Woodward, Henry

Woodward, Henry (c. 1646–c. 1686) settler, agent, pioneer; birthplace unknown, possibly Barbados. He went to the settlement near Cape Fear (present-day North Carolina) in 1664, but was captured (1666) and held by the Spanish in Florida. He escaped (1668) and went to South Carolina (1670) where he was the first English settler and the interpreter and Indian agent for the proprietors of the colony. He opened the inland Indian trade after 1674 and expanded the trading frontier to the Chattahoochee River (the border of Georgia and Alabama) where he laid the basis for an alliance with the Lower Creek Indians.