Intersecting Lives: Native-Trader Relations in Colonial Georgia

Cultural brokers who bridged European and native societies in the colonial world provided vital services but have often endured a poor reputation.   Contemporaries and scholars have maligned Indian traders in particular as selfish, untrustworthy troublemakers who had a foot in both worlds but belonged in neither.  Far from being on the fringes, however, principal traders were embraced by both Indian leaders and British imperial officials and played a central role in the relations between the two, especially in the colonial south.  The very existence of European traders working and living within the Indians' territory brought them together, leading to a remarkable amount of interaction between not only the individuals involved in the trade, but their wider communities as well.  Their physical proximity in business and pleasure, times of friendship and animosity, ensured that they would develop a relationship that would influence the wider historical picture of cultural interrelations in Georgia.  Because of their unique physical and cultural position, traders continuously served to bridge the cultural and diplomatic gap throughout the colonial period.  No other group of people was as qualified to moderate these exchanges as were the traders, and thus they became the trusted agents of Georgia officials and Indian leaders alike.  Some scholars have argued that, in other places, cultural brokers were never accepted into the societies they bridged.  This study shows that on the Georgia frontier, traders were successfully ensconced as respected members of both the native and Anglo communities and were therefore frequently trusted by each side to mediate their differences.  The relations that developed between traders and natives highlight the cultural interaction that was prevalent in the region from Georgia's founding through the 1770s; furthermore, they show that racial and ethnic cooperation and acceptance not only existed but indeed defined the colonial Georgian frontier.