Roderick MacKenzie
Artist
The Alabama State Capitol's pink and gold neoclassical Rotunda features walls which are decorated with eight large murals designed in the late 1920s by Alabama artist and Scottish native, Roderick MacKenzie. The newly formed Alabama State Council on the Arts allocated $7000 for MacKenzie, who was living in Mobile, to create these murals for the CapitalThe murals feature scenes from Alabama's history, such as the arrival of deSoto, the French settlement, early pioneers, antebellum life, the Confederacy and commercial development.
Kate Cumming
Confederate Nurse
Kate Cumming was born in Scotland in 1836 and moved to Mobile, Alabama, with her family by way of Canada while she was very young. She and her family were active in St. John's Episcopal Church in Mobile and she was an active Christian lady all her life. In the spring of 1862, at age 26, she volunteered for nursing service to help the southern cause and relieve what suffering she could. She did this over the objections of her family and at a time when many male doctors would not allow women in the hospitals.
Kate's service began at Corinth, Mississippi, where wounded and dying soldiers from the recent Battle of Shiloh were cared for. She continued her service through Chickamauga and other Georgia locations until the end of the war. After her return to Mobile, she published a day to day journal of her war time activities called, "A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee", Kate's published writings also include "Gleanings from Southland", "The Bostonians", "The Rose of Elgin", "Isabella" and other essays. Miss Cumming later moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where she taught for some years. Kate Cumming died on June 5, 1909. Recommended reading "Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse". by Kate Cumming edited by Richard Barksdale Harwell, Lousiana State University Press.
William Burns Patterson
Alabama State University Pioneer
In 1878 a young, self-educated Scottish immigrant arrived in Marion, Alabama, to assume the reins at Alabama's first state-assisted black institution of higher learning, the American Missionary Association's Abraham Lincoln School. With his wife, Maggie, William Burns Paterson spent the next ten years nurturing a remarkable institution while often facing racially motivated hostilities. In 1887 following an act of arson, the state legislature voted to move the school -- then called the Alabama State Normal School for Colored Students -- to Montgomery, where the Patersons worked to maintain a balance of liberal arts education along with industrial training. In 1969 the school became Alabama State University, attaining university status almost one hundred years after its creation at Marion.
William McIntosh
Creek Leader and Pioneer
William McIntosh, son of (Scottish) Captain William McIntosh and Senoia Henneha of the Coweta-Cussitta Towns of the Lower Creeks, was born about 1775 near Tuetumpla (now Alabama). McIntosh was raised by his mother's brothers, who taught him the life skills necessary to survive in the wilderness on his own. McIntosh also spent much time with his father and stepmother in the Savannah area. It was here that he learned to read, write and speak English. His mother was of the Wind Clan, the clan from which leaders are usually chosen. McIntosh became a Micco (king) of the Lower Creek villages.
White's Historical Collections of Georgia, an early Georgia history, described McIntosh as intelligent and brave. In person he was tall, finely formed, and of graceful and commanding manners. His first cousin was George Troup, who served as Governor of Georgia. McIntosh's military rank was earned by fighting with American forces under the command of Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. He fought well at the battles of Autossee, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama and in the Florida campaign. His rank was Brigadier General. An astute businessman, McIntosh amassed considerable wealth. McIntosh felt strongly that the Creeks should sell their land and take the money and land promised in the West. It was to this end that he signed the Treaty of 1825 at the Indian Spring Hotel. Unfortunately, McIntosh was unable to convince the leaders of the Upper Creek villages or the Cherokee at New Echota. While the treaty was being signed leaders of the Upper Creek villages stood outside the hotel and swore revenge on McIntosh. McIntosh was followed to his home, killed and scalped. His wife Susanna threw herself over his body and protected it for three days until troops arrived and buried McIntosh on the spot.
Alexander McGillivray
Scots-Creek Statesman
He was born in the Creek country now within the borders of the state of Alabama, the son of Lachlan McGillivray, a Scots trader, and Sehoy Marchand, his French-Creek wife. Given a classical education at Charleston, S.C., he returned to his mother's people at the beginning of the American Revolution when Georgia confiscated the property of his Loyalist father, who thereupon returned to Scotland. In the war he was a British agent, influential in maintaining Creek loyalty to the crown. At Pensacola in 1784, McGillivray, now dominant in his nation's councils, concluded with the Spanish a treaty confirming the Creek in their lands, giving the Spanish a trade monopoly, and making him Spanish commissary. With arms provided by the Spanish, his warriors periodically attacked American frontier settlements from Georgia to the Cumberland River. In 1790, President Washington, seeking to end the depredations, invited him to a conference in New York City. McGillivray, an intelligent diplomat, accepted, meanwhile assuring Spanish authorities of his loyalty, and was well received. By the Treaty of New York (1790), the Creek acknowledged U.S. sovereignty over part of their territory, acquired lands claimed by Georgia, and agreed to keep the peace. McGillivray himself accepted a brigadier generalcy and a yearly pension. He continued in the pay of the Spanish, however; in 1792 when they increased his subsidy, he entered upon another treaty with them that practically repudiated his treaty with the Americans, and the Native American attacks were resumed. (InfoPlease.com)
William Weatherford aka Red Eagle
c. 1780–1824, Native American chief, b. present-day Alabama. Red Eagle, also known as William Weatherford, was born about 1780, the son of Scottish trader Charles Weatherford and a Creek chieftain's daughter. In his early thirties he became an ally of Tecumseh, and led one of the Creek factions to resist the advance of the white frontier. After an attack by white frontiersmen upon a party of Creeks returning from a trading expedition to Florida, Red Eagle assembled a force of a thousand warriors and trailed the attackers to Fort Mims, an outpost north of Mobile. On August 30, 1813, they overran the poorly defended fort and after , refusing to heed his plea for restraint ,killed about five hundred of its 550 occupants, who consisted of whites, black slaves, and Creeks loyal to the U.S. The Fort Mims massacre brought several columns of militia and regular Army troops in pursuit of Red Eagle's warriors. With Menewa and other Creek leaders, Red Eagle built a stronghold at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. On March 27, 1814, General Andrew Jackson's forces surrounded and severely defeated the Creeks. After the battle, Red Eagle boldly entered Jackson's headquarters, surrendered, and promised that if his life was spared he would spend the remainder of it working for peace. Impressed by the man's courage and intelligence, Jackson pardoned him. Red Eagle kept his word, settled on a plantation in Monroe County, Alabama, and was accepted in the community as a man of peace and strict honor. This great American Indian leader died March 9, 1822, shortly before his people underwent their mass removal to Indian Territory.
