The Spanish government offered runaway slaves freedom if they converted to Catholicism and agreed to a term of military service. Under heavy pressure from the U.S., Spain reversed this policy in the later eighteenth century, to little effect. Slaves continued to flee to Florida, where they were sheltered by the Florida natives, called Seminoles by Americans. They lived in a semi-feudal system; the Seminoles gave the blacks protection, while the former slaves, who knew how to farm, shared crops with the natives. Although the escaped slaves were still considered inferior by the Seminoles, the two groups lived in harmony. The slaveholders in Georgia and the rest of the South became furious over this state of affairs as slaves continued to escape to Florida.