The Daily Advertiser

Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in Savannah, to his friend in this City, dated the 11th of May, 1788.

You request my opinion on the real cause of our present disturbances with the Indians. I give it you with pleasure, as I find you are generally in error on that subject.

The Creek Indians are settled along our Western frontier between this State and Florida, amounting perhaps in the whole to five or six thousand men. The supply of this nation with goods, and the monopoly of their furs and peltry, formed a very profitable branch of the commerce of this State before the revolution, and since has been almost exclusively in the hands of the citizens of this State. There has been a house lately established at St. Marks, in Florida, supported and furnished by the refugees in the Bahama islands, for the sole purpose of engrossing the Indian trade. The same Alexander M'Gillivray, whom you see so often mentioned, is taken in as one of the partners, and being the son of an Indian woman of good family in one of their towns, he has been able to gain some adherents to assist him in his design. His constant business for these three years past, has been to involve this State in a war with the Indians, to effectually break up all communication on this quarter, and thus secure the whole Indian trade in their own hands.

It is in the power of a few individuals, active as they are in mischief, to keep so extensive a frontier as ours constantly in alarm; and unless speedily checked or explained by treaty, their barbarities will soon involve a whole settlement in war. We have several times quieted them by treaties and presents, but it has now been of so long continuance, and so many murders have been committed, the passions of so many on both sides are irritated to such a degree, that I fear it is now only to be suppressed by force.

The pretended dispute between us and the Indians respecting territory, is a mere delusion. The boundary line of our frontier counties, as established in 1783, immediately on our entering into treaty with them at the close of the late war, gave them very general satisfaction, and was never complained of in any of their different talks or treaties, till within these two years M'Gillivray and his junto have found it necessary to have recourse to it. That this is the true cause you may be convinced from the tenor of their publications in the Bahama Gazette. Last year they laid claim only to the lands lying between the Oconee River and Ogeechee; which would be allowing in their great goodness, our State to be in breadth, from East to West, between twenty and thirty miles.

This year their claim is entirely new and in another part. They now challenge the tract of country on the Seaboard, lying between us and Florida, from the Altamaha to St. Mary's River, including the counties of Glynn and Camden which were laid out, and principally patented in the time of Sir James Wright, our former Governor before the revolution, and recited by name as you will see in the constitution of this State in 1777.

I am sensible it is impossible entirely to prevent individuals from encroaching, and surveying lands beyond the Indian line. This is always very provoking to the Indians, and has been prevented as far as possible. I am confident there has not been an individual whose survey has been confirmed, or who has been allowed to settle himself beyond the boundary line as established by law, that the Indian nation in general has been well satisfied with the establishment of that line, and that the present disturbances among them, arise from entirely a different cause.