We are unable to fix the precise time when the persons thus exiled constituted a separate community. Their numbers had become so great in 1736, that they were formed into companies, and relied on by the Floridians as allies to aid in the defense of that territory. They were also permitted to occupy lands upon the same terms that were granted to the citizens of Spain; indeed, they in all respects became free subjects of the Spanish crown. Probably to this early and steady policy of the Spanish Government, we may attribute the establishment and continuance of this community of Exiles in that territory.[1] [Sidenote: 1738.] A messenger was sent by the Colonial Government of South Carolina to demand the return of those fugitive slaves who had found an asylum in Florida. The demand was made upon the Governor of St. Augustine, but was promptly rejected. This was the commencement of a controversy which has continued for more than a century, involving our nation in a vast expenditure of blood and treasure, and it yet remains undetermined. The constant escape of slaves, and the difficulties resulting therefrom, constituted the principal object for establishing a free colony between South Carolina and Florida, which was called Georgia.[2] It was thought that this colony, being free, would afford the planters of Carolina protection against the further escape of their slaves from service. These Exiles were by the Creek Indians called "Seminoles," which in their dialect signifies "runaways," and the term being frequently used while conversing with the Indians, came into almost constant practice among the whites; and although it has now come to be applied to a certain tribe of Indians, yet it was originally used in reference to these Exiles long before the Seminole Indians had separated from the Creeks. Some eight years after the Colony of Georgia was first established, efforts were made to introduce Slavery among its people. The ordinary argument, that it would extend the Christian religion, was brought to bear upon Whitfield and Habersham, and the Saltzbergers and Moravians, until they consented to try the experiment, and Georgia became thenceforth a Slaveholding Colony, whose frontier bordered directly upon Florida; bringing the slaves of her planters into the very neighborhood of those Exiles who had long been free under Spanish laws. [Sidenote: 1750.] A difficulty arose among the Creek Indians, which eventually becoming irreconcilable, a chief named Seacoffee, with a large number of followers, left that tribe--at that time residing within the present limits of Georgia and Alabama--and continuing their journey south entered the Territory of Florida, and, under the Spanish colonial policy, were incorporated with the Spanish population, entitled to lands wherever they could find them unoccupied, and to the protection of Spanish laws.[3]