Invention of the Creek Nation

Though Oglethorpe and his associates in London were inclined to view the territory south of the Savannah River as a vacant land waiting to be settled, the Georgians were not the first to plant a colony in the vicinity of Savannah. Once the region’s indigenous peoples, the Guales and the Escamacus, had been largely eradicated by the 1680s, the Savannah River and its environs attracted a variety of Indian colonizers seeking to tap into the burgeoning trade with Carolina to the north. Among the first to settle in the area were the Yamasees, who settled just to the north of the Savannah in 1685. A generation later, members of the Creek town of Apalachicola took up residence on the north side of the Savannah River some sixty miles upstream from the coast. Although the Apalachicolas and Yamasees eventually abandoned that territory in the wake of the Pocotalico Massacre in 1715, the southern margins of the Carolina colony continued to attract stray bands of Creeks and other Indians who hunted there and traded with the local white inhabitants.

Though Oglethorpe and his associates in London were inclined to view the territory south of the Savannah River as a vacant land waiting to be settled, the Georgians were not the first to plant a colony in the vicinity of Savannah. Once the region’s indigenous peoples, the Guales and the Escamacus, had been largely eradicated by the 1680s, the Savannah River and its environs attracted a variety of Indian colonizers seeking to tap into the burgeoning trade with Carolina to the north. Among the first to settle in the area were the Yamasees, who settled just to the north of the Savannah in 1685. A generation later, members of the Creek town of Apalachicola took up residence on the north side of the Savannah River some sixty miles upstream from the coast. Although the Apalachicolas and Yamasees eventually abandoned that territory in the wake of the Pocotalico Massacre in 1715, the southern margins of the Carolina colony continued to attract stray bands of Creeks and other Indians who hunted there and traded with the local white inhabitants.

Though Oglethorpe and his associates in London were inclined to view the territory south of the Savannah River as a vacant land waiting to be settled, the Georgians were not the first to plant a colony in the vicinity of Savannah. Once the region’s indigenous peoples, the Guales and the Escamacus, had been largely eradicated by the 1680s, the Savannah River and its environs attracted a variety of Indian colonizers seeking to tap into the burgeoning trade with Carolina to the north. Among the first to settle in the area were the Yamasees, who settled just to the north of the Savannah in 1685. A generation later, members of the Creek town of Apalachicola took up residence on the north side of the Savannah River some sixty miles upstream from the coast. Although the Apalachicolas and Yamasees eventually abandoned that territory in the wake of the Pocotalico Massacre in 1715, the southern margins of the Carolina colony continued to attract stray bands of Creeks and other Indians who hunted there and traded with the local white inhabitants.

Moreover, Tomochichi’s grant directly violated previous agreements made between the Creeks and South Carolina in 1717 and 1732, which placed a moratorium on English settlement south of the Savannah River.

In form the Yamacraws’ performance before Oglethorpe is reminiscent of the ritual that the Creeks had staged before the Spanish in April of 1717.As the Creeks had done on that previous occasion, the ceremony began with a reciprocal exchange of gunfire. Soon after, the Yamacraws commenced their march toward Oglethorpe’s tent, preceded by a leading (and in this case lone) warrior who had adorned his head with white feathers, a sign of peace. While shaking rattles the warrior sang and danced, thereby preparing the way for Tomochichi, his chief attendants, and the rest of the people, all of whom marched toward Oglethorpe in a formation according to their respective ranks. Conspicuous among Tomochichi’s attendants was Senaukey, his wife, who could often be found at her husband’s side whenever the Yamacraws and Georgians held rituals of peace and even joined her husband on his pioneering voyage to London. Though Senaukey typically played a silent role in most proceedings, her very presence at the first talks suggests that the Yamacraws, like many Indian groups in eastern North America, at certain times used women to demonstrate in a more conspicuous fashion their peaceful intentions. Once ensconced with Oglethorpe in Oglethorpe’s tent, Tomochichi delivered his first formal speech, the contents of which emphasized peace and Oglethorpe’s obligations as protector of the Yamacraw community. As was common among the Creeks, Tomochichi began first by presenting Oglethorpe with a gift: a buffalo robe painted with the head and feathers of an eagle. That Tomochichi used the imagery of the eagle to decorate his buffalo robe is of special significance, for the Creeks regarded the eagle as the king of all birds, the ruler of the upper World, and a symbol of peace. As Tomochichi explained, “the eagle signified speed and the buffalo strength. That the English were as swift as the bird, and as strong as the beast; since, like the first, they flew from the utmost parts of the earth over the vast seas, and, like the second, nothing could withstand them.” Having portrayed the English in such a flattering light, Tomochichi reminded Oglethorpe that this strength also entailed certain obligations, proclaiming that “the feathers of the eagle were soft, and signified love; the buffalo’s skin warm, and signified protection.” “Therefore,” added Tomochichi, he “hoped that we would love and protect their little families.”

Tomochichi himself rarely discussed the reasons for his banishment, but the Earl of Egmont, a leading trustee of the Georgia Colony, once recalled that Tomochichi had been accused of “cutting down a Popish Chappel, which the French were endeavoring to erect, with design to convert it to a fort.”8 Circumstantial evidence appears to support Egmont’s claim. In March 1729 the French commander of Fort Toulouse sent a lone priest to “the [Cowetas] . . . to see if they would be willing to have missionaries.” Brims of Coweta personally ventured twice to Mobile between October 1729 and November 1730, a clear indication that the Cowetas and the French were then working to solidify their alliance.9 Coweta, we may presume, led in the effort to banish the Yamacraws.

Moreover, Tomochichi’s grant directly violated previous agreements made between the Creeks and South Carolina in 1717 and 1732, which placed a moratorium on English settlement south of the Savannah River.

At the head of the town political hierarchy, of course, was the town mico. Though Tomochichi assumed that role soon after the establishment of the new town at Yamacraw, he was not known as a town mico before his exile. Nor should it be assumed that Tomochichi was the leader of the exiled people when they first arrived on Carolina’s southern frontier. Sources indicate instead that a man named Bocatchee may have been the head of the immigrant Creeks when they first arrived in 1732.15

Tomochichi met Oglethorpe for the first time on February 1, 1733, when he, his wife, and several subordinate chiefs greeted Oglethorpe and company on Yamacraw Bluff. Peter Gordon, an associate of Oglethorpe’s and witness to the proceedings, summarized this first encounter as the Indians’ attempt “to pay their obedience to Mr. Oglethorpe.” To individuals unfamiliar with Indian diplomacy this description might have appeared apt. Upon closer inspection, though, it seems that Tomochichi’s overtures of obedience were designed to draw Oglethorpe into the Yamacraws’ own kinship orbit, thereby cultivating the ties of reciprocity that obliged the Georgians to protect and defend the upstart Yamacraw community. In form the Yamacraws’ performance before Oglethorpe is reminiscent of the ritual that the Creeks had staged before the Spanish in April of 1717.As the Creeks had done on that previous occasion, the ceremony began with a reciprocal exchange of gunfire. Soon after, the Yamacraws commenced their march toward Oglethorpe’s tent, preceded by a leading (and in this case lone) warrior who had adorned his head with white feathers, a sign of peace. While shaking rattles the warrior sang and danced, thereby preparing the way for Tomochichi, his chief attendants, and the rest of the people, all of whom marched toward Oglethorpe in a formation according to their respective ranks. Conspicuous among Tomochichi’s attendants was Senaukey, his wife, who could often be found at her husband’s side whenever the Yamacraws and Georgians held rituals of peace and even joined her husband on his pioneering voyage to London. Though Senaukey typically played a silent role in most proceedings, her very presence at the first talks suggests that the Yamacraws, like many Indian groups in eastern North America, at certain times used women to demonstrate in a more conspicuous fashion their peaceful intentions. Once ensconced with Oglethorpe in Oglethorpe’s tent, Tomochichi delivered his first formal speech, the contents of which emphasized peace and Oglethorpe’s obligations as protector of the Yamacraw community. As was common among the Creeks, Tomochichi began first by presenting Oglethorpe with a gift: a buffalo robe painted with the head and feathers of an eagle. That Tomochichi used the imagery of the eagle to decorate his buffalo robe is of special significance, for the Creeks regarded the eagle as the king of all birds, the ruler of the upper World, and a symbol of peace. As Tomochichi explained, “the eagle signified speed and the buffalo strength. That the English were as swift as the bird, and as strong as the beast; since, like the first, they flew from the utmost parts of the earth over the vast seas, and, like the second, nothing could withstand them.” Having portrayed the English in such a flattering light, Tomochichi reminded Oglethorpe that this strength also entailed certain obligations, proclaiming that “the feathers of the eagle were soft, and signified love; the buffalo’s skin warm, and signified protection.” “Therefore,” added Tomochichi, he “hoped that we would love and protect their little families.” In the weeks that followed, Tomochichi, the Yamacraws, and Oglethorpe continued to exchange ritual gestures commonly used by Indians to cultivate fictitious kinship ties. Yamacraw hunters immediately set to work to provide the English with venison, and though Oglethorpe was known to pay “a very moderate rate” for their services, the Yamacraws would have understood this exchange of food as a way to fulfill their obligations to their new friends. Likewise, when the Yamacraws later met with Oglethorpe to conduct yet another peace ritual, the Yamacraws presented him with a supply of deerskins as a sign of their allegiance. A quick study in the art of Indian diplomacy, Oglethorpe responded in kind with a gift of cloth, thus fulfilling his own obligation to meet gift with gift. While the Yamacraws appear to have utilized these initial rounds of diplomacy to cultivate reciprocal kinship ties with the English, it is evident that Tomochichi himself self-consciously began to identify closely with the English in an effort to shore up his political authority. To establish his historic connection to the English, Tomochichi made it known early on that he had long been their friend, stating that “he was not a stranger to the English, for that his father and grandfather had been very well known to them.” In the same breath Tomochichi humbly deferred to Oglethorpe in matters of war, as if to grant the English commander defacto powers normally reserved for Indian chiefs, stating that he “would not take revenge without Mr. Oglethorpe’s consent and approbation.” Tomochichi and his followers even volunteered to assist Oglethorpe in ridding the fledgling colony of several Irish Catholic spies working for the Spanish, a further sign of Tomochichi’s loyalty to English causes.19 Tomochichi may have even assumed a superficial English identity. On one occasion a young Creek man committed suicide in the vicinity of Charles Town by placing the barrel of a loaded gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger with his big toe. The young man’s relatives, assuming wrongly that an Englishman had murdered him, threatened to wage a private war on the English colonies. Tomochichi personally averted disaster by seeking out the man’s relatives and, upon finding them, exposed his bare breast and stated, “if you kill anybody, kill me, for I am an Englishman.” If Tomochichi was in some ways willing to declare that his body was English, his actions and words also hint that his soul may have assumed a similar configuration. In the weeks following their first meeting, James Oglethorpe portrayed Tomochichi as a man with a keen interest in the English God. Just days after landing at Yamacraw Bluff, for example, Oglethorpe joyfully reported to the trustees back in London that the Yamacraw chief and his second man “desire to be instructed in the Christian religion.” One month later Oglethorpe continued to boast that Tomochichi “comes constantly to church and is desirous to be instructed in the Christian religion.”

