16

CONTINENTAL, INTERSTATE, AND “FOREIGN” AFFAIRS 1782 - 1789

IF LEFT to themselves, Georgians would never have rebelled against Great Britain; and they did not desire absolute independence once they joined the Revolution. They wanted a central government strong enough to afford them needed protection against their Creek neighbors. Georgia had a small population and was weak in the 1780s, though she possessed the largest land area of any state after Virginia ceded her lands north of the Ohio River to Congress. Georgians were sure that smallness, weakness, and actual control of much of their territory by Spaniards and Indians were only temporary and that Georgia would soon be a large and powerful state. If Georgians were too optimistic, they were only showing a common frontier characteristic.

Hence Georgians had no desire to curtail the general powers of the central government. If they wanted to limit its powers to negotiate with the Indians within the state, it was because they did not like the way these federal negotiations were carried out and Georgia’s interests “ignored.” They continued to call upon Congress for financial and military aid to oppose the Creeks, all the while objecting to Congressional Indian negotiations. If the state government did not heed Congress’ requests for additional power or amendment of the Articles of Confederation, the reason was because it was too busy with other things or not especially worried about a weak union. If Georgia did not pay its part on federal requisitions or support her Congressional delegates, it was because she had no currency that could be used outside the state. Generally Georgians wanted to do their part toward the federal government. The fact that these desires were not fulfilled resulted from the troubles of the times—something that most frontiersmen could not understand.

Some indication of a state’s interest in the federal government can be derived from its representation in Congress. Georgia’s representation was not expecially good in the 1780s. There were two delegates present throughout most of 1782, but for 1783 and the first half of 1784 no delegates were present. Delegates were elected in February, 1783, but for some unknown reason were never furnished credentials for attendance.¹ Throughout most of 1785-1787, Georgia had two delegates present but never the three delegates requested by Congress after 1785. Georgia was last represented on September 18, 1788; Congress itself never had a quorum after October 10.² Georgia’s most faithful delegate in Congress from 1784 through 1786 was William Houstoun. His regular attendance may be accounted for by a love affair that kept him in New York and which resulted in marriage in 1788.³

Two good reasons for this poor attendance were the infrequency with which Georgia’s delegates were paid and the distance of Congress from Georgia. Delegates continually complained of small payments for salary and expenses, no payments at all, the difficulties of the journey, and the neglect to their personal business caused by long absences in Congress.⁴ Georgia had no especially able delegates, or any who became real leaders in Congress. Abraham Baldwin, William Few, and William Pierce in 1787 and 1788 were more active than most Georgia delegates and were fully accepted by their colleagues as useful working members of Congress.

Not only did Georgia lack delegates in Congress; but, before 1786, the assembly was notorious for ignoring Congressional requests. Twice, in 1781 and in 1783, Congress requested power from the state to levy a five per cent duty on imports, to pay the national debt. The Georgia Assembly took no action on either request, although the first was approved by eleven states. There was some excuse for lack of action in 1781 and 1782 because of the presence of British troops in the state and the disruption that combat caused. Both sessions of the 1783 assembly considered the impost, but took no action on it.⁵

At the 1785 assembly, bills to allow Congress to regulate trade with the West Indies and to impose import duties got through a second reading.⁶ At the March-April, 1785, circuit of the superior courts, Chief Justice George Walton in his charges to the grand juries pointed out the inattention of the assembly to the Congressional request for the five per cent impost and said that he thought the impost was the best way to uphold the credit of the United States. Every grand jury presented as a grievance the fact that the assembly had ignored the impost. At the fall circuit, Walton recommended that Congress be given the power to regulate commerce. Every court except the one in Wilkes County made a presentment in line with Walton’s recommendation. Wilkes again recommended that the five per cent impost be granted.⁷

The 1786 assembly gave Congress power to levy the five per cent impost, agreed to the proposed amendment to the Eighth Article of Confederation changing the basis of state contributions to the federal treasury from land values to population, provided for payment of back Congressional requisitions, and approved a Congressional recommendation of April 30, 1784, giving Congress power to prohibit certain types of imports and exports for fifteen years.⁸ The next year the United States was given the same rights to sue in state courts that the state had, and state officials were directed to make the necessary presentments and prosecutions. Crimes and frauds against the United States were to receive the same punishment as crimes against the state, and United States commissioners to settle public accounts were given the power to call witnesses and to examine them under oath.⁹ Georgia had now acted upon all Congressional recommendations except the one that she cede her western lands to the United States, and there was sentiment toward making this cession when the boundary controversy with South Carolina and the state’s war accounts with the United States were settled.¹⁰

