Billy Campbell
Billy Campbell, an Indian doctor, lived at
Campbelltown. The Indians there were mostly “half mulattoes,” “not clever,
but doggish.” Mitchell Campbell's son was half negro, and had three wives.
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Creek Billy - Bit-Lip-Billy
Creek Billy was the chief man of the Cross
Roads settlement on Tishomingo creek. This settlement extended from
the McManes place up for half a mile along the bluff. They were Creeks
who had married Chickasaw wives.
The McManes place was in the southwest corner
of Prentiss county, and within half-a-mile of Bethany, Lee county. One
mile west of the Maj. John T. Humphrey’s place, and on which the Major
settled in 1840 and where he lived till he died in 1873, was the Creek
Billy place, where Uriah Barrow lived.
The following from the narrative of Dr. Anson G. Smythe seems worthy
of preservation:
“Creek Billy, known among the Creeks as Co-hav-jo, perpetrated
a homicide or murder in the Creek Nation, now [1880] in the eastern part
of Alabama, at least as early as 1778. It was a law among the Creeks
that a refugee from the avenger of blood was exempt from the penalties
of murder after an absence of fifty years. Having taken refuge among the
Chickasaws, he intermarried among them, and settled that place [the Uriah
Barrow place.] At the expiration of his fifty years, he returned
to his own nation. He was well known to me when he lived on Tallasseehatchie
creek in the nation, and was known to the whites as ‘Bit-lip Billy.’
In 1836 he moved to Arkansas, and went with his tribe subsequently to the
Indian nation. He had his lip bitten in a fight.””
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Queen Puc-caum-la - Puck-ah-la
Queen Puc-caun-la or Puck-ah-la, by the Treaty of Pontotoc, was granted
an annuity of fifty dollars during her life, the money to be placed in
the hands of the Indian agent, and under his direction and with the chiefs’
advice to be expended fot her support.
She was called, like Tishomingo, “old and beloved.”
The following beautiful lines are from Col. James Gordon:
“The old queen, Puc-ah-la (sic], lived in half a mile of my
residence, Lochinvar. The wild cherry tree that grew in her yard still
[1876] stands, and the wild birds of the forest as,,they feast on the purple
fruit chant a requiem to the races that are gone.
The same gentleman is authority for the following statement:
“I know the Indians had great respect for Puc-caun-la. She
had a son who made trinkets of brass and gold, and was not much account.”
Cyrus Harris makes the following statement with
reference to her:
"Puck-ah-la, the old queen, was not the wife of Ish-te-ho-to-pe
[sic], the king, but, I suppose they were related. Some of the old
queen’s great-grand-children are now [1881] in this country. Puck-ah-le
[sic], the queen, drew an annual pension from the Chickasaws while she
lived.”
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John McLish [McCleish]
John McLish (McCleish, variously spelled), one would suppose, was related
to the person of the same name mentioned in Tennessee history. He
was a fine-looking man, a quarter or half breed. In one of the solemn
treaties entered into between the United States and the Chickasaws, he
was allowed a grant because he had “married a white woman.” He lived
in the upper part of the Chickasaw Nation, and married one of Saleechee
Colbert’s daughters. He was a man of affairs and visited the Chickasaw
agency in the edge of Alabama nearby every month,— when our narrator saw
him. Another of the old chroniclers states that he lived at Pontotoc.
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Simon Burney
Simon Burney, an Indian, refugeed to the whites.
A cousin had killed a man, but for some reason, Burney’s friends gave him
up to die in his cousin’s place. Burney fled and remained eighteen
months among the whites about Cotton Gin. By paying thirty ponies
he was released from the penalty he had incurred.
It may not be too great a digression to transcribe here a charming little
bit of history to enliven our dull narrative.
“James Allen was a North Carolinian, well educated and of a
family in easy circumstances. He came to Nashville, intending to settle
there as a lawyer, but, from some disgust, entered the Chickasaw Nation,
where he soon conciliated the favor of General Colbert, a half-breed of
large fortune. Allen married his daughter, Susie. Their daughter, Peggy,
was very beautiful, and received numerous proposals from traders, returning
from New Orleans to Tennessee, and from the sons of the other Chickasaw
chiefs. The United States agent in charge of the Chickasaws, Samuel Mitchell,
became deeply in love with her, but she did not return it. He applied to
her grandmother, and she, considering it a very desirable match, sent off
Peggy to the agency with a string of well-loaded pack-horses, and ten negroes,
for her dowry. Peggy was compelled to make the journey, but she persistently
refused Mitchell (saying she would never marry a drinking white man or
an Indian), and after two weeks of importunity he sent her home. Just then
there turned up a handsome young fellow, Simon Burney, from the neighborhood
of Natchez, who loved her very deeply, and her father and herself both
fearing interference by Mitchell and his friends, they were married and
immediatley left the nation.”
Simon Burney lived on the site of Buena Vista, and was a wealthy slave-holder.
He died about the time of the immigration to the West.
END
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Copyright 2001 - All Rights
Reserved
Ellen
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