Hawkins, Benjamin (1754-1816) to Henry Knox
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02437.04813 Author/Creator: Hawkins, Benjamin (1754-1816) Place Written: s.l. Type: Autograph document Date: December 1790 Pagination: 2 p. : docket ; 25.3 x 19.9 cm. Order a Copy
Colonel Hawkins relates the events surrounding the negotiations between the Creeks and the United States government. Writes that the Creeks have expressed disapprobation of the treaty at Augusta in 1785 (Treaty of Galphinton). Discusses the negotiations that followed. Docketed by Knox with a note "important papers - to elucidate the early disapprobation of the Georgian tribes."
Benjamin Hawkins, usually known as Colonel Hawkins, was an American farmer, statesman, and Indian agent from North Carolina. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a United States Senator, as well as a long term diplomat and agent to the Creek Indians. Hawkins was commissioned a Colonel and served on George Washington's staff, assisting with French translation. He was released from federal service late in 1777 and was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1778. He served there until 1779, and again in 1784. The Carolina Assembly sent him to the Continental Congress as their delegate from 1781 to 1783, and again in 1787. In 1789, he was a delegate in the North Carolina convention that ratified the United States Constitution. He was then elected to the first U.S. Senate and served from 1789 to 1795. Early in his Senate career, he was counted in the ranks of those Senators viewed as Pro-Administration, but by the third congress, he generally sided with Senators of the Republican or Anti-Administration Party. In 1796 President Washington appointed him General Superintendent of Indian Affairs dealing with all tribes south of the Ohio River and he moved to Crawford County, Georgia, where he lived until his death in 1816.
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