232 The Winning of the West 



Cumberland settlers under Robertson or the Federal 

 troops. Among the latter, by the way, the officer 

 for whose ability the Spaniards seemed to feel an 

 especial respect was Lieutenant William Clark. 28 



The Chickasaws were nearly drawn into a war 

 with the Spaniards, who were intensely irritated over 

 their antagonism to the Creeks, for which the Span- 

 iards insisted that the Americans were responsible. 29 

 The Americans, however, were able to prove conclu- 

 sively that the struggle was due, not to their advice, 

 but to the outrages of marauders from the villages 

 of the Muscogee confederacy. They showed by the 

 letter of the Chickasaw chief, James Colbert, that the 

 Creeks had themselves begun hostilities early in 1792 

 by killing a Chickasaw, and that the Chickasaws, be- 

 cause of this spilling of blood, made war on the 

 Creeks, and sent word to the Americans to join in 

 the war. The letter ran: "I hope you will exert 

 yourselves and join us so that we might give the 

 lads a Drubbeen for they have encroached on us this 

 great while not us alone you likewise for you have 

 suffered a good dale by them I hope you will think 

 of your wounds." 30 The Americans had "thought 

 of their wounds" and had aided the Chickasaws in 

 every way, as was proper; but the original aggres- 

 sors were the Creeks. The Chickasaws had entered 

 into what was a mere war of retaliation; though 



88 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Don 

 Louis de Las Casas, June 13, 1795; De Letnos to Caron- 

 delet, July 25, 1793. 



49 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, p. 305, etc. 



* Blount MSS., James Colbert to Robertson, Feb. 10, 1792. 