Tomochichi’s initial offer of land, though, did not conclude matters between the Creeks and the Georgians. Initially Oglethorpe and other British officials heralded Tomochichi as “the Mico, or chief of the only nation of Indians living near it [Georgia].” As they well knew, in truth the Yamacraws were only a “little Indian nation” comprised of banished Lower Creeks and lacking in authority to make such a transaction. To secure Creek permission to settle the lands that Tomochichi had offered them, Georgia officials necessarily had to acquire the approbation of the towns in the nation proper. Moreover, Tomochichi’s grant directly violated previous agreements made between the Creeks and South Carolina in 1717 and 1732, which placed a moratorium on English settlement south of the Savannah River. In order to secure their claim to the lands Tomochichi offered and to mollify Creek fears of English encroachment, Oglethorpe invited a large delegation of Creek chiefs to Savannah to negotiate a peace settlement on behalf of the nation. Though often hesitant to make such a long journey, particularly in the midst of planting season, the Creek chiefs responded promptly to Oglethorpe’s call, a sure indication that the establishment of yet another English colonywith Tomochichi’s assent, no lesshad created a good bit of alarm back in Creek country. One piece of evidence indicating that Tomochichi’s actions had alarmed the Lower Creeks was the relative size of the Lower Creek delegation that arrived in Savannah on May 18. According to the official records of that visit, the delegation numbered no less than fifty-two people from eight Chattahoochee towns, including Yahoulakee, the recently appointed mico of Coweta, and three other micos. Rarely if ever had Charles Town received such a large and high-ranking Creek delegation, which demonstrates that the Creeks used the opportunity of the May meeting to make a diplomatic show of force. The first to speak at the May conference was a tall, elderly man from the tribe of the Oconees named Oueekachumpa, a self-described relative of Tomochichi who thanked Oglethorpe for the kindness the Englishman had shown to the banished chief.28 Oueekachumpa emphasized Tomochichi’s wisdom, courage, and past deeds as a great warrior, stating that it was for those reasons “that the banished men chose him king.” Oueekachumpa’s spoke not to flatter Tomochichi, who had absented himself, but to force others to recognize Tomochichi as the mico of a new town. Tomochichi and the Yamacraws later joined the discussion, facing their countrymen for the first time, perhaps, since their exile. Although Tomochichi styled himself a king in the presence of Englishmen, he assumed a much more humble posture when confronted by his own peoplea sure indication that the other Creek chiefs may have hardly recognized him as a mico much less an important one in the nation. Standing before Oglethorpe, Tomochichi bowed very low and, in an almost pitiful show of self-deprecation, stated “I was a banished man. I came here poor, and helpless, to look for the Tombs of my Ancestors.” After finishing his speech Tomochichi sat down next to Oglethorpe, prompting Yahoulakee, the mico of Coweta, to rise and issue his own talk. “I rejoice,” he began, “that I have lived to see this day, and to see our friends that have long been gone from amongst us... Our nation was once strong, and had ten towns,” he added, “but we are now weak, and have but eight towns.” Directing his speech at Oglethorpe, Yahoulakee continued by stating, “you [Oglethorpe] have comforted the banished, and have gathered them that were scattered like little birds before the eagle. We desire therefore to be reconciled to our brethren, who are here amongst you.” Superficially, Yahoulakee appears to have sought merely to reconcile the differences between his and Tomochichi’s people. Perhaps the pernicious threat of fratricidal war, combined with the ravaging effects of the recent smallpox epidemic, had put the Lower Creek chiefs in a conciliatory mood. A closer reading of his speech, however, indicates that Yahoulakee was also trying to exert a measure of control over Tomochichi and any further migration to the Yamacraw tract. Yahoulakee concluded by stating “we give leave [permission] to Tomochichi, Stimoioche, and Illispelle, to call the kindred that love them out of each of the Creek towns, that they may come together to make one town.” He urged Tomochichi to “recall the Yamasees, that they may be buried in peace among their ancestors . . . and that they may see their graves before they die.”30 By explicitly granting permission to Tomochichi and the Yamacraws to form their town, Yahoulakee was effectively claiming authority over the new settlement. His plea to “call the kindred that love them out of each of the Creek towns” suggests that they were tacitly trying to purge themselves of other members of Tomochichi’s tribe or that they expected these kindred to migrate in the near future, a process that either way he wished to control. Moreover, the fact that Yahoulakee encouraged them to form only one town illustrates that he feared chaos might ensue if other renegades established yet more towns in the vicinity of Savannah. Thus it appears that by connecting themselves to a potentially powerful new English colony, the once banished Yamacraws effectively rehabilitated themselves in the eyes of their countrymen. The new Yamacraw settlement gained distinction as a legitimate Creek talwa, and Tomochichi likewise garnered recognition as the legitimate Yamacraw mico. Such was the true benefit of the 1733 meetings as far as Tomochichi and the Yamacraws were concerned. Regarding the new English settlement, however, much work was yet to be done, as the lands upon which it was to be settled could only be granted by the Creek nation proper and the Creeks first had to determine precisely what was theirs to give.

The Invention of the Creek Empire The three following days of talks between the Lower Creeks and the Georgia colonists concluded with the ratification of seven Articles of Peace and Commerce. In some respects the 1733 articles mimicked earlier treaties between the Creeks and South Carolinians, most of which were primarily concerned with the issues of commerce, peace, and dispute resolution.31 The 1733 treaty differed in its reflection of the desire of Georgia and British officials to secure title to the “debatable” Georgia territory. Article three, for example, introduced the “chain of friendship” metaphor that British officials consciously exploited to claim Indian territory. The metaphor had first been used in the South three years earlier in the Cherokee Treaty of 1730, as well as the Creek Treaty of 1732, and was an attempt on the part of the British to link the southern Indian nations to the Iroquois whom they considered subjects of the British crown. Linked to the chain of friendship metaphor found in article three was article four, which later proved to be a source of contention between the English and the Creeks. In article four the Creek chiefs appear to have granted the Georgia trustees and their successors and assigns the right to “make use of and possess all those Lands which our [the Creek] Nation hath not occasion to use.”33 The problem inherent to article four was its ambiguity, which left “the lands which our Nation hath not occasion to use” as vague and undefined. At first glance it may appear that the Creeks had conceded much to Georgia and to the British Empire. By granting Oglethorpe the lands that they had no occasion to use, however, the Lower Creeks committed an imperial act of their own by defining what specifically constituted their territory. While most historians have portrayed the struggle for the debatable Georgia territory as a two-way contest between the British and Spanish empires, the 1733 treaty proceedings illustrate that the contest involved not two but three competing nations. Though it is justifiable to assume that the South’s indigenous peoples should naturally have a prior claim to Georgia territory, an argument can be made that the Lower Creeks’ claims were also in some sense debatable. According to records of the treaty proceedings, the Lower Creeks at that time claimed all the lands “from the Savannah River, as far as St. Augustine, and up to the Flint River, which falls into the bay of Mexico,” including “all the islands in between said rivers. The Creeks also appear to have considered the territory from the “Bay of Apalachee” to “the Mountains” to be their own, a swath of land that necessarily encompassed the Apalachee old fields. The Lower Creeks proudly boasted that this expanse of territory, roughly approximating and even exceeding the current boundaries of the state of Georgia, was theirs by ancient right. A critical examination of recent history to 1733, however, indicates that the definition of ancient was in the eye of the beholder. For example, Spanish documents from the mission period suggest that prior to 1680 the peoples of the Chattahoochee River may have had little or no contact with the original inhabitants of the Georgia coastthe Escamacus, the Guales, and the Mocamas. Thus it is likely that very few persons from the Chattahoochee River even saw the Georgia coast before that date. Moreover, recall that north Florida remained largely in the hands of missionized Indian groups such as the Timucuans and Apalachees until the first decade of the eighteenth century. How, then, could the Lower Creeks claim to have an ancient right to territories far beyond the middle course of the Chattahoochee River? Because the Lower Creeks were a diverse people who harbored remnants of nations that once lived in the Georgia interior, such as the Ocheses and Ocutis, it is reasonable to suggest that certain elements within the Creek nation remembered their historic link to this territory and believed it was their right to defend it.

