why Brims arranged the marriage of his niece and she referred to him in her demand to be recognized as an important Creek woman. “Mixed blood” Indians in white society and culture were considered important intermediates in the early development of European goals of colonizing, trade, and land acquisition, but they were still not considered white and therefore maintained marginal status in the white world. “Mixed blood” children bridged two cultures, but because of the matrilineal customs there was no marginal status in Creek society for women like Mary Musgrove and others in the Muskogee world.
America,1685-1815. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Green, Michael D. The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
Purdue, Theda. “Native Women in the Early Republic: Old World Perceptions, New World
Realities,” in Ronald Hoffman and Frederick Hoxie, ed., Native Americans in the Early Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999).
Saunt, Claudio. A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek
Indians, 1733-1816. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Wickman, Patricia Riles, The Tree that Bends: Discourse, Power, and the Survival of the
Maskoki People. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999.
Province of Georgia
The Province of Georgia was one of the Southern colonies in British America. It was the last of the thirteen original colonies established by Great Britain in what later became the United States...
and became an important intermediary between Creek Indians
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
and the English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
colonists. She bridged the gap between two distinctly different societies and became a cultural mediator, who not only translated but counseled those who acknowledged her capabilities. She attempted to carve out a life that merged both cultures and fought for her rights in both worlds.
Born Coosaponakeesa, she was the daughter of a Yamacraw
Yamacraw
The Yamacraw were a Native American tribe which settled parts of Georgia, specifically around the future site of the city of Savannah.- History :...
Creek Indian woman and Edward Griffin, a Carolina trader from Charles Town, South Carolina. Her mother died when she was nine years old, and soon after, she was taken into custody of her father. She later became known by her Christian and married names, Mary Musgrove Matthews Bosomworth.She decided that she would be named Mary by having her father read her a story of a woman who was royal from the bible. Coosaponakeesa was born in the key Creek town of Coweta, and she came from a prestigious matrilineal family. Her mother was claimed to be the sister of Brims, an important headman of Coweta.
Coweta was connected by a trading path to the Upper Creek town of Tuckabatchee. It is likely that Coosaponakeesa’s family traveled, traded, and lived in both towns and had kin in each town, which may account for some historians considering her a Tuckabachee Creek. Coosaponakeesa herself stated she was born in Coweta and lived with the Creeks until the age of seven when she “was brought Down by her Father from the Indian Nation to Pomponne in South Carolina; There baptized, Educated and bred up in the principles of Christianity.” After being baptized her Christian name became Mary. Mary continued to live in Pon Pon until the Yamasee War
Yamasee War
The Yamasee War was a conflict between British settlers of colonial South Carolina and various Native American Indian tribes, including the Yamasee, Muscogee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Catawba, Apalachee, Apalachicola, Yuchi, Savannah River Shawnee, Congaree, Waxhaw, Pee Dee, Cape Fear, Cheraw, and...
of 1715 broke out and then she returned to her Creek home.
Captain John Musgrove Sr. was a South Carolina trader and planter. He was employed by the Carolina
Province of Carolina
The Province of Carolina, originally chartered in 1629, was an English and later British colony of North America. Because the original Heath charter was unrealized and was ruled invalid, a new charter was issued to a group of eight English noblemen, the Lords Proprietors, in 1663...
Assembly to arrange peace between the Creeks and the English. Musgrove’s party was welcomed in Coweta by “Chieftainess Qua” who most probably was the elder sister of Brims, and if not her mother, at least the aunt of Mary. John Musgrow met the Coweta headman Brims, who the English had earlier designated as “Emperor” so that in the eyes of the English at least Brims could speak for the other Chiefs or headmen. In talks with Brims it was decided a young niece from Brims family would be betrothed to Musgrove’s son, so as to maintain the native rules of kinship and reciprocity and thus help reinforce the peace treaty. Captain Musgrove was married to a Creek woman and therefore his son Johnny Musgrove, like Mary, was of “mixed blood.”
Mary and Johnny Musgrove in time married and lived amongst her Coweta kin which was the traditional practice of matrilineal cultures such as the Creeks. But in 1725 the couple moved to Pon Pon. By the 1730s they had four sons, but none of their children lived to adulthood. John and Mary owned land in Colleton County and in 1732 they were asked by the Carolina Governor and the Yamacraws, a group of Creeks and Yamasees, to start a trading post near the Savannah River
Savannah River
The Savannah River is a major river in the southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of South Carolina and Georgia. Two tributaries of the Savannah, the Tugaloo River and the Chattooga River, form the northernmost part of the border...
