The Savannah people resented the encroaching Englishmen and slowly departed the area. In the early 1720s the South Carolina Assembly invited Chickasaw living in northern Mississippi to occupy the area, hoping to encourage trade and use them defensively on the frontier. Seeking to strengthen ties with the English as a source of guns, a Chickasaw group led by Squirrel King (as he was known to the colonists) came to Savannah Town in 1723, settling along nearby Horse Creek. These Chickasaw collaborated with the English colonists in defense of this area from other tribes until returning to their Mississippi homeland about the time of the Revolutionary War.