d. There was no central authority. Every town
acted just as it pleased, making war or peace with the other towns, or
with whites, Choctaws, or Cherokees. In each there was a nominal head
for peace and war, the high chief and the head warrior; the former was
supposed to be supreme, and was elected for life from some one powerful
family--as, for instance, the families having for their totems the wind
or the eagle. But these chiefs had little control, and could not do much
more than influence or advise their subjects; they were dependent on the
will of the majority. Each town was a little hotbed of party spirit; the
inhabitants divided on almost every question. If the head-chief was for
peace, but the war-chief nevertheless went on the war-path, there was no
way of restraining him. It was said that never, in the memory of the
oldest inhabitant, had half the nation "taken the war talk" at the same
time.[26] As a consequence, war parties of Creeks were generally merely
small bands of marauders, in search of scalps and plunder. In proportion
to its numbers, the nation never, until 1813, undertook such formidable
military enterprises as were undertaken by the Wyandots, Shawnees, and
Delawares; and, though very formidable individual fighters, even in this
respect it may be questioned if the Creeks equalled the prowess of their
northern kinsmen.

Yet when the Revolutionary war broke out the Creeks were under a
chieftain whose consummate craft and utterly selfish but cool and
masterly diplomacy enabled them for a generation to hold their own
better than any other native race against the restless Americans. This
was the half-breed Alexander McGillivray, perhaps the most gifted man
who was ever born on the soil of Alabama.[27]

His father was a Scotch trader, Lachlan McGillivray by name, who came
when a boy to Charleston, then the head-quarters of the commerce
carried on by the British with the southern Indians. On visiting the
traders' quarter of the town, the young Scot was strongly attracted by
the sight of the weather-beaten packers, with their gaudy, half-Indian
finery, their hundreds of pack-horses, their curious pack-saddles, and
their bales of merchandise. Taking service with them, he was soon
helping to drive a pack-train along one of the narrow trails that
crossed the lonely pine wilderness. To strong, coarse spirits, that
were both shrewd and daring, and willing to balance the great risks
incident to their mode of life