Colbert, William. A Chickasaw chief. During the Revolutionary war he aided the Americans, and in the army of Gen. Arthur St Clair led the Chickasaw allies against the hostile tribes and was known as the great war-chief of his nation. In the war of 1812 he served 9 months in the regular infantry, then returned to lead his warriors against the hostile Creeks, whom he pursued from Pensacola almost to Apalachicola, killing many and bringing back 85 prisoners to Montgomery, Ala. He was styled a general when he visited Washington at the head of a Chickasaw delegation in 1816. In the treaties ceding Chickasaw lands to the United States the name of Gen. Colbert appears, except in the ones to which was signed the name Piomingo, which also was borne by a captain of the Chickasaw in the St Clair expedition, and was the pseudonym under which John Robertson, “a headman and warrior of the Muscogulee nation,” wrote The Savage (Phila., 1810).
