JONES COUNTY, GA - LETTERS Col Benjamin Hawkins Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Nancy Bell nb7020@hotmail.com Table of Contents page: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/jones.htm Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm Three letters written by COL. BENJAMIN HAWKINS, April 7-12, 1812 1. To JOHN McKEE Creek Agency 7th April 1812 I send you by MR. EDWARD CLANTON / an express for the occasion/ two packets one for yourself and one for GENERAL HAMPTON, which were sent to my care by GENERAL MATHEWS expressly requesting them to be sent on to you in this way. I wrote to the General I should send them to you by mail and you would act as your judgment directed relative to the dispatch to the General. Since my answer to the General of this date I am informed by the post rider from this ______ that he did not believe the horses will perform the next trip in time and there must be a failure from this to MACNACS. I have in consequence done herein as the General requested. If you judge advisable to confide the letter to GENL. HAMPTON to his care he will engage to deliver on the same terms of this to you. You will on receipt pay MR. CLANTON one dollar and half a day counting this day and the day of delivery. He has promised to make at least forty miles a day if practicable. I shall write you by the mail of the 9th. I am with sincere regard Dear Sir Yr obt ser BENJAMIN HAWKINS COL JOHN McKEY Written on opposite side of paper: COL HAWKINS Creek Agency Apl 7 1812 Rec'd 10 in express (?) Source: "Benjamin Hawkins Papers", Folder 2, Box 88, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, AL 2. To JOHN McKEE Creek Agency, April 8, 1812 I wrote you yesterday by MR. EDWARD CLANTON sent express with dispatches for you and GENERAL HAMPTON. (1) I should have sent them by mail but from report of the rider from this to MACNACS (2) it is at least probable there will be a failure this trip, the post horses being run down and unfit for service. Added to this it was the request of GENERAL MATHEWS I should send them to you as I have done. MR. CLANTON has promised to go at the rate of 40 miles a day. I communicate this that if the mails should arrive first you may know he is coming. LIEUT. BUTLER arrived here from Charleston, Va. [ ] (3) and Fort Hawkins on his way to New Orleans. He will leave us early in the morning. I received yours, giving an account of the return of PERRYMAN from Providence, and that he was the bearer of good tales. This sort of report from British posts is very generally the preamble to bad ones. PERRYMAN and his father are held in very little estimation by the old Chiefs of this agency. His mission to Providence was self-[ ] (3) and he self- appointed. The mail from your way [which] arrived 6th was late at night, passed from one rider to the other without [going] thro' this office, owing to two new riders not acquainted with their duty. If there was anything for this office it will be sent back. I shall keep this note open altho' its late at night and add for you whatever may appear new. [Alabama Department of Archives and History] On opposite side of letter: COL McKEY Fort Stoddert rec'd 21 ans'd 22 (1) McKEE was to pay CLANTON $1.50 a day for delivering the mail (HAWKINS to McKEE, April 7, 1811, Ala. Dept. of Archives and History). (2) SAM MACNAC (MONIAC) was a half-breed Creek. (3) Words illegible. Source: "The Hawkins Letters 1802-1816", Vol. II, Edited by C.L. Grant, p. 606 and "Benjamin Hawkins Papers", Folder 2, Box 88, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, AL 3. To GEORGE MATHEWS Creek Agency, April 12, 1812 Since my communication of the 6th (1) I am informed by the post rider that the ensuing trip would be a failure, thereupon I contracted with EDWARD CLANTON, a respectable man, to take your dispatches to COL. McKEE & GENERAL HAMPTON. I have on reflecting on your communication to me had much anxiety for your situation and the plan you have adopted which in my communication of the 6th I said generally I liked. This I said on a supposition you were acting strictly in conformity with your instructions. But as far as I recollect of them I am apprehensive you have greatly exceeded your powers. I have visited the Governor of Georgia lately in part to learn from him any thing he may have received from government as (1) had nothing relative to you. He has had nothing, and is greatly embarrassed at his situation as his authority is limited by the