1798 - First decade of Indian policy

        In the first decade of the republic, the federal government had attempted to bring order to the chaos of Indian affairs in the south, but they were stymied by obdurate state legislators who refused to recognized the sanctity of Indian treaties.  click here for more

         Southern frontiersmen in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia were infuriated by the treaties of Colerain and New York, as the feds had given back to the Creeks the land that Georgia had (illegally) obtained by cession from parts of that tribe during the 1780s. click here for more

         Ad usual, American settlers ignored the legalities associated with Indian lands and continued to push across Indian frontiers,  Despite federal efforts to enforce boundaries, the Creeks and Cherokees engaged in sporadic warfare on the frontier settlements with whites determined to encroach on their lands.  For their part, the Indians resented the land cessions they had already made in a number of treaties that followed the revolution.  The new incursions on Indian lands by southern frontiersmen rubbed salt in old wounds. 

        Yet the federal government still hoped that firmly established boundaries and orderly advance of white settlers would produce peace.