The opening of the War of the Spanish Succession increased the activity of both English and French among the Indians and the consequent preying of tribe upon tribe. The French asserted that they established their colony at Mobile for the purpose of keeping the savages of the neighborhood as allies of the French and Spanish against the English and Chickasaw whose purpose, in their opinion, was to win them over or else destroy them by enslavement.[605] By 1700 the English of Carolina had crossed the Mississippi River and on the west bank pursued the same tactics with the Indians as elsewhere.[606] Slaves were obtained by the English and Chickasaw from nations as far distant as the Taensa.[607] In furtherance of their scheme to win the friendship of the warlike Chickasaw, and so strike a blow at the English and protect their allies from the slave raids of the former, the French repeatedly sought to make peace between the Chickasaw and Choctaw.[608] But the English influence was too strong for such a peace to be permanent so long as the Choctaw remained allies of the English. The peace arranged by Bienville in 1703 was broken in 1705 by the Chickasaw making an irruption into the territory of the Choctaw, capturing a number of their people and selling them to the English of Carolina.[609] A later peace arranged by Bienville was no more permanent, for in 1711 the Chickasaw, at the instigation of the English, fell upon the Choctaw and word was brought to Bienville that three hundred Choctaw women and children had been carried off as slaves by the Indian allies of the English and Chickasaw, and that the Chickasaw themselves had carried off one hundred and fifty.[610] By 1713 English traders and agents were among the Natchez Indians to purchase Indians whom the French accused them of obtaining by exciting the tribes against each other.[611] In their relations with the Indians the Carolina proprietors appear to have been playing a double game. They posed as protectors of the tribes and made treaties to insure the peace and safety of their allies. Consistently with such action, also, they opposed the purchase by the colonists of captives taken in various intertribal difficulties. On the other hand, it was the proprietors themselves who gave permission to sell in the West Indies the Indian captives taken by the colonists in wars against the tribes.[612] The distinction, if any existed, between the classes of captives obtained in various ways and held as slaves, was too fine a one for the colonists to appreciate; hence the purchase and sale of Indians continued.