Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/382

 deal was accomplished through the buccaneers and freebooters who roved the Gulf. But the Indians needed blankets, guns and ammunition, beads and gewgaws, and could supply furs, skins and provisions. Much could have been done in the way of agriculture, but, beyond introducing figs and raising some vegetables for local use and indigo for export, the colonists accomplished little. They were not of the right kind. At first they were from too high a rank in society to do much manual labor, and after John Law and his Mississippi Bubble exploited the province they were often jail-birds and prostitutes. Starvation faced them every now and then; mutiny was not unknown; and quarrels of priest and commandant, governor and intendant, were going on almost all the time.

And yet in war and diplomacy they did much. It was mainly with the Indians, although once Pensacola was captured from the Spanish, and Dauphine Island suffered from both Spanish and English attacks. The Choctaws and Creeks were held in alliance by congresses at Mobile; the Cherokees and Chickasaws were sometimes friendly, and the Mississippi River was kept open for free