In the book I Wish I’d Been There, there are two chapters that can easily be compared, the McGillivray Moment and Chief Joseph Surrenders, for they both had to do with Native Americans, and how they were kicked off their land. Both were made promises that weren’t kept,by American Generals. even if meant twisting the rules of war and going against the law.
In The McGillivray Moment, President George Washington was worried that the Creek Nation was going to over inhabit the land to the west of the Mississippi river, also known as the land of America’s future. Washington was now faced with a problem, “The land west of the Mississippi must be inhabited by whites…, and the rights of the Native Americans to their tribal land must be protected.” That’s when Washington met Chief McGillivray, McGillivray was one of the,” twenty-seven Indian Chiefs representing all the major tribes of the Creek Nation” that paraded into the capital of the newly created
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McGillivaray was an Creek leader who was easy for Washington to communicate with for McGillivray spoke english. Washington’s idea of the Native Americans was that they needed to be regarded as independent nations, and with that idea, Washington thought of his first solution to the “Native American Problem”. “He envisioned multiple sanctuaries or “homelands” under tribal control and federal protection.” Chief McGillivray disagreed with this proposal which forced Washington to think of a new one. This time Washington came up with a treaty that read “The United States solemnly guarantee to the Creek Nation, all their lands within the limits of the United States to the westward and southward of the boundary described in the proceeding article.” Chief McGillivray agreed to the terms, without reading the fine print. For in the “lengthy two paragraph