It is ironic, perhaps, that on June 26, 1734, just days after Tomochichi’s party arrived in London, twenty-three Creek chiefs and warriors approached the gates of Fort San Marcos in Apalachee to pledge their friendship to Alvaro Lopez de Toledo, the garrison commander. Leading the Creek delegation was Chocate, a warrior from Coweta whom Lieutenant Lopez took to be “the first in authority.” Accompanying him was Quilate of Apalachicola, Ysques, a cacique from the town of Achito [Hitchiti], and Opugilele, who was described as a cacique of Cussita. The chiefs, in an apologetic and friendly tone, argued that they had come to San Marcos “to obtain news of the manner by which the Governor treated the natives.” Fortunately for Lopez, several Indian runners from St. Augustine had recently arrived at the fort and attested to the familiarity and affability of the new governor, Francisco de Moral Sanchez. Ysques and Quilate, encouraged by their reception, informed Lopez that they would soon call a meeting of all the nations to discuss reinvigorating the Spanish alliance. If successful, they planned to pay Governor Moral Sanchez a complimentary visit in October to demonstrate their sincerity.

News of the anticipated Creek visit to St. Augustine, however, may not have been the most important occurrence at San Marcos that day. That distinction belongs to the fortuitous arrival of Don Juan Ignacio de los Reyes, one of the aforementioned runners from St. Augustine. Ignacio, a virtually unknown figure in the annals of Creek and Southern history, was commonly known to be an Uchise Indian by birth. Ignacio, reputed to be near thirty-five years of age, was a resident of Pocotalaca, an Indian village located near St. Augustine that harbored the last remnants of the Yamasee tribe. As a courier for the presidio Ignacio had developed a reputation as a man of honor who delivered messages with punctuality. A literate Christian with an apparent facility in the Castilian tongue, Ignacio was quite familiar with the ways of the Spanish, which made him a valuable go-between. Although pro-Spanish factions had emerged among the Creeks on previous occasions, the June meeting at San Marcos catalyzed the formation of a faction dedicated specifically to thwarting Oglethorpe’s plans to subjugate the Lower Creeks. Chocate, the faction’s leader, was a subordinate chief of Coweta who harbored a longstanding grudge against the English. Back in the winter months of 1728 he had offered to help the Spanish oust South Carolina Indian agent Charlesworth Glover from the Lower Creek towns. Chocate, moreover, was noticeably absent from the talks held in Savannah the previous May, indicating that his hatred of the English had not waned. Quilate, whom Lopez judged as second in command, was the head warrior of the town of Apalachicola. He first appears in the historical record in May 1733 as a representative of his town at the grand conference with Oglethorpe in Savannah. Oglethorpe’s hospitality, apparently, had done little to comfort Quilate’s fears of the building of yet another English settlement, prompting him to join Chocate’s mission to San Marcos. From that day forth Quilate would play a prominent role in counter-English espionage, forming critical links to Ignacio and other Indian informants living near St. Augustine. One suspects, then, that it was this newly formed communication network that first tipped off Governor Moral Sanchez to Oglethorpe’s plan to bring Tomochichi to London. Hence, we find Joseph Ramos Escudero in the British capital later that fall, tormenting the Indians with his incisive questions about Tomochichi’s authority to acton behalf of the Creek nation. Escudero’s correspondence suggests, moreover, that this Creek cabal may have informed Escudero or perhaps Governor Moral Sanchez that Yahoulakee of Coweta should have been considered the true emperor of the Lower Creeks rather than Tomochichi, the pretender.

Through the ages the city of London has seen its share of foreigners come and go, but rarely has it been treated to the spectacle that took place between July and October 1734. That year a small delegation of Creek Indians traversed the “great water” and became the first of their people ever to set foot on English soil. The Creek dignitaries had come by invitation of James Edward Oglethorpe, the leader of the new colony named Georgia in honor of the British king, George II. At the head of the Creek delegation was an elderly man named Tomochichi who had befriended Oglethorpe a year earlier and had granted Oglethorpe permission to plant his new colony on the Savannah River. Oglethorpe recognized that Georgia’s survival required the favor and protection of the Creek Indians, whose proximity to the Catholic powers made them a valuable ally and a potentially dangerous foe. Tomochichi, the leader of a nearby group of Creeks known as the Yamacraws, was the critical intermediary between the Creeks and the Georgians. Thus when Tomochichi’s party arrived in London that July, British officials went to extraordinary lengths to impress upon them the grandeur and benevolence of the British state. On August 1, Tomochichi and his followers were privileged enough to meet with King George and Queen Caroline, who dutifully listened as Tomochichi pledged his friendship. As the London press had it, Tomochichi’s visit with the royal couple was a festive affair marked by numerous symbolic acts that renewed the ancient peace between the English monarchy and the Creek Indians. Gentleman’s Magazine, a popular London periodical, portrayed Tomochichi as the king of an entire “Creek nation” and loyal to King George. Not everyone in London at the time, however, was naïve enough to accept the shallow glossing of a men’s magazine as the truth. It just so happened that Joseph Ramos Escudero, who was in London on a secret mission for the Spanish governor of Florida, had come to spy on Tomochichi and his followers. Disguised as a Dutch diplomat, Escudero, a Franciscan friar, infiltrated the British court and gained access to the Creek visitors. Escudero soon became suspicious, though, when he noticed the absence of several influential Creek men, especially Yahoulakee, whom Escudero believed was the “emperor” of Coweta. A somewhat confused Escudero therefore surmised that Tomochichi’s party was nothing but an assemblage of minor chiefs and that Tomochichi was a mere pretender to Yahoulakee’s position. To verify his suspicions, Escudero at one point turned to a Creek man sitting beside him in court and asked sarcastically, “When will I see the Emperor of Coweta?” The Creek man, hesitant to reveal the emperor’s absence, replied defensively, “I don’t know, [but] he is here.” For several weeks Escudero lingered like a phantom in the shadows, needling the Creek diplomats for further information about Yahoulakee and the visiting chiefs. Eventually Escudero directed his questions to the Creek interpreter, John Musgrove, who was forced to admit that the new emperor of Coweta was not in London but pleaded that “he had been begged to come, but . . . was afraid of the sea.” Musgrove, in order to gloss over this inconvenient matter, responded by styling Tomochichi as the “second man” in the nation to whom the present chief of Coweta and others might defer in times of war or other serious matters. The Creeks added their own spin, stating that the English had crowned Yahoulakee supreme king eight or nine years prior, and had given him a crown, a scepter, and a suit of “popish vestments” believed to have been worn by the British king. These attempts, Escudero was informed, were not received with general applause because Yahoulakee was a “cruel and barbarous” leader and because the Indians in general did not recognize such absolute authority.

Though Spanish accounts demonstrate that Patrick Mackey’s militancy generated a degree of mistrust of the British among Creek leaders, they may have exaggerated the degree to which the Lower Creeks considered him to be unconditionally bad. Mackey could be useful at times, for his influence in Savannah enabled them to counter Tomochichi’s attempts to capitalize politically from his London voyage. Tomochichi’s party had arrived in London the previous summer and remained abroad much of that fall; the group did not return until late December 1734, first stopping in Charles Town and then proceeding to Savannah in the following weeks. Although Oglethorpe had intended to parade the Yamacraw delegation through London to drum up support in England for his Georgia schemes and to impress Tomochichi with the grandeur and benevolence of the British people, it was Tomochichi who gained the most politically by choosing to venture to England. On a metaphysical level the act of traveling to such a hitherto unknown are of the worldacross the “great water,” no lesslikely conferred spiritual power upon Tomochichi. Southeastern Indian chiefs had long claimed power on the basis of their mastery of the outside world, which the Indians considered to be both dangerous and powerful. Conquering the barriers of geographical distance therefore required the traveler to manipulate spiritual powers to protect him or herself. Tomochichi’s successful return home to Georgia, then, was likely seen by the Creeks as evidence of his mastery of geographical distance and as evidence of the good favor he found with the spirits that protected him on his journey. On a practical level Tomochichi earned respect as a seasoned traveler able to provide a firsthand account of the English people in their element. Tomochichi successfully negotiated the terms of a trade agreement with the Georgia trustees and secured for his people a gift from them that came in the form of a large cache of trade goods. Though certainly a favorable development, the gifts had a divisive effect on the Creeks and caused their leaders to squabble when it came time to distribute them. At first Tomochichi sought to monopolize the distribution process by sending his personal messenger Senteche into the nation to invite his own “private friends” to Savannah for their reward. Mackey became apprised of Tomochichi’s scheme and forbade Senteche from carrying out Tomochichi’s orders on the grounds that “the presents should be bestowed on the most deserving and of the most Interest and Power among them here,” rather than “lavished away” by Tomochichi. Heeding Mackey’s advice, Thomas Causton, the Georgia official responsible for distributing the trustees’ gift, convinced Tomochichi to compile an official list of Creek chiefs deemed worthy to receive the gifts. Like many documents born of a political compromise, Tomochichi’s list contained a number of omissions and inclusions that betray the political factionalism then present in Creek country. The most conspicuous divide existed between Tomochichi’s friends and the Spanish partisans. Tomochichi was quick to earmark gifts for persons of little political importance who appear to have been related to him or to other Yamacraws. Tallapholechee from the Osuche town, for example, was a man of little note who happened to be the brother of a recently deceased Yamacraw war captain and thus probably a member of Tomochichi’s own clan. Other interesting inclusions are Himolatche (or Malatchi) of Coweta, a man of no more than twenty-five years who just happened to be a kinsman of the late emperor Brims. That Malatchi made the list is curious, for Mackey considered him at the time to be little more than “a drunken fellow . . . and entirely in the French interest.” Tomochichi perhaps saw in Malatchi a means by which to gain more influence in Coweta, a town that likely had played a role in ousting Tomochichi’s people several years before. Tellingly, Tomochichi was careful to omit Yahoulakee and Chocate of Coweta, who had recently reinvigorated the Lower Creeks’ contacts with Spanish Florida. Quilate, a leader in that enterprise, somehow made the list, perhaps due to Tomochichi’s ignorance or to his desire distribute gifts to as many headmen from Apalachicola, his town of origin, as he could.

