Woodward, Henry (c. 1646–c. 1686)

British settler, agent, and pioneer. His birthplace is unknown, possibly Barbados. He went to the settlement near Cape Fear (present-day North Carolina) in 1664, but was captured in 1666 and held by the Spanish in Florida. He escaped in 1668 and went to South Carolina in 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.