George Washington Grayson

George Washington Grayson, also known as Tulwa Tustunugge (Wolf Warrior), (May 12, 1843 - December 2, 1920) (Muscogee Creek), was a businessman, merchant, rancher, publisher of the Indian Journal, writer, and leader of the Creek Nation during the period when Indian Territory was dissolved to prepare of Oklahoma statehood. Of partial European ancestry, he identified as Creek and supported the nation, working for the proposed State of Sequoyah, to be a Native American state. It did not gain Congressional approval. In 1917, under revised conditions after tribal governments had been dissolved, Grayson was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson as chief of the Creek Nation, serving until his death. He had previously served as the Creek delegate to Congress.

George Washington Grayson (his Muskogee name was Tulwa Tustunugge, or Wolf Warrior), was named for the first president of the United States; he was born in 1843 in Indian Territory to Jane "Jennie" (Wynne), a mixed-race (métis) Creek woman whose father John Wynne was of Welsh descent and mother Per-cin-ta Harrod was métis Creek, of Coweta town. His father was James Grayson, who was also of mixed-race. James' father was Tulwa Tustunugge, descended from a Scots trader Robert Grierson, who married Sin-o-gee of the Hillabee Town in the Creek Nation in the late 18th century. Grayson in his autobiography stressed his paternal heritage, noting the trader's success. By 1813 Grayson (as his name became spelled) owned a plantation and more than 70 African-American slaves. Through his mother, George Grayson was a member of the Tiger Clan and Coweta Town. Under the Creek matrilineal kinship system, children were considered born into the mother's clan, and inherited property and hereditary positions within her clan. Grayson was one of several children, and later went into business with his brothers Samuel and Pilot.

The Graysons had relatives in the towns of both the Upper Creek and Lower Creek in the American Southeast, who were divided during the Creek War. His band of ancestors had left the American Southeast years before the formal Indian Removal of the 1830s and lived in Arkansas and Indian Territory. Grayson attended an English-language Creek school, Asbury Manual Labor School, and Arkansas College (1858–60), developing a lifelong interest in history and literature. He was fluent in Muscogee and English.

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