Chehaw massacre nearly lost to history

Accounts of the incident, now mostly lost to history or obscured by time, vary. But most agree that the treachery of Capt. Obed Wright cost the lives of at least seven men, one woman and two children, although Wright himself estimated that number to be as high as 50.

“Wright reported that about 24 warriors were killed, and since some of the houses had their doors shut and guns were being fired from crevices, the buildings were fired and some of the inhabitants burned to death,” documents within the 2004 Southwest Georgia Archaeological Survey explain. “(Wright) estimated the total killed to be between 40 and 50.”

Wright was ultimately arrested for his crimes, primarily due to the outrage of Jackson, but the murdering captain in the end managed to escape, disappearing into Spanish-occupied Florida, according to accounts from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

“I don’t think anybody really knows what happened to Captain Wright,” Lee County Chief Code Enforcement Officer and amateur archaeologist Jim Wright (no relation to Capt. Obed Wright) said. “But we do know where the massacre happened. The only thing is that the massacre site, the village site, and the monument that was erected in 1912, are all on private property now. So, you can’t just go out there trespassing or digging for artifacts.”

Wright, who is well known throughout the county and who spends most of his free time prowling the backwoods and creek bottoms hunting for relics, obtained permission from the landowner for a visit.

It’s a lonely stretch of two-lane county blacktop, flat and curving east into the morning sun. The spot where a large stone monument was placed almost 106 years ago recording the Chehaw tragedy is hardly noticeable. If one was not looking closely, it would be missed.

A 2-acre block of red oak, old slash pine, the occasional dogwood and scrub brush hide the nearly forgotten stone sentinel whose chiseled memorial sits now for none to see.

A twisted and mangled chain link fence encircles the wooded area. Hanging from the fence a small, hand-carved wooden sign reads, “Chehaw Village.”

Originally erected facing the Old Leslie Highway, a road removed and relocated decades ago, the 1912 monument now faces south through the trees toward the old village site where the massacre occurred.

Placed and dedicated by a large attending crowd and with great fanfare, the stone marker is now practically the only evidence, other than a few relics relinquished reluctantly by the earth, that the Chehaw were ever here.

The stone’s obscured position provides no visibility from the modern road, now located some 50 yards north.

An enormous plowed and empty expanse of red Georgia soil falls away from the monument site to the south, framed at its edge by a forest of pine and red oak. Deeper into the lowland woods, white oak, water oak and magnolia hug the muddy banks of the Muckalee Creek.

It was within the natural clearings of this forest, and along the Muckalee itself, that the Chehaw built their once prominent village known for its fertile crops, vibrant livestock and friendly inhabitants. And it was here that Wright dealt his death blow to a tribe that was already in decline.

The Chehaw Affair, an incident largely neglected by American history, attracted the attention of Georgia Gov. William Rabun, Gen. Andrew Jackson and even U.S. President James Monroe when it occurred.

Conflicts over territory were becoming a serious problem along the Georgia frontier during the early 1800s. Large populations of indigenous people were still living in south Georgia, and clashes between natives, invading settlers and the army precipitated certain treaty concessions that were forced upon both hostile and non-hostile Indians living in the area.

“In 1814, Andrew Jackson, with the aid of a large body of friendly Lower Creek Indians, defeated at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River a large army of hostile Upper Creeks and forced upon the Indians both hostile and friendly the Treaty of Fort Jackson,” the 2004 Southwest Georgia Archaeological Survey records. “This treaty required, without payment, the cession of all of Georgia south of a line extending from Fort Gaines to Jesup and large areas in Alabama (then part of the Territory of Mississippi). The friendly Lower Creeks bore this injustice as well as they could, but many of the hostile Upper Creeks joined their kinsmen in Florida, the Seminoles, and began harassing the Georgia frontier.”

By 1817, the Seminole Wars broke out, and Jackson was ordered south to quell the violence. In March of 1818, on his way to Florida, Jackson rested his troops at the Chehaw village.

“Andrew Jackson, en route to Florida, stopped at the Chehaw village, where he received some provisions for his half-starved troops,” the 1983 History of Lee County records. “The Chehaws also cared for the sick and wounded. Forty of the Chehaw braves joined Jackson’s army, which continued to Florida leaving South Georgia settlers unprotected from scalping and thieving attacks by hostile Indians. The Chehaw village was left in charge of the women, children and a few old men.”

As Jackson’s army moved south, a few of the remaining hostile tribes, the Hoppones and the Philemmee, were emboldened to make trouble.

Reports of skirmishes by these hostiles quickly reached Georgia’s capital in Milledgeville, and Governor Rabun dispatched orders on April 14, 1818, to protect Georgia settlers, but Jackson’s army was too far south and the orders fell to the responsibility of the militia.

“Jackson had gone too far to comply effectively with Rabun’ s wishes, and as a result he never answered the Georgia governor’s letter,” the 2004 Southwest Georgia Archaeological Survey says. “Feeling that it was his first duty to heed the pleas of the settlers for protection, Rabun, on April 14, 1818, issued orders for the collection of a force of militia to gather at Hartford to punish the Indians. He stated that he had received information which he could not doubt ‘that wanton and cruel murders so frequently committed on the frontier inhabitants of this state, and which are almost daily practiced by the savages, [were] ascertained to be the Phelemmes and Hoppones, inhabitants of two small villages of their names, on or near the Flint River, who have during the late hostilities endeavored to conceal their bloodthirsty and hostile disposition under the cloak of friendship.’”

Rabun ordered an expedition against these villages.

Rabun explained that “the utmost precaution will be necessary to the accomplishment of this important object, and that effect which, it will be necessary that a profound secrecy should be observed, and the expedition be prosecuted with the greatest possible dispatch, in order to take the Indians by surprise; as this is the only probable means of obtaining an effectual and decisive victory over an enemy who will not come in contact on equal terms.”

According to records, Wright set out on April 21 with about 270 men, including the contingent at Fort Early on modern-day Lake Blackshear, which joined him there.

“By this time, Wright had determined to attack Chehaw rather than the two villages named in Rabun’ s orders, because he had evidence that hostile chief Hoppone had taken up residence in this village and ruled it,” according to the 2004 Southwest Georgia Archaeological Survey. “The commander at Fort Early insisted that Chehaw was a friendly village and refused to accompany the expedition, though he reinforced it with part of his troops. Years later, it was stated that Wright had been ‘misled by false information.’ The next day he arrived at the Flint River and, crossing it to the west side, at daybreak (according to his report to Gov. Rabun) he ‘advanced with caution against the Chehaw Town.’

“About a half-mile from the town he took an Indian prisoner who was tending some cattle, and on inspection he found that they bore the mark of a citizen of Telfair County, and had therefore, been stolen from him. There seems to have been some parleying with the Indian, which came to nothing, and between 11 and 12 o’ clock noon Wright attacked the town, giving his men ‘positive orders not to injure the women, or children, and in the course of two hours, the whole was in flames; they made some little resistance but to no purpose.’ Some of the inhabitants fled to the thick swamp nearby. Wright’ s forces blew up all the powder they found in the village. Wright supposed that the chief of the village was slain. The Georgia forces did not lose a man, and they marched back to Fort Early the same day.”

The attack was brutal, sparing neither the old nor young.

According to reports, Major Howard, an elderly chief with an honorary U.S. Army rank, was shot and then bayoneted while waving a white flag of surrender.

“Major Howard ran outside his house carrying a stick with a white flag,” historian Richard Thornton wrote in the “Secret History of the Chehaw Massacre.” “He was immediately shot down and bayoneted. The rapacious cavalrymen shot or trampled any living thing on the village’s streets. They set fire to all the houses, where the women, children and elderly were hiding.”

Wright’ s second in command, Jacob Robinson, made a report to the Georgia Journal, a Milledgeville newspaper, on April 30 about the attack during which, “Robinson insisted that these Indians were hostile and that most of the cattle being tended nearby bore the brands of white settlers. He asserted further that a dozen or more shots had been fired from sinks or caves before the Georgia troops opened up; that some of the Indians in the village were painted; that there was found in the village a supply of British muskets, carbines, and other war supplies, and powder in almost all the houses.

“He (Robinson) said that the Indian which they had captured near the village reported to them that Hoppone was living there and was in the village at the time.”

Although Robinson claimed later he did not know whether or not Hoppone had been killed.

About a month after the destruction of the village, Rabun declared that the accounts given by Wright and Robinson substantially were correct except for the number of those killed.

When pressed by returning Chehaw warriors, Rabun, on May 20, 1818, offered a rather unapologetic explanation for what had transpired.

Rabun declared: “This unfortunate affair has been shamefully represented by many of our citizens whose delicate feelings seem to have forgotten that many wanton outrages which have been committed on our frontier by the Indians, and would ever cover the whole state with disgrace, merely because this small detachment has in this instance mistaken their orders and carried resentment to an improper extent.”

Jackson was furious after learning of the massacre perpetrated against his allies. He immediately met with the Chehaw chiefs and other Indians begging them to remain friendly and not to retaliate. He ordered the arrest of Wright, who was captured in Dublin on May 24. On July 27, Wright escaped with a $500 bounty on his head, never to be heard from again.

Compensations were awarded by the U.S government in the amount of $8,000 to the Chehaw people who, after this point, disappeared into history.