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Mission in the Floridas 1764 - 1765With the end of the French & Indian War, the French ceded all their colonies east of the Mississippi and the Spanish ceded Florida to the English. The Crown foresaw that the withdrawal of the French and Spanish from the area, and their subsequent replacement by the English would lead to disruptions in the Indian trade and a certain dissatisfaction among the Lower Creeks, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. Initially, the Crown attempted to use the military officer in the East and West Florida Colonies to manage Anglo-English relations. Management of Indian affairs in the Floridas by the military in 1763-64 proved to be very unsatisfactory. Captain Harries at Fort Appalachie lived in constant fear of an Indian attack that never came, and asked for a grant of £250 per annum to conciliate the Creeks in the neighborhood of that post. At the far more important post of Pensacola, Major William Forbes was in command from December, 1763 until the summer of 1764. He distributed "huge" amounts of presents to the Creeks, and he invited some of them to meet him at Pensacola to decide upon a boundary between the English and their Nation in the West Florida Region. When the Creeks reached Pensacola, the Major was gone and the Captain who had assumed command decided to go ahead with the conference so as not to anger the Creeks. Luckily, the arrival of Governor George Johnstone relieved the Captain of his duties in regards to Indian affairs. This was particularly lucky in that the land grant that the Captain was negotiating would have been voided since the Captain was not authorized to treat with the Indians nor, did the Creeks present, represent the entire Creek Nation. At Mobile, Major Farmar was especially active in Indian affairs, at least in part from necessity. Upon his arrival he found that before departing, the French Governor had called into conference all the tribes around Mobile in order to present them with supplies long delayed by the war and to inform them of the withdrawal of the French. This conference was about to begin when Farmer appeared on the scene. Farmer and the French representative presided jointly, distributing large amounts of provisions and presents. He promised the Choctaws that the English, as the French had long done, would hold annual congresses with them to distribute supplies, a promise that was to cause trouble for the Indian Department for many years. Farmar did make strenuous efforts to establish some sort of order in Indian Country. He instructed his subordinates to drive from the Indian territories both thieving traders and Frenchmen who had not taken the oath of allegiance to Britain, and he promised the Indians that justice would be done between them and the English on the basis of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Farmar's behavior in other respects was open to criticism, for he used his official status in 1764 to secure a very dubious title from the Upper Creeks to a strip of land running from the eastern shore of Mobile Bay to the Perdido River. Another phase of Indian Affairs that constituted a sore problem for Farmar arose from his plans to occupy the French posts in the Illinois country by way of the Mississippi. A move that was resisted by the Tunicas and the other small tribes along the Mississippi, as well as the Illinois tribes. It was at this point that Stuart arrived in West Florida. On May 22, 1764 Stuart departed Charleston for St. Augustine. The ship he was on, the Sally was wrecked on the bar at St. Augustine, but Stuart was unharmed. In July he held a friendly conference with representatives of the Seminoles at St. Augustine. There Stuart also met Lieutenant James Pampellone, who was about to supersede Captain Harries at Fort Appalachie. Stuart gave him a supply of presents and some advice on Indian affairs. His advice was, no doubt, similar to that given by the Superintendent to other officers, and it throws much light on Stuart's policies in 1764. Pampellone should gain all possible information about the Creeks living near Fort Appalachie, especially about their Chiefs; search out unfair traders and report them to Stuart; discover the relationships existing between the Indian tribes; and, above all, foment secretly jealousies or divisions existing between those tribes while assuming on the surface an attitude of good will to all. On July 28 Stuart departed from St. Augustine via the West Indies to Fort Appalachie on the Live Oak arriving on September 14. There, in the period from September 25-28 he held a conference with the leaders of the five Creek towns near the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, again with satisfactory results. On October 4, Stuart arrived at Pensacola and shortly thereafter departed for Mobile to consult with Farmar returning to Pensacola on October 27 sick with a fever. Stuart's short consultation with Farmar had convinced him that Farmar was not the right man for the job so he sent Farmar notice that he was relieved from all duties around Indian Affairs. Both Stuart and Governor Johnstone were convinced that Pontiac, The Mortar, and Alabama Mingo, an old and influential Choctaw Chief, were plotting a concerted attack. To defuse this situation they were eager to remove the grievances of the Choctaws and to bring them into such close friendship with the English that they could be used as a counterbalance to the Creeks. They also desired to cement the good understanding between the English and the Chickasaws, and to bring aid from both the Choctaws and Chickasaws in support of an expedition up the Mississippi to occupy the French forts there. Beginning March 26, 1765 and continuing until April 22 discussions were held with the Choctaws and Chickasaws at Mobile. During these discussions the Chiefs willingly gave up the medals they had gotten from the French and received new medals from Stuart signifying that the wearer had the confidence of "King George" and was responsible to him for the good behavior of his followers. They accepted these medals saying that they would be as reluctant to break their new friendship with the English as they had been slow to abandon their former alliance with the French. Both the Choctaws and Chickasaws agreed to send embassies to urge the Small Tribes along the Mississippi and the Arkansaw nation not to oppose the English occupation of the Mississippi forts. In addition they each pledged to send fifty men to serve as armed escorts for the expedition. In the formal Treaty of Mobile, dated April 27 both the Choctaws and Chickasaws also ceded significant lands to the West Florida Colony. Like the Treaty of Augusta, it also provided for the maintenance of peace between the parties, the punishment of murderers, the forgiveness of all past offences, and good conduct as neighbors. The final clauses of the treaty were perhaps the most interesting of all. In these the Indians promised that they would protect the commissaries to be commissioned by Stuart to regulate the trade, that they would assist them in the execution of their duties, that they would abide by their decisions in altercations between the traders and Indians, and that they would aid them in transporting an offending trader to a province for trial. A price schedule to be observed by Indians and traders alike was affixed to the treaty, and all parties pledged themselves to the rates contained therein. Stuart then headed back to Pensacola, arriving there on May 22. On May 26 he opened a Congress with the Upper and Lower Creeks. This conference continued until June 4 when a formal treaty was signed. The Creeks proved to be more difficult to manage than their neighbors to the west, largely due to The Mortar. The Mortar was finally won over to a friendlier attitude by Stuart through tactics based upon his knowledge of Indian psychology. At the first of many private meetings that took place between The Mortar and Stuart, he found the Superintendent sitting on a heap of French medals and gorgets abandoned to him by the Choctaws, a spectacle that greatly impressed the Creek Chief. Soon he was hungering for one of Stuart's "great" medals; and the longer that Stuart delayed in gratifying his desire, the more eager The Mortar became. At length, the Superintendent gave him one, at the same time making it clear that possession of the medal carried with it responsibility for the good behavior of his followers. Stuart's success in persuading The Mortar to receive an English medal was the more noteworthy in that the chief had always refused to accept a similar badge from the French. The general terms of the treaty resulting from this congress were identical with those of the Treaty of Mobile, except for the land cessions, again significant territories were given over to West Florida, and the prices established for the trade, which were materially less favorable to the Creeks. Thus, by the middle of 1765, much had been accomplished in the Floridas. Unfortunately, life was not to be easy for the members of the Indian Department in the coming years.
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