Millie Francis of the Creek Tribe is often called the Creek Pocahontas. She was the first woman and Native American to be awarded a medal from the U. S. Government.
Daughter of Creek leader
Millie was the daughter of
Creek leader Josiah Francis (Francis the Prophet) was born in
Montgomery, Alabama about 1803.
Josiah Francis was most often referred to as Prophet Francis. He, along with Tecumseh ignited a religious movement among the Creeks that started the Creek War of 1813-1814. The warring Creeks were called Red Stick Creeks because they used red war clubs.
The Red Sticks were defeated at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend so Francis fled with his family and many of the surviving Creeks to what was Spanish, Florida at the time where they continued the war with Chief Oseola who resided there.
One evening a scouting party returned with a young white prisoner named Duncan McCrimmon (or McKrimmon). It is often reported that McCrimmon was fishing and had become lost in the forest.
Tied to a stack
The prisoner was, as was the custom, quickly stripped of his clothes and tied to a stake where he would be executed while the whole camp, men women and children watched.
Young McCrimmon anxiously looked around as if asking with his eyes if there was no one to speak for him and save his life.
He evidently caught the eye of 15 year old Milly. She quickly stepped forward and all eyes were on her as she pleaded with her father to spare the prisoner’s life.
Francis looked at his beautiful daughter and reminded her that it was the custom for those captured to be executed and he could not interfere, but he allowed her to try to persuade his captors not to killing McCrimmon.
One of McCrimmon’s captors had two sisters killed in the Indian Wars and was determined to take revenge but Milly stood firm and argued that McCrimmon’s death would not bring back his sisters.
Finally, after a few
minutes, the captors decided to spare his life if he would agree to
have his head shaved and assume their dress.
McCrimmon agreed to their conditions and was released.
The tribe later traded him to a Spanish garrison in Florida for 7 ½ gallons of rum.
When Gen. Andrew Jackson seized the Spanish garrison a few months later, McCrimmon was finally freed, but he did not forget Milly.
Francis the Prophet was not so lucky, He was captured the following spring and executed on Jackson’s orders in front of Milly’s eyes.
After her father’s death, Milly was ordered to walk with other members of her tribe to Fort Gadsden and from there back to the Creek nation in Alabama. She and her husband were eventually forced to move to Oklahoma to the Creek nation there. Her husband lost his life to disease on the trail to the Indian Territory.
News about Milly’s act in saving McCrimmon was reported in the local newspapers as an example of how the Native-Americans were not all savages and she became a celebrity for a while.
McCrimmon had not forgotten her. He tracked her down at an Indian camp in Alabama and brought her some money from the citizens of Milledgeville, Ga. He even offered to marry her and bring her back with him to Georgia, but she refused.
On Dec. 1, Col. Matthew Arbuckle, the
commander of Fort Gadsden, wrote a disappointing conclusion to the
Milledgeville Journal:
“Duncan McCrimmon is here — Milly, the Prophet Francis’ daughter, says she saved his life, or used such influence as she possessed to that effect, from feelings of humanity alone, and that she would have rendered the same service to any other white man similarly circumstanced. . .
Gradually her fame faded as she moved further west.
She became destitute
Twenty-five years later, Gen. Hitchcock was traveling through Oklahoma, and he visited Milly who by that time was a widow with three children. She was penniless and almost completely destitute. Hitchcock resolved to petition Congress for a pension to help her. His petition was successful and Congress granted her the medal of honor and an annual pension of $96 but it took six years for it to be granted.
During the six years, Milly contracted tuberculosis and became gravely ill. When her pension arrived, a Creek agent named James Logan, immediately went to her residence to provide her with the award and the money, but he found her in what he called a “wretched condition.” He sent for medical aid and read the letter from Congress. Logan later wrote that Milly was elated and he thought she might be recovering. However, a few days later she died.
But she has not been entirely forgotten. There are plaques honoring her at Fort Gadsden and San Marcos de Apalche Historic State Park and she will be inducted into Alabama’s Women’s Hall of Fame on March 7, 2019.
The
exhilarating action & subplots keep the reader in constant
anticipation. It is almost impossible to put the book down until
completion,
Dr.
Don P. Brandon, Retired Professor, Anderson University, Anderson,
Indiana
This
is the first book I have read that puts a personal touch to some
seemingly real people in factual events.
Ladyhawk
Love
books with strong women…this has one. Love early American history
about ordinary people…even though they were not ‘ordinary’…it
took courage to populate our country. This book is well researched
and well written.
Julia
Smith
A
picture of love and history rolled into one. A step back in time that
pulls you in and makes you a part of the family and their world.
Ken
Flessas
Each
book’s writing gets stronger, characters become real, the struggles
and sorrows that laid the foundation for this country.
Addictedtobooks
Not
only is the story entertaining, it opens the eastern shore of the
early Virginia Colony to the reader as a picture book….I know this
story will touch many peoples’ hearts.
B.
Thomas
At
the age of sixteen, Mary and her husband, whom she barely knows, are
forced to escape the only home they’ve ever known and settle in the
primitive 17th century world of America where they shape their
family’s destiny for generations.
Inspired
by actual people and historical events of colonial America, “The
Kingdom of Accawmacke” is revealed and secrets about America’s
history are discovered in this well-researched series. The story
begins in 17th century England during the reign of Charles I and
continues a family’s journey to the eastern shore of Virginia and
Maryland.
