​One of the tragic stories of Savannah involved the Native American Toonahowie. Toonahowie was the nephew of Senauki the wife of the legendary mico Tomochichi of the Yamacraw tribe. It was Tomochichi who greeted General James Oglethorpe when he came to Savannah. Mary Musgrove and Tomochichi were the ones who paved the way for Oglethorpe and his colony to peacefully coexist with the Creeks. Tomochichi had seen the writing on the wall before and after the Yemassee War the last effort of the Creeks to demand justice from the South Carolinians by war. He had not fought in the war (one of the reasons he was on bad terms with the Creek leadership) and was now promoting with this new tribe an attempt to live in harmony with the English. In the Disputed lands he hoped that their disputes could be solved with mutual respect and justice. In the Creek Confederacy they traced their lineage through the woman. For some reason not clear Tomochichi and Senauki never had children. So Toonahowie was chosen by the two of them to be groomed as the mico of the tribe. The grooming of Toonahowie became more important with the advent of Oglethorpe and his colony. The colonists would make the job of mico more complicated. Now not only would he have to learn how to function as mico in the Creek Confederacy but also how to politic with the newly arrived colonists. To make his training more important and expedient Tomochichi was of advanced age when Oglethorpe and the colonists arrived.

The colonists were now in what was once referred to as the Disputable lands. This land they once had the freedom to roam was now changing to the more settled lands. This would mean the need to navigate the lands with the colonists tendencies to expand and accumulate as much land as possible for private use. Private use was a concept the Native Americans did not have. Land was communal among the tribes private land was small if any.

His training now involved learning English from Mary Musgrove and observing Tomochichi and his relations with the English. He was no longer on a similar track as the other young male tribe members and leaders. He would even attend church services to understand the English better. Tomochichi would even take him on his trip to England. He needed to have familiarity with the Trustees and their manners and ways of beings. It was there he would meet the young heir of the Earl of Cumberland. This would later lead him to suggest naming Cumberland Island after him. The English after all loved having things named after them. He also learned the art of diplomacy. While Senauki dressed as the English on the trip not to offend their sensibilities.  Tomochichi and he maintained their native attire. As leaders of the tribe they would not dress as the English but as the representatives of a proud Creek nation. It was the soft and hard approach to diplomacy.

He even exhibited his own growing diplomatic expertise. When he asked the Trustees for guns for his young tribal members so they could hunt and defend themselves and the colonists form other more hostile tribes the Trustees seem reluctant and on the verge of saying no. Thus, later in the meeting he picked up an available Bible read from it and then quoted the Lord’s Prayer to the astonished Trustees. They marveled that the ‘savages’ could be civilized and later would approve the guns that Toonahowie requested. Toonahowie was fast developing diplomatic ties and knowledge. He was the hope for the Creeks and Yamacraw tribes. Of course, becoming a leader of the Yamacraws required more than quoting Scripture. He also had to show the qualities of being a leader and among the different criteria for leadership in a Creek tribe was the need to prove yourself as a warrior. The same
thing has helped various presidents in our own society be recognized for their leadership qualities.

Toonahowie could be found in the forefront with his tribe members in the skirmishes with the Spanish. At the battle of the Bloody Marsh he led a heroic charge to make the Spanish retreat. He was shot in his right arm in the charge not flinching he changed his weapon to his other arm and continued in the charge. This was the battle that would become the last foray into Georgia territory by the Spanish. He continued to recruit soldiers from the Creeks for the colonist’s defense and lead them on scouting missions. It was on one of these missions that he was captured by another tribe. His tribe members tracked down Toonahowie and his captors to rescue him.  Unfortunately, Toonahowie was killed in the skirmish in this rescue attempt.

He was in his early twenties when this occurred. The hopes of his tribe and to a lesser extent the Creek nation that rested on him were lost. Although the Trail of Tears would not be denied. He may have negotiated a better world for the Creeks. So that is why I term the story of his life ‘Forever Young’.

 May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.

The dreams of a united English and Yamacraw existence died that day. That dream would never grow old it would always be the hope of a young tribe left unfulfilled. After Toonahowie’s death the Yamacraws would slowly disperse into other tribes further west. Even his aunt, the great Senauki daughter of the ‘royal family Brims’ of the Creek nation and wife of the mico Tomochichi buried in the center of Savannah, would be treated ill by the English. They impeded on her promised land with settlers who showed no regards for the Creeks. When she took her grievance to Savannah’s court they denied her appeal because she as a Native American had no standing in Georgia. There was no Toonahowie to stand with her. The dream of Tomochichi would forever be deferred.
What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes

​The Forever Young Toonahowie and the dreams of the Creeks would now only lead to a trail of tears.

