The Colbert family had tremendous influence over the Chickasaw Nation and for many years, virtually ruled the Chickasaw. They had tremendous wealth and exercised good business judgment. They were interpreters and diplomats, and tried to help the Chickasaw better themselves. Even though history records that they failed somewhat; nevertheless, they did succeed in helping to move the Chickasaws to a new country, faring better than many other tribes. The treaties that the Colberts worked for provided that the Chickasaw would be paid for their lands prior to their removal. As a result, the Chickasaw were the most prosperous of all of the Indian Tribes arriving in the Indian Territories.

James Logan Colbert, 1721 - By one account, James left his Scottish homeland, emigrated to America, possibly aboard the Prince of Wales in January, 1736, landing in Savannah or Darien, Georgia. He was not listed as a passenger.

Another account which seems to be backed up by documentation, claims that James was born in the colonies approximately 1721 and traveled west to Muscle Shoals, Alabama from one of the Carolinas with a band of British traders and eventually came to the Chickasaw towns and settled among the Chickasaw as a youth and was adopted by a Chickasaw family. His contemporary, fellow trader James Adair wrote that he "...lived among the Chikkasaw from his childhood, and speaks their language even with more propriety than the English".

New Information: Guestbook visitor, Richard Allen Colbert writes, "He was born in America, on Plumtree Island in North Carolina to be more precise. If you don't believe me, would you believe James Colbert himself. On July 25, 1783, he sent letter to Governor Harrison of Virginia stating that he was "born" in America." I do not have a copy that I can send via computer, but it is located in the "Calendar of Virginia State Papers and other Documents," from January 1, 1782, to Dec. 31, 1784, Vol. III) (Richmond: Sherwin McRae, 1883), pp. 513-515. In addition, when James Colbert spent the summer of 1783 at Long Island on the Holston River with Malcolm McGee and the chiefs of the Chickasaw Nations to discuss peace terms with John Doone and Joseph Martin of Virginia, John Donne wrote a letter to General James Wilkenson, and said: "from his education and mode of life, being bred among the Indians from his infancy ...." QUESTION: How could this happen? ANSWER: His father was a Chickasaw Indian trader and took him to live among the Chickasaws after his real mother died. Father's name was William Colbert. He began trading with the Chickasaws in 1722. Also, in the Draper Collection of Manuscripts, Lyman C. Draper interviewed Malcolm McGee. McGee was asked to describe several of the Indian traders he knew. He described them by their Nationality, i.e., ADAIR-Irish, BUBBY-English, BUCKLES-English, HIGHTOWER-Dutchman, COLBERT-Carolinian. Note: McGee did not say Colbert was a "Scotsman." He said he was a "Carolinian." Also note that McGee was once married to Elizabeth Oxberry Harris, daughter of Christopher Oxberry and Molly Colbert. If anyone should know where James Colbert was born, it would be McGee.
- Richard Allen Colbert to Viki Anderson, Jan 6, 2001

He married three Chickasaw wives and had nine children: seven sons and 2 daughters. He lead his life as an Indian trader, interpreter and leader of men during a time in history which was a turbulent struggle for land and new opportunity.

The Chickasaw depended on the British traders for goods, English guns and ammunition. The British were more than happy to frustrate French and Spanish designs on the Mississippi Valley by supporting the Chickasaw and teaching them to use the weapons. James operated a lucrative trade, established a plantation and owned cattle and 150 slaves. Many mixed-bloods cultivated a new life-style, and congregated around the headquarters of commissary John McIntosh on the Natchez Trace. British authorities looked on men like Colbert with suspicion and disdain, but Colbert proved to be a loyal ally of the British during the American Revolution.

James and his Chickasaw followers harassed, frustrated, and repelled the Kings Enemies, patrolling the river country against invasion. French, Spanish, British, and Americans all courted the Chickasaw who skillfully played one against the other. The Chickasaw had begun to divide politically with one group showing favoritism toward the Spanish and the other lead by James Colbert staying loyal to the British. In 1781, James Logan Colbert lead an attack on Ft. Jefferson, an American military post erected in 1780 by George Rogers Clark on Chickasaw lands without Chickasaw permission. The siege lasted 5 days, but the Americans held the fort. James was wounded three times in the encounter. The Americans abandoned the fort in June of 1781.

After the British lost the American Revolution and the Anglo-Spanish War in Florida, they abandoned their colonization of the Mississippi Valley. The pro-British Chickasaw were not about to embrace the Spanish who claimed the territory between the mouth of the Yazoo River and the Ohio. They instead transferred their allegiance to the Americans. By 1782, according to some reports, there were almost three hundred whites and possibly a hundred blacks living in Chickasaw country, many of them Loyalist refugees from a failed rebellion at Natchez. James Colbert fashioned these men into a band of resistance fighters near Chickasaw Bluffs, assaulting Spanish boats on the Mississippi. A group of 150 Loyalists and 200 Indians attacked Spanish commerce on the river. The raids climaxed in 1782 with the capture of a boat carrying Señora Nicanora Ramos, the wife of Governor Cruzat of Saint Louis near present day Memphis. She was well treated and released after 22 days.

James first wife was a full-blood Chickasaw. They had a daughter, Sally. His second wife also was full-blood Chickasaw. They had several children: William, George, Levi, Joseph, and Samuel. His third wife was a half-blood Chickasaw. They had two children; James Holmes and Susan.

James brought up his half-blood children as Indians. It is ironic that while James spent a good deal of his adult life seeking the Indian ways, his children would raise their children in the white mans culture, sending them to schools to become well educated. They became shrewd businessmen and leaders who exerted tremendous influence in Chickasaw councils well into the nineteenth century. In December, 1783, James died en route home from Pensacola in a fall from his horse. Some people believed that Caesar, the slave that returned home to tell the tale, had killed him.

Sources include:
Adair's History of the American Indians, James Adair, published in London, 1775.
The Chickasaw, Duane K Hale & Arrell M. Gibson ISBN 1-55546-697
The Five Civilized Tribes, Grant Foreman, ISBN 0-8061-0923-8
The American Revolution in Indian Country, Colin G. Calloway, ISBN 0-521-47149-4

Updated information - Additional references and correspondence:
Kerry Armstrong - correspondence
Who was Who Among the Southern Indians, Don Martini, published 1998