McGillivray’s 1784 overtures to West Florida governor Arturo O’Neill and other Spanish officials were tremendously successful. At an official congress in Pensacola, the Spanish and Creeks agreed to peace and mutually beneficial trade, as did the Spanish and Chickasaws in Mobile. At the same time, McGillivray worked to centralize Creek foreign policymaking and to pull other southeastern Indians into a Southern Confederacy, which would coordinate with the Northern Indian Confederacy based in the Ohio Valley. In July 1785, delegates from the Creek Upper and Lower Towns, Cherokees, and Chickasaws met at Little Tallassee to form the Southern Confederacy. This is the letter that they sent to the Spanish king, written down and signed by McGillivray.
As McGillivray mentioned in his January 1784 letter to Governor O’Neill, the Spanish won West and East Florida in the Revolutionary War. However, the new border was not clear, and Americans were settling on Indian lands on the Cumberland River and elsewhere. The writers of this letter have learned that Spanish envoy Diego de Gardoqui is in New York to negotiate the border between the Spanish Floridas and the United States. In the Treaty of Paris, Britain had secretly promised some of West Florida to the United States, but Spain and the region’s Indians disagreed.
Whereas We the Chiefs and Warriors of the Creek Chickasaw and Cherokee Nations having received information that an Envoy has been appointed by his Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain for the purpose of settling the boundaries of his territories and those of the States of America.
And as we have reason to apprehend that the American Congress in those important matters will endeavor to avail themselves of the late treaty of peace between them and the British Nation and that they will aim at getting His Majesty the King of Spain to confirm to them that extensive territory, the lines of which are drawn by the said treaty and which includes the whole of our hunting grounds to our great injury and ruin: It behooves us therefore to object to, and We the Chiefs and Warriors of the Creek Chickasaw and Cherokee Nations do hereby in the most solemn manner protest against any title, claim, or demand the American Congress may set up for or against our lands, settlements, and hunting grounds in consequence of the said treaty of peace between the King of Great Britain and the States of America declaring that as we were not parties so we are determined to pay no attention to the manner in which the British negotiator has drawn out the lines of the lands in question ceded to the States of America — it being a notorious fact known to the Americans, known to every person who is any way conversant in, or acquainted with American affairs, that his Britannic Majesty was never possessed either by cession, purchase, or by right of conquest of our territories and which the said treaty gives away. On the contrary it is well known that from the first settlement of the English colonies of Carolina and Georgia up to the date of the said treaty no title has ever been or pretended to be made by his Britannic Majesty to our lands except what was obtained by free gift or by purchase for good and valuable considerations.
We can urge in evidence upon this occasion the cessions of lands made to the Carolinians and Georgians by us at different periods and one so late as June 1773 of the lands lying on the bank of the River Ogeechee for which we were paid a sum not less than one hundred and twenty pounds sterling nor has any treaty been held by us since that period for the purpose of granting any land to any people whatever nor did we the Nations of Creeks, Chickasaws, and Cherokees do any act to forfeit our independence and natural rights to the said King of Great Britain that could invest him with the power of giving our property away unless fighting by the side of his soldiers in the day of battle and spilling our best blood in the service of his Nation can be deemed so.
The Americans although sensible of the injustice done to us on this occasion in consequence of this pretended claim have divided our territories into counties and sat themselves down on our lands as if they were their own. Witness the large settlement called Cumberland and others on the Mississippi which with the late attempts on the Oconee Lands are all encroachments on our hunting grounds.
We have repeatedly warned the States of Carolina and Georgia to desist from these encroachments and to confine themselves within the limits settled between them & us when we made the aforesaid cession of lands to Britain in the year 1773. To these remonstrances we have received friendly talks and replies it is true, but while they are addressing us by the flattering appellations of friends and brothers they are stripping us of our natural rights by depriving us of that inheritance which belonged to our ancestors and hath descended from them to us since the beginning of time.
As His most Gracious Majesty was pleased to express his favorable disposition toward all those Nations of Indians who implored his favor and protection and which we the Chiefs and Warriors of the Nations aforesaid did do in General Congress held at Pensacola in June 1784 receiving at the same time his gracious assurances of protection to us, our respective properties and hunting grounds. Relying thereupon and having the greatest confidence in the good faith, humanity and justice of His Most Gracious Majesty the King of Spain we trust that he will enter into no terms with the American States that may strengthen their claims or that may tend to deprive us of our just inheritance….
We conclude with the sincerest assurances of our firmest attachment to Him and gratitude for any favor His Most Gracious Majesty may procure us on this occasion.
Source: Panton, Leslie, and Company Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., microfilm reel 2.
Evaluating the Evidence