If Oglethorpe’s initial congenial overtures to the Creeks were enough to cultivate mistrust, his increasingly aggressive brand of Indian diplomacy gave further incentive to the Creeks to hold fast to their alliances with the Catholic powers. Beginning in 1734, Oglethorpe not only brought Tomochichi to London but he appointed an acrimonious Scot named Patrick Mackey as Georgia’s first Indian agent. In the year following his initial appointment Mackey pressed for Creek permission to build a fort in their territory, which most Creeks considered an affront to their political autonomy. Mackey repeatedly used the authority of his office to monopolize the Creek trade for the colony of Georgia, resorting to strong-arm tactics to oust Carolina traders and seize their merchandise. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Mackey, acting on vague orders from Oglethorpe, tried to draw the Creeks into a war against the Spanish, an enterprise that many Creeks read as a thinly veiled attempt to use them as warriors-by-proxy in Britain’s quest for empire. Thus when Mackey arrived in Creek country in December 1734, he succeeded only in souring the relationship between Georgia and the Creeks.

The Creeks, then, were not “generally under the sway of Georgia” but content merely to show their apparent proof of fidelity to the British and yet not get drawn too closely into the larger imperial squabbles. This is not to say, however, that Creeks never fought against the Spanish or their Indian allies, for evidence indicates that some Creeks carried on a guerrilla war against the Florida presidios for the better part of a decade. Oglethorpe, nevertheless, should not be credited with bringing the Creeks under his sway. The Creeks had their own reasons for fighting such a war and at times were able to conflate their and Oglethorpe’s goals to make it appear that they were fighting on behalf of British imperialism. Blood revenge, for instance, undoubtedly motivated some to risk their lives in the shadows of the Spanish presidios. Such was the case for Licka, the mico of Osuche who, at the behest of Patrick Mackey, set out toward St. Augustine in late March 1735, where he killed one Spanish soldier and returned the scalp to Savannah that summer to receive an undisclosed present from the Georgia trustees. Though at first glance Licka appears to have been working in Mackey’s employ, evidence suggests that his principal aim was to avenge the death of a brother killed by the Spanish sometime before then and from “whose skull,” in Licka’s words, “they drink at Augustine.”

In Coweta on March 10, Mackey ordered all the Lower Creek traders to return to their trading houses, forbidding them “to stir from their habitations” and effectively placing an embargo on the Lower Creek trade. The following month Mackey began confiscating trade goods and expelling traders at the Upper Creek town of Oakfuskee, subsequently granting a trade monopoly to a company of eleven men, many of whom were believed to have formed a partnership with the feisty agent. Later that summer Mackey expelled two Lower Creek traders and in September three of his deputies began seizing more trade goods and expelling the traders to whom the goods belonged… …Regardless of how greatly Mackey’s efforts to monopolize the Indian trade for Georgia had offended the Creeks, his naked ambition to secure Creek military assistance against Spain and France drove certain Creek chiefs, many of whom were predisposed to favor the Spanish, to seek succor in Florida. Once again problems stemmed from Mackey’s first confrontational encounter in Coweta on March 10, 1735. According to a deposition taken several months after the event, Mackey interpreted Oglethorpe’s vague instructions to “presume that there is a war with France or Spain” literally rather than conditionally, and began to pressure the chiefs to declare “whether they were willing and would go to war with him?” To placate Mackey, the Creek chiefs assented to his request, replying in unison that “they would stand by him with their lives.” Mackey must have believed that he had gained some influence, because a few weeks later he stated that, “the chief men of the Indians behave with greater civility and seem to respect us... more within these [past] twenty days than they did before.” Still, even the boastful Mackey at his most optimistic moments could not have failed to notice undercurrents of hostility among the Lower Creeks. “It is incredible,” he wrote, “how much they are overawed by that silly place in possession of the French called Fort Toulouse and by Saint Marks [San Marcos].” Such awe, Mackey deduced in a moment of Machiavellian epiphany, indicated that “the Indians are governed more by the principles of fear [than] as love.” This awe of the French and Spanish led Mackey to find them to be “a sullen, morose people of few words, very ambiguous in answering questions, mighty deceitful and covetous.” Covetous enough of their own autonomy, that is, to go to the Spanish for assistance.

Covetous enough of their own autonomy, that is, to go to the Spanish for assistance. On April 5, just weeks after Mackey began his campaign to enlist the Creeks as military auxiliaries, an unnamed chief from the Lower Creeks came to Fort San Marcos requesting a Catholic baptism. The garrison commander seized the opportunity to obtain intelligence about British activity and questioned him as to why his people had not yet rendered obedience to Spain. The man responded that “they were all loyal vassals of his majesty, but they were waiting for an English captain with five-hundred men.” The reason his people remained in their towns, he argued, was “to discover his [Mackey’s] motives and to oppose him.” Although Mackey made some effort to pose as an agent of goodwill, many Creeks understood his motives as patently imperialistic and threatening to their interests. Though this particular chief probably inflated the number of Mackey’s force from a modest dozen to an inconceivable five-hundred men in a conscious effort to gain Spanish assistance, the fact that he did so also underscores the Creeks’ intuitive understanding and pervasive fear of British imperialism. Mackey probably refrained from publicly revealing Britain’s imperial goals to the Creeks. British officials commonly kept such discussions to themselves. To the Georgia trustees, for example, he claimed that “if I was to demand all their [Creek] territories, they have not a countenance to deny me, tho I believe anything they yield is against their inclinations. Its my opinion that five hundred men with what Indians could be raised in this Nation (if Britain were engaged in a war with France and Spain) would put Britain in possession of all of Florida, and to the Mississippi River.” The Creeks shrewdly recognized Mackey’s requests for military assistance, “if” Britain should become engaged in a war with the Catholic powers, as a thinly veiled plan for conquest. Many Creeks came to this understanding during Mackey’s tour of duty, as if privy to his private correspondence with British officials. The messenger at San Marcos, for example, warned the Spanish commandant that “they understood that the English wished to populate the province of the Talapuses and Uchises and to continue in Apalachee,” echoing almost precisely some of Mackey’s words to the Georgia trustees.

Creek chiefs partial to the Spanish continued to keep Governor Moral Sanchez and his subordinates apprised of Mackey’s activities. Their accounts differ considerably from English accounts of the same events and indicate that Mackey may have acted more militantly than his superiors knew. On May 20, 1735, Moral Sanchez listened as Yahoulakee, appointed by his people to make the journey to St. Augustine, divulged that twelve Englishmen had come to their provinces bearing flags, war commissions, and munitions. Yahoulakee explained that the Englishmen had called a general meeting in the town of Coweta and offered a supply of guns, powder, and bullets to any town that agreed to “raise the English flag against the Spaniards.” The Englishman, Yahoulakee added, promised to distribute these and other gifts to each person in the compliant towns. Only two towns accepted Mackey’s offer: Osuche and [Chehaw]. “None of the others” accepted the gifts, Yahoulakee protested, because they knew “the bad intentions of the English.” Mackey had met with Chislacaliche, the Spanish partisan, in an attempt to win him to the English cause. English and Spanish accounts show that Mackey had urged the chief to abandon his current town at the forks of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers and relocate among the Lower Creeks, an offer the chief refused unconditionally. Mackey reported that Chislacaliche rejected the offer because he feared Spanish encroachment and because his present location afforded him the opportunity to spy on the Spaniards in behalf of the British. Yahoulakee’s account of the same meeting, in contrast, indicates that Chislacaliche did not intend to spy for the British but rather for the Spaniards. What Mackey failed to reveal was that Chislacaliche had become enraged at Mackey’s pretentious demands and that he and Yahoulakee had left Apalachicola in a huff. Together the two men returned to the forks, and Yahoulakee proceeded from there to St. Augustine. Chislacaliche was privy to Yahoulakee’s secret mission and thus complicit in his anti-British espionage. Later dispatches also suggest that Chislacaliche was an important link in the intelligence network that kept the commanders of Fort San Marcos in Apalachee well apprised of English activities.