. Their trading post was well established by the time James Oglethorpe
James Oglethorpe
James Edward Oglethorpe was a British general, member of Parliament, philanthropist, and founder of the colony of Georgia...
(1696-1785) and his colonists landed near Georgia.
Cultural mediator
James Oglethorpe
James Oglethorpe
James Edward Oglethorpe was a British general, member of Parliament, philanthropist, and founder of the colony of Georgia...
and a group of trustees had been granted a Royal charter
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...
by King George II
George II of Great Britain
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death.George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany...
(r. 1727-1760) to start a settlement colony in Georgia. Oglethorpe, a pastor, a physician and 114 colonists arrived in Charles Town in January 1733 before embarking south to ascertain a suitable site. Oglethorpe met the chief of the Yamacraw
Yamacraw
The Yamacraw were a Native American tribe which settled parts of Georgia, specifically around the future site of the city of Savannah.- History :...
s, Tomochichi
Tomochichi
Tomochichi was a seventeenth century Creek leader and the head chief of a Yamacraw town on the site of present day Savannah, Georgia. He remains a prominent character of early Georgia history...
(d. 1739) on February 1, 1733 and after several weeks of ritual kinship building on Tomochichi’s part and Oglethorpe’s responsive acts of reciprocity, quasi-kinship ties were established. Tomochichi granted land to Oglethorpe which violated previous Creek Treaties with South Carolina that prohibited English settlements south of the Savannah River
Savannah River
The Savannah River is a major river in the southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of South Carolina and Georgia. Two tributaries of the Savannah, the Tugaloo River and the Chattooga River, form the northernmost part of the border...
. A three day conference was held which resulted in the Articles of Peace and Commerce allowing Oglethorpe to settle “upon the river Savannah as far as the tide flowed and along the Sea Coast, excepting the three Islands, Sapalo [Sapelo], St. Catherine’s and Ossabaw.”
John Musgrove traveled as the interpreter for Tomochichi, his wife and other Creeks who sailed with Oglethorpe to England to meet the King In 1734. During this time the Musgrove’s English partner Joseph Watson drank heavily, caused extensive problems in the trading post, bragged that he helped an Indian drink himself to death, slandered Mary as a witch, tried to shoot her, and caused a sequence of events where Musgrove’s slave Justice was killed. Mary filed actions against Watson, who was fined, but in the end he had to be jailed for his own protection.
On June 12, 1735 John Musgrove died of a fever. Mary married her former English indentured servant Jacob Matthews who was several years her junior in the spring of 1737. Between 1737 and 1738 Mary assisted Oglethorpe in securing land sessions from the Creeks. Under his request she established trading posts along the Altamaha so as to monitor Creek loyalty and Spanish activities. Both trading posts had to be eventually abandoned causing financial losses for Mary. For a decade Mary continued to be interpreter, mediator, and advisor to Oglethorpe helping him to secure treaties and land cessions. The minister John Wesley (1703-1791) also visited her and commented that “Tomochichi’s interpreter was one Mrs. Musgrove. She understands both languages, being educated amongst the English. She can read and write, and is a well-civilized women. She is likewise to teach us the Indian tongue.”
Mary became a widow once more in 1742. The next year Oglethorpe left for London and never returned to Georgia, leaving Mary £100, an unfulfilled promise of £100 a year, and the diamond ring from his finger. Though Oglethorpe had relied on Mary as an important intercessor who entertained important leaders and helped keep Creeks aligned with English interests, the remaining trustees and leaders did not.
Later years
Mary Musgrove Matthews met the Reverend Thomas Bosomworth and they were married in July of 1744. Bosomworth ignored his ministerial duties and concentrated on helping Mary with her many enterprises. Back in 1738 Oglethorpe had met with Lower Creek town leaders. Mary had also attended as his interpreter but she was also there as recipient of lands from the Yamacraws. The bestowing of Indian lands to Mary in the presence of Oglethorpe implied English endorsement by default and created a series of legal battles that would last for twenty years. Bosomworth now attempted to help his wife in securing English title to the land. While waiting for a response to their case Mary sent a memorial to the Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Heron in Georgia requesting compensation for her past contributions to the Georgian colony and his Majesty’s subjects. Colonel Heron also noted that he “had personal knowledge of her merit since my first arrival in this country, and I am highly sensible of the singular service she has done the country (a great part of the expense of her own private fortune) in continuing the Creek Indians in friendship and alliance with the English.” While waiting on her replies from London, Mary received from Brims’ successor Malatchi the three islands of St. Catherine, Sapelo, and Ossabaw. On St. Catherines IslandSt. Catherines Island
St. Catherines Island, also known as Santa Catalina, is one of the Sea Islands or Golden Isles on the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia, 50 miles south of Savannah in Liberty County. The island is ten miles long and from one to three miles wide, located between St. Catherine's Sound and Sapelo...
she had moved cattle and started plowing fields and constructing buildings.
