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The ¤rst of this year the Cherokee Indian Chiefs, whose arrival to this Plaza I had already described to Your Lordship, left from here. Now I will make a report of the way in which I have treated them and the result of our conferences. Considering the importance of making these chiefs happy for the purpose of favorably impressing them with respect to the Spanish nation, I lodged them in a decent room in the Hospital, and I told them that they might come every day to have breakfast and eat with me. They have done so all the time of their stay at this post. [I also provided] rations for good dinners and that additional rations be supplied if they needed them. When they arrived here on December 18, there were many people in my house, and they behaved with the greatest discretion without speaking a word about their business until after eating. Taylor told me on behalf of Bloody Fellow that the following day in the morning when no one might see them they would come to my room to discuss the subject of our charge. [He] reminded me that it has been awhile since they had sent two men from their nation to this province to determine if the Spanish would give them assistance if they place[d] themselves under the protection of His Majesty. [He said] that the two individuals on their return informed their Nation that the Spanish would receive them well and that the Commandant of Panzacola had advised them to attack the Americans vigorously as a way to obtain our protection. [This report] along with other circumstances made them doubt the accuracy of the two subjects that they had sent [and] convinced Bloody Fellow to come personally,bringing with him Chucumogo Charles as a witness to whatever might happen to them in this Province. So that they not lack an interpreter, they brought Juan Taylor, and another who from that capital returned to his nation. They praised the ¤ne reception that they received from Your Lordship. After several conferences, Your Lordship offered them our aid, presenting to Your Majesty the situation of the Cherokee Nation so that he might deign to take them under his Royal Protection, interposing his mediation with the United States so they might return to them the lands that they had usurped from them and might establish their borders in a permanent fashion. They have agreed with Your Lordship that if it might be possible, a congress should be established in the Chacta nation, not in the village [of] Yazu but rather at the place called Hicory Ground below the falls on the Mobile River. [They agree] that it [should 12 Gayoso’s Account of the Visit to Natchez of Cherokee Chiefs, December 1792–January 1793 Manuel Gayoso de Lemos to the Barón de Carondelet. Natchez, January 8, 1793, N.° 235, AGI, PC, leg. 42. be] composed of some chiefs of all the nations of neighboring Indians presided over by a Commissioner of the King and that in said congress general matters of all the nations should be discussed. He [Bloody Fellow] spoke of a fort on the Barrancas de Margó but [believed] that this depends on the Chicachas. He also revealed a strong desire that on the great bend of the Tennessee at the place they call Muscle Shoals there should be a Spanish fort to protect his nation until the Americans have ceased to bother them. Then it would no longer be necessary for it to exist, and it could be abandoned. Bloody Fellow also told me that he is always the one who has the last word. [He said] that in that Capital he had seen the King of the Chicachas and Franchimastabé and the other chiefs of the Chacta Nation and had spoken with them. However, [he said] that he could not rely much upon what they said because they were always drunk. [Furthermore , he found] that they were not truly determined to join the league because the danger was still at a distance and the Cherokees were between them and the Americans. Because of this lack of interest, he hopes that Your Lordship will exercise his in®uence to make sure these Nations will do what is best for everyone. [He said] that they were going to travel through the Chacta and Chicacha nations to see about ratifying there what they had agreed with Your Lordship in that Capital and to see if...

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