But these treaties amounted to nothing, for nobody could tell exactly which towns or tribes owned a given tract of land, or what individuals were competent to speak for the Indians as a whole; the Creeks and Cherokees went through the form of surrendering the same territory on the Oconee. [Footnote:  American State Papers, iv., 15.  Letter of Knox, July 6, 1789.] The Georgians knew that the Indians with whom they treated had no power to surrender the lands; but all they wished was some shadowy color of title, that might serve as an excuse for their seizing the coveted territory.  On the other hand the Creeks, loudly though they declaimed against the methods of the Georgian treaty-makers, themselves shamelessly disregarded the solemn engagements which their authorized representatives made with the United States.  Moreover their murderous forays on the Georgian settlers were often as unprovoked as were the aggressions of the brutal Georgia borderers.

    Mutual Wrongs of the Creeks and the Borderers.

The Creeks were prompt to seize every advantage given by the impossibility of defining the rights of the various component parts of their loosely knit confederacy.  They claimed or disclaimed responsibility as best suited their plans for the moment.  When at Galphinton two of the Creek towns signed away a large tract of territory, McGillivray, the famous half-breed, and the other chiefs, loudly protested that the land belonged to the whole confederacy, and that the separate towns could do nothing save by consent of all.  But in May, 1787, a party of Creeks from the upper towns made an unprovoked foray into Georgia, killed two settlers, and carried off a negro and fourteen horses; the militia who followed them attacked the first Indians they fell in with, who happened to be from the lower towns, and killed twelve; whereupon the same chiefs disavowed all responsibility for the deeds of the Upper Town warriors, and demanded the immediate surrender of the militia who had killed the Lower Town people—­to the huge indignation of the Governor of Georgia. [Footnote:  American State Papers, Vol.  IV., 31, 32, 33.  Letter of Governor Matthews, August 4, 1787, etc.]

    Difficulties of the Federal Treaty-Makers.

The United States Commissioners were angered by the lawless greed with which the Georgians grasped at the Indian lands; and they soon found that though the Georgians were always ready to clamor for help from the United States against the Indians, in the event of hostilities, they were equally prompt to defy the United States authorities if the latter strove to obtain justice for the Indians, or if the treaties concluded by the Federal and the State authorities seemed likely to conflict. [Footnote:  Do., p. 49.  Letter of Benjamin Hawkins and Andrew Pickens, December 30, 1785.] The Commissioners were at first much impressed by the letters sent them by McGillivray, and the “talks” they received through