The political battles over the gifts finally came to a head in June 1735 when the Upper and Lower Creeks descended upon Savannah for the distribution ceremony. Predictably, the event did not go according to Tomochichi’s plans. Tomochichi, it was learned, had intended for half the presents to go to the Lower Creeks and half to go to the upper nation. Georgia officials, however, diverted a disproportionate share to the Upper Creeks, most likely as a reward for granting Mackey permission to build a smalland, as it turned out, inconsequentialfort at Oakfuskee the previous April. Thomas Causton later reported that the Georgians had frustrated Tomochichi’s self-serving plans. “Tomochichi,” Causton wrote, “was again uneasy believing Mr. Mackay had again disappointed his intentions... Indeed,” Causton added, “I found that though Tomochichi had invited some of the upper Nation he did not intend to have so many of them [here].” Tomochichi’s problems did not end with the Upper Creeks. Chigelly of Coweta challenged in a more direct way Tomochichi’s presumed authority to distribute presents as he saw fit. Sensing that the time was right to inform the Georgians of the “real” vectors of power within the Creek nation, Chigelly seized the opportunity to stake his own claim as the Creeks’ preeminent voice and to assert Coweta’s historic role as the Creek nation’s head town. Chigelly traced the Creeks’ history, delivering a speech lasting two days that Thomas Causton recorded in English on a buffalo robe using black and red ink. Though the original has not survived, Chigelly’s account is now known to scholars as the Cussita Migration Legend. Briefly, the Cussita Migration Legend explains the origins of the Cussita peoples’ sacred ritual practices and relates their migration from a mystical point of origin in the west to the Chattahoochee River. Because of its rich ethnographic detail, the Cussita Migration Legend has long attracted the attention of anthropologists, historians, and archaeologists alike. In the process of becoming an object of scholarly fetish, though, it now exists as an ossified cultural artifact far removed from the historical and political context in which it was composed. By inserting it back into that context we find that the Cussita Migration Legend was not a Creek “Book of Genesis” but a ritualized performance intended to demonstrate Cussita’sand, by association, Coweta’ssupremacy over other Creek towns and especially over the person of Tomochichi. The migration legend itself was first brought to the attention of the British in Savannah on June 11, 1735, when Chigelly and Antiche, a Coweta warrior, proceeded to explain how the Cussitas came into being by emerging from a hole in the ground somewhere in the west. After discussing the origins of their sacred war tomahawk and busk medicines, the speakers related how they migrated eastward and established their preeminence over the Chickasaws, Alabamas, and Abikas. A brief discussion of the metaphorical significance of the eagle segued into a discussion of the Cussitas’ more recent migration from Coosa River to the Chattahoochee, where they first met the people of Apalachicola. After resolving a brief dispute, the Apalachicola and Cussita peoples decided to “be all one.” “Ever since,” Chigelly continued, “they have lived together and shall always live together, and bear it in remembrance.” Chigelly made it known that the alliance was not between two equals, infusing his historical narrative with political rhetoric favorable to him and the Cowetas. The Cussitas and Cowetas, he asserted, were one people that were “[recognized] to be the head towns of the upper [and] lower Creeks.” Chigelly demanded recognition as the leader of the Creek nation, arguing that “I am from the eldest town and was chosen to rule after the death of the Emperor [Brims].” The question that arises is, why did Chigelly choose to deliver such a politically motivated speech on that particular occasion? Given Tomochichi’s cozy alliance with Oglethorpe, it is evident that Chigelly sought to counter the Apalachicola man’s rising influence. Chigelly did not fail to note, for example, that Tomochichi came from Apalachicola which, unlike Coweta, was not one of the two specified head town. Chigelly took the time to explain that they looked upon Tomochichi as the father of the Yamacraws, revealing Chigelly’s belief that Tomochichi’s right to rule depended upon the consent of the rest of the Lower Creek nation. Furthermore, it was well known that Georgia officials wished to distribute the trustees’ presents to the most influential and friendly chiefs, which perhaps may explain why Chigelly promised to serve the British king and why he declared his own town to be the eldest and his own mouth to be the strongest, presumably among the whole nation. A second question that arises is the degree to which Chigelly’s migration legend accurately represented the historical canon of the Creek nation. According to many anthropologists and linguists, Chigelly’s method of storytelling was a common way for nonliterate peoples to communicate historical knowledge. Historical accounts similarly produced can vary over time and according to the context in which they are told. As such, oral traditions can be manipulated easily to reflect the views of the individual telling the tale, the audience, or the current political climate. Not everyone who heard Chigelly’s speech, then, was likely to agree upon its accuracy. There may have been as many migration legends as there were storytellers. Just days after the event, for example, Thomas Causton related that the “Hetchitaws and [A]palachicolas” promised him a further account of the migration legend, an indication that Chigelly’s was somehow inaccurate. The new account, Causton added, “they say will be an improvement on this,” suggesting that Coweta’s status as the eldest town or Chigelly’s role as the strongest mouth were points of contention on the Chattahoochee and beyond.

Beneath the veil of Creek complicity in fulfilling Britain’s overall imperial aims, however, we find more than a murmur of discontent within Creek country being sounded principally by Quilate and other Spanish sympathizers who made themselves useful to the Florida regime. Some Lower Creeks accomplished this service by continuing to provide Spanish officials with intelligence, an enterprise that ran counter to the wishes of Oglethorpe’s friends living at Yamacraw and beyond. In September 1735, for instance, English traders reported the presence of three Spanish diplomats among the Lower Creeks. They had come to the Creek towns to invite the chiefs to fulfill earlier promises to meet Governor Moral Sanchez in St. Augustine.83 Though unable to meet the governor at the time, pro-Spanish Creeks continued to keep the governor apprised of British activity.

On October 12 a runner sent by Yahoulakee arrived in St. Augustine to inform the governor that three Englishmen, subalterns to Patrick Mackey, had returned to Apalachicola carrying war flags. Their intent, the runner added, was to enlist Creek warriors in a “propose[d] war” aimed at “reducing” St. Augustine and San Marcos. Pro-Spanish Creeks continued to provide intelligence to the garrison at Fort San Marcos, which remained the Lower Creeks’ principal link to the Florida regime.

Three years later Tomochichi would have the privilege of meeting the founder of the Methodist sect, John Wesley, whom he asked to “speak the great word to me and my nation.”

Even Georgia’s most dependable allies, the Yamacraws, appear to have waged war not because of Oglethorpe’s influence but for blood revenge or perhaps because of the lure of plunder. For example, in 1736 Oglethorpe began building a series of forts on the Georgia coast that were put in place both to defend the Savannah settlement and to stake Georgia’s claim to disputed territory. To assist in this enterprise Oglethorpe enlisted the Yamacraws to help feed his soldiers and scout the territory. As Oglethorpe was not yet willing to encourage his Indian allies to attack the Spanish, he conveniently struck a deal with Governor Moral Sanchez in 1736 whereby they agreed not to go to war and not to set their Indian allies against each other. In doing so both men hoped to shift the burden of imperial affairs upon the shoulders of diplomats in London and Madrid. Oglethorpe, though pleased to hear Tomochichi and Tooanaway pledge that their people would live and die by the English, remained apprehensive when he learned of a rumor that Tomochichi’s Creek allies “designed to fall on the Spanish.” Seeking to avert a premature war against Spain, he urged Tomochichi to bring no more than two hundred men, a number he deemed “sufficient for any service we can have for them.” Oglethorpe’s apprehensions proved to be well-founded, for in the years that followed Tomochichi’s Yamacraws and other Creek warriors independently waged a guerrilla war against the Spanish presidios.

Evidence of the effectiveness of this Creek strategy comes from the pens of the governors of Spanish Florida and French Louisiana themselves. In the opening months of 1736, Moral Sanchez began entreating Governor Bienville of Louisiana to help Spain pacify the “Kouitas” with gifts, noting that the English habit of providing opulent gifts had prejudiced them against the Catholic powers.86 Bienville, unwilling to see Spain’s possessions fall to the British, readily complied, and hosted a large gathering of Creek chiefs at Fort Toulouse in January 1737. The French commander stationed at Fort Toulouse used the opportunity to disburse a large present of powder and shot to each chief, with Governor Moral Sanchez agreeing to pay for the Lower Creeks’ portion of the gift. By sharing expenses the two Catholic powers compensated for their local poverty, and both Spanish and French officials believed that the presents mitigated Kaouita aggression.

Oglethorpe’s apprehensions proved to be well-founded, for in the years that followed Tomochichi’s Yamacraws and other Creek warriors independently waged a guerrilla war against the Spanish presidios. On April 4, 1736, for instance, a body of Uchises and Tallapoosas (“the wild Indians,” in Oglethorpe’s words) launched an attack of their own against Fort Pupo, a small Spanish garrison on the St. Johns River located sixteen miles from St. Augustine, killing one Spanish soldier in the process. Such small-scale attacks continued during the following years in spite of Oglethorpe’s and Moral Sanchez’s attempts to establish peace. The attacks did not abate even as Britain and Spain remained officially at peace until the fall of 1739.

