James Seagrove was an ambassador for the United States to the

Creek Nation The Muscogee Nation, or Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The nation descends from the historic Muscogee Confederacy, a large group of indigenous peoples of the South ...

and merchant who lived in southern Georgia.

Early career as a merchant and trader

Although Seagrove's early life is obscure, he was probably born in southern Ireland in 1767.Coleman, Georgia Biography, 2:876–78 He first appears helping the states of Georgia and South Carolina to procure supplies from Cuba during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. After the war, Seagrove moved to Camden County, Georgia. During the 1780s, acting occasionally with the British firm of

Panton, Leslie & Company Panton, Leslie & Company was a company of Scottish merchants active in trading in the Bahamas and with the Native Americans of what is now the Southeastern United States during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The origins of Panton, Leslie ...

, Seagrove developed a network of mercantile and diplomatic contacts with the Spanish and the Indians along the Georgia borders, and both the state and the federal government utilized his talents in a series of missions to the southern tribes. Early on, he purchased land and ran a store on Point Peter. Seagrove was one of twenty men who created the town of St. Marys, on the St. Marys River, in 1787. He also formed a charter with his brother Robert Seagrove, and James Armstrong and Noble Hardee for the town of Coleraine also on the St. Marys River, where he operated a mercantile store. He received permission to trade with the Lower Creeks from Chief Alexander McGillivray.

Public service on the Georgia-Florida frontier

In 1787, Seagrove was elected to the

Georgia House of Representatives The Georgia House of Representatives is the lower house of the Georgia General Assembly (the state legislature) of the U.S. state of Georgia. There are currently 180 elected members. Republicans have had a majority in the chamber since 2005. ...

. In 1788, Seagrove and Henry Osborne, also of Camden County, were candidates for Representative to the First United States Congress of 1789. Both Seagrove and Osborne lost to Abraham Baldwin. In 1789, Seagrove was appointed a Collector of the State of Georgia under

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

, an appointment for which he wrote to

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

for support. The

post Post or POST commonly refers to: *Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries **An Post, the Irish national postal service **Canada Post, Canadian postal service **Deutsche Post, German postal service **Iraqi Post, Ira ...

was at St. Marys, and the town became the site of a U.S. Customs Port. Dissatisfied with an appointment which had produced "not one shilling," Seagrove wrote to President Washington on 16 April 1790 requesting a more lucrative assignment and in March 1792 he was made inspector of the port. He also served as a Commissioner to the Spanish government in Florida, going to St. Augustine in 1791 to discuss

fugitive slaves In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th century to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called freed ...

from the United States entering

East Florida East Florida ( es, Florida Oriental) was a colony of Great Britain from 1763 to 1783 and a province of Spanish Florida from 1783 to 1821. Great Britain gained control of the long-established Spanish colony of ''La Florida'' in 1763 as part of ...

."Enclosure III: Agreement on Fugitive Slaves, 7 August 1791," Founders Online, National Archives (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-22-02-0383, ver. 2013-06-26). Source: ''The Papers of Thomas Jefferson'', vol. 22, 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791, ed. Charles T. Cullen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 408–409. In 1793, Seagrove undertook a mission to

Tukabatchee Tukabatchee or Tuckabutche ( Creek: ''Tokepahce'' ) is one of the four mother towns of the Muscogee Creek confederacy.Isham, Theodore and Blue Clark"Creek (Mvskoke)." ''Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.'' ...

, a 'capital' town of the Creek Nation.Daniel M. Smith. James Seagrove and the Mission to Tuckabatchee, 1793. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol 44, No 1. March 1960, p 41-55. In 1796, the

Treaty of Colerain The Treaty of Colerain was signed at St. Marys, Georgia in Camden County, Georgia, by Benjamin Hawkins, George Clymer, and Andrew Pickens (congressman), Andrew Pickens for the United States and representatives of the Creek people, Creek Nation, for ...

between the Creeks and United States was signed at the small town Seagrove had founded. James Seagrove's death date cannot be found, but it is known he was a participant in the Patriot Expedition in 1811.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seagrove, James Members of the Georgia House of Representatives People from Camden County, Georgia