After many memorials and petitions Mary chose to invite Creek headmen to Savannah to collect their gifts and help convince the English to recognize her Creek land grants.
Malatchi and others arrived in the summer of 1749 but Mary was ignored as a translator and had to wait outside of the conference. After several hours an angry and humiliated Mary interrupted the meeting and started to give her speech before the male assembly. One white eyewitness scorned her actions:
[She] rushed into the Room, in the most violent and outrageous manner, that a Woman spirited up with Liquor, Drunk with passion, and disappointed in her Views could be guilty of…declared, She was Empress of the Upper and Lower Creeks, Yea, went so far in her imaginary Sovereignty, as to call herself King, and that she should command every Man in these Nations to follow her, and We should soon know it our cost.
Her angry outburst outraged the colonial magistrates who then arrested her. Thomas Bosomworth had to publicly apologize for her and promise no future outbursts. Mary’s behavior also estranged her from her male kin and she spent the next year in the Creek Nation trying to restore her standing. By 1752 the Bosomworths were in Charles Town waiting to sail to England to plead their case in person. They were delayed for two years as they assisted the South Carolina governor in establishing peace between the Creek and the Cherokee. After a year in England the Bosomworths came back to Savannah empty handed. With the arrival of Henry Ellis the new governor of Georgia in 1757 the problem was begrudgingly settled. Mary and Thomas were given title to St. Catherines Island
St. Catherines Island
St. Catherines Island, also known as Santa Catalina, is one of the Sea Islands or Golden Isles on the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia, 50 miles south of Savannah in Liberty County. The island is ten miles long and from one to three miles wide, located between St. Catherine's Sound and Sapelo...
and gave up the other two islands and the Yamacraw lands which were to be sold and the proceeds given to Mary for her past salary and losses. The matter was finally resolved in 1759 with Mary’s acceptance of £2100.00. Governor Ellis utilized Mary’s talents as representative, interpreter and mediator a few last times before she settled quietly on St. Catherines Island
St. Catherines Island
St. Catherines Island, also known as Santa Catalina, is one of the Sea Islands or Golden Isles on the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia, 50 miles south of Savannah in Liberty County. The island is ten miles long and from one to three miles wide, located between St. Catherine's Sound and Sapelo...
. Mary Musgrove Matthews Bosomworth died in the summer of 1765.
Lower Creek People
Creek is an Anglican name that the British gave to the Muskogee people. Those living along the Tallapoosa and connecting rivers became known as the Upper Creeks, while those along the Chattahoochee River and to the east became known as the Lower Creeks. Mary Musgrove was a Lower Creek who stated she was born along the Oakmulgee (Ocmulgee) River.Creek society was matrilineal; therefore a person’s status and identity were determined through their mother. Fathers were not considered blood relatives, but only related by marriage. Both males and females traced their ancestral lineage through their mother and social connections were based on matrilineal kinships. Several matrilineal kinship groups claimed the same mythical ancestor thus forming a clan, such as the Wind, Bear, or Turtle clans. The Creeks consisted of many clans and there were over thirty to forty different known clans to have existed within the Creek nation.
The Creeks, like many kinship based societies, did not know how to behave or respond to people who were not connected by lines of kinship. Therefore Creeks created kinship ties by adoption or marriage, but also through rituals fashioned to signify simulated kinship relationships. Mary Musgrove’s first marriage was one such example of using marriage to create kinship ties with whites. Tomochichi’s initial encounters with James Oglethorpe were designed to create fictitious lines of kinship to facilitate reciprocity.
