Background
Alexander Cuming was born about 1690 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the son of Sir Alexander Cuming, a member of Parliament, and Elizabeth (Swinton) Cuming.
Alexander Cuming was born about 1690 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the son of Sir Alexander Cuming, a member of Parliament, and Elizabeth (Swinton) Cuming.
During the winter of 1729-30 he busied himself with a banking scheme to reform the colonial currency: this project he continued to promote, unsuccessfully, after his return to England. On the eve of his departure he decided to make a rapid excursion of nearly a thousand miles by rough trading-paths into the back-country and the mountains.
A member of the Royal Society, he set out as a scientific explorer rather than as a political agent, searching for minerals, herbs, and the "natural curiosities" of the land. But another purpose took shape in his erratic mind as he listened to the frontiersmen's accounts of French intrigues and widespread disaffection among the Cherokee Indians, the corner-stone of British alliances and empire in the South.
At Keowee in the Lower Towns, Sir Alexander's enterprise, mad or inspired, was first revealed. There he dramatically appeared, fully armed, among the Indians in the town house--a gross breach of Indian decorum--determined to overawe the Cherokee, single-handed if need be, and force them to submit to the British interest. At his demand, or by the persuasions of the startled traders, the Indians were induced to join in drinking the health of George II on bended knee! This strange rite Cuming interpreted as an acknowledgment of British sovereignty. He continued his hasty progress as far as the remotest Cherokee towns, everywhere repeating his fantastic ceremony.
At a great congress of the tribe, at Nequasse, Moytoy of Tellico, an Anglophile chief, was crowned "Emperor" of the Cherokee; and to the baronet the Indians resigned the "crown of Tennessee" and other trophies "as an Emblem of their all owning His Majesty King George's Sovereignty over them, at the Desire of Sir Alexander Cuming, in whom an absolute unlimited Power was placed. "
Evidently the flighty Scot had appealed to the dramatic instincts of the Indian, to achieve a tour de force of wilderness diplomacy at a crucial moment. The council further agreed that an Indian embassy should return with him to England. There Cuming's seven protégés furnished the sensation of the season. They were received at court, shown the sights of the town, feasted and entertained, and everywhere they became objects of popular curiosity. But Newcastle and the Board of Trade turned deaf ears to Cuming's memorials. He sought in vain to have his powers as overlord confirmed for three years, promising to live among the Indians and promote the royal service. He was even ignored in the negotiation of the important treaty by which the Board turned this fortuitous incident to imperial advantage, and put the Cherokee upon a footing similar to the Iroquois. But apparently the Indians refused their full assent until Cuming's approval was given.
The later career of the self-vaunted "King of the Cherokees" was miserable enough. An alchemist, a visionary promoter, from 1737 to 1765 he was confined as a debtor to the limits of the Fleet.
He died in 1775.