In 1785, White was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives. In 1786, North Carolina sent him as a delegate to the Continental Congress where he served until 1788. Late in 1786, Congress named him Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the southern department. After that he was frequently absent from Congress, traveling the Carolina and Georgia frontiers negotiating with the Indian tribes. After his congressional service he moved to the frontier, buying land and settling in what became Nashville, Tennessee.
James White was fluent in French and Spanish. In the 1780s he had become involved with John Sevier's plan to place the State of Franklin under Spanish rule. He used his position and travels as Indian superintendent to serve as agent conducting negotiations between Sevier and the governor of Spanish Louisiana. In the 1790s he was involved in William Blount's plan to work with the Indians and Britain in staging an invasion of Spanish Florida. As his role in these schemes became known, he moved to the Spanish territory of New Orleans in 1799, settling in Attakapas.[4]
^Goodpasture, Albert V. “Dr. James White. Pioneer, Politician, Lawyer.” Tennessee Historical Magazine, vol. 1, no. 4, 1915, pp. 282–91. JSTOR website Retrieved 12 July 2023.