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Spanish/English/French circus at Coweta; Brims chose peace for all

Source: The Southern Frontier #86

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The Charles Town treaty of 1717 was but an entering wedge; it must be driven home by a vigorous program of trade and diplomacy. The friendly Creeks had asked for Englishmen 'to show the French and Spaniards that they do not want friends to assist them, notwithstanding all their lies to the contrary.' In January, 1718, Musgrove hurried back with a quantity of goods and some thirty whites. 13 [Note 13 JCHA, December 6, 11, 1717, and the source cited in the next note]

But emissaries from Florida and Louisiana were again on the scene. This year witnessed another dramatic contest in the Creek towns. Again faction was opposed to faction. But the Emperor's policy became clearer-to have peace with all his neighbors, and to preserve, in the Indian interest, a real balance of power in the South. Indeed, at the moment of Musgrove's return, old Brims was holding a council at Chewale, on the Tallapoosa, with the Creek ambassadors returning from Mexico City, and their Spanish escort from Pensacola. To the delight of the adjutant, Juan Fernandez, Tixjana was acknowledged senor de la Talipuces, and Seepeycoffee designated successor to Brims. But Fernandez could not persuade the Emperor to remove with his people closer to Pensacola.

At this juncture a courier brought news of the return of the Carolinians. The scene now shifted to Coweta, where complex cross-currents of intrigue were set in motion. Hastings and Musgrove were at length admitted to the Coweta council, where they broke a knife to confirm the peace, and the Indians shattered a bow and arrow. But another bow they kept, and a bloody knife, explaining that they still had a war with the Cherokee, to whom the English had sent arms and ammunition. For another decade the Cherokee-Creek feud was to complicate the relations of Charles Town with those two great tribes. The arrival of a French agent from Fort Toulouse injected a new element into the situation. He bore a flattering letter from Bienville, Lespinay's successor, inviting the Emperor to Mobile to receive gifts lately sent from France. The Frenchman made a certain impression, but La Tour was convinced that the Emperor was a friend of England, and even more of Spain. Fickle Seepeycoffee hurried down to Mobile; henceforth he was rather a pensioner of Louisiana than of Florida. When Fernandez withdrew to Apalachicola, the peace with Carolina still stood upon uncertain footing. But English trading-goods had their usual effect. An agreement was soon reached regarding prices. So when Rivera, responding to Fernandez's appeals for support, set out for Coweta, he was met at Sawokli, March 23, with news that turned him back. The Indians, he learned, had decided to live in peace with the Spanish, French, and English, and the great council at Coweta had dissolved. 14 [Note 14 In the detailed narrative of the mission of Juan Fernandez in Barcia, Ensayo cronologico, the English agents were disguised as Chanmasculo (i.e., John Musgrove), and Chiaflus (i.e., Theophilus [Hastings]). See also C.O. On French relations with the Creeks see Arch. Nat. and Barcia, Ensayo cronologico. See JIC, July 16, 1718, for appointment of three subfactors for the Creek trade, and Appendix B for prices established.]

By 1718 most of the elements of the conflict in the Gulf plains had been revealed. From this epoch dates the extraordinary influence retained by the Creeks throughout the colonial period as the custodians of the wilderness balance of power in the South. Even the division of the confederacy into opposing factions reinforced what seems to have been the deliberate policy of the powerful Coweta chief, the Emperor Brims, 'as great a Politician,' declared one Carolinian, 'as any Governor in America.'15 [Note 15 c.o.]

'No one has ever been able to make him take sides with one of the three European nations who know him,' wrote an anonymous Frenchman, 'he alleging that he wishes to see everyone, to be neutral, and not to espouse any of the quarrels which the French, English and Spaniards have with one another.'16 [Note 16 Quoted in Swanton, Early History.]

This policy was so strongly impressed upon his people that sixty years later James Adair could write that 'they held it as an invariable maxim, that their security and welfare required a perpetual friendly intercourse with us and the French; as our political state of war with each other, would always secure their liberties. '17 [Note 17 James Adair, The History of the American Indians, 1775]

On the margins of the Creek country the European competitors for their favors setup frontier forts: French Toulouse, Spanish San Marcos, and, in 1721, the English fort at the mouth of the Altamaha. Other posts were frequently projected. Barnwell's program of 1720 called for English forts on the Chattahoochee and on the Alabama or the Tennessee. At the forks of the Altamaha it was proposed in 1725 to convert a traders' factory into a colony post, and in 1727 and 1729 other posts were mooted in both divisions of the confederacy.18 [Note 18 See above]