"Bring them what they lack": Spanish-Creek Exchange and Alliance Making in a Maritime Borderland, 1763-1783

Between the late 1760s and the early 1780s, dozens of Creek Indians made the journey to Havana, ferried by Cuban fishing boats along the Gulf Coast of Florida. Creeks and Spanish Cubans traveled into the coastal and marine regions between Havana and the Florida Gulf Coast as it suited them; both took advantage of the space to negotiate and participate in exchanges with one another. For Creeks the region served as an economic and diplomatic safety valve. In the midst of conflict with Anglo Americans, Creeks hoped that Florida would provide them with new avenues into Atlantic diplomatic and exchange networks. For Cubans, and the Spanish Empire as a whole, an alliance with the Creeks represented a means of reestablishing Spanish influence in Florida and of pushing back against an expansionistic British Empire in the wake of the Seven Years' War. Though Spaniards and Creeks found the Florida Gulf Coast and its waters eminently useful, neither established full control over this maritime space. Though neither group would have framed it in these terms, Creek-Cuban contacts converted the Gulf of Mexico into a maritime borderland.