Benjamin Hawkins was an important Indian agent who helped to mold U.S. policy toward Native Americans in the early republic. Born on August 15, 1754, in North Carolina, Hawkins attended college in Princeton, New Jersey. Before completing the final year of his education, he joined the Continental army, acting as George Washington's French interpreter during the opening years of the Revolutionary War (1775-83). In 1778 Hawkins began a political career that included sitting in the North Carolina House of Representatives, attending the Second Continental Congress, and serving in the U.S. Senate.

In 1796, a year after Hawkins left the Senate, President Washington appointed him as Indian agent to the Creek Nation. Hawkins's responsibilities expanded, and he became the agent to all Indian nations south of the Ohio River. His most important work, however, took place among the Creek, and he helped secure the 1796 Treaty of Colerain, which set the boundary between the Creek and the United States. He also advocated the idea that Native Americans should adopt European-American farming techniques, posing a serious challenge to traditional Indian culture. However, despite that challenge, for nearly 16 years Hawkins contributed significantly to peaceful relations between Indians and European Americans in Georgia and the Carolinas. That peace fell apart during the Creek War (1813-14) when the Creek faction called the Red Sticks began fighting Creek loyal to the United States. This war deeply affected Hawkins, who continued working with "friendly" Creek. He died suddenly on June 6, 1816, while still laboring to sustain peaceful relations between the United States and the Indians of the Southeast.

Bibliography:

1) Benjamin Hawkins, The Collected Works of Benjamin Hawkins, 1796-1810 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003);

2) Florette Henri, The Southern Indians and Benjamin Hawkins, 1796-1816 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986);

3) Merritt Bloodworth Pound, Benjamin Hawkins, Indian Agent (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1951).

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