{{Infobox officeholder | name = Milly Francis | native_name = | native_name_lang = | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | nickname = The Creek Pocahontas | office = Creek (Red Stick faction) leader | term_start = | term_end = | predecessor = | successor = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth year|1803}} (about) | birth_place = near Montgomery, Alabama | death_date = {{Death year and age|1848|1803}} | death_place = Muskogee County, Oklahoma | death_cause = Tuberculosis | resting_place = Somewhere on the campus of Bacone College | known_for = | battles = | office2 = | party = | education = | spouse = Cochar Hoboithley | partner = | children = Eight children; three survived to adulthood | parents = Josiah Francis, Polly Moniac | relations = | blank1 = Mother tongue | data1 = | module = | signature = | footnotes = }}
'''Milly Francis''' (c. 1803–1848), daughter of Creek leader Josiah Francis (Francis the Prophet), was born near what is today Montgomery, Alabama, about 1803.<ref name=Milly>{{cite book |first=Dale |last=Cox |year=2013 |editor-first=Savannah |editor-last=Brininstool |url=https://www.academia.edu/18033250 |access-date=April 15, 2018 |isbn=9780615894058 |title=Milly Francis. The Life & Times of the Creek Pocahontas |publisher=Old Kitchen Books |archive-date=July 5, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210705005016/https://www.academia.edu/18033250 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|1}} Her name is sometimes thought to be an Anglicization of the Creek name "Malee", but the most recent thinking is that "Milly" was her birth name.<ref>{{cite web |first=Dale |last=Cox |title=Milly Francis – the Creek Pocahontas |url=http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/millyfrancis |publisher=exploresouthernhistory.com |year=2014 |access-date=April 1, 2018 |archive-date=April 18, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180418031858/http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/millyfrancis |url-status=live }}</ref> She was a member of the Red Stick faction of the Creek tribe.
==Rescue of Duncan McCrimmon== In 1818, when living with her father on the Wakulla River near the San Marcos de Apalache fort (modern St. Marks, Florida), she saved the life of a U.S. soldier, Duncan McCrimmon (sometimes misspelled McKrimmon).<ref name= Milly />{{rp|81}} He had gotten lost on a day out fishing. He was captured by two Creek warriors, and tied naked to a tree in preparation for his execution. Milly persuaded the executioners not to do it.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|82}} This incident received much attention in the U.S. press, and was cited as an influential example of how the Indians were not all "savages" as was their customary portrayal.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|157}} McCrimmon sought her out later, brought her "a modest gift of money from the citizens of Milledgeville" (the capital of Georgia, where McKrimmon lived), and offered to marry her, but she declined, although she accepted the money.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|118}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Old Hickory's War. Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire |first1=David S. |last1=Heidler |first2=Jeanne T. |last2=Heidler |year=2003 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |isbn=0807128678}}</ref>{{rp|60}}
This too received wide publicity; she was called "the Creek Pocahontas". She was arguably, after Sacagawea, the most famous Native American woman of the nineteenth century. Census records show that hundreds of baby girls were named for her.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|119}}
==Later life; pension== She presumably witnessed the 1818 execution by hanging of her father by Andrew Jackson, after McCrinnon told Jackson where her father was.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|97}} She along with others of her father's town were then ordered to walk to Fort Gadsden and from there back to the Creek nation in Alabama.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|115}} She was already "something of a celebrity" when she arrived at Fort Gadsden,<ref name= Milly />{{rp|120}} which is where McCrimmon found her.
According to the 1832 Creek census, she had married Cochar Hoboithley and had had three children, although there were later 5 more.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|121}} She was among those relocated on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. She built a small cabin on what is now the grounds of Bacone College.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|130}} Her husband, a warrior, died in 1837 on his way to join her.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|135}}
Many years later, Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock was sent in 1842 by the U.S. government "to investigate reports of frauds committed on the newly arrived emigrants" (to the Indian Territory).<ref name= Milly />{{rp|135}} He had heard of her and, on the pretext of investigating "her claim for eight slaves then living among the Seminoles", sought her out.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|137}} Finding her in great poverty, with only three surviving of her eight children, and "dressed something like a white woman",<ref name= Milly />{{rp|137}} he wrote to Secretary of War J. C. Spencer asking that she be given a pension by the U.S. government.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|141}}
This proposal was passed by Congress and signed into law in 1844.<ref>{{cite web|title=Statute 1. Chap. CLIV. — An act granting a pension to "Milly", an Indian woman of the Creek nation|date=June 17, 1844|author=Twentieth Congress|access-date=April 17, 2018|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=006/llsl006.db&recNum=1029|archive-date=February 15, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215165216/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=006%2Fllsl006.db&recNum=1029|url-status=live}}</ref> She was to receive a pension of $96 per year, retroactive to September 1843, and a medal, the cost of which was not to exceed $20. Milly did not even hear of this until just before her death in poverty in 1848 (of "consumption"<ref name= Milly />{{rp|147}}), and received nothing. The pension monies due her at the time of her death were to have been paid to an Indian agent to benefit her children.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|148}} A warrant for $20 to pay for the medal was issued in March 1848;<ref name= Milly />{{rp|147}} Milly died in May without ever seeing it.<ref name= Milly />{{rp|148}} While a scholar says it was "a treasured artifact to her descendants,"<ref name= Milly />{{rp|148}} he provides no documentation of this. The medal has never been photographed and its location, if it survives, is unknown.
The site of Milly's grave is also unknown,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.tallahasseemagazine.com/May-June-2015/The-Story-of-The-Other-Pocahontas/ |title=The Story of the Other Pocahontas |first=Stephanie |last=Castellano |newspaper=Tallahassee Magazine |date=May–June 2015 |access-date=April 15, 2018 |archive-date=April 18, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180418161223/http://www.tallahasseemagazine.com/May-June-2015/The-Story-of-The-Other-Pocahontas/ |url-status=live }}</ref> though presumably on the grounds of Bacone College, where her cabin was. There is a monument to her there,<ref>{{cite web |title=Milly Francis |author=Bacone College Class of 1933 |publisher=Historical Marker Database |year=1933 |access-date=March 31, 2018 |url=https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=115647 |archive-date=April 18, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180418031718/https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=115647 |url-status=live }}</ref> and historical markers at the site of Fort Gadsden,<ref>{{cite web |title=Milly Francis |publisher=Historical Markers Database |access-date=March 31, 2018 |author=[Florida] Department of National Resources in cooperation with [Florida] Department of State. |url=https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=114624 |archive-date=April 18, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180418032323/https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=114624 |url-status=live }}</ref> today Prospect Bluff Historic Sites, and at San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park.<ref>{{cite web |title=Princess Malee "Milly" Francis |author=Florida State Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution |publisher=Historical Markers Database |access-date=March 31, 2018 |url=https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=1145551}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Alabama Women's Hall of Fame}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Francis, Milly}} Category:1800s births Category:1848 deaths Category:Year of birth uncertain Category:Bacone College people Category:Muscogee slave owners Category:Seminole Wars Category:Spanish Florida Category:People from Muskogee County, Oklahoma Category:People from Montgomery County, Alabama Category:People from Wakulla County, Florida Category:Pre-statehood history of Florida Category:Native American history of Florida Category:Congressional Gold Medal recipients
Category:19th-century Native American women Category:Trail of Tears survivors Category:Native Americans of the Seminole Wars Category:Indian Territory Category:Women slave owners Category:Slave owners from Alabama Category:Native American people from Alabama Category:Native American women in the Indian Wars Category:Women in 19th-century warfare