But in another sort of enterprise this weak border province had revealed forces of expansion without parallel in the English colonies. Neglected by the Proprietors, unsupported by the Crown, the Carolinians had contrived to push the first frontier of the province, the frontier of the Indian trade and of Indian alliances, farther into the wilderness than English traders elsewhere were wont to venture. Before the end of the century [1600s], therefore, they were in contact and keen rivalry not only with the Spanish of Florida, but also with the French in the region of the Gulf and the lower Mississippi. Throughout the colonial period, the Indian trade was the chief instrument of Carolinian expansion. Other forces, to be sure, played a part. In an age of projects this debatable land of the South became the favorite field for colonial promoters. The record of these schemes, from the days of Doncaster and Cardross and Coxe to those of Montgomery and Purry and Oglethorpe, reveals a significant transition from the seventeenth-century era of colonization to that of the eighteenth century, with the westward movement as the new setting. The colony promoters, even those who failed, helped to advertise the South as a land of vast promise, and to awaken the government at home to its special strategic importance. But, meanwhile, the actual penetration of the southern wilderness and the spread of English influence was accomplished under other auspices, by obscure and often nameless explorers and traders. More than any other English colony, except possibly New York, South Carolina was favored by geography in the development of a western Indian trade. The mountain ranges, so long an effective obstacle to penetration from Virginia and Maryland and Pennsylvania, were easily avoided by all but the Cherokee traders. Nor did any southern tribes in imitation of the Iroquois maintain the role of middlemen in the interior trade, and thus block the advance of the English traders. 2 Yet Carolina was geographically less fortunate than either Florida or Louisiana. The Spanish could reach the Lower Creek towns by the Apalachicola River, and the French, once Mobile was established, had easy water carriage to the Alabama, Talapoosa, and Abikha. The Carolina traders had to convey their goods on the backs of Indian burdeners or on packhorses by overland paths which intersected nearly all the important rivers of southeastern North America.