o effect, puzzled
Carondelet nearly as much as it did the United States authorities; and
he endeavored to force the Creeks to abstain from warfare with the
Chickasaws by refusing to supply them with munitions of war for any such
purpose, or for any other except to oppose the frontiersmen. He put
great faith in the endeavor to treat the Americans not as one nation,
but as an assemblage of different communities. The Spaniards sought to
placate the Kentuckians by promising to reduce the duties on the goods
that came down stream to New Orleans by six per cent., and thus to
prevent an outbreak on their part; at the same time the United States
Government was kept occupied by idle negotiations. Carondelet further
hoped to restrain the Cumberland people by fear of the Creek and
Cherokee nations, who, he remarked, "had never ceased to commit
hostilities upon them and to profess implacable hatred for them."
[Footnote: Carondelet to De Lemos, Aug. 15, 1793.] He reported to the
Spanish Court that Spain had no means of molesting the Americans save
through the Indians, as it would not be possible with an army to make a
serious impression on the "ferocious and well-armed" frontier people,
favored as they would be by their knowledge of the country; whereas the
Indians, if properly supported, offered an excellent defence, supplying
from the Southwestern tribes fifteen thousand warriors, whose keep in
time of peace cost Spain not more than fifty thousand dollars a year,
and even in time of war not more than a hundred and fifty thousand.
[Footnote: Carondelet to Alcudia, Sept. 27, 1793.]

He Continually Incites the Indians to War.

The Spaniards in this manner actively fomented hostilities among the
Creeks and Cherokees. Their support explained much in the attitude of
these peoples, but doubtless the war would have gone on anyhow until the
savages were thoroughly cowed by force of arms. The chief causes for the
incessantly renewed hostilities were the desire of the young braves for
blood and glory, a vague but well-founded belief among the Indians that
the white advance meant their ruin unless stayed by an appeal to arms,
and, more important still, the absolute lack of any central authority
among the tribesmen which could compel them all to war together
effectively on the one hand, or all to make peace on the other.

Seagrove the Indian Agent.

Blount was Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Indians as
well as Gov