[Footnote:
Guyarre, 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.] They were at their wits' ends to know
how to check these energetic foes. They urgently 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 the
southern Indians hostile to the Americans, on inviting the Americans to
settle in Louisiana and become subjects of Spain, and on intriguing with
the western settlements for the dissolution of the Union. The
Kentuckians, the settlers on the Holston and Cumberland, and the
Georgians were the Americans with whom they had most friction and
closest connection. The Georgians, it is true, were only indirectly
interested in the navigation 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, including the fertile Yazoo lands, was
theirs.
Spaniards Incite the Indians to War.
The Indians naturally sided with the Spaniards against the Americans;
for the Americans were as eager to seize the possessions of Creek and
Cherokee as they were to invade the dominions of the Catholic King.
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