Chapter III: Tennessee Becomes a State, 1791-1796 (2)

Naturally the Tennesseeans, conscious that they had not wronged the Indians, and had scrupulously observed the treaty, grew imbittered over, the wanton Indian outrages. They were entirely at a loss to explain the reason why the warfare against them was waged with such ferocity. Sevier wrote to Madison, with whom he frequently corresponded: "This country is wholly involved in a war with the Creek and Cherokee Indians, and I am not able to suggest the reasons or the pretended cause of their depredations. The successes of the Northern tribes over our late unfortunate armies have created great exultation throughout the whole Southern Indians, and the probabilities may be they expect to be equally successful. The Spaniards are making use of all their art to draw over the Southern tribes, and I fear may have stimulated them to commence their hostilities. Governor Blount has indefatigably labored to keep these people in a pacific humor, but in vain. War is unavoidable, however ruinous and calamitous it may be." [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., Madison Papers, Sevier's letter, Oct. 30, 1792.] The Federal Government was most reluctant to look facts in the face and acknowledge that the hostilities were serious, and that they were unprovoked by the whites. The Secretary of War reported to the President that the offenders were doubtless merely a small banditti of Creeks and Cherokees, with a few Shawnees who possessed no fixed residence; and in groping for a remedy he weakly suggested that inasmuch as many of the Cherokees seemed to be dissatisfied with the boundary line they had established by treaty it would perhaps be well to alter it. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., Washington Papers, Secretary of War to the President, July 28, and Aug. 5, 1792.] Of course the adoption of such a measure would have amounted to putting a premium on murder and treachery.

Odd Manifestations of Particularistic Feeling.

If the Easterners were insensible to the Western need for a vigorous Indian war, many of the Westerners showed as little appreciation of the necessity for any Indian war which did not immediately concern themselves. Individual Kentuckians, individual colonels and captains of the Kentucky militia, were always ready to march to the help of the Tennesseeans against the Southern Indians; but the highest officials of Kentucky were almost as anxious as the Federal authorities to prevent any war save that with the tribes northwest of the Ohio. One of the Kentucky senators, Brown, in writing to the Governor, Isaac Shelby, laid particular stress upon the fact that nothing but the most urgent necessity could justify a war with the Southern Indians. [Footnote: Shelby MSS., J. Brown to Isaac Shelby, Philadelphia, June 2, 1793.] Shelby himself sympathized with this feeling. He knew what an Indian war was, for he had owed his election largely to his record as an Indian fighter and to the confidence the Kentuckians felt in his power to protect them from their red foes. [Footnote: _Do_., M. D. Hardin to Isaac Shelby, April 10, 1792, etc., etc.] His correspondence is filled with letters in relation to Indian affairs, requests to authorize the use of spies, requests to establish guards along the wilderness road and to garrison blockhouses on the frontier; and sometimes there are more pathetic letters, from a husband who had lost a wife, or from an "old, frail woman," who wished to know if the Governor could not by some means get news of her little granddaughter who had been captured in the wilderness two years before by a party of Indians. [Footnote: _Do._, Letter of Mary Mitchell to Isaac Shelby, May 1, 1793.] He realized fully what hostilities meant, and had no desire to see his State plunged into any Indian war which could be avoided.

Yet, in spite of this cautious attitude, Shelby had much influence with the people of the Tennessee territory. They confided to him their indignation with Blount for stopping Logan's march to the aid of Robertson; while on the other hand the Virginians, when anxious to prevent the Cumberland settlers from breaking the peace, besought him to use his influence with them in order to make them do what was right. [Footnote: Shelby MSS., Arthur Campbell to Shelby, January 6, 1890; letter from Cumberland to Shelby, May 11, 1793; John Logan to Shelby, June 19, 1794; petition of inhabitants of Nelson County, May 9, 1793.] When such a man as Shelby was reluctant to see the United States enter into open hostilities with the Southern Indians, there is small cause for wonder in the fact that the authorities at the National capital did their best to deceive themselves into the belief that there was no real cause for war.

Intolerable Hardships of the Settlers.

Inability to look facts in the face did not alter the facts. The Indian ravages in the Southern Territory grew steadily more and more serious. The difficulties of the settlers were enormously increased because the United States strictly forbade any offensive measures. The militia were allowed to drive off any war bands found among the settlements with evidently hostile intent; but, acting under the explicit, often repeated, and emphatic commands of the General Government, Blount was obliged to order the militia under no circumstances to assume the offensive, or to cross into the Indian hunting grounds beyond the boundaries established by the treaty of Holston. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, April 1, 1792.] The inhabitants of the Cumberland region, and of the frontier counties generally, petitioned strongly against this, stating that "the frontiers will break if the inroads of the savages are not checked by counter expeditions." [Footnote: _Do_., Feb. 1, 1792.]

Blount's Good Conduct.

It was a very disagreeable situation for Blount, who, in carrying out the orders of the Federal authorities, had to incur the ill-will of the people whom he had been appointed to govern; but even at the cost of being supposed to be lukewarm in the cause of the settlers, he loyally endeavored to execute the commands of his superiors. Yet like every other man acquainted by actual experience with frontier life and Indian warfare, he knew the folly of defensive war against Indians. At this very time the officers on the frontier of South Carolina, which was not a State that was at all inclined to unjust aggression against the Indians, notified the Governor that the defensive war was "expensive, hazardous, and distressing" to the settlers, because the Indians "had such advantages, being so wolfish in their manner and so savage in their nature," that it was impossible to make war upon them on equal terms if the settlers were confined to defending themselves in their own country, whereas a speedy and spirited counter-attack upon them in their homes would probably reduce them to peace, as their mode of warfare fitted them much less to oppose such an attack than to "take skulking, wolfish advantages of the defenceless" settlers. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Robert Anderson to the Governor of South Carolina, Sep. 20, 1792.]

Doublefaