Michele Gillespie
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195112436
- eISBN:
- 9780199854271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112436.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Mary Musgrove, the adult daughter of a Tuckabachee Creek woman and a white Carolina trader, was insulted at her exclusion in a meeting at the Savannah. She was the progeny of an interracial sexual ...
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Mary Musgrove, the adult daughter of a Tuckabachee Creek woman and a white Carolina trader, was insulted at her exclusion in a meeting at the Savannah. She was the progeny of an interracial sexual relationship between a Creek woman and an English man. Such unions aided the exchange of cultures that hastened both English colonization and Native American acculturation in the southeastern North America in the 18th century. She carefully cultivated her identity in response to the racial and gendered boundaries she encountered in the colonial culture of Georgia. Musgrove's life exemplifies the process of colonization and the importance of shifting racial and gendered boundaries in that process. Her experiences demonstrate how and on what terms the English colonizers dominated and excluded from the increasingly hierarchical world they were constructing those individuals and social groups who proved most threatening to the establishment of their authority.Less
Mary Musgrove, the adult daughter of a Tuckabachee Creek woman and a white Carolina trader, was insulted at her exclusion in a meeting at the Savannah. She was the progeny of an interracial sexual relationship between a Creek woman and an English man. Such unions aided the exchange of cultures that hastened both English colonization and Native American acculturation in the southeastern North America in the 18th century. She carefully cultivated her identity in response to the racial and gendered boundaries she encountered in the colonial culture of Georgia. Musgrove's life exemplifies the process of colonization and the importance of shifting racial and gendered boundaries in that process. Her experiences demonstrate how and on what terms the English colonizers dominated and excluded from the increasingly hierarchical world they were constructing those individuals and social groups who proved most threatening to the establishment of their authority.
Steven C. Hahn
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813042213
- eISBN:
- 9780813043043
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813042213.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Few people in colonial America lived a life as eventful or as improbable as that of Mary Musgrove (ca. 1700–1764), one of the most recognizable figures in Georgia history. Born to a Creek Indian ...
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Few people in colonial America lived a life as eventful or as improbable as that of Mary Musgrove (ca. 1700–1764), one of the most recognizable figures in Georgia history. Born to a Creek Indian mother and an English father, Mary's bicultural heritage prepared her for an eventful adulthood in the rough and tumble world of Georgia Indian affairs. Eventful as it was, Mary's story is also an improbable one. As a literate Christian, a trader, and wife of an Anglican clergyman, Mary was one of a very small number of “mixed blood” Indians anywhere to achieve a position of such prominence among English colonists. Active in diplomacy, trade, war, and politics, Mary was also one of the few women of her generation to engage in affairs typically dominated by men. This book is a historical biography that not only tells the story of her life, but also reflects upon its uncharacteristic features in order to examine the subjects of race and gender as they apply more broadly to the colonial Deep South. My main argument is that Mary found opportunity for social advancement in Georgia because frontier conditions initially blurred the distinction between “Indian” and “English.” In the end, the opportunity for social advancement that Mary enjoyed, brief and limited as it was, closed to subsequent generations of “mixed bloods” because the maturation of the Deep South's plantation system amplified the importance of existing racial and gender hierarchies.Less
Few people in colonial America lived a life as eventful or as improbable as that of Mary Musgrove (ca. 1700–1764), one of the most recognizable figures in Georgia history. Born to a Creek Indian mother and an English father, Mary's bicultural heritage prepared her for an eventful adulthood in the rough and tumble world of Georgia Indian affairs. Eventful as it was, Mary's story is also an improbable one. As a literate Christian, a trader, and wife of an Anglican clergyman, Mary was one of a very small number of “mixed blood” Indians anywhere to achieve a position of such prominence among English colonists. Active in diplomacy, trade, war, and politics, Mary was also one of the few women of her generation to engage in affairs typically dominated by men. This book is a historical biography that not only tells the story of her life, but also reflects upon its uncharacteristic features in order to examine the subjects of race and gender as they apply more broadly to the colonial Deep South. My main argument is that Mary found opportunity for social advancement in Georgia because frontier conditions initially blurred the distinction between “Indian” and “English.” In the end, the opportunity for social advancement that Mary enjoyed, brief and limited as it was, closed to subsequent generations of “mixed bloods” because the maturation of the Deep South's plantation system amplified the importance of existing racial and gender hierarchies.
