Senauki: A Forgotten Character in Early Georgia History

When historians are called on to name famous persons in early Georgia, they will invariably mention lead actor James Oglethorpe and perhaps some of the supporting cast members such as Tomochichi, Thomas Causton, William Stephens, and others. When asked to name important women, they might come up with Mary Musgrove, but they will rarely if ever remember Senauki. As the wife of Tomochichi, she influenced the negotiations to create and maintain Georgia, but she remains behind the scenes even today. Her presence at decisive meetings between the British and the Creeks added another dimension to an already complicated situation, but it helped ease tensions that could have easily flared into something more dramatic. Her personal interactions with colonial officials in later years demonstrate her own diplomatic abilities. Taken as a whole, her actions reflect her basic responsibilities as a Southeastern Indian woman to welcome strangers and to provide for and protect her relatives. By examining her life more closely, historians will not only come to appreciate a forgotten peacemaker but also understand the duties of Southeastern Indian women more generally.¹

Scholars face significant difficulties when attempting to research native women. Because they often came from cultures that possessed few written documents, researchers must look for alternate sources such as material culture or works of art or literature and tease out information from which they can draw tentative conclusions. Because eighteenth-century Europeans undervalued women, male diplomats sought out elderly male native leaders with whom they could conduct their negotiations, and male observers of these ceremonies concentrated their descriptions on the key participants and ignored any background figures, especially women. Thus, important characters like Senauki did not receive the recognition that they deserved, and in order to restore them to their rightful place, historians need to analyze the few available sources more closely. For their efforts, they will discover much overlooked yet useful material about native women.²

Women played influential roles in Creek society, and Senauki would have had additional obligations as the wife of a headman. First and foremost, women had to care for family and home, which were time-consuming activities in any culture. European men looked down on this drudgery, complaining that native women "are not much better than slaves: they must wait on their husband in the house, do all the household work, and … haul all the baggage and household goods" when on the move.³ (Ironically, these same men expected their own wives to perform similar menial tasks and treated them with almost the same lack of respect as they did native women.) In actuality, there was little stigma attached to these responsibilities since they were necessary to provide for a household. The Southeastern Indians had a distinct division of labor in which the men concerned themselves with hunting, politics, and war and lent a hand with larger projects such as clearing land or constructing a public building, while the women cultivated crops, prepared meals, raised children, made clothing, maintained the home, and more. Both men and women worked hard, and both commanded respect for their efforts.⁴

Examining the importance of native women—Creek women in particular—will help explain why Senauki should be considered a notable figure in early Georgia history. Kathryn E. Holland Braund argues that "[t]he surviving record does not make it clear how much input women had in political matters, but they must have had considerable impact on public policy. For government was by consensus, and women influenced public opinion by such private means as tears, ridicule, and other methods to persuade husbands, brothers, uncles, and sons."⁵ As a result, while Creek women like Senauki may not have held office or voted, they still possessed political power in indirect yet effective ways.

Moreover, Creek women began to take a more prominent role in trade over the course of the eighteenth century. As warriors became commercial hunters, women had to adapt to this change in lifestyle. They often accompanied their men on the hunt, and they dressed the hides through an elaborate process that included removing the hair and treating the [End Page...