46 The Winning of the West 



controlled by the scanty British garrisons at Pen- 

 sacola, Mobile, and Natchez. On the Gulf coast 

 the inhabitants were mainly French Creoles. They 

 were an indolent, pleasure-loving race, fond of 

 dancing and merriment, living at ease in their low, 

 square, roomy houses on the straggling, rudely 

 farmed plantations that lay along the river banks. 

 Their black slaves worked for them; they them- 

 selves spent much of their time in fishing and fowl- 

 ing. Their favorite arm was the light fowling-piece, 

 for they were expert wing shots 5 ; unlike the 

 American backwoodsmen, who knew nothing of 

 shooting on the wing, and looked down on smooth- 

 bores, caring only for the rifle, the true weapon of 

 the freeman. In winter the Creoles took their ne- 

 groes to the hills, where they made tar from the 

 pitch pine, and this they exported, as well as indigo, 

 rice, tobacco, bear's oil, peltry, oranges, and squared 

 timber. Cotton was grown, but only for home use. 

 The British soldiers dwelt in stockaded forts, mount- 

 ing light cannon; the governor lived in the high 

 stone castle built of old by the Spaniards at Pen- 

 sacola. 6 



In the part of West Florida lying along the east 



5 "Memoire ou Coup-d'CEil Rapide sur m6s differentes 

 voyages et mon sejour dans la nation Creek, par Le Gal. 

 Milfort, Tastane~gy ou grand chef de guerre de la nation 

 Creek et General de Brigade au service de la Republique 

 Francaise." Paris, 1802. Writing in 1781, he said Mobile 

 contained about forty proprietary families, and was "un 

 petit paradis terrestre." 



6 Bartram, 407. 



