Revolution 
American slaveholders, meanwhile, started to complain bitterly of Seminole interference with their slaves, just as
the English had once complained of Spanish meddling. Georgians voiced their concerns in
one of the first treaties in U.S. history, the Treaty of New York (1790), and in the subsequent Treaty of Colerain (1796). In both, the U.S. government tried to compel friendly Creek Indians to recover black fugitives from Florida.
This was done under the pretense that the slaves had actually escaped to the Creeks. The fiction did
not sit well with the Seminoles, who saw it correctly as a ruse to capture their black
allies.*
  
Sources:
Miller Treaties 2: 344, Twyman 78-79, Native American Treaty 9.
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Background: l
*Creek attempts to recover the Black Seminoles would lead to six decades of inter-tribal strife, culminating in one of the climactic events of John Horse's life and Black Seminole
history. |