Mary Musgrove has been portrayed as a social climber, greedy, drunkard, voluptuous exotic, and uncaring. All of this comes from persons that were not her fans. Written accounts of white Europeans who were challenged by her. The negative accounts were usually because she pushed for what she thought was rightfully hers. One must remember that in European societies at the time women were to live their lives in private and not in public and politics and finances were left to the males. In Creek society women had a voice in the political world and the were a matrilineal society. European men were not accustomed to women such as Mary and she was not use to men such as them. She also had power when it came to the Europeans dealing with the Creeks. She was most of the time the only one in the room who could speak both languages. She would also become one of the wealthiest people in the Georgia Colony. Add to this the fact that she was born into the prominent Chief Brim family who was one of the most revered leaders in the Creek history and you have a failure to communicate well. Her ties with the military leaders at Fort Frederica were always an important aspect to southern Georgia and by default Savannah. She held strong footholds in both Creek and colonist societies for decades. No one else had this connection for as long. So, it is no stretch of the imagination that the early male leaders of the Georgia colony would feel uncomfortable with the power she controlled as a female not to mention their prejudices against Native Americans.
​
The picture of Mary Musgrove that we have are presented by white males to the white Trustees of Georgia. The Europeans wrote the Native Americans spoke their histories.  The governors who reported back to the Trustees would present their case without a mutual presentation of Mary’s case. These are the records that have for the most part been used to interpret who Mary was. One of the other accounts frequently used was a middle-class English man who Mary basically fired for numerous reasons. To say the least they were biased accounts of who she was.

What can we say about Mary beyond what they write? She was apparently intelligent. She could speak with clarity in two languages. In fact her mastery of English and Muskogean were probably greater than most if not all her contemporaries. This is evidenced by her, and Moravian missionaries attempt to create the only written Creek language. Not only was she able to master two languages she taught herself accounting and how to run a rather big business venture. She maintained two trading posts and over five hundred farm acres. Anyone of these would have been a ‘career’ for most. But she also acted as interpreter, recruiter for Indian scouts and soldiers, and reported on Spanish and Native American activities of interest to the colonists. It is also believed that the property that she left in South Carolina at the bequest of South Carolinian Governor William Johnson was maintained by her and John for many years. She converted to Christianity although never leaving her Native American heritage and beliefs behind. We know this because she had theological discussions with John Wesley for hours according to his journals. All of this is to demonstrate that she had a significant intellect. We know that she was an articulate leader in the Creek community once diffusing a situation where Creeks and Cherokees were in a blood feud convincing the Creeks it was not to their advantage to seek revenge at a Creek council meeting of tribes.

She was a compassionate woman. When her first husband died Wesley writes in his journal after visiting his concern over her grief and needed to visit her again soon. She also acted as the conscience of the colony when the city of Savannah exiled two women who were pregnant without husbands from the city. This would have left them at the mercies of nature or the Native Americans. Mary stepped in to take both women in and offered them shelter, work, and nurture throughout their lives. She also grieved the lost of kin and friends because of a tactical error made by General Oglethorpe leaving them to defend a fort to close to the Spanish. The fort was lost and most of the soldiers in the fort lost their lives. She was deeply grieved and would return to her Native American tribal city (Coweta) to recuperate emotionally and spiritually. She apparently, even though many pointed out Oglethorpe’s gross military error, never severed her relationship with him.  She rescued the previously mentioned middle class man who caused her legal and reputational problems from angry male Native Americans who thought he was a bit too flirty with their wives.  She also showed passion if not compassion when the same man threatened her with a gun by disarming him and locking him up until he sobered up.

She was also loyal. Throughout her mistreatment by various leaders of the colonies and their refusal to grant her lands and funds for the vast and varied services she performed for the colony she never wavered in offering the young colony her assistance. Even through Oglethorpe’s tactical military mistake costing her friends and family, being jailed for her persistence, the loss of one of her trading posts because she was considered friendly to the English, being near financial disaster because of the colonists not paying her for her services, having her Christianity questioned by leaders of the colonists, and many other slights she always responded as she could when asked by the colonists for assistance.

​This is not to say that she was perfect. But she was more complex and developed than the English written records may have recorded. She was probably never the romantic historical fiction person depicted on several novels. She was one of the many remarkable women of Georgia who never quite attain their position in the story of Georgia as they should have.