Mary Musgrove

Mary Musgrove (* around 1700 in Coweta , Georgia , † around 1765 in St. Catherines Island (Georgia) ) was an American negotiator between English and Indian communities.

life and work

Musgrove was the daughter of a Creek Indian and an English trader in South Carolina . She was named Coosaponakeesa, learned the Creek language of the Muskogee and the cultural traditions of the Creek. She spent much of her childhood in South Carolina. Her father Edward Griffin brought her and her younger brother to the town of Pon Pon, South Carolina, when she was about seven, where she learned English and changed her name to Mary. In 1716 she married the English trader John Musgrove, with whom she had three children, who all died very young.

Businesswoman and mediator

Shortly after marriage, the couple set up a trading post near the Savannah River , where she acted as an interpreter. By 1730 they had established a prosperous trading post there near the place where the British general James Oglethorpe brought the first English colonists to Savannah in 1733 . In 2002 archaeologists excavated the site of this trading post before the Georgia Ports Authority construction project began there. Oglethorpe hired Musgrove to act as negotiator to ensure peaceful cooperation on land settlement and trade. She played a key role in making the Creeks fond of the English and helping them maintain control of the colony against the Spanish invasion . She worked for General Oglethorpe from 1733 to 1743. In 1935 her husband died and she subsequently moved the trading post to Yamacraw Bluff. The station, known as Cowpens, became an important trading post and was likely the center for the Anglo-Indian deerskin trade. During her time at Yamacraw Bluff, she successfully negotiated between Yamacraw chief Tomochichi and the Savannah settlers. Her husband owned land in South Carolina at the time of his death and 500 acres in Georgia, but the law only allowed her to keep the land until her eldest son could own the land. Historian Michael D. Green concludes that Musgrove married her second husband, Jacob Matthews, who was many years his junior, in 1737 in order not to lose their property. She continued to work as an interpreter for General Oglethorpe and helped maintain peaceful and fair trade relations between the new Georgia colony and the Creek Nation. In 1742 her second husband Matthews died and two years later she married the Christian missionary Reverend Thomas Bosomworth.

The couple opened another trading post on the Altamaha River in 1746 and she continued to act as a cultural mediator. She traveled with her husband to Indian communities with messages from General Oglethorpe and the English king. She taught Christian missionaries the Muskogee language so they could help her with their interactions. When the chief of Lower Creek, Malatchi, gave her as a gift the three islands, Ossabaw, Sapelo and St. Catherines, known as the " Sea Islands ", the British officials refused to recognize her claim to this land. They stated that a nation can only transfer land to another nation and not to one person. Musgrove contested this decision, and in 1749 over 200 Creek people took her to Savannah to see the officials. When they denied her claim, she went to England to represent her case before the Chamber of Commerce, but the Chamber of Commerce referred her case back to the Georgia courts. When they returned, Georgia had already taken control of their land. Decades later, Royal Governor Henry Ellis offered her a compromise. He granted her St. Catherines Island and £ 2,100 if she waived her claims on the other two islands. Musgrove continued to serve as an intermediary between Georgia and the Creek Nation until her death on St. Catherines Island around 1765.

Map showing the location of the Sea Islands Ossabaw, Sapelo and St. Catherines

In 1993, Musgrove was inducted into the Georgia Women of Achievement . She is in the Heritage Floor list of 999 women listed, which in 1974 created to 1979 artwork The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago a golden inscription was dedicated.

literature

• Rodney M. Baine: Myths of Mary Musgrove, Georgia Historical Quarterly 76, 1992.
• Doris Fisher: Mary Musgrove: Creek Englishwoman, Dissertation Emory University, 1990.
• Michele Gillespie: The Sexual Politics of Race and Gender: Mary Musgrove and the Georgia Trustees, in The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Michael D. Green, "Mary Musgrove: Creating a New World," in Sifters: Native American Women's Lives, ed. Theda Perdue, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Steven C. Hahn: The Life and Times of Mary Musgrove, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012.
• Julie Anne Sweet: Mary Musgrove: Maligned Mediator or Mischievous Malefactor, in Georgia Women: Their Lives and Times, vol. 1., ed. Ann Short Chirhart and Betty Wood, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009.
• Frank, Andrew K. "Mary Musgrove (ca.1700 – ca. 1763)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. September 8, 2018.
• Perdue, Theda: Native American Women's Lives, Oxford University Press, 2001.

Web links

• Frank, Andrew K. "Mary Musgrove (ca.1700- ca. 1763)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 05 October 2019. Web. 05 August 2020
• Mary Musgrove, Colonial Go-Between
• Biography at womenshistory
• Short biography
• Short biography