e month of July the General visited Savannah, to attend to
affairs there, and to hold a conference with a Committee of the
General Assembly of South Carolina respecting the Indian trade, which
they charged him with aiming to monopolize, to the disallowance of
their traders.

It may be necessary here to state, that, as the boundaries of Georgia
separated the Indians on the west side of the Savannah river from the
confines of South Carolina, they must be admitted as in affinity with
the new Colony. At any rate, Oglethorpe deemed it so expedient to
obtain their consent to the settlement of his people, and their good
will was so essential to a secure and peaceful residence, that his
earliest care had been to make treaties of alliance with them. That
these treaties should include agreements for mutual intercourse and
trade, seemed to be, not only a prudential, but an indispensable
provision; particularly as Tomo Chichi and the Micos of the Creeks,
who went with him to England, had requested that some stipulations
might be made relative to the quantity, quality, and prices of goods,
and to the accuracy of weights and measures, in what was offered for
the purchase of their buffalo hides, and deer-skins and peltry.[1]
Whereupon the Trustees proposed certain regulations of trade,
designed to prevent in future those impositions of which the Indians
complained. To carry these into effect, it was thought right that
none should be permitted to trade with the Indians but such as had
a license, and would agree to conduct the traffic upon fair and
equitable principles. The Carolina traders, not being disposed to
apply for a permit, nor to subject themselves to such stipulations and
restrictions, were disallowed by the Georgia Commissary, who held a
trading house among the Creeks.[2] This was resented by them, and
their complaints to the Provincial Assembly led to the appointment of
the Committee just referred to, and whose conference with Oglethorpe
was held at Savannah on the 2d of August, 1736.[3] In their printed
report they lay down these fundamental principles. "The Cherokee,
Creek, Chickasaw, and Catawba Indians, at the time of the discovery of
this part of America, were the inhabitants of the lands which they now
possess, and have ever since been deemed and esteemed the friends
and allies of his Majesty's English subjects in this part of the
Continent. They have been treated with as allies, but not as subjects
of the crown of G