The Creeks were prompt to seize every advantage given by the
impossibility of defining the rights of the various component parts of
their loosely knit confederacy. They claimed or disclaimed
responsibility as best suited their plans for the moment. When at
Galphinton two of the Creek towns signed away a large tract of
territory, McGillivray, the famous half-breed, and the other chiefs,
loudly protested that the land belonged to the whole confederacy, and
that the separate towns could do nothing save by consent of all. But in
May, 1787, a party of Creeks from the upper towns made an unprovoked
foray into Georgia, killed two settlers, and carried off a negro and
fourteen horses; the militia who followed them attacked the first
Indians they fell in with, who happened to be from the lower towns, and
killed twelve; whereupon the same chiefs disavowed all responsibility
for the deeds of the Upper Town warriors, and demanded the immediate
surrender of the militia who had killed the Lower Town people--to the
huge indignation of the Governor of Georgia. [Footnote: American State
Papers, Vol. IV., 31, 32, 33. Letter of Governor Matthews, August 4,
1787, etc.]

Difficulties of the Federal Treaty-Makers.

The United States Commissioners were angered by the lawless greed with
which the Georgians grasped at the Indian lands; and they soon found
that though the Georgians were always ready to clamor for help from the
United States against the Indians, in the event of hostilities, they
were equally prompt to defy the United States authorities if the latter
strove to obtain justice for the Indians, or if the treaties concluded
by the Federal and the State authorities seemed likely to conflict.
[Footnote: _Do_., p. 49. Letter of Benjamin Hawkins and Andrew Pickens,