within a few years; and that the Indians would not give it up, under no
matter what treaty, without an appeal to arms.

Treaties with the Southern Indians.

In the South the United States Commissioners, in endeavoring to conclude
treaties with the Creeks and Cherokees, had been continually hampered by
the attitude of Georgia and the Franklin frontiersmen. The Franklin men
made war and peace with the Cherokees just as they chose, and utterly
refused to be bound by the treaties concluded on behalf of the United
States. Georgia played the same part with regard to the Creeks. The
Georgian authorities paid no heed whatever to the desires of Congress,
and negotiated on their own account a series of treaties with the Creeks
at Augusta, Galphinton, and Shoulder-bone, in 1783, 1785, and 1786. But
these treaties amounted to nothing, for nobody could tell exactly which
towns or tribes owned a given tract of land, or what individuals were
competent to speak for the Indians as a whole; the Creeks and Cherokees
went through the form of surrendering the same territory on the Oconee.
[Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 15. Letter of Knox, July 6,
1789.] The Georgians knew that the Indians with whom they treated had no
power to surrender the lands; but all they wished was some shadowy color
of title, that might serve as an excuse for their seizing the coveted
territory. On the other hand the Creeks, loudly though they declaimed
against the methods of the Georgian treaty-makers, themselves
shamelessly disregarded the solemn engagements which their authorized
representatives made with the United States. Moreover their murderous
forays on the Georgian settlers were often as unprovoked as were the
aggressions of the brutal Georgia borderers.

Mutual Wrongs of the Creeks and the Borderers.