Pro-Spanish Creeks continued to provide intelligence to the garrison at Fort San Marcos, which remained the Lower Creeks’ principal link to the Florida regime. On April 25, 1736, Moral Sanchez reported that his lieutenant at San Marcos had recently received word that three hundred Englishmen had arrived to build a fort among the “Talapuces.” Rumor ominously indicated that the British planned to build another two forts on the Chattahoochee during the upcoming summer. The Creek Indians, the governor was informed, hoped to challenge Britain’s ambitions but “could not oppose them without help” from Spain. While the establishment of Georgia itself was enough to force Spanish officials to come to Florida’s defense, Creek pleas for help played a significant role in determining Spain’s specific course of action. By intentionally inflating the number of British soldiers stationed in their territory and by portraying Patrick Mackey’s meager attempts to fortify Creek country as an unprecedented intrusion of British soldiers, the Indians forced the Spanish to invest a substantial amount of time, energy, and money into cultivating their alliance. As a result, the Creeks secured a new (though unreliable) source of the European goods upon which they now depended. The Creeks effectively used the threat of their military might to buy a lucrative peace with the Catholic powers.

Most important, perhaps, was Mackey’s heavy handed approach that threatened to disrupt the intricate web of social relationships that had developed between the Carolina traders and their Creek hosts. Like earlier generations of Indian traders, the Carolina traders had gained access to the Creeks by immersing themselves in the local communities and learning the protocols of kinship that lubricated commercial transactions. The more socially adept traders likely had married into prominent Creek families or had entered into a privileged relationship with a local chief, who sometimes acted as the trader’s guardian or landlord, and thus ensured the protection of the trader’s person and property. To have their traders replaced necessarily required the Creeks to educate a new group of men in local etiquette and added yet another burden to the hardships caused by the dwindling supply of trade goods. To counteract Mackey’s handiwork, Creek leaders from both the upper and lower nations lobbied to restore the trade to the status quo as it existed before Mackey’s arrival. On July 6, 1736, Charles Town officials listened as Obeyhatchey, the king of the Abikas, who spoke on behalf of a small delegation who wished to see their old traders back in their respective towns.49 Officials in Savannah simultaneously assented to the request of a Lower Creek chief named Emalageechee to have George Coussins, a trader whom Mackey had expelled the previous year, sent back to his town.

Jenkins’s Ear, or, The Apparent Proof of Fidelity While the Cussita Migration Legend reveals certain fissures among the Creeks, an analysis of the behavior of Creek leaders in the years that followed its delivery indicates more directly how the Creek nation itself was a far cry from united, at least as their unity pertained to foreign diplomacy. Evidence suggests, on the one hand, that a core group of Oglethorpe’s friendsconsisting primarily of the Yamacraws, the Lower Creek point towns, and various individuals with kinship ties to the Yamacrawshad coalesced around Tomochichi. On the other hand, a distinctly pro-Spanish group among the Lower Creeks appears to have formed around individuals such as Yahoulakee and Chocate of Coweta and especially Quilate of Apalachicola. Though these two factions undoubtedly held influence within the nation, we should not assume that every Creek individual was eager to identify too closely with either group. Rather, it appears that the majority of Creek leaders sought to steer a middle course as theWar of Jenkins’s Ear loomed on the horizon. The War of Jenkins’s Ear (1739-1743) remains one of colonial America’s most enigmatic wars due to its odd nickname, opaque origins, and inconclusive results. The conflict’s name emanates from an incident that occurred in 1738, when hawkish members of the British Parliament recruited a one-eared smuggler named Robert Jenkins to argue before the House of Commons that Spanish atrocities on the high seas merited British retribution. Jenkins testified that seven years before, while he was attempting to trade in the Caribbean, Spanish sailors had seized his ship, imprisoned him, and severed one of his ears, the dried remains of which Jenkins proudly removed from a handkerchief and displayed before the astonished MP’s. Hawkish members of parliament exploited the event in the London press, successfully steering British public opinion in favor of war. In response to the Britons’ new-found martial spirit, Prime Minister Robert Walpole abandoned his policy of peaceful coexistence and reluctantly declared war on Spain in October 1739. Although the war owes its name to the dramatic events in Parliament, its true origins can be traced obliquely to the unresolved territorial disputes between Spain and Britain dating to 1670 and to more recent disagreements over Britain’s right to trade in the Spanish Caribbean. Though principally a naval war, regiments from South Carolina and Georgia, together with their Indian allies, engaged Spanish forces on land on three notable occasions, resulting in a virtual stalemate as the year 1743 drew to a close. Peace, however, did not come officially until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed in 1748, ended the widespread series of conflicts in Europe known as the War of Austrian Succession. Although it successfully ended the war in Europe, the Treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle failed to address adequately the territorial disputes in the New World between Britain, Spain, and France that remained fundamentally unresolved until the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Despite its inconclusive results, historians working in the traditions of British imperial and U.S. colonial history have generally declared the War of Jenkins’s Ear a modest success, citing the young Georgia colony’s very survival as evidence for Britain’s growing strength on the Southern frontier. Some historians credit Georgia’s success to James Oglethorpe’s aggressive Indian policy which, they argue, succeeded in bringing the Creeks “fairly well under the sway of Georgia” at the outbreak of war.

The threat of Creek hostility also appears to have resonated loudly in Cuba. Well aware of English attempts to buy the Creeks’ loyalty, Cuban governor Juan de Guemes y Horcasitas embarked upon his own plan to fight fire with fire by buying a like measure of Creek loyalty for Spain.88 On January 18, 1738, Guemes y Horcasitas dispatched from Havana Capt. Juan Marquez del Toro on a ship bound for San Marcos de Apalache. On board was a large cache of presents ranging from red jackets garnished in silver and gold to more mundane items such as combs, knives, and hatchets. Because Toro aimed not only to give the Creeks useful gifts but also to regale them in a ceremonial manner, he included in his inventory a sizable quantity of food such as maize, beans, and rice, as well as the social lubricants of choice in Creek countrytobacco and brandy. Catering to Creek vices, however, was not Guemes y Horcasitas’s principal goal. Rather, the Cuban governor sought primarily to coax the Creeks into rendering the obligatory obedience to Spain. For this reason Toro carried with him a set of instructions ordering him to dispense with the gifts in a politically expedient manner. The governor specifically instructed Toro to bestow gifts upon important chiefs only, particularly those who took the time to see him in person. Most important, Toro’s instructions included a list of seven points that contained a demand to render unilateral obedience to Spain and “not allow any English or other foreigners in their towns.”

Encumbered by these imperious instructions, Toro arrived at San Marcos on February 18.

Three days later [from 2/18] Juan Ignacio, Florida’s most useful Uchise Indian ally, reported to Toro and set out from San Marcos on February 22 carrying Toro’s invitation to the various towns in the Creek nation.

Three days later Juan Ignacio, Florida’s most useful Uchise Indian ally, reported to Toro and set out from San Marcos on February 22 carrying Toro’s invitation to the various towns in the Creek nation. It should be noted that Juan Ignacio’s arrival was not simply a fortuitous stroke of luck but a calculated ploy on the part of Florida and Cuban officials to tap into the network of communication established several years before. Governor Guemes y Horcasitas, not incidentally, had met Juan Ignacio previously in Cuba and believed him to be a “skillful man of trust”; he specifically instructed Toro to use Ignacio as a messenger upon his arrival in Apalachee. [Note 91: Del Toro diary entry for February 18, 1738, Worth Collection, reel 4, no. 1. On Juan Ignacio, see Guemes y Horcasitas to the King, January 18, 1738, AGI-SD 2592, Worth Collection, reel 3, no. 42] Predictably, the first to heed Toro’s invitation to San Marcos were well known Spanish partisans with ties to Juan Ignacio, including Chocate of Coweta, Chislacaliche, and Quilate of Apalachicola, whom the delegates recognized as the “head of all present” at the gathering. In the coming weeks Juan Ignacio successfully convinced more than 140 Creeks to venture to Fort San Marcos to receive gifts and hear Toro speak, culminating in a grand conference held on April 14, the largest of any Spanish-Creek meeting in the 1730s.

Juan Ignacio, Florida’s most useful Uchise Indian ally, reported to Toro and set out from San Marcos on February 22 carrying Toro’s invitation to the various towns in the Creek nation. It should be noted that Juan Ignacio’s arrival was not simply a fortuitous stroke of luck but a calculated ploy on the part of Florida and Cuban officials to tap into the network of communication established several years before. Governor Guemes y Horcasitas, not incidentally, had met Juan Ignacio previously in Cuba and believed him to be a “skillful man of trust”; he specifically instructed Toro to use Ignacio as a messenger upon his arrival in Apalachee. Predictably, the first to heed Toro’s invitation to San Marcos were well known Spanish partisans with ties to Juan Ignacio, including Chocate of Coweta, Chislacaliche, and Quilate of Apalachicola, whom the delegates recognized as the “head of all present” at the gathering. In the coming weeks Juan Ignacio successfully convinced more than 140 Creeks to venture to Fort San Marcos to receive gifts and hear Toro speak, culminating in a grand conference held on April 14, the largest of any Spanish-Creek meeting in the 1730s. In many ways the April 14, 1738, meeting between Toro and the Creeks was reminiscent of many such meetings that had occurred in the wake of the Yamasee War and reflected the aspirations of a bygone era. Toro read the contents of his superior’s instructions, directing Quilate to plead with his people to shun the English and repopulate Apalachee. Quilate, though eager enough to ally with Spain, was unwilling to commit wholeheartedly to Toro’s requests. Quilate had a few demands of his own, indicating that his own desire for the alliance was conditional. He implored Toro, for example, to build and garrison a Spanish fort at San Luis de Apalachee complete with a store furnished with all the necessary trade goods. Quilate, disappointed by Spain’s failure to fulfill similar promises in years past, gave the Spanish one year to fulfill this demand, stating that their failure to do so would only prove that English insinuations of Spanish poverty were well founded. Fortunately for Oglethorpe, Britain retained a substantial number of friends in the Creek nation, many of whom appear to have been dismayed by the sudden rise of pro-Spanish sympathies among their people. This hawkish pro-English faction appears to have been composed of Tomochichi’s own townspeople living in the generally pro-English towns of Osuche and Chehaw, as well as residents of less partisan towns such as Ocmulgee and Apalachicola, Tomochichi’s town of origin.

