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Summary of the fluctuating Lower Creek alliance

Source: The Governorship of Spanish Florida #122

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Although the story is not altogether clear, the decade of 1716-1725, a decisive period in the formulation of a new Spanish Indian policy, was also crucial for the Lower Creeks. Initially they had turned to the Spaniards for aid and succor and found the governor in Saint Augustine a generous benefactor. Lower Creek chiefs eagerly took advantage of Spanish generosity and secured rum, muskets, food, and other gifts in return for promises of perpetual allegiance. Chiscalachisle, Tsipacaya, Tactipique, and Adrian all made periodic visits to the Florida capital to enjoy the governor hospitality but old Brims remained aloof and refused Spanish pleas for an alliance. As a result, a power struggle ensued in which some of the lesser chiefs broke with the emperor and even went so far as to agree to removal of their villages to Apalache. Within a few years, however, these prodigals returned to the emperor’s side and came to accept Brim’s policy of shifting alliances. After 1723 the Indians courted both the English and the Spanish, but allied with neither, playing one nation off against the other in their requests for gifts and favors. Between 1723 and 1725 the Lower Creeks used the English to obtain supplies for a war on the Yamasees, but when the attack failed, the Indians again turned to the Spaniards for aid. In reality the Indians had no permanent alliances with either Spaniards or Englishmen, only to those who could at the moment best serve Lower Creek interests.
(Tepaske GSF)