IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE that an essay, in a literal sense of the word, on the wellsprings, the realities-dynamics is a fashionable word-of politics in a small area might throw a bit of light on general questions of interest to students of government. The formation of political parties was precipitated in Mississippi by the transfer from one colonial power to another-from Spain to the United States. Almost solely out of local issues grew an alignment which coincidentally fit the two national political parties of I797. In the Treaty of San Lorenzo, Spain had agreed to evacuate the Natchez District, whose inhabitants now, with some trepidation, faced a new sovereign. How would the United States deal with their problems? Their principal interest was the ownership of land, which was based on tangled grants from Great Britain, Spain, and Georgia. If the United States, under Jay's Treaty, validated claims under British grants, for example, the majority of the inhabitants (who held land under Spanish grants superimposed on the old British ones) would be lost. The second most vexing problem was the debts of the planters. Tobacco and indigo had collapsed as staple crops at Natchez by the early I 790's, leaving the planters and farmers prey to their natural enemies, the surveyors, the merchants, and the factors in the town. The Spanish government had acted as the moderator between the two groups, and promulgated decrees regulating interest and restraining foreclosures. What would the new government do? There were, furthermore, the universal questions of the form which the new colonial government would take, and of who would get the jobs and the power. It was of the utmost importance to secure the attention of the president and the Congress at Philadelphia. The first official agent of these powers to appear at Natchez was Andrew Ellicott, United States commissioner to fix the boundary with Spain. As, the principal channel to Philadelphia, and as the self-appointed diplomat to hasten the departure of the Spanish, Ellicott was a keyman. His coming precipitated a turmoil in the Territory that resulted in the