Recently posted passports to the list prompted a question about the nature and need for these passports issued by the state of Georgia. Here is a brief summary of the explanation from the preface to the book by Dorothy Williams Potter, _Passports of Southeastern Pioneers, 1770-1823_. Indian affairs were under Federal jurisdiction through the appointment of Indian agents. Governors and other officials experienced no little irritation with the authority exercised by the national government. Various officers representing states, the Spanish government, traders, and sometimes prominent citizens began to issue passports on their own authority. Passports were one means of exercising control over the persons allowed to enter the lands of the Creek country. Many passports were issued in Georgia to those who wanted to go to the Mississippi River area "to view the country" intending to settle or trade there. By 1824 the Spanish had left the continent and the Indians had moved westward, and the need for passports had ceased. Marilyn Symonds