Creek women could own land and possessions separate from their husbands. Mothers had control over their children and supervised their upbringing. Benjamin Hawkins
Benjamin Hawkins
Benjamin Hawkins was an American planter, statesman, and United States Indian agent . He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a United States Senator from North Carolina, having grown up among the planter elite...
an Indian agent felt “that a white man by marrying an Indian woman of the Creek nation so far from bettering his condition becomes a slave of her family.” A more sympathetic onlooker was the naturalist William Bartram
William Bartram
William Bartram was an American naturalist. The son of Ann and John Bartram, William Bartram and his twin sister Elizabeth were born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens,...
who noted that “the traders are fully sensible how greatly it is to their advantage to gain their [Creek women’s] affections and friendship in matters of trade and commerce.” White traders married Creek women to gain kinship ties and these mixed marriages produced children that technically spanned two cultures. Coosaponakeesa was one of these children.
“Half breed”
The derogatory term “half breed” was coined by Europeans. Creeks did not see those children from mixed marriages or relationships as white or “mixed blood” but as nothing less than a full Creek. Those with Creek mothers meant they were Creek and had full rights as any clan member. Even white women who had been captives and then were adopted into a clan had full rights of any Creek. When they married Creek men their children also were considered entirely Creek, not necessarily because of their father, but because their white mother was considered a full Creek when she was adopted into a clan.The only blood relatives in Creek society were that of the mother, fathers were not considered to be a blood relation but only related by marriage and the rules of kinship. Therefore a child’s closest and most important male relatives were their maternal uncles. Which was why Brims arranged the marriage of his niece and she referred to him in her demand to be recognized as an important Creek woman. “Mixed blood” Indians in white society and culture were considered important intermediates in the early development of European goals of colonizing, trade, and land acquisition, but they were still not considered white and therefore maintained marginal status in the white world. “Mixed blood” children bridged two cultures, but because of the matrilineal customs there was no marginal status in Creek society for women like Mary Musgrove and others in the Muskogee world.
Timeline
- 1732 – John and Mary Musgrove establish prospering trading post on the Yamacraw BluffYamacraw BluffYamacraw Bluff is a bluff situated on the bank of the Savannah River. The bluff is most notable for being the spot upon which General James Edward Oglethorpe landed to settle the colony of Georgia. The bluff was originally inhabited by the Yamacraw Indians...
. - 1733 - General James Oglethorpe arrives in search of area to settle.
- 1733 – Oglethorpe hires Mary as intermediary / interpreter for negotiations with Indians.
- 1735 – John Musgrove dies of fever.
- 1737 – Mary marries Jacob Matthews.
- 1738 – Mary receives land from the Yamacraws.
- 1742 – Jacob Matthews dies.
- 1743 – Oglethorpe leaves Georgia and returns to England.
- 1744 – Mary marries Reverend Thomas Bosomworth.
- 1747 - Mary receives grant of St. Catherine, Sapelo, and Ossabaw Islands from the Creeks.
- 1760 - Mary settles back-pay claims and secures clear title to St. Catherine’s Island from the British courts.
- 1767 – Mary dies on St. Catherine’s Island peacfully in her slumber.
See also
- Creek languageCreek languageThe Creek language, also known as Muskogee or Muscogee , is a Muskogean language spoken by Muscogee and Seminole people primarily in the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Florida....
- Creek mythologyCreek mythologyThe Creek mythology is related to an American Indian Creek people who are originally from the southeastern United States, also known by their original name Muscogee , the name they use to identify themselves today. Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. Modern Muscogees live primarily in...
- Creek peopleCreek peopleThe Muscogee , also known as the Creek or Creeks, are a Native American people traditionally from the southeastern United States. Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. The modern Muscogee live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida...
- History of Savannah, GeorgiaHistory of Savannah, GeorgiaThe city of Savannah, Georgia, the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, was established in 1733 and was the first colonial and state capital of Georgia...
Further reading
Braund, Kathryn E. Holland. Deerskins & Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America,1685-1815. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Green, Michael D. The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
Purdue, Theda. “Native Women in the Early Republic: Old World Perceptions, New World
Realities,” in Ronald Hoffman and Frederick Hoxie, ed., Native Americans in the Early Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999).
Saunt, Claudio. A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek
Indians, 1733-1816. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Wickman, Patricia Riles, The Tree that Bends: Discourse, Power, and the Survival of the
Maskoki People. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999.
External links
- Mary Musgrove Bosomworth
- History of the Creek Indians in Georgia
- New Georgia Encyclopedia: Creek Indians
- Southeastern Native American Documents, 1763-1842
- A Ranger's Report of Travels with General Oglethorpe, 1739--1742
- Creek Nation Indian Territory Project
- LostWorlds.org | Ocmulgee Mounds: Creek/Muskogee Origins
- Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma (official site)