lements and treaties that would have
been of lasting benefit to both the whites and the Indians. This was not
due to any purpose or desire of the General Government to trample on the
rights of the State, but grew altogether out of the folly of the agents,
who wanted to put on airs and advertise their importance.

In 1796 there was a treaty of peace arranged between the Creek nation
and the United States. Three commissioners represented the General
Government, and Georgia also had three present; but the business was
conducted without regard to the wishes of the Georgia commissioners,
and, as the commissioners thought, without regard to the interests of
the State. Seagrove was the name of the agent representing the General
Government at that time, and his attitude toward Georgia was not
calculated to give the Indians any respect for the commonwealth. After
the treaty was signed, General James Jackson, on the part of Georgia,
made an eloquent speech, in which he showed that the Creeks had not
faithfully observed the treaties they had made with the State. He
exhibited two schedules of property which they had stolen, amounting in
value to $110,000, and demanded its restoration. When General Jackson
had concluded, one of the prominent chiefs of the Creeks remarked that
he could fill more paper than Jackson showed with a list of outrages of
the Georgians upon his people. There was something more than a grain of
truth in this; but on that very account the Indians and the Georgians
should have been allowed to settle their difficulties in their own way,
without the interference of the United States.

The result of the treaty at Coleraine, in 1796, was, that the Georgia
agents were offended with Seagrove (the Indian agent for the United
States), offended with the Indians, and displeased with the United
States commissioners. To these last the Georgians presented a protest
in which the Federal commissioners were accused of disregarding the
interests of Georgia. Charges were brought against Seagrove, who, it was
claimed, had influenced the Creeks not to cede the lands as far as the
Ocmulgee. A bitter controversy grew out of this. It was, in fact, very
nearly the beginning of the discussion that has continued from that day
to this, in some shape or other, over the rights of the States and the
power of the General Government. Pickett, in his "History of Alabama
and Georgia," says that General Jackson, and Seagrove the Indian agent,
be