Why did Muskogee/ Creek Indians send their kids to Scotland to get educated in the late 1700s and early 1800s?

by PersikovsLizard

This was mentioned on a recent episode of Antiques Roadshow, related to a Muskogee beaded sash with clear Scottish influence.

I suppose before answering why, the first question is did they and on what scale and for how long, or if the appraiser, not a historian, was full of BS.

Edit: not sure why this became a "great question".

NSCfan

The influence was mostly from a significant amount of cross tribal relationships with the scotch-Irish settlers of the trans-Appalachian frontier. For example, Alexander McGillivray was famously 1/8 Creek and the rest from various European stock, yet he was a respected leader of the creek. There were numerous mixed blood people that lived among the many tribes. The Shawnee is particular adopted many people that originally were prisoners of war, into the tribe. These people were fully European, mostly scotch-Irish, but were 100% full members of the tribe. This was seen all over the trans-Appalachian frontier during this era you’re describing, including the Creek people.

Some of these adopted people would have been educated in Scotland and other places of Europe before being made part of the tribe. People like McGillivray were educated by their fathers in European ways but also raised jointly with their Native American brethren. So yes some of the members of the creek tribe would have been sent to Scotland and other places to learn but almost all of these people were either mixed race and/or educated before being adopted into the tribe. Most of the influences you’re talking about were from cultural diffusion and the adoption of many scotch-Irish people into the various tribes, not from youth being educated abroad

Sources - Faragher’s “Daniel Boone”

Sami Lakomaki’s “Gathering Together”