Mary Musgrove

Mary Musgrove (Muscogee name, Coosaponakeesa, c. 1700–1765) was a leading figure in the early history of colonial Georgia. She was the daughter of Edward Griffin, an English-born trader from Charles Town in the Province of Carolina, and a Muscogee Creek mother. Fluent in local Creek languages, as well as English, Mary became an important intermediary between Muscogee Creek Natives and the early colonists. Musgrove carved out a life that merged both cultures, making a significant contribution to the development of colonial Georgia.

Mary Musgrove was born in the Creek Indian "Wind Clan" with the Creek name Coosaponakeesa in Coweta Town along the Ockmulgee River. She was the daughter of a Creek Native American woman and Edward Griffin, a trader from Charles Town in the Province of Carolina, of English descent. Her mother died when Mary was three years old and, soon after, she was taken into the custody of her grandmother. She later became known by her Christian and married names, Mary Griffin Musgrove Matthews Bosomworth.

Coweta was connected by a trading path to the Upper Creek town of Tuckabatchee. It is likely that Coosaponakeesa's family traveled, traded, and lived in both towns and had kin in each town, which may account for some historians considering her a Tuckabatchee Creek. Coosaponakeesa stated she was born in Coweta and lived with the Creeks until the age of seven when she, "was brought Down by her Father from the Indian Nation to Pomponne in South Carolina; There baptized, Educated and bred up in the principles of Christianity." After being baptized, her Christian name became Mary. Mary continued to live in Pon Pon until the Yamasee War of 1715 broke out. She then returned to Coweta and her Creek family there.

Colonel John Musgrove Sr. was a South Carolina Soldier, trader, and planter. He was employed by the Carolina Assembly to arrange peace between the Creeks and the Carolina colonists. Accompanying him to Coweta was his teenage son, John Musgrove Jr. Musgrove's party was welcomed in Coweta by "Chieftainess Qua", whom most historians have argued was the elder sister of Brims (Mary's aunt), if not her mother. Col. John Musgrove met with the Coweta headman Brims, whom the colonists had earlier designated as "Emperor" so (that in their eyes, at least) Brims could speak for the other Chiefs or headmen. In talks with Brims, it was decided a young niece from Brims' family would be betrothed to Musgrove's son, so as to maintain the native rules of kinship and reciprocity and thus help reinforce the peace treaty. Colonel Musgrove was married to a Creek woman and, therefore, his son John Musgrove Jr., like Mary, was of "mixed blood."

Mary and John Musgrove Jr., married and lived among her Coweta kin, which was the traditional practice of matrilineal cultures such as the Creeks. But in 1725, the couple moved to Pon Pon, an area now in Colleton County where Mary's father also had lived and where Mary lived for a period as a girl. By the 1730s, they had three sons, but none of their children lived to adulthood. In 1732, the couple were asked by the Carolina governor and the Yamacraws, a group of Creeks and Yamasees, to start a trading post near the Savannah River. Their trading post, Cowpen] , was well established by the time James Oglethorpe (1696–1785) and his colonists landed near Georgia.

James Oglethorpe and a group of trustees had been granted a Royal charter by King George II (r. 1727–1760) to start a settlement colony in Georgia. Oglethorpe, a pastor, a physician and 114 colonists arrived in Charles Town in January 1733 before embarking south to ascertain a suitable site. Oglethorpe met the chief of the Yamacraws, Tomochichi (d. 1741) on February 1, 1733, and after several weeks of ritual kinship building on Tomochichi's part and Oglethorpe's responsive acts of reciprocity, quasi-kinship ties were established. Tomochichi granted land to Oglethorpe which violated previous Creek Treaties with South Carolina that prohibited colonial settlement south of the Savannah River. A three-day conference was held which resulted in the Articles of Peace and Commerce allowing Oglethorpe to settle "upon the river Savannah as far as the tide flowed and along the Sea Coast, excepting the three Islands, Sapalo [Sapelo], St. Catherine's and Ossabaw."

John Musgrove traveled as the interpreter for Tomochichi, his wife, and other Creeks who sailed with Oglethorpe to England to meet King George II in 1734. During this time the Musgrove's trading partner, Joseph Watson, drank heavily and caused extensive problems in the trading post; bragging that he helped an Indian drink himself to death, slandered Mary as a witch, tried to shoot her, and caused a sequence of events where Musgrove's slave Justice was killed. Mary filed actions against Watson, who was fined, but in the end he had to be jailed for his own protection.

On June 12, 1735, John Musgrove died of a fever. Mary married her former English indentured servant Jacob Matthews who was several years her junior in the spring of 1737. Between 1737 and 1738 Mary assisted Oglethorpe in securing land cessions from the Creeks. Under his request she established trading posts along the Altamaha so as to monitor Creek loyalty and Spanish activities. Both trading posts had to be eventually abandoned causing financial losses for Mary. For a decade Mary continued to be interpreter, mediator, and advisor to Oglethorpe helping him to secure treaties and land cessions. The minister John Wesley (1703–1791) also visited her and commented that "Tomochichi's interpreter was one Mrs. Musgrove. She understands both languages, being educated amongst the colonists. She can read and write, and is a well-civilized women. She is likewise to teach us the Indian tongue."