Limits of the State but in special cases unless called upon by the gen'l government. He knows your doings will require aid of him and promptly too. He has given eventual orders but will not move troops to your aid within E. Florida unless expressly required thereto by the proper authority. It has been hinted to me that you have originated the whole movement of the Patriots and that you even attempted to aid them with a part of the troops of the United States in disquise, that an agent or spy of MR. FORBES has been present and made acquainted with every occurrence. If this is true I think the government will be greatly perplexed by the transaction. It seems to me to be a departure from that correct line of conduct uniformly observed by them towards all nations. If they meant to use force, it would have only been in the case pointed out in the Law, and they must have been organized for the purpose which seems not to be the case. I believe myself the government means only to act upon the secret Laws for taking possession of the Floridas. I doubt whether the term local authority would be applied to any other than the existing authority at the time of passing the act. Yet if you have knowledge that any foreign power attempts taking possession you can in such case take possession for the United States. I take it for granted you have kept the government constantly advised of every thing under your agency and it is possible as you correspond with the Secy of State and I only with the Secretary of War, is the cause I have had nothing about you; but this would not be the case with the Governor of Georgia who I suppose corresponds with both. I shall visit with the Governor again this week and as we confide in each other will know all he knows on your business and shall write you again as I obtained light on occurrences with you or connected with you. Our Chiefs will convene at Coweta the 3rd of May. I will then mention the situation of the affairs of their neighbours in a proper manner to them. But I shall be embarrassed unless I hear from Government. I will however do any thing you require of me in the mean time, and rather suppose my reflections on you are rong, think that your action is so, as your appointment is of long standing, your action the subject of discussion between our minister for foreign affairs and the minister of his Britannic Majesty, and there has been full time to get you right. Your Negro girl and your horse are in good health. Remember me especially to COL. ISAACS. Our little family go tomorrow for Milledgeville to attend dancing school. They attend at home their Schoolmaster for reading, writing, arithmetic and Geography and lectures in Botony by WILLIAM BALDWIN, as respectable gentleman form the Northward. (1). Not found. Source:"The Hawkins Letters 1802-1816", Vol. II, Edited by C.L. Grant, pp. 606-607. From the introduction of "The Hawkins Letters 1802-1816" by Grant page 579: 1811-1812 "Part of the unrest in the Southwest resulted from the abortive expedition of GENERAL GEORGE MATHEWS into East Florida. The former Georgia governor, attempting to duplicate the 1810 "revolution" of West Florida, proclaimed the Republic of East Florida, captured Amelia Island, and marched on St. Augustine. The MADISON administration, having second thoughts, recalled him and turned the affair over to GOVERNOR MITCHELL of Georgia who promptly used Georgia troops and invaded Spanish territory. By October, he also had been recalled, leaving the area in turmoil and the Seminoles more unsettled than before." Notes: COL. BENJAMIN HAWKINS was an American Officer in the Rev. War and was a member of the Continental Congress. He was chosen by PRES. WASHINGTON to oversee Indian Affairs south of the Ohio River in 1795. In 1801, he built the Creek Indian Agency and plantation along the Flint River in Crawford Co, GA. COL. JOHN McKEE was the agent of the Chickasaws and Choctaws is eastern Mississippi. He was a US Rep. from Ala. (1823- 1829). The US agents to the Chickasaws lived in Natchez, MS from 1802-1825. GEN. GEORGE MATHEWS was the governor of Georgia from 1787- 1788 and 1793-1796. In January 1811, he and COL. JOHN McKEE were appointed in the expedition for the annexation of West Florida. He succeeded, but PRESIDENT MADISON refused to sanction the treaty the following year. GEN. MATHEWS died in Georgia 30 Aug. 1812. GEN. WADE HAMPTON was directed by HAWKINS to begin road construction from Fort Hawkins to the Creek Agency.