In October 1738 an impressive delegation of 86 Creek chiefs and warriors journeyed to Savannah to invite Oglethorpe to a grand meeting of their own, to be held the following summer in Coweta just in time for the annual Busk festival. The Creek chiefs, led by the micos of the Chehaws, Ocmulgees, Osuches, and Apalachicolas, begged Oglethorpe to come on the pretense that his failure to do so would steer their countrymen into the bosom of Spain. They further enticed Oglethorpe with the promise that upon his arrival, “the nation would march one-thousand warriors wherever he should command them.” Though Oglethorpe was somewhat hesitant to make the long voyage to the Chattahoochee, Tomochichi encouraged him to accept the invitation, arguing that his presence might convince the Creeks to shun the Spanish and “entirely settle them in an unanimous resolution to adhere to his [Britannic] majesty.” Most important, perhaps, Creek promises to field a large army for good King George induced Oglethorpe to let his imagination run wild with unrealistic expectations of Indian military assistance. Initially the Creeks hinted to Oglethorpe that they could field up to one thousand warriors, but reports indicating that other Indian nations would send delegates to Coweta led him to think that he might be able to recruit seventy-five hundred Indian warriors for the British cause. Thus, with inflated expectations of Indian military assistance, Oglethorpe commenced his journey from Fort Frederica in July 1739, arriving on August 9 at Coweta, where Chigelly greeted him with the customary displays of friendship.96

In October 1738 an impressive delegation of 86 Creek chiefs and warriors journeyed to Savannah to invite Oglethorpe to a grand meeting of their own, to be held the following summer in Coweta just in time for the annual Busk festival. The Creek chiefs, led by the micos of the Chehaws, Ocmulgees, Osuches, andApalachicolas, begged Oglethorpe to come on the pretense that his failure to do so would steer their countrymen into the bosom of Spain. They further enticed Oglethorpe with the promise that upon his arrival, “the nation would march one-thousand warriors wherever he should command them.” Though Oglethorpe was somewhat hesitant to make the long voyage to the Chattahoochee, Tomochichi encouraged him to accept the invitation, arguing that his presence might convince the Creeks to shun the Spanish and “entirely settle them in an unanimous resolution to adhere to his [Britannic] majesty.” Most important, perhaps, Creek promises to field a large army for good King George induced Oglethorpe to let his imagination run wild with unrealistic expectations of Indian military assistance. Initially the Creeks hinted to Oglethorpe that they could field up to one thousand warriors, but reports indicating that other Indian nations would send delegates to Coweta led him to think that he might be able to recruit seventy-five hundred Indian warriors for the British cause. Thus, with inflated expectations of Indian military assistance, Oglethorpe commenced his journey from Fort Frederica in July 1739, arriving on August 9 at Coweta, where Chigelly greeted him with the customary displays of friendship.96

In October 1738 an impressive delegation of 86 Creek chiefs and warriors journeyed to Savannah to invite Oglethorpe to a grand meeting of their own, to be held the following summer in Coweta just in time for the annual Busk festival. The Creek chiefs, led by the micos of the Chehaws, Ocmulgees, Osuches, and Apalachicolas, begged Oglethorpe to come on the pretense that his failure to do so would steer their countrymen into the bosom of Spain. They further enticed Oglethorpe with the promise that upon his arrival, “the nation would march one-thousand warriors wherever he should command them.” Though Oglethorpe was somewhat hesitant to make the long voyage to the Chattahoochee, Tomochichi encouraged him to accept the invitation, arguing that his presence might convince the Creeks to shun the Spanish and “entirely settle them in an unanimous resolution to adhere to his [Britannic] majesty.” Most important, perhaps, Creek promises to field a large army for good King George induced Oglethorpe to let his imagination run wild with unrealistic expectations of Indian military assistance. Initially the Creeks hinted to Oglethorpe that they could field up to one thousand warriors, but reports indicating that other Indian nations would send delegates to Coweta led him to think that he might be able to recruit seventy-five hundred Indian warriors for the British cause. Thus, with inflated expectations of Indian military assistance, Oglethorpe commenced his journey from Fort Frederica in July 1739, arriving on August 9 at Coweta, where Chigelly greeted him with the customary displays of friendship.96

Some prominent Creek leaders, such as Quilate of Apalachicola, appear even to have assisted Spain in its defense so as to preserve the contested political environment. In August 1739, just as Oglethorpe had assembled in Coweta all chiefs of the nation, Quilate sent a runner into St. Augustine in an apparent attempt to warn the Spanish of the upcoming invasion. Quilate’s runner explained that a slave rebellion had recently broken out in South Carolina and that the British intended to build a fort somewhere on the Southern frontier. Of more immediate concern were the two large bodies of Indians that had gone out, one set to attack St. Augustine and the other San Marcos de Apalachee. Quilate, according to this same report, claimed to be “investigating everything, particularly where they intended to build the fort.”

The War of Jenkins’s Ear (17391743) remains one of colonial America’s most enigmatic wars due to its odd nickname, opaque origins, and inconclusive results. The conflict’s name emanates from an incident that occurred in 1738, when hawkish members of the British Parliament recruited a one-eared smuggler named Robert Jenkins to argue before the House of Commons that Spanish atrocities on the high seas merited British retribution. Jenkins testified that seven years before, while he was attempting to trade in the Caribbean, Spanish sailors had seized his ship, imprisoned him, and severed one of his ears, the dried remains of which Jenkins proudly removed from a handkerchief and displayed before the astonished MP’s. Hawkish members of parliament exploited the event in the London press, successfully steering British public opinion in favor of war. In response to the Britons’ new-found martial spirit, Prime Minister Robert Walpole abandoned his policy of peaceful coexistence and reluctantly declared war on Spain in October 1739. Although the war owes its name to the dramatic events in Parliament, its true origins can be traced obliquely to the unresolved territorial disputes between Spain and Britain dating to 1670 and to more recent disagreements over Britain’s right to trade in the Spanish Caribbean. Though principally a naval war, regiments from South Carolina and Georgia, together with their Indian allies, engaged Spanish forces on land on three notable occasions, resulting in a virtual stalemate as the year 1743 drew to a close. Peace, however, did not come officially until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed in 1748, ended the widespread series of conflicts in Europe known as the War of Austrian Succession. Although it successfully ended the war in Europe, the Treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle failed to address adequately the territorial disputes in the New World between Britain, Spain, and France that remained fundamentally unresolved until the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Despite its inconclusive results, historians working in the traditions of British imperial and U.S. colonial history have generally declared the War of Jenkins’s Ear a modest success, citing the young Georgia colony’s very survival as evidence for Britain’s growing strength on the Southern frontier. Some historians credit Georgia’s success to James Oglethorpe’s aggressive Indian policy which, they argue, succeeded in bringing the Creeks “fairly well under the sway of Georgia” at the outbreak of war.

Spain’s most valuable ally in the course of the war proved to be none other than Juan Ignacio, who slipped in and out of Oglethorpe’s camps during his two attacks on St. Augustine and provided Governor Montiano with much valuable intelligence. For example, Ignacio was responsible for first reporting the initial attack on Fort Picolata on December 29, 1739, and he was the first to inform the governor of the fall of Fort Pupo in January. Juan Ignacio also put himself at risk by spying on Oglethorpe’s army and providing Montiano with accounts of British movements and troop strength.

Though it is clear that Oglethorpe successfully recruited Indian allies at every stage of the war, the extent to which the Creeks actually fought is questionable. Both Spanish and English sources attest to the fact that the number of Creek warriors who actually fought for Oglethorpe fell far short of the 1,500 promised to him in Coweta in August 1739. In the initial foray against Fort Picolata on December 29, for example, Governor Manuel de Montiano reported that the attack party consisted of approximately 150 Englishmen but only 30 Indians. Forty-six Uchise warriors, he added, had attacked the Indian town of Ayamon, indicating that the total number of active Indian troops may not have exceeded 80 warriors.

Though it is clear that Oglethorpe successfully recruited Indian allies at every stage of the war, the extent to which the Creeks actually fought is questionable. Both Spanish and English sources attest to the fact that the number of Creek warriors who actually fought for Oglethorpe fell far short of the 1,500 promised to him in Coweta in August 1739. In the initial foray against Fort Picolata on December 29, for example, Governor Manuel de Montiano reported that the attack party consisted of approximately 150 Englishmen but only 30 Indians. Forty-six Uchise warriors, he added, had attacked the Indian town of Ayamon, indicating that the total number of active Indian troops may not have exceeded 80 warriors.

