Creek Indian Chief. Called "The Emperor of the Creeks", he was the leading American Indian figure of his day. The child of a wealthy Scottish father and a mixed French and Creek mother, he was still considered a full blooded Indian by the Creek laws of matrilineal descent. Educated in Charleston, South Carolina, he was fluent in Latin, Greek, Spanish, English, and several Indian languages, but still was fully involved in Indian culture and the Creek tribe. His father was a British loyalist during the American Revolution who returned to Scotland after his land holdings in Georgia (now, Alabama) were confiscated; young McGillivray immediately took on a lifelong hatred of Americans, serving as a British agent with the rank of colonel during the war. After the Revolution he was Chief of the Creeks and effectively represented their interests by playing Georgians, Americans in general, and the Spanish against each other. In the process he made himself rich, having plantations, at least two wives and families, and numerous slaves. The Treaty of Pensacola in 1784 gave Spain a trade monopoly and McGillivray a large annual stipend. A crisis was reached in 1790 when the Georgia legislature made the Yazoo land grants leading to his most famous mission, a trip to New York City during which he negotiated with George Washington, Henry Knox, and Thomas Jefferson amidst much pomp and ceremony. The Treaty of New York, signed in 1790, guaranteed Creek land titles and made McGillivray a brigadier general at $1,200 per year. However, the pact was broken by all sides before the ink was dry and McGillivray openly proclaimed that he had been double dealing the Americans and accepting $2,000 per year from Spain while his Indians pretty much got the short end of the stick. The entire "Yazoo" episode is described in Joe Ellis' "American Creation" (2007). Late in life he joined the Masonic order; all through his adult years McGillivray suffered from the effects of syphilis which led to his early demise.