Why is the man responsible for the Trail of Tears still on the $20 bill?

[HiPointDem]

49. i.e. he signed it in response to GA, already pushing indians off their land. A Bush relation was

peripherally involved, BTW:

(My own research and writing)


Samuel Howard Fay (father of Harriet Fay, GW Bush's g-g grandma) went to Savannah sometime before 1825... Samuel first stepped onto Georgia's historical stage in 1825, when he testified in an investigation of the Governor of Georgia's dealings with the Creek (Muscogee) Indians.

In 1825 Georgia's Governor George Troup (a Scot) and his first cousin William McIntosh signed the Second Treaty of Indian Springs. The treaty extinguished the Creeks' ownership of their remaining land in Georgia... Mcintosh had already signed away a great deal of the Creeks' land in the First Treaty of Indian Springs....3

McIntosh was half-Scot and half-Creek, a plantation owner and slaveholder who'd already been indited for smuggling slaves into Georgia from Florida. Another of his cousins, Alexander McGillivray, was half Creek as well -- and a partner in Panton, Leslie. Panton Leslie and its successor John Forbes and Co. dominated the trade with the Indians in Florida....also one of the biggest slave traders in Florida.4,5

The son of a Scottish trader and a Creek woman from an influential clan, McIntosh...had no overarching authority to speak for the entire Creek nation. In return for his betrayal, the Creek National Council ordered McIntosh's assassination. It was carried out in 1825. 3

President John Quincy Adams rescinded Troup's treaty... Troup... continued sending his militia to remove the Creeks. Adams threatened Troup with federal troops. Troup prepared his militia to fight the feds. Adams backed down.

The Creeks were pushed to Oklahoma along the “Trail of Tears,” and their land was distributed to white Georgians. 3

Samuel Fay's testimony played a peripheral part in this story. He simply recounted what he had heard while staying at Georgia's Indian Agency (the home of Henry Crowell, brother of President Adams' Indian Agent John Crowell):5

Testimony of Samuel Howard Fay.

I certify that I stopped at Mr. Henry Crowell's house... in speaking of the probability of Gov. Troup's punishing the Indians for the murder of Macintosh, I heard Mr. Crowell make a declaration similar to the following: "That if Gov. Troup were to attempt to punish the Indians, he (Crowell) would leive his wife, family and property and go over to the Indians, head them, and go his death with them." I believe these were the precise words of Mr. Crowell as near as I can recollect. It is the substance of his declaration.

Signed, SAMUEL HOWARD FAY.
Savannah, July 1, 1825.

By 1833 Samuel Howard Fay was a partner in the commission and shipping house of Padelford and Fay. Padelford was an American agent for Baring Brothers & Co., London's oldest merchant bank, then second in power only to Rothschild & Co...6