George Strother Gaines: Mississippi Friend to the Local Native Americans
by Jabe Fincher

This article is published with the kind permission of the author.

George Strother Gaines was a well-trusted and honorable man among the Indians and the whites. Learn about his life from author Jabe Fincher.

George Strother Gaines was born in Surry County (later Stokes County), North Carolina on May 1, 1784. At the young age of twenty-years, he received a federal appointment as assistant factor at the Choctaw Trading House at St. Stephens in 1804. His appointment as factor became official in 1807, and he was named postmaster at St. Stephens, Alabama.

The Choctaws were Gaines' principle customers at the trading house, but the Chickasaw from the upper Tombigbee region, Creeks living on the Black Warrior and Alabama Rivers, and white settlers from the lower Tombigbee and Tensaw settlements (*) purchased goods from Gaines. The Native Americans of the area, especially the Choctaws, were good friends of, and trusted, Gaines. He worked closely with the Indians and learned many of their customs and beliefs.

One belief or custom was the Choctaw method of dealing with the dead. Instead of burying their dead, the corpse was wrapped in a blanket and placed on a scaffold in the yard of the family. The body remained on the scaffold until the flesh was in an advanced stage of decay. At this time a professional bone picker was employed to remove the bones from the flesh, wash them, and place them in a small box. After this, the box was placed in the bone-house of the village. "Gaines, in his Reminiscences stated that the services of the Choctaw volunteers with our troops on the eastern frontier seemed to convince them that burying the dead was better than scaffolding, etc. They relinquished their ancient custom and buried, though they did not believe this mode as respectful to the memory of the deceased."

Gaines seemingly believed that the major reason that the Choctaws began burial practices instead of scaffolding was the effects of the Creek Civil War. In fact, there was a certain amount of "deculturation" among the Native Americans of the Southeast since the first contact with the white man.

Gaines became ill in February 1807 and traveled to Fort Stoddart where his brother, then Lieutenant Edmund Pendleton Gaines was serving as post commander. Edmund Gaines' wife tended to George Gaines while Edmund had to leave to intercept Aaron Burr near Wakefield. Edmund Pendleton Gaines was a career soldier who entered the U.S. army in 1797 and reached the rank of major general before his death. He served as post commandant at Fort Stoddart (1804-07) and served in the War of 1812, the First Seminole War (1818), the Black Hawk War (1832), the Second Seminole War (1835-36), and the Mexican War (1846-48). His first wife was Frances Toulmin, daughter of Judge Harry Toulmin.

Gaines met the three great chiefs of the Choctaw Nation: Mingo-Homa-stubbee, Mingo-Puck-shennubee, and Pushmataha while he was at St. Stephens. Gaines was with Colonel Dinsmoor at the time while at St. Stephens. Dinsmoor, along with James Robertson, were attempting to negotiate a treaty with the Choctaws. The resulting treaty was the Treaty of Mount Dexter, near Macon, Miss., which was signed on Nov.16, 1805.

Mingo Puckshenubbee (1739-1824)- served as chief of the Western District of the Choctaw Nation. He was involved in several treaty conferences and signed the treaties of Fort Adams (1801), Fort Confederation (1816), and Doak's Stand (1820). He joined Pushmataha and Mushulatubbee as a member of the 1824 Choctaw delegation to Washington, but died from injuries sustained in a fall at Maysville, Kentucky, on October 13, 1824, at the age of eighty-five.

Pushmataha -- (1764-1824), served as chief of the Southern District of the Choctaw Nation. He was noted for his oratory, he spoke at the "great council" in 1811 addressed by Tecumseh. Pushmataha rejected Tecumseh's war message. He traveled to St. Stephens in September 1813 after learning of the attack on Fort Mims and offered his services to Gaines and the people of the area. He led the first body of 135 Choctaw warriors to St. Stephens, where he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel. Pushmataha died of pneumonia in Washington, D.C., on December 24, 1824 and was buried in the Congressional cemetery.

In 1817, Congress creates the Alabama Territory with its capital at St. Stephens; the governor is William W. Bibb. In 1819, Alabama becomes the 22nd state and its capital is temporarily set at Huntsville. In 1820, the capital was moved to Cahaba.

In 1821, Gaines entered into a mercantile business with Allen Glover, a wealthy planter and slave owner from Edgefield District, South Carolina. Glover had moved to Demopolis and in 1822 Gaines, and his family moved to Demopolis. Gaines and Glover bought the Choctaw Trading house from the federal government. Allen Glover- (1770-1840) emigrated to Demopolis in 1819 with his family, slaves, and livestock. He purchased land from the French colonists. Glover and Gaines became close friends and business partners (1822-32). Glover became a wealthy and influential merchant and planter with more than 100 slaves before his death in 1840.

Gaines, as stated, was sympathetic to the plight of the Indians. He was a well-trusted and honorable man among the Indians and the whites. He was a family man and an able and prosperous businessman, when the federal government wasn't trying to renege paying him the money it owed him. His actions among the Choctaws probably prevented much blood shed. Albert Moore, in his book History of Alabama said that George Gaines thought that Alabama would be the "Garden of America" for many years, and he urged his brothers and friends to come. "So crude and backward was society that the sturdy George S. Gaines...felt that he was slipping back into barbarism before he had spent four years in the Tombigbee Valley. He wanted his new sister-in-law informed that she had 'a kind of savage brother that would be happy to see her.'" George S. Gaines, by his actions in West Alabama, the Tombigbee Valley and during the expedition to the "new" Indian lands in the West, deserves his recognition in the history of Alabama and the United States. Gaines died at State Line, Miss. on January 21, 1873. He was buried next to his wife, Ann, in the Peachwood cemetery. Peachwood was the title of his home.

(*)The Lower Tombigbee and Tensaw settlements are located approximately 10 miles north of Mobile, Alabama.

Endnotes

1. Pate, James P. George Strother Gaines: Pioneer and Statesman of Early Alabama and Mississippi, 1805-1843 Tuscaloosa, AL.: University of Alabama Press, 1998: 2-3
2. Ibid: 46
3. Ibid: 76
4. Ibid. 5
5. Ibid. 160-161
6. Ibid. :42, 159, 179
7. Ibid. 165-166
8. Ibid: 166
9. Ibid. 161-162
10. Ibid: 32
11. Moore, Albert B. History of Alabama. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press: 1934.: 111
12. Ibid. 178
13. Pate: 32

Bibliography

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University of Oklahoma Press: 1932, reprint 1972.

Hudson, Charles. The Southeastern Indians
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Lazenby, Marion Elias. History of Methodism in Alabama and West Florida
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Moore, Albert B. History of Alabama.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press: 1934.

Pate, James P. George Strother Gaines: Pioneer and Statesman of Early Alabama and Mississippi, 1805-1843.
Tuscaloosa, ALabama: University of Alabama Press, 1998.

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