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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 139
vagrants being gone up without licenses either from Carolina, or us.
Chigilly, and Malachee—the son of the great Brim, who was called
emperor of the Creeks by the Spaniards—insist upon my coming up
to put all things in order, and have acquainted me that all the chiefs
of the nation will come down to Coweta town to meet me and hold the
general assembly of the Indian nations, where they will take such meas
ures as will be necessary to hinder the Spaniards from corrupting and
raising sedition amongst their people. This journey, though a very
fatiguing and dangerous one, is quite necessary to be taken; for if not,
the Spaniards, who have sent up great presents to them, will bribe the
corrupt part of the nation; and, if the honester part is not supported,
will probably overcome them and force the whole nation into a war
with. England. Tomo-chi-chi and all the Indians advise me to go up.
The Coweta town, where the meeting is to be, is near five hundred miles
from hence-, it is in a straight line three hundred miles from the sea.
All the towns of the Creeks and of the Coursees and Talapousees,
though three hundred miles from the Cowetas, will come down to the
meeting. The Choctaws also and the Chickasas wilLsend thither their
deputies; so that 7,000 men depend upon the event of this assembly.
The Creeks can furnish 1,500 warriors, the Chickasas 500, and the Choc-
taws 5,000. I am obliged to buy horses and presents to carry up to
this meeting."
Opposite the great bend in the Chattahoochee River, just below the
site of the present City of Columbus, on the Alabama side of the stream, •"
there stood an old Indian settlement: Coweta Town. It was the prin
cipal village of the great Muscogee or Creek Confederacy of Indians, a
seat of government at which council fires were annually kindled by the
various component tribes. Here, on August 21, 1739, occurred an event
of transcendent importance not only to the State of Georgia but to the
whole English-speaking world, for there was here signed and sealed a
treaty of friendship the ultimate'effect bFwnich" was to give an Anglo-
Saxon character to the whole subsequent history of North America.
This compact not only kept the Muscogee nation from re-enforcing the
Spaniards who were soon to invade Georgia; but it brought them to the
side of England in the French and Indian wars. Let us refresh our
recollection upon this point with a brief statement.
It will be remembered that the French, at this time, by reason of the
explorations of LaSalle, claimed the entire Mississippi basin of the con
tinent, reaching from the Great Lakes on the north to the Gulf of Mex
ico on the south. They were already securely entrenched upon the ice
bound heights of the great St. Lawrence; but they sought to strengthen
the hold of France upon the vast and fertile region which bordered
upon the warm tropics. For thirty-five years Bienville had governed
with far-sighted statecraft the Province of Louisiana. His great aim
was to give reality -to the old dreams of LaSalle, viz.—to bring the native
tribes under French control, to foster trade relations, to discover mines,
to establish missions, and to unite Louisiana to Canada by means of a
chain of forts planted at strategic points along the great Father of
Waters.
In furtherance of this grand design, he had not only fortified the
Mississippi delta but had planted the standard of King Louis upon the
bluffs at Mobile.