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McIntosh is a prominent name in the state of Georgia. There’s a McIntosh County in eastern Georgia, a McIntosh High School in Peachtree City, a McIntosh Reserve Park in Carroll County, a McIntosh Plaza in Carrollton and a McIntosh Trail Community Service Board in Griffin. These entities take their name from Chief William McIntosh, who had a prominent role in the development of early Georgia. The town of Senoia, Georgia, is thought to have been named for his wife.

William McIntosh will be the subject of the Spring quarterly meeting of the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society (CVHS), which will be held virtually at 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, April 27th. The presenter will be Dr. Gary Van Valen, a longtime instructor of history at the University of West Georgia. As an expert on Native American history and contemporary issues facing indigenous communities, Dr. Van Valen will be discussing the 1825 assassination of Muscogee leader William McIntosh. This month marks the 200th anniversary of this event and the signing of the Treaty of Indian Springs, which led to McIntosh being killed by fellow Creeks.

Van Valen will also talk about an event that will be taking place in Whitesburg, Georgia, on April 30th. Some living descendants of McIntosh will be making a public appearance that day.

William McIntosh was the son of a Scottish Loyalist and a Creek woman. He rose to becoming a leader in his mother’s nation in the first quarter of the 19th century, He played key roles in negotiating treaties with the U.S. government between 1805 and 1825 which resulted in the surrender of Muscogee lands in Georgia, He fought on the side of U.S. forces in First Creek War in what’s now Alabama in 1813 and 1814 and in the First Seminole War in Florida in 1817 and 1818.

In 1825, Upper Creeks from Alabama killed McIntosh at his home on the Chattahoochee River in Carroll County. This was punishment for his having acted alone in giving up Creek land to the U.S. That year, McIntosh became a subject of history and legend.

Van Valen’s presentation will clarify what historians actually know about McIntosh’s identity, his position in Muscogee society, and his actions in the context of both Muscogee culture and U.S. Indian policy.

The history of William McIntosh is very relevant not only to the history of Alabama overall but especially for the portion of east Alabama including Chambers, Lee, Randolph and other nearby counties. The land cession of 1825 opened up these areas for White settlement. Since this took place some five years before the Indian Removal Act, the Creeks still living in this region were not subject to immediate removal. That would take place following Alabama’s Second Creek War in 1836.

Dr. Van Valen is a native of New Jersey. He grew up in the town of Dumont and earned a B.A. in history from Montclair State University in 1988, an M.A. in Latin American history at the University of South Carolina in 1995 and a Ph.D. in Latin American history at the University of New Mexico in 2003. He has taught at the University of West Georgia since 2006 and is an acknowledged historian of Latin America and the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He is the author of Indigenous Agency of the Amazon: The Mojos in Liberal and Rubber Boom Bolivia, 1842-1932 (University of Arizona Press, 2013), which won the American Society for Ethnohistory’s Erminie Wheeler Voegelin Book Award. He has also written several articles and chapters in edited volumes. He’s currently collaborating with fellow West Georgia faculty and members of the Muscogee Nation in a project to highlight the role of William McIntosh in local history.

On Wednesday, April 30th, the descendants of William McIntosh will hold a meet and greet event at the public library in Whitesburg. The event will be taking place between 1 and 3 p.m. ET. It will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Chief McIntosh’s death. It has been arranged by the Friends of McIntosh Reserve.

“Join us for this informative and interesting presentation on Sunday afternoon, April 27th,” said CVHS President Jason Williams. “To take part in it, email ccpowers02@gmail.com prior to 12 noon EDT on April 27th. You will then be sent the Zoom link with instructions on how to join the meeting.”