Dr. Henry Woodward, a soldier of fortune, led the English activities in this contest for the Indian trade. The Spanish tried to control their Indian allies by building a fort near the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers known as Santa Cruz de Sabacola.

This lasted only a few years (1689-1691) because the Indians, incensed at the Spanish fort in their territory and preferring English trade goods, began moving closer to English settlements. They left the Chattahoochee River to settle on Ochese Creek of the Ocmulgee River. The name of Ochese Creek Indians was shortened by English traders to Creek Indians.

Later, Upper Creeks came to mean those in Alabama, and Lower Creeks those in Georgia. An alliance between France and Spain at the time of the War of the Spanish Succession, when Louis XIV of France tried to place his grandson on the throne of Spain (1701-1714), upset Great Britain, Holland and other European states, and threatened British control of the Indian trade. This was successfully resisted by the British Governor in Charleston, James Moore, from 1702-1704. In the process, however, he transported several thousand Indians from the Apalachee and Apalachicola River countries to a town on the Savannah River.

This forced migration caused hard feelings. A large-scale Indian uprising momentarily threatened Charleston in 1715 and resulted in the Indians returning to the Chattahoochee River, the Creeks near Columbus, Georgia, and the Apalachicolas north of the forks of the Chattahoochee-Flint Rivers. The years 1717-1739 saw France allied to her former foes, Great Britain and Holland, against Spain, much dissatisfied over the losses from the War of the Spanish Succession.

The Spanish from St. Marks and Pensacola (1696) dominated most of the Lower Creeks and blocked French advances along the Gulf Coast. The settlements at Biloxi and Mobile (1702), while not thriving, were bases of French power which extended over the Upper Creeks in Alabama. The French attempted to control the Lower Creeks with a fort at St. Joseph Bay (1718), but this was successfully countered by the Spanish and abandoned.

Pensacola was captured and held by France from 1719-1723. The British steadily pushed westward from Charleston to establish hegemony over the Cherokee, some of the Upper Creeks, and several Lower Creek towns. The Seven Years' War, or French and Indian War, and the Treaty of Paris (1763) marked the end of French power in the New World, and,because Spain had assisted France after 1761, transferred the Floridas to Great Britain in return for British evacuation of Havana.

The War of the American Revolution (1776-1783) of the British North American colonies brought many refugees or Loyalists to Florida. As Spain was allied with France and the British North American colonies in 1781, the Spanish Governor of New Orleans captured Pensacola, and, although the British trading houses remained, most of the British left. By the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the Spanish once again occupied Florida.