Moreover, the Creeks who came to Florida to assist Oglethorpe regarded his sieges merely as opportunities to acquire scalps, slaves, or a bit of plunder from the Spanish presidios. In the wake of the first attacks on Forts Picolata and Pupo in January 1740, Governor Montiano observed that the Uchise warriors spent most of their time in search of Indian slaves, the primary source of which were to be found on the Florida coast south of St. Augustine. Other shreds of evidence suggest that the Creeks spent much time pursuing the horses and cattle that roamed northern Florida. Furthermore, during the siege of St. Augustine, Thomas Jones reported that his party of Creeks were loath to participate in the siege and did little more than scout the territory. In the course of his military duty, Jones had warned his superiors that his warriors would not abide by Oglethorpe’s war plans, stating that “they would soon be tired with that way of Proceeding, for that they loved to go and do their business at once and return home again.” Predictably, Jones’s warriors departed after a mere three weeks of service.

Moreover, the Creeks who came to Florida to assist Oglethorpe regarded his sieges merely as opportunities to acquire scalps, slaves, or a bit of plunder from the Spanish presidios. In the wake of the first attacks on Forts Picolata and Pupo in January 1740, Governor Montiano observed that the Uchise warriors spent most of their time in search of Indian slaves, the primary source of which were to be found on the Florida coast south of St. Augustine. Other shreds of evidence suggest that the Creeks spent much time pursuing the horses and cattle that roamed northern Florida. Furthermore, during the siege of St. Augustine, Thomas Jones reported that his party of Creeks were loath to participate in the siege and did little more than scout the territory. In the course of his military duty, Jones had warned his superiors that his warriors would not abide by Oglethorpe’s war plans, stating that “they would soon be tired with that way of Proceeding, for that they loved to go and do their business at once and return home again.” Predictably, Jones’s warriors departed after a mere three weeks of service. One of the most intriguing pieces of evidence indicating that the Creeks may have been feigning war rather than fighting it comes from the pen of Edward Kimber. Kimber, an Englishman who participated in the aborted March 1743 siege of St. Augustine, later composed a romanticized narrative of the event, giving a somewhat contradictory account of Oglethorpe’s Indian allies’ martial prowess. Kimber was at first impressed by the religious solemnity with which the Indians pursued warfare. On one occasion he noted that Britain’s Indian allies often absented themselves to a remote part of the forest to perform “physick” rituals, undoubtedly a reference to war purification rituals common among Southern Indians. Kimber likewise appeared impressed when it was reported that the Indians had set numerous fires in the vicinity of St. Augustine that “had spread near a mile, destroying all before it.” The fires, Kimber presumed, had been set by the Indians to intimidate the Spanish. Britain’s Indian allies, Kimber revealed in contrast, at the same time exhibited tepid passion for combat. Kimber noted not only their tendency toward drunkenness but also the ease with which Spain’s Indian allies repulsed them. Kimber explained how on March 28 a war party had set out against St. Augustine but had “advanced no farther than the Grove, where they were repuls’d by the Yamasees, who, it seems, were out and one of them wounded.” “They appeared,” Kimber added, “prodigiously jaded and fatigued” as a result of this brief engagement. Though we might attribute this kind of behavior to the Indian method of warfare, a more plausible explanation is that the Creeks purposefully chose to fight this way. By doing so they could avoid costly casualties and at the same time receive presents and a cut in trade prices from the English for “services rendered.” Oglethorpe himself appears to have believed that such was the case, complaining to his superiors that his Indian allies would not fight unless he continually distributed presents, food, and alcohol. Oglethorpe, it appears, was correct in his assessment. After the war, Spanish officials learned from a Christian Yamasee Indian named Francisco Luis that much of the Creek war effort, particularly the aborted 1743 siege of St. Augustine, had been staged. Luis, who served as an interpreter at St. Augustine, had several close acquaintances in the Creek nation who divulged to him the Creeks’ true war aims. Though not necessarily fond of either the Spanish or the English, Luis explained that the Creeks went to war in order to milk the English of their gifts. During the recent siege of St. Augustine, he argued, most of the Creeks who participated did so only to steal horses; for this reason they resisted British attempts to subordinate them under British commanders. Furthermore, the bonfires Kimber described were little more than a lie designed “to prove [to the English] that they had taken some action against the Spanish.” Their goal, he concluded, was not necessarily to do the Spanish harm but merely to give the English an apparent proof of their fidelity. The Creeks’ lukewarm effort in the War of Jenkins’s Ear stands in stark contrast to the confident pronouncements of loyalty that Tomochichi made to King George scarcely a decade before. While ambitious British officials, not to mention a few conspicuously complicit Indians, strove at times to create a loyal Creek Nation, the Creeks’ fluid, kin-based political system virtually guaranteed that James Oglethorpe would find among the Creeks as many enemies as he did friends. Moreover, Tomochichi and Oglethorpe tended to draw their allies specifically from the Lower Creek point towns, a pattern that indicates that the Lower Creek confederation, like the “Creek Nation” itself, was still a work in progress. By enhancing Tomochichi’s authority and by pressing the Creeks to cede land, British imperialists forced the Creeks to look inward and ponder the state of their own nation. In effect, the establishment of Georgia in 1733 prompted the Creeks to assume ultimate authority over most of the territory claimed by the state of Georgia, and thereby define “the nation” in reference to its recent conquests. Likewise, Tomochichi’s rise in influence prompted chiefs such as Chigelly to assume authority as the principal mouths of the entire Upper and Lower Creek nation. These events, while important in their own right, set important precedents for a future generation of Creek leaders caught between the peril of subjugation and the opportunities for personal aggrandizement that British imperialism offered. One figure who would soon find himself caught in this dilemma of leadership was a young man from Coweta named Malatchi, a kinsman of Brims, who sought to navigate these new political waters and to further define the Creeks as a nation in the process.

Montiano’s correspondence during the siege of St. Augustine that summer tells a similar tale. Though Montiano believed that British forces had numerous Indian allies scouring across Florida territory, evidence indicates that relatively few Creek warriors actually fought. Spies revealed that Oglethorpe’s army during the summer siege was comprised of approximately 130 Indian warriors, an estimate far shy of the most boastful British accounts, which claimed that 500 Indians had assisted them in the siege. In addition, another 35 Indians may have participated in the attack on Fort Mose and, in the wake of the fort’s capture, stayed there as a part of the garrison. One Spanish soldier who took part in the Battle of Bloody Marsh estimated that Oglethorpe had no more than 100 Indian allies, only 50 of whom appear to have played an active role in the skirmishes. Numbers, however, tell only part of the story. A second strain of evidence indicating that the Creeks may have been lukewarm to the Georgia cause can be found in the composition of the war parties that actually fought. The British, it appears, drew a substantial portion of their auxiliaries not from the Creek nation proper but from among the small dependent Indian nations established near the English settlements. Both the Yuchis, who lived near Fort Palachicola on the Savannah River, and the eastern Chickasaws, who had recently taken up residence near Augusta, appear to have constituted the bulk of his Indian army. The Indians who helpedand failedto guard Fort Mose, for example, were described by Montiano as a party of “Yuches and Uchises, with a white man for a chief.”105 Another telling piece of evidence comes from the pen of Oglethorpe himself, who reported that 20 to 30 Yuchis lost their lives during the siege of St. Augustine, an indication that many of the most active warriors had come from that nation. Evidence also indicates that many of the Indians who fought at Bloody Marsh were Chickasaws and Tomohetans, a migrant people that had resided from time to time among both the Creeks and the Cherokees. Britain’s staunchest Creek allies came not from the nation proper but were drawn from among the Yamacraws and lesser-known coastal Indian settlements. The pro-English Creeks were led by Tomochichi’s heir Tooanaway and the Cowkeeper, a so-called island chief who lived on the Georgia coast. Tooanaway, for instance, first volunteered to lead 200 Creek warriors in the fall of 1739 and eventually suffered a fatal wound in the Battle of Bloody Marsh in 1742. His presence and ultimate sacrifice suggests that many of the Creeks who fought were Yamacraws. The Cowkeeper, a Lower Creek chief who lived on one of Georgia’s barrier islands, reported to duty in the midst of the siege on St. Augustine with 45 warriors, indicating that he too had cultivated a pro-English following. The Creeks, as one scholar of Spanish Florida has noted, may have made useful raiders and scouts, “but they were not decisive in turning the balance of power overwhelmingly to the English” and were therefore not “the key to victory” in the War of Jenkins’s Ear. The question that remains is, why not? Understanding why the Creeks appear hesitant to help Oglethorpe raise the Union Jack over St. Augustine demands that we consider the War of Jenkins’s Ear as the Creeks might have seen it. Undoubtedly, a number of Creeks held grievances against the Spanish and their mission Indians and proved willing to engage in small-scale raids for scalps and plunder. To escalate this activity into an imperial war would not only have required the Creeks to sustain great numbers of casualties but also demanded that they abandon the wisdom articulated in the Coweta Resolution, which held that Creek security was best guaranteed by maintaining peaceful relationships with all three European powers.