James Seagrove was an ambassador for the United States to the
Creek Nation 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.
After the war, Seagrove moved to
Camden County, Georgia. During the 1780s, acting occasionally with the British firm of
Panton, Leslie & Company, 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
Coleraine ( ; from ga, Cúil Rathain , 'nook of the ferns'Flanaghan, Deirdre & Laurence; ''Irish Place Names'', page 194. Gill & Macmillan, 2002. ) is a town and civil parish near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, Northern I ...
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. 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, 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 th ...
for support. The
post 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 from the United States entering
East Florida.
["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, 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 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