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Le Jau said the traders make perpetual Indian wars for slaves

Source: The Southern Frontier #86

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The early agents, especially Nairne, were perhaps as successful as could have been expected. But Nairne's real accomplishments were as a diplomat and a partizan leader rather than as an 'itinerary justice among the Indians.' The weakness of the Carolina Indian system lay in the character of the average trader, and that the laws of 1707 and 1712 conspicuously failed to reform. In New France, where the coureurs de bois had a comparable reputation for evil living, there were missionaries at hand to check some of the worst abuses. But the efforts of Nairne and others to secure English missionaries even among the nearest tribes were unsuccessful. In 1712 the Reverend Francis Le Jau reported to the Bishop of London that the Yamasee wanted missionaries, but that 'the Indian traders have always discouraged me by raising a world of Difficultyes when I proposed anything to them relating to the Conversion of the Indians. It appears they do not care to have Clergymen so near them who doubtless would never approve those perpetual warrs they promote amongst the Indians for the onely reason of making slaves to pay for their trading goods; and what slaves! poor women and children; for the men taken prisoners are burnt most barbarously.'58 [Note 58: Fulham Palace MSS, South Carolina, rio. 10. Le Jau said he intended to consult Mr. Barnwell regarding this project when he returned from North Carolina 'as his plantation and settlement borders upon the Yamonseas.' [Yamasee]]