George Strother Gaines was an Alabama pioneer, Indian agent, merchant, and planter. He was a federal trade agent for the region's Indian tribes, explored the country west of the Mississippi River and supervised the removal of Choctaw Indians.
Background
George Strother Gaines was born on 1 May 1784, in Stokes County, North Carolina. He was the son of James and Elizabeth (Strother) Gaines, the former a captain in the Revolutionary War and member of the North Carolina convention that ratified the Federal Constitution, and was a brother of Edmund Pendleton Gaines.
At the age of ten, George Gaines removed with his parents to Sullivan County (now Tennessee), where he lived until he was appointed (1805) assistant factor of the government trading house at St. Stephens, in the Alabama part of the Mississippi Territory. He became a factor the next year.
Education
The question of George's education is obscure, and so is the reason for his appointment at twenty-one as Indian agent at a strategic place on the Spanish borderland.
Career
Pioneer life was raw in the Tombigbee Valley, and with the inflow of American settlers the Indians became restless and border troubles and trade rivalry with the Spanish grew apace.
Nor could the Philippics of the mighty Tecumseh detach the Choctaws from him. On the contrary, many of them helped to exterminate the Creek “Red Sticks” in the War of 1812. Gaines promoted among the Choctaws the idea of removing beyond the Mississippi, and when they were ready to go they insisted on his helping them to select their lands.
His services to the pioneers of the Mississippi Territory were inestimable. The leadership of Gaines, John McKee, and Judge Henry Toulmin in the Tombigbee Valley will compare favorably with that of the pioneer patriarchs on any sector of the American frontier.
In 1819, he resigned the government factorage and in 1822, became a merchant at Demopolis, the site which he had helped the French colonists to select four years previously.
He succeeded in business and represented Clarke and Marengo counties in the Alabama Senate from 1825 to 1827. From 1830 to 1856, he was a merchant in Mobile. He prospered in business, helped to promote the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, and for a time was president of the Mobile branch of the state bank.
He did not succeed as a bank director, nor did more hard-hearted men when there was a mad rush upon the state banks for loans. Gaines retired from business in 1856 and settled on his plantation at State Line, Mississippi.
He was elected to the Mississippi legislature in 1861. In January 1873, this “patriarch of two states” lay down to rest amid the scenes of more than three-score years of pioneering and building.
Achievements
Personality
Friendly relations with the Choctaws and the success of American over Spanish trade depended largely upon Gaines. By adroitness, fair dealing, and kindly ministrations to the Choctaws he commanded their esteem and won their trade; “his simple word became their law and his sympathy and kindness their abiding reliance”.
Connections
About 1812, George was married to his cousin, Ann Gaines of St. Stephens.