It was not until he had seen the Spanish
plots collapse and had realized that the Americans were to
dominate the land, that the White Leader ceased from war and
urged the youths of his tribe to adopt American civilization.
Spent from hate and wasted with dissipation, he retired at last
to the spot where Lachlan had set up his first Creek home. Here
he lived his few remaining days in a house which he built on the
site of the old ruined cabin about which still stood the little
grove of apple trees his father had planted. He died at the age
of fifty of a fever contracted while he was on a business errand
in Pensacola. Among those who visited him in his last years, one
has left this description of him: "Dissipation has sapped a
constitution originally delicate and feeble. He possesses an
atticism of diction aided by a liberal education, a great fund of
wit and humor meliorated by a perfect good nature and
politeness." Set beside that kindly picture this rough etching by
James Robertson: "The biggest devil among them [the Spaniards] is
the half Spaniard, half Frenchman, half Scotchman and altogether
Creek scoundrel, McGillivray."
How indefatigably McGillivray did his work we know from the
bloody annals of the years which followed the British-American
peace, when the men of the Cumberland and of Franklin were on the
defensive continually.
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