On the eve of the Creek War in 1813, the connection between the Creek Nation and the United States government was almost solely represented in the spirit and will of one man, Benjamin Hawkins.  Hawkins had been appointed as the “Principal Temporary Agent for Indian Affairs South of the Ohio River” by President George Washington in 1796.  In the seventeen years prior to the hostilities of the Creek War, he had worked extensively for the administrations of presidents Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, as the chief liaison between the world of the southeastern Indian and that of the ever expanding American state.  In addition, Hawkins focused on the U.S. government’s “plan of civilization” as a means of assimilating the Indians along the American frontier into the expanding U.S. presence in North America.  Hawkins remained true to his goals and to those of the U.S. government throughout his career while seeking to honestly provide assistance to the Indians under his care in a very tumultuous time.

While Hawkins is best known for his career as an Indian agent, he began earlier in life as a patriot and a politician.  He was born on August 15, 1754 in Warren County, North Carolina.  As a young adult he attended Princeton University where he studied, among other subjects, French, which allowed him to serve as George Washington’s interpreter during the American Revolution.  After the war, he continued his public service by serving in the North Carolina House of Commons and the Continental Congress.  He also represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 1789 to 1795.

In 1796, under the leadership of George Washington, Hawkins assumed the responsibility of managing Indian relations along the southern frontier.  As Hawkins undertook this vast charge, the Indians with whom he was to associate himself faced uncertain social ramifications based on their relationship with Americans and Europeans and a weakening economic presence due to the declining market for deerskins, their primary article of trade.  In the years leading up to the Creek War, the market for deerskins among Europeans had shrunk to a small percentage of what it had been a decade earlier.  Unfortunately for the Indians involved in the trade, the decline left them with no viable article of trade with which to purchase items from American and European agents.  Many of these items, such as firearms or metal tools, had become a necessity among the Indians, without which they could no longer survive.  Indians, especially those in the modern-day southeastern United States, faced increasing pressure from American land seekers expanding and encroaching on what had been traditional Indian lands.

The “plan of civilization,” supported by Hawkins and endorsed by the U.S. government, sought to teach Indians the farming techniques of Europeans and the lifestyles more akin to those of the yeoman American farmer than that of the traditional American Indian.  While the Indians had long combined hunting and small subsistence farming as their means of feeding their families and creating economic opportunity, the focus had been and remained on hunting and the need for vast amounts of land as an accommodation.  The Indians of the southeast, more particularly the Creeks, were hard pressed to change their traditions for new ways.  Much of the persuasion offered by Hawkins went unheeded as the tension between whites and the Creeks increased.

With the arrival of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh and the forceful words of the Creek prophet Josiah Francis, many Creeks that may have followed the “civilizing” instructions of Hawkins, moved further from him ideologically.  In the end, neither Hawkins nor the might of the United States, could keep the Creeks from splitting into factions, fighting a civil war among themselves and against the settlers that encroached on their land and their traditional lives.  In the end the war tore apart the fabric of relationships between the two people, and neither was the same again.

For what it is worth, Hawkins remained among the people that he loved prior to and during the conflict that ripped through the Creek nation.  He spent time in the Creek towns of Tuckabatchee and Coweta before settling along the Flint River in Georgia.  He remained in his position as Indian agent until his death in 1816, his love for his adopted people never once waning.