The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 223 



cause" for anger so long as the Spaniards' treachery 

 was concealed. 



Throughout these years the Spaniards thus se 

 cretly supplied the Creeks with the means of wag 

 ing war on the Americans, claiming all the time that 

 the Creeks were their vassals and that the land oc 

 cupied by the Southern Indians generally belonged 

 to Spain and not to the United States. 41 They also 

 kept their envoys busy among the Chickasaws, 

 Choctaws, and even the Cherokees. 



In fact, until the conclusion of Pinckney's treaty, 

 the Spaniards of Louisiana pursued as a settled pol 

 icy this plan of inciting the Indians to war against 

 the Americans. Generally they confined themselves 

 to secretly furnishing the savages with guns, pow 

 der, and lead, and endeavoring to unite the tribes in 

 a league; but on several occasions they openly gave 

 them arms, when they were forced to act hur 

 riedly. As late as 1794 the Flemish Baron de Ca- 

 rondelet, a devoted servant of Spain, and one of the 

 most determined enemies of the Americans, in 

 structed his lieutenants to fit out war parties of 

 Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees, to harass a fort 

 the Americans had built near the mouth of the 

 Ohio. Carondelet wrote to the Home Government 

 that the Indians formed the best defence on which 

 Louisiana could rely. By this time the Spaniards 

 and English realized that, instead of showing hos 

 tility to one another, it behooved them to unite 

 against the common foe; and their agents in Can- 



Do. 



