Background
The second of six mixed-race sons of James Logan Colbert, a North Carolinian settler of Scots descent and his second wife Minta Hoye, a Chickasaw, George Colbert was born in present-day Alabama about 1764.
The second of six mixed-race sons of James Logan Colbert, a North Carolinian settler of Scots descent and his second wife Minta Hoye, a Chickasaw, George Colbert was born in present-day Alabama about 1764.
He commanded 350 Chickasaw auxiliary troops, whom he had recruited, as a militia captain under Andrew Jackson during the Creek War of 1813-1814. Later he joined the United States Army under Jackson for the remainder of the War of 1812. As a youth he began to rise in prominence in the Chickasaw nation, as he gained status from his mother"s clan as well as his actions.
The Chickasaw had a matrilineal kinship system, in which children were considered born into their mother"s clan.
Positions of hereditary leadership were passed through the mother"s line. Colbert was said to serve with American troops under Arthur Saint Clair in 1791 and Anthony Wayne in 1794 during the Northwest Indian Wars.
During the Creek Wars, he recruited 350 Chickasaw warriors and assisted Andrew Jackson against the Red Sticks, and later during more of the War of 1812. By the early 1800s, George Colbert established Colbert"s ferry near Cherokee, Alabama.
lieutenant was a significant crossing of the Tennessee River along the Natchez Trace, an important trade route.
Colbert was able to accumulate land and became an influential planter. He also raised livestock and was a trader. He owned an estimated 150 enslaved Africans as labor on his plantation.
The Chickasaw ended up ceding much of their land to the United States in an attempt to preserve peace after repeated conflicts with settlers.
The Colberts received several valuable tracts for their service. Together with most of his fellow Chickasaw, by 1839 he removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) with his family, taking 150 slaves with him, under the Indian Removal Acting.
George"s Cave, near Colbert"s Spring (named after Levi), was named after George Colbert. Arrell M. Gibson, The Chickasaws (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971).
Don Martini, Who Was Who Among the Southern Indians: A Genealogical Notebook (Falkner, Mission: Np, 1997).