So once again
the Chickasaws were servants of destiny to the English-speaking
race, for again they drove the wedge of their honor into an
Indian solidarity welded with European gold.
Since it was generally believed at that date that the tribes were
instigated to war by the British and supplied by them with their
ammunition, savage inroads were expected to cease with the
signing of peace. But Indian warfare not only continued; it
increased. In the last two years of the Revolution, when the
British were driven from the Back Country of the Carolinas and
could no longer reach the tribes with consignments of firearms
and powder, it should have been evident that the Indians had
other sources of supply and other allies, for they lacked nothing
which could aid them in their efforts to exterminate the settlers
of Tennessee.
Neither France nor Spain wished to see an English-speaking
republic based on ideals of democracy successfully established in
America. Though in the Revolutionary War, France was a close ally
of the Americans and Spain something more than a nominal one, the
secret diplomacy of the courts of the Bourbon cousins ill matched
with their open professions. Both cousins hated England. The
American colonies, smarting under injustice, had offered a field
for their revenge.
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