Georgia’s popularity in Congress was not increased by her failure to pay her quota on specie requisitions for the support of the federal government. While the state was occupied by the British, no federal quotas were assigned to her by Congress; but the requisition sent to the states in September, 1782, for $1,200,000 to pay the interest on the domestic debt, contained $14,400 as Georgia’s quota.¹¹ Throughout the rest of the life of the Confederation, Georgia was assigned the smallest state quota on all federal requisitions. Georgia took no action to pay her quotas before 1785, but in 1786 she passed a bill to pay all back requisitions and made other provisions to pay later requisitions. However, all records of payments made to the federal treasury show that Georgia made no payments in specie or indents (a type of paper currency acceptable by Congress). Indents were reported on hand in the state treasury several times and were ordered paid. Specie payments voted were always to be paid out of specie yet to come into the treasury, and it is possible that the specie never materialized. Several of the Georgia acts directed that payments on federal requisitions be made to the Georgia federal loan office, but no records for the loan office have been discovered. It is possible that payments on requisitions were made to the loan office, and the records have been lost. Otherwise it must be assumed that Georgia tried to pay at least a part of her federal requisitions, but that her finances made payment impossible.¹²

Provisions to pay Georgia’s portion of the interest and principal of the Continental debts were made when the 1783 assembly directed that the interest paid to the state on £108,889.16. 6 in personal bonds received in payment for confiscated estates be set aside to pay the interest on the state’s quota of the Continental debt. The excess in interest due to the state over that due on the federal debt, calculated at £1348. 3. 2 a year, was to be loaned out by the state treasurer to secure funds to pay Georgia’s part of the principal on the foreign debt. Any residue after the foreign debt was paid was to be used to pay Georgia’s quota on the federal domestic debt.¹³ Interest on the bonds in the state treasury was not paid, and there is no indication that anything was accomplished by this law.

To settle the war accounts between Georgia and Congress, Edward Williams was appointed as commissioner to Georgia by Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris on February 3, 1784. Williams resigned the next year, apparently having done little or nothing in his office.¹⁴ He was replaced by Job Sumner, who reported in the summer of 1786 that Georgia had assumed all the claims of her individual citizens against the United States and that state accounts were ready to be presented to the federal commissioner of accounts in the fall for final settlement in the winter,¹⁵ yet there is no indication that any claims were presented or settled. An unidentified “State of Public Accounts of Georgia,”¹⁶ dated 1787, showed the following situation:

The 1787 assembly complained that neither of the federal commissioners for settling accounts had done anything toward the duties of his office, despite the fact that the state auditor had long had his books and charges against the United States ready for examination.¹⁷ When the final settlement of state accounts with the United States was made in 1793, a balance of $19,988 was found due to Georgia by the United States.¹⁸

Somewhat more satisfactory than her Continental relations were Georgia’s relations with South Carolina in the 1780s. In this decade the two states got along as well as they ever had. The one major point of difference between them was a boundary dispute which lasted from 1783 until 1788 but was finally settled amicably. There was a difference of opinion as to where the Savannah River, the accepted boundary between the two states, began; and there was an argument about the ownership of land west of the headwaters of the Altamaha and St. Marys rivers. Both states appointed commissioners early in 1783 to settle this problem, but they took no action.¹⁹ In the summer of 1784 the governors of both states protested that the other was granting lands claimed by both states between the Keowee and the Tugaloo rivers.²⁰ When the Georgia and South Carolina assemblies met in January, 1785, both decided that if no satisfactory agreement could be reached the matter was to be laid before Congress for determination by a federal court as prescribed in the Articles of Confederation. Georgia offered to negotiate on the northern boundary, but South Carolina insisted that both disputes be negotiated and so referred the matter to Congress for settlement by a federal court.²¹

South Carolina’s claim to the northern area was based upon a literal interpretation of her own and Georgia’s charters. By the second Carolina charter of 1665, Charles II granted to the Lord Proprietors all the lands between the twenty-ninth degree and the thirty-sixth degree and thirty minutes of north latitude. (Today this includes all territory from Deland, Florida, to just below the northern boundary of North Carolina.) The Georgia charter of 1732 gave to Georgia all land between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers west to the Pacific. South Carolina maintained that the Savannah River began where its tributaries, the Keowee and the Tugaloo, joined. Hence all land between this junction and the North Carolina line west to the Mississippi belonged to South Carolina. Georgia contended, on the other hand, that the source of the Keowee River (the most northern branch of the Savannah, so far as Georgia was concerned) was the head of the Savannah River.

