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It was also provided that the United States, at its own expense, should extinguish the Indian titles to the lands held by the Creeks between the forks of the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers, and that in like manner the General Government should extinguish the Indian title to all the other lands within the State of Georgia.

Good policy caused the United States government to send commissioners to treat with the Creeks; and in the autumn of 1789, General Lincoln, Colonel Humphries, and David Griffin a commission appointed by Washington met deputies of that confederacy on the Oconee, to hold a treaty. M'Gillivray was at the head of the deputation.

Early upon the morrow of the arrival of the midshipman, upon whom our author has bestowed the unromantic name of James Hodges, the Oconee warriors depart on a hunting expedition, and the wounded man is removed to a hut in the village.

Colonel A. J. Pickett, in his interesting and very carefully prepared History of Alabama, speaking of the locality of this village where De Soto tarried so long, and encountered so many adventures, says: "He entered the territory of the present Georgia at its southwestern border, and successively crossing the Ockmulgee, Oconee, and Ogeechee, finally rested on the banks of the Savannah, immediately opposite the modern Silver Bluff.

By uniting two such sections together, we could make a bridge of eighteen hundred feet, enough for any river we had to traverse; but habitually the leading brigade would, out of the abundant timber, improvise a bridge before the pontoon-train could come up, unless in the cases of rivers of considerable magnitude, such as the Ocmulgee, Oconee, Ogeechee, Savannah, etc.

They found the great chief at Rock Landing, on the Oconee, with two thousand Creek warriors, where he had been encamped more than a week. The Indian camp was on the western bank of the river. The commissioners pitched their tents on the eastern bank. They were received by McGillivray with great courtesy.

But the immediate point in contest between them was a tract of land on the Oconee, which the State of Georgia claimed under a purchase, the validity of which was denied by the Indians. The regular force of the United States was less than 600 men.

General Slocum was ahead at Madison, with the Twentieth Corps, having torn up the railroad as far as that place, and thence had sent Geary's division on to the Oconee, to burn the bridges across that stream, when this corps turned south by Eatonton, for Milledgeville, the common "objective" for the first stage of the "march." We found abundance of corn, molasses, meal, bacon, and sweet-potatoes.

The Creeks gave up all claims to lands north and east of the Oconee, and the United States, under a recent general act regulating trade and intercourse with the Indians, gave up all lands south and west of the same river, and agreed to make the tribes an annual present. Then Washington gave them wampum and tobacco, and shook hands with them, and the chiefs went home.

Austin was born between Greene and Hancock Counties, on the Oconee River, in Georgia. He uses the names of the counties interchangeably; he cannot be definite as to just which one was his birthplace. "The line between 'em was right there by us," he says. His father was Jack; for want of a surname of his own he took that of his father and called himself Jack Smith.