Billy Powell aka Osceola
1804-1838 Osceola was not born a chief nor was he ever so named by formal election. He was born in Georgia, near the Chattahoochee River, in the country of the Creeks, near Tuskogee, Alabama. His name means Black Drink Crier (Asi-YaHolo). His lineage is disputed, but biographers Hartley in 1973 and Wickman in 1991 both refer to Tom Woodward's lineage of Osceola. A Scot named James McQueen lived with the Creeks from 1716 till 1811 when he died at the age of 128. He had married a Tallassee woman and had many children, two of which were Peter McQueen (great-Uncle and chief in his own right), and Ann. Ann married a half-breed named Copinger and had a daughter named Polly. Polly Copinger then married William Powell, a Scot trader and their son was named Billy, later known as Osceola. Osceola always maintained that he was full-blooded, but that was because his mother had told him that Creek and Seminole followed Matriarchal lineage....the male did not count: " You are Muskogee because I am. I am because my mother is." In actuality, Osceola has Scottish lineage on both sides: McQueen on his mother's and Powell on his father's. The male on the mothers side is of the most influence and that was his great uncle Talmuches Hadjo aka Peter McQueen.
Elegant in dress, handsome of face, passionate in nature and giant of ego, Osceola masterminded successful battles against five baffled U.S. generals, murdered the United State's Indian agent, took punitive action against any who cooperated with the white man and stood as a national manifestation of the Seminoles' strong reputation for non-surrender. Osceola was not a chief with the heritage of a Micanopy or Jumper, but his skill as an orator and his bravado in conflict earned him great influence over Seminole war actions. Osceola's capture, under a controversial flag of truce offered by Gen. Thomas Jessup, remains today one of the blackest marks in American military history. A larger-than-life character, Osceola is the subject of numerous myths; his 1838 death in a Charleston, S.C. prison was noted on front pages around the world. At the time of his death, Osceola was the most famous American Indian.
Peter McQueen: (Talmuches Hadjo)
Creek Chief, born probably 1780, and on Line Creek in Montgomery County, Alabama, was the son of James McQueen and a Tallassee woman. James McQueen was a Scotchman, born, it is said in 1683, deserted from a British vessel at St. Augustine in 1710. McQueen was a prominent chief at the massacre of Fort Mims. He seems not to have been present at the battle of the Horse-Shoe. After this defeat, he and his two brothers-in-law, John and Sandy Durant, placed themselves for a short time with their people on the headwaters of Line Creek. Thence they went to Florida. General Thomas Woodward writes of meeting him and Josiah Francis at Fort Hawkins near the close of 1817. The two chiefs were there trading and their meeting with their old acquaintance, Woodward, was entirely friendly. Very soon after this, the fugitive Creeks and Seminoles were at open war against the Americans, and Peter McQueen was recognized as the head leader. The war of 1818 in Florida known in history as the first Seminole war, was fought almost solely by the friendly Indians under General William McIntosh against the Red Stick Creeks and Seminoles under Peter McQueen. There was very little fighting done by the Americans. The most notable fight was on April 12, 1818, at Econfinnah, in which McQueen was defeated with the loss of thirty-seven men killed, and six men and ninety-seven women and children capture of cattle. McIntosh's loss was three men killed and four wounded. At the close of the Florida war McQueen took refuge on a barren island. on the Atlantic side of Cape Florida, where he soon after died.
William Cook House
Nauvoo, Alabama
In 1900, Scottish immigrant William Cook designed and built this two-story classically styled homestead, which still includes outbuildings and the railway bed to Cook's adjacent coal mine. The house retains its large open porches and the furnishings acquired by several generations of the Cook family. Special festivities are held during the annual "Christmas in Nauvoo" celebration. William Cook House
Highway 11, Nauvoo, Walker County
Open by Appointment & for Private Parties, 205-697-5792
Do you have a biography of a Scottish pioneer in Alabama? Do you know of additional places in Alabama with Scottish connections? Do you know of contributions made to Alabama by Scottish settlers?
Share it with us for publication on this page - send to pgsmith ("AT" symbol) charter (dot) net or mail to:
Alabama Celtic Association
P.O. Box 724
Trussville AL 35173
