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  • Matrilineal Management:How Creek Women and Matrilineages Shaped Distinct Forms of Racialized Slavery in Creek Country at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century
  • Miller Shores Wright (bio)

In 1787, the Euro-Creek headman Alexander Mcgillivray Sr. wrote to the Spanish governor of West Florida, Arturo O'Neill, to report "that a party of Coosadas" had attacked and killed seven Americans who were attempting to build a fort "within four leagues of the Chickesaws." McGillivray praised "the Spirit & Gallantry" of the Coosada leader but added at the end of the letter a revealing plea on behalf of a man named Durant, who "Stands in need of Your Excellencys good offices to recover his Negro at Mobile." As McGillivray described the situation, "Durant has a likely Young Negro Man & who is of No Service to him but Steals horses from every one, & an Indian Wench his wife." At the time, Durant owed "a great deal of Money, & Mrs. Durant dont desire to part with them," referring to the young enslaved man and his Native wife. McGillivray continued, "Yet We advised Durant to get Your leave to Sell them to clear his other Negroes, whatever his wife may Say against the Contrary."1 What appears to be a reference [End Page 39] to the sale of enslaved people to cover debts incurred by Durant becomes more complicated when one knows that Benjamin Durant was McGillivray's brother-in-law and "Mrs. Durant" was McGillivray's sister Sophia.2 Beyond the complications of the unmentioned familial connections, the passage offers stark evidence of the development over time of racialized slavery within Creek country (parts of present-day Alabama and western Georgia) at the end of the eighteenth century.3

The passage also reveals two complex aspects of racialized slavery in Creek country that have been hitherto underemphasized. First, McGillivray mentions "an Indian Wench" who is the "wife" of an enslaved "Young Negro Man." This statement not only provides evidence of an interracial marriage within this community but also indicates that Alexander McGillivray understood the couple to be married—despite at least one of the individuals being enslaved. Second, McGillivray's comment that "Mrs. Durant dont desire to part with them," regardless of the debts her family had incurred, demonstrates that Sophia Durant had some control over her enslaved property, notwithstanding the wishes of her brother and husband to sell the young man.4 Taken together, these two pieces of evidence suggest that female ownership of enslaved people and the possibility of enslaved people to [End Page 40] be adopted or married into matrilineages produced distinct forms of racialized slavery in certain Creek communities at the turn of the nineteenth century.

In this article, I argue that Creek women's positions within matrilineages shaped how racialized slavery developed in Creek country. Women's adaptation of matrilineal practices of marriage and adoption to include in matrilineages enslaved people of African descent changed the relationships that developed between Creek slave owners and the enslaved people over whom they claimed ownership. To be sure, the practices of slavery that developed in Creek country analyzed here were not universal or linear; they were particular. By looking at a specific time and place, certain Creek farms at the end of the eighteenth century, I do not seek to depict what became representative of Creek slavery over time—but what forms of bondage were possible at that moment. Instead of tracing the development of the racialization of Creek slavery over time, my focus is on the importance that gender and matrilineages played in the relationships that developed between Creek slave owners and the enslaved. Through an analysis of how the possibility of marriage and adoption into matrilineages changed some Creek slave owners' treatment of enslaved people, a clearer picture develops of what transcultural forces were at work in the American South at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Through the writings of McGillivray and other contemporaries, such as U.S. Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins and naturalist William Bartram, I seek to understand the Creek cultural mechanics that assigned a degree of protection for enslaved people and how that connection shaped enslaved communities and slave management...

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