“I am a Mico, and Micoes Scorn to Spake Lyes”: Honor, Masculinity, and Diplomacy in British-Native American Relations

In 1735, Georgia Indian agent Patrick Mackay met with Coweta (lower Creek) headman Cherekeileigie.  An irritated Mackay accused Cherekeileigie of betraying the English to the Spanish in neighboring St. Augustine, Florida, and of telling “a great many false Stories.”  Cherekeileigie responded with strong words.  “What, says he, doe you discredite what I say, I am a Mico, & Micoes Scorn to Spake lyes.  I am not afraid to tell truth.  I once of a day was in friendship wt the English, when I gave proofes of my being a man I have fought wt them against the [296] Tuskeroraes.  . . . I take your Kings talk wt a Streight heart.

This paper investigates the cross-cultural rhetoric of manhood and honor as it developed in British-Native American diplomacy in the eighteenth century North American Southeast.  The colonial period witnessed the collision of competing cultural notions of honor between British and Native American elite men.  Diplomatic meetings, especially after about 1720, provided a venue for leaders to articulate their notions of what constituted honorable behavior and who might claim honor.  Both sides insulted the honor of the other, usually with a distinct political purpose in mind, and each defended their own honor.  An analysis of formal diplomatic “talks” provide a window into how each culture constructed notions of honor, and how the meeting of such different notions became a key aspect of frontier diplomacy.  As the example of Cherekeileigie’s speech shows, leading men believed that they shared notions of honor based on honesty and military courage, and wielded these concepts as part of a growing diplomatic rhetoric that emphasized honor.  Cultural misunderstandings, especially regarding what constituted appropriate martial tactics and diplomatic alliances, however, undermined this rhetoric, revealing the strong cultural differences dividing the various cultures of the colonial Southeast.