The Proclamation of 1763 annexed to Georgia all lands between the Altamaha and St. Marys rivers. South Carolina maintained that all lands west of the headwaters of these two streams still belonged to her by her charter and had not been annexed to Georgia. Georgia maintained that the tract added by the Proclamation of 1763 extended west to the Mississippi. A new commission of Governor James Wright in 1764 stated that the southern boundary of Georgia was the St. Marys River and a line drawn from its head west to the Mississippi.²² Apparently nobody in Georgia knew about this commission, though Governor Elbert had written to London to secure copies of charters, deeds, and proclamations that might help Georgia’s case.²³ It is doubtful if South Carolina seriously hoped to secure this southern claim, but probably used it to gain an additional bargaining point on the northern claim.

Congress decided in the fall of 1786 that the court to settle these disputes should meet in New York on the third Monday in June, 1787.²⁴ Georgia and South Carolina now redoubled their efforts to settle the controversy by direct negotiations. Commissioners from both states met at Beaufort, South Carolina, on April 24, 1787, and settled the matter five days later with the signing of the Convention of Beaufort.²⁵

This convention contained the following agreements. (1) The boundary between Georgia and South Carolina was agreed upon as the most northern branch of the Savannah River from the sea to the junction of the Tugaloo and Keowee, from thence the most northern branch of the Tugaloo until it intersected the northern boundary of South Carolina. If the Tugaloo did not extend so far north, then the northern boundary of Georgia was to be a line drawn from the head spring of the Tugaloo directly west to the Mississippi. All the islands in the Savannah and Tugaloo were given to Georgia. (2) Navigation of the Savannah River was to be open and free of all duties and tolls to the citizens of both states. (3) South Carolina ceded all claims of lands to the east, south, southeast, or west of the boundary to Georgia. (The use of the term east of this line is not clear. All of South Carolina is east of this line.) (4) Georgia ceded all claims to lands to the north or northeast of this line to South Carolina. (5) Lands granted by either state between the Tugaloo and the Keowee were to belong to the first grantee. (6) The South Carolina commissioners said the convention did not weaken the 1763 grants made by South Carolina south of the Altamaha, but the Georgia commissioners refused to negotiate on this subject.

The convention was signed by John Habersham and Lachlan McIntosh for Georgia and by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Andrew Pickens, and Pierce Butler for South Carolina. John Houstoun, another Georgia commissioner, refused to sign the convention; instead he entered a protest against it. He maintained that the Georgia charter meant the Keowee to be a part of the Savannah and that Georgia had a perfect right to the land between the Keowee and the Tugaloo. The South Carolina claim to the land west of the Altamaha-St. Marys line was so weak as to be of no value. Hence, said Houstoun, Georgia gave up the disputed area between the Tugaloo and the Keowee but got nothing in return. Houstoun said that South Carolina should be allowed to navigate the Savannah River but that since Georgia possessed entire control of the river this navigation should not be guaranteed as a right.²⁶

Houstoun’s dissent brought forth a statement from Habersham and McIntosh to support their stand. They said that their main objects were to restore harmony with South Carolina, to leave no room for future disputes, and to save the expense of the federal court. They maintained that the Proclamation of 1763 confined all the colonial governments to the area east of the mountains and could not possibly give Georgia lands west of the source of the St. Marys—a decidedly weak argument. They said that they accepted the Tugaloo as the main stream of the Savannah when it was proved to them to carry more water than the Keowee. To have denied South Carolina full navigation rights of the Savannah would have resulted in no agreement being reached, they were sure.²⁷

