Towards the South the situation was different.

The Floridas were shielded by the great Indian confederacies of the Creeks and Choctaws, whose strength was as yet unbroken.

What was much more important, the mouth of the Mississippi was commanded by the important seaport of New Orleans, which was accessible to fleets, which could readily be garrisoned by water, and which was the capital of a region that by backwoods standards passed for well settled.

New Orleans by its position was absolute master of the foreign, trade of the Mississippi valley; and any power in command of the seas could easily keep it strongly garrisoned.

The vast region that was then known as Upper Louisiana--the territory stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific--was owned by the Spaniards, but only in shadowy fashion, and could not have been held by any European power against the sturdy westward pressure of the rifle-bearing settlers.