Page "lore" Paragraph 1132

The Chickasaws were the principal source of trouble in the Mobile district.

Their territory lay to the north, near the sources of the Alabama, the Tombigbee, the Tennessee, and Cumberland rivers, and was easily accessible to traders among the near-by Cherokees.

In 1720 some Chickasaws massacred the French traders among them, and did not make peace for four years.

Venturesome traders, however, continued to come to them from Mobile, and to obtain a considerable number of pelts for the French markets.

British traders from South Carolina incited the Indians against the French, and there developed French and British Factions in the tribe.

The Chickasaws finally were the occasion for the most disastrous wars during the French control of Louisiana.

To hold them was an essential part of French policy, for they controlled the upper termini of the routes from the north to Mobile.

They threatened constantly to give the British a hold on this region, from whence they could move easily down the rivers to the French settlements near the Gulf.