George Strother Gaines

George Strother Gaines (born May 1, 1784 in Stokes County , North Carolina , † January 21, 1873 in Peachwood , Mississippi ) was an American statesman, banker, senator and Indian agent . He played an important role in the development of the states of Alabama and Mississippi, worked as a lobbyist for the expansion of the North American railways and led the resettlement of the Choctaw Indian people in what is now Oklahoma .

Origin and assignment as an Indian agent

Gaines was born on May 1, 1784 in Surry County, which was later renamed Stokes County, the eleventh of thirteen children of Captain James Gaines and Elisabeth Strother. His parents were both from prominent Virginia families , one of his brothers, Edmund Pendleton Gaines , later became a major general in the US Army .

In 1804, Gaines was appointed as the federal government's assistant trade agent in the Choctaw Trading House , the American trading post in the Choctaw area of St. Stephens in the Mississippi Territory . Today the area belongs to Washington County , Alabama. When his supervisor resigned from his post in 1806, Gaines took over as a federal agent. He maintained good relations with the Indians, especially the Choctaw, and was respected by the settlers on the lower reaches of the Tombigbee and Tensaw rivers.

Gaines married his cousin Ann Gaines in 1812, with whom he had nine children, only eight of whom reached adulthood. In the burgeoning conflict over land ownership in the Mississippi Territory, he mediated between Indians and settlers. Gaines convinced the Choctaw and Chickasaw to assist the settlers in defending the places on the Tombigbee and Tensaw Rivers, which were defenseless after the destruction of Fort Mims by the Muskogee (Creek) in 1813 during the Creek War . He helped the Choctaw and Chickasaw form an alliance and motivated Choctaw volunteers to fight the Muskogee during the Creek War of 1813-1814.

Contract negotiations and Indian relocation

Under his aegis, the Treaty of Fort Confederation was signed by the Choctaw on October 24, 1816 . With this treaty, they gave up their tribal areas east of the Tombigbee River, which now form the counties of Hale and Marengo . In August 1818, Gaines resigned from the office of Indian agent at the Choctaw Trading House to take on a new role at the newly formed Tombeckbee Bank in St. Stephens. The aftermath of the financial crisis in 1819 forced him to quit in 1822. He acquired together with a partner, the Choctaw Trading House by the federal government, in 1825 he was for the counties Marengo and Clarke in the Alabama Senate voted.

In the late summer of 1830, Gaines was tasked with supplying several thousand Choctaws who were expected to attend a council meeting at Dancing Rabbit Creek, not far from Macon , Mississippi. At this meeting on September 27, 1830, the contract of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed, with which the Choctaw ceded their land claims to the federal government. After the signing, Gaines organized a Choctaw expedition into Indian territory to find new settlement areas for the people. He was then commissioned in March 1831 to relocate the Choctaw. He led about 6000 Choctaws as part of the Indian resettlement on the so-called Path of Tears to the west, where they arrived around March 1832.

Gaines assumed that he should continue to work as a representative for the Indian resettlements; however, he was informed by the government that the task should be performed by military personnel in the future. The resettlements carried out by Gaines cost the government about three times more than originally planned and were judged by the War Department as a failure. Gaines, however, viewed the relocation as a success, as relatively few Choctaw were killed during the relocation.

Economic success and lobbying

Governor John Gayle, Gaines' principal

Gaines was in 1832 as president of the branch of the State Bank of Alabama in Mobile selected and moved his residence there. Alabama Governor John Gayle commissioned him to sell bonds to increase the capital of the new state bank. Gaines traveled to New York City and negotiated the sale of $ 3.5 million government bonds. He was then re-elected as President of the Bank until 1838.

He maintained his various businesses and companies until the 1840s, sold part of his property in 1843 and established a cattle farm on his wife's land in Perry County , Mississippi from 1845 . He worked as a lobbyist for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad in Alabama and Mississippi from 1847 to 1850 . Around 1856 he bought a plantation in Mississippi; he moved there with his family and slaves and founded the Peachwood nursery, where he mainly grew and sold useful plants.

Gaines died on January 21, 1873 on his plantation and was buried next to his wife in the Peachwood cemetery.

The city of Gainesville , Alabama is named after him.

literature

• Grant Foreman: Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. University of Oklahoma Press, 1974, ISBN 0806111720
• George Strother Gaines, James P. Pate: The reminiscences of George Strother Gaines: pioneer and statesman of early Alabama and Mississippi, 1805-1843 , University of Alabama Press, 1998, ISBN 0817308970
• James Henry Malone: The Chickasaw Nation; A Short Sketch of a Noble People , READ BOOKS, 2008, ISBN 1409797686