220 The Winning of the West 



Miro and Navarro were right in urging a liberal 

 commercial policy. They were right also in recog 

 nizing the Americans as the enemies of the Spanish 

 power. They dwelt on the peril, not only to Louisi 

 ana but to New Mexico, certain to arise from the 

 neighborhood of the backwoodsmen, whom they 

 described as dangerous alike because of their pov 

 erty, their ambition, their restlessness, and their 

 recklessness. 36 They were at their wit's end to 

 know how to check these energetic foes. They ur 

 gently asked for additional regular troops to increase 

 the strength of the Spanish garrison. They kept 

 the creole militia organized. But they relied mainly 

 on keeping tjie Southern Indians hostile to the Amer 

 icans, on inviting the Americans to settle in Louisi 

 ana and become subjects of Spain, and on intrigu 

 ing with the Western settlements for the dissolu 

 tion of the Union. The Kentuckians, the settlers 

 on the Holston and Cumberland, and the Georgians 

 were the Americans with whom they had most fric 

 tion and closest connection. The Georgians, it is 

 true, were only indirectly interested in the naviga 

 tion question ; but they claimed that the boundaries 

 of Georgia ran west to the Mississippi, and that 

 much of the eastern bank of the great river, includ 

 ing the fertile Yazoo lands, was theirs. 



The Indians naturally sided with the Spaniards 



36 Gayarre, p. 190. He was the first author who gave a 

 full account of the relations between Miro and Wilkinson, 

 and of the Spanish intrigues to dissever the West from the 

 Union. 