Both Georgia and South Carolina ratified the Convention of Beaufort when their legislatures met in February, 1788.²⁸ Congress had already ratified it in August, 1787, when she accepted the narrow strip of land that South Carolina thought she had won between the Tugaloo and the North Carolina line.²⁹ (It was later discovered that the Tugaloo really rose in North Carolina; so the United States deeded the eastern part of this supposed cession to Georgia in 1802 when Georgia ceded the present area of Alabama and Mississippi to the United States.) As soon as the Convention of Beaufort was known about in Philadelphia, the federal court was cancelled. Several of its judges had already assembled in New York for the work of the court and made application to Congress for the expenses thus incurred. Congress referred them to South Carolina and Georgia for payment. South Carolina offered to pay half the expenses incurred; but there is no record of Georgia ever making a similar offer or paying anything.³⁰

The South Carolina boundary controversy illustrates the tenacity with which Georgia held to her western territory, despite the fact that she could derive no immediate benefit from the area west of the Oconee River. Georgia insited that the western boundary of the United States be the Mississippi and that navigation of that stream be guaranteed when Congress considered the peace treaty with Britain in 1782 and when Spanish negotiations were carried on in 1786-1787.³¹

Georgia could not hope to maintain any real control over that portion of her western territory which was inhabited by Indians, but she did try to maintain some sort of control over areas of white settlement. During the 1780s there were two unsuccessful attempts to set up counties in these western lands. The first of these was the so-called Houstoun County in the Muscle Shoals area. William Blount, on behalf of himself and Richard Caswell, John Sevier, Joseph Martin, and other land speculators, secured a cession of land from the Cherokees in the Muscle Shoals area, intending to move settlers there from the Holston River in North Carolina. Blount petitioned the Georgia Assembly in 1784 to lay out a county that would include all the territory between the Tennessee River and the North Carolina (present Tennessee) line. The assembly appointed commissioners to investigate the area and to grant land, provided no person received more than 1,000 acres. A committee was appointed to bring in a bill for laying out a county, but no such bill was introduced; and no further action was taken by that assembly.³²

Twice during 1784 it was reported that Spaniards, accompanied by Delaware Indians, were attempting to settle at Muscle Shoals.³³ The commissioners appointed by the assembly went to Muscle Shoals, carried out their mission, and reported to the executive. They appointed militia officers for the area, and in the spring of 1785 the executive appointed justices of the peace for the “District of the Tennessee.”³⁴ In the summer of 1786 an assembly committee reviewed the matter from the time of Blount’s petition, noted that settlers were reported coming into the area rapidly, and recommended that a county be laid out at once. However, the bill to create a county was lost by a vote of 23 to 26. The commissioners who had visited the area and set up a partial local government were voted 5,000 acres of land in reward for their services. A surveyor was elected for the district but ordered to make no surveys until he received further orders from the assembly—orders that never came.³⁵

In the fall of 1786 about 100 French from Canada and 100 Delaware Indians were reported settling at the bend of the Tennessee.³⁶ A bill for laying out a reserve of land there was postponed by the 1787 assembly, probably because of the negotiations with South Carolina over the northern boundary of Georgia. Later that year the assembly provided that the land bounties for Franklin militiamen who were expected to join Georgia in the anticipated Creek war should be located in the bend of the Tennessee.³⁷ The troubles of Georgia and Franklin with the Creek Indians were undoubtedly connected with the continued delay in creating a county at Muscle Shoals, and the demise of Franklin as a state seems to have caused a further delay. No county was ever created, and finally the matter was allowed to drop.

Georgia’s second try at founding a county in its western territory was more fantastic than the Houstoun County attempt. Thomas Green, a resident of the Natchez district on the Mississippi River, petitioned the assembly in 1785 on behalf of the inhabitants of his district praying that Georgia take them under her protection. The assembly, always anxious to extend its effective range and entirely ignorant of the situation in the western part of its domain, obliged by the creation of Bourbon County. The county was to extend along the Mississippi from the Yazoo River south to the thirty-first parallel, east as far as the Indians had ceded lands to the British (limits not known to the assembly), then north along the line of any Indian cession to the Yazoo River, and west along the Yazoo to the point of origin. No land office was to be opened until later, but citizens of the United States and friendly powers were to have preference in acquiring title to lands they already possessed in the county. Thirteen justices of the peace, several of them residents of the area, were named.³⁸

The assembly instructed the new justices that, if Spanish officials in the area of Bourbon County objected to the creation of the county, the justices were to ignore any area claimed or occupied by Spain and exercise their authority only in area not so claimed. The justices were specifically told not to enter into any dispute with the Indians or Spaniards about territorial claims or navigation of the Mississippi and were warned that if they did so they could expect no help from Georgia. Any Spanish claims were to be reported to the Georgia government, trade and friendship with the Indians were to be cultivated, and no private purchases of land from the Indians were to be allowed.³⁹

Four of the justices (Thomas Green, William Davenport, Nathaniel Christmas, and Nicholas Long) were appointed commissioners to set up the new county government after the model of Georgia’s other counties. Green rushed back to Natchez and arrived in June before any of the other commissioners. He immediately informed the Spanish commandant in Natchez of his mission and asked if there were any objections to the creation of the new county government. Before the commandant had time to receive instructions from New Orleans, Green called upon the inhabitants to form a county government under his guidance. Other justices named in the act for creating Bourbon County objected, and a meeting of inhabitants was called to oppose Green’s actions and to prevent “the ruin and destruction of this country if it should fall under the government of Georgia.” There was talk of forming a separate state and calling upon Congress for recognition. Some of the inhabitants were British loyalists who objected to the idea of being a part of the United States, especially since they thought they might lose their lands. Some were satisfied with the Spanish government, which left them alone. Some objected to the action of Green and did not trust him or anything done by him. Green appointed himself a militia colonel and did what he could to establish the county government, despite the fact that at least two of the four commissioners were necessary to take any ‘‘legal” action. Miro, the Spanish governor at New Orleans, had been warned of Georgia’s actions and invited Green to New Orleans to discuss the matter. Instead Green left Natchez immediately for the Indian country, apparently out of fear of the Spanish authorities, and dropped any further attempts at creating Bourbon County.⁴⁰

William Davenport, another commissioner for founding Bourbon County, next arrived in Natchez and tried to repair the damage that Green had done. The Spanish commandant refused to allow him to take any action until permission was received from Governor Miro in New Orleans. Davenport found the people at Natchez divided into a pro-American and an anti-American party. Three men who called a mass meeting to oppose Georgia rule and to petition Congress for separate statehood were imprisoned by the commandant for calling an illegal meeting. Some of the inhabitants were reported to have offered to follow Davenport if he would lead them in an attack on the Spanish fort, but he refused to take any military action. By the end of August the other two Georgia commissioners, Nicholas Long and Nathaniel Christmas, arrived in Natchez and acted in cooperation with Davenport. Governor Miro would make no decision without instructions from Spain, but he did allow the Georgia commissioners to remain at Natchez if they took no further action about organizing Bourbon County.⁴¹

By this time the Spanish minister to the United States was protesting Georgia’s action to Secretary of Foreign Affairs Jay. Congress considered the matter and decided that the United States had a right to this territory but disapproved any attempts of individuals to disturb good relations with Spain and forbade immigrants to the area to molest inhabitants already there. Georgia’s delegates to Congress were willing to disallow the action of Green.⁴² By the time this information reached Natchez and Georgia, the Spanish had the situation well in hand. Bernardo de Galvey, the Viceroy of New Spain, instructed Miro to have nothing to do with the Georgia claims but to order the commissioners to leave Natchez in fifteen days and to be out of Spanish territory in one month. They left, apparently in the specified time.⁴³ For a year afterwards there were additional plans of immigrants to go to the Natchez district from the frontier regions of Virginia and North Carolina and requests for Georgia protection for such immigrants.⁴⁴

There is no evidence that Georgia took any further action in regard to Bourbon County. Certainly it did not grant lands to Green and his friends as requested or try to give the Americans in the Natchez district any protection against the Spanish. When Georgia ceded part of its western territory to the United States in 1788, it repealed the act creating Bourbon County, which had really been dead for two years.⁴⁵ If Georgia could not settle a county at Muscle Shoals with the help of Franklin, creation of a county on the Mississippi River where Spain was in effective control was certainly impossible. The assembly had not known the situation on the Mississippi when it created Bourbon County, and there was just a remote possibility that the venture might succeed. The whole thing was typical of American frontier communities of the period.

Georgia could have saved herself all the troubles about her western lands by ceding them to the United States as Congress requested in 1780 and 1786. The western area north of the Ohio was ceded soon after the original request of Congress; but neither Georgia nor the Carolinas took any action until after the second Congressional request. A few months before the Convention of Beaufort was negotiated, South Carolina ceded the lands she claimed. The Georgia assembly passed an act of cession on February 1, 1788, which ceded all lands between the thirty-first and thirty-third degrees of north latitude west of the Chattahoochee River—the southern half of Georgia’s western lands and that area claimed by both the United States and Spain. The conditions of the cession were that the United States should guarantee to the inhabitants of the ceded lands a republican form of government, that navigation of all rivers in the ceded territory would be free to all United States citizens, that the $171,428 45/90 spent by Georgia to quiet the Indians be allowed as charges against past due or yet to be made specie requisitions of the United States, and that the United States guarantee all remaining Georgia territory.⁴⁶

The Georgia act of cession was laid before Congress on May 29, and Congress considered and agreed to a committee report on this act on July 15.⁴⁷ The committee opposed accepting the cession as offered for several reasons. The land ceded was entirely separated from the rest of the United States by the northwestern part of Georgia and was described as being of no immediate value to the United States. The amount due from Georgia on specie requisitions was reported as only a small part of the $171,428 credit she asked, and Georgia was considerably in debt to the United States by loan. A specific guarantee of Georgia’s lands such as she asked was considered improper and had not been made to any other state. The committee recommended that Georgia cede all her western lands instead of only the southern half and ask credit for only past due specie requisitions and apply the remainder to repayment of Georgia loans from the United States. Having had what she considered a generous offer turned down by Congress, Georgia did not see fit to make the desired cession until 1802.

Besides troubles with the Spanish on the Mississippi, Georgia had trouble with the Spanish in the Floridas in the 1780s. Spanish officials were welcomed back to the Floridas by the Georgia government with profuse wishes for good relations ⁴⁸—wishes that never materialized. By 1789 many Georgians realized that they got along better with the British in East Florida after the Revolution than they did with the Spanish who replaced them. The two biggest items over which Georgians and the Spanish differed were runaway slaves and Indians.

Georgia slaves had always run away to East Florida and the Creek country. From 1763 until 1776 British control of the Floridas made the pursuit and return of fugitive slaves easier than it had ever been before. Almost as soon as the Spanish returned to East Florida, a request was made for help in searching for runaway slaves. The Spanish governor replied that he could not allow the return of slaves because all the pre-1763 regulations for East Florida were in effect. However, he had written to Madrid on this matter. He pointed out the changed conditions since 1763 and hoped to receive permission to return escaped slaves.⁴⁹ Throughout the 1780s, Georgians trying to recover slaves from East Florida were always met with the reply that permission for such return had not yet been received from Madrid. Negotiations of the Georgia Congressional delegation and of Congress with the Spanish minister produced no results.⁵⁰ All the Spanish governor would ever agree to was the return of stolen slaves.⁵¹ Because it was impossible to secure runaway slaves peacefully, many Georgians went into East Florida to recover their runaway slaves and stolen stock without permission of the Spanish authorities. Sometimes sizable parties of armed Georgians—even militia units—participated in such actions but always without the approval of the Georgia Executive.⁵²

The problem of Spanish backing of the Creeks in their opposition to Georgia has been considered in the preceding chapter. Here the Spanish authorities never made a definite statement of their policy but usually insisted that they wanted to do what they could to keep peace between Georgia and the Creeks.⁵³ It seems unlikely that they ever did very much to keep peace. Creek backing came mainly through the British firm of Panton, Leslie and Company, and there is no doubt that the Spanish knew and approved the actions of this Indian trading house.⁵⁴

There was little cause for friendly contact between Georgia and Spanish East Florida, as there had been with British East Florida before 1776. The Spanish inhabitants were little interested in the plantation economy that had developed in British days, and St. Augustine became mainly a military outpost. A great deal of trouble between Georgia and East Florida was caused by border ruffians living in the St. Marys region who were more interested in personal gain than in loyalty to either side or in good relations between the two. These people, with the help of Indians and escaped Negroes, raided both sides of the border, crossing it with impunity to escape the agents of either government sent to oppose them. Because the area from the St. Marys north to the Altamaha and south to the St. Johns was sparsely settled, most opposition to these ruffians had to come from a considerable distance, and there was much wild territory in which they could live and hide easily.

There was little direct contact between Spanish West Florida and Georgia, because they were separated by several hundred miles of Creek Indian country. Georgians soon discovered that the Floridas in Spanish hands were no friendlier than the Floridas in British hands. Border and Indian troubles continued and certainly helped in the eventual acquisition of Florida by the United States.