Early in 1702, Joseph de Zuñiga, Spanish Governor of Florida, and Pierre le Moyne Iberville, French founder of Louisiana, planned to check the steadily increasing English trade with Indian tribes in the interior and perhaps drive the English out of the Southeast. They agreed on an expedition against the English and their Creek Indian allies in the Carolina territory that is now Georgia. In August, Governor Zuñiga sent northward a force of more than 800 Spaniards and Apalaches under Captain Francisco Romo de Uriza. Forewarned by Indians, Anthony Dodsworth and other traders at Coweta, near present Columbus, marshalled about 500 Creek warriors, lured the invaders into an ambush on the Flint River nearby, and routed them. Dr. Verner W. Crane called this battle the prelude to Queen Anne’s War on the Southern frontier and, in effect, the first blow struck by the English for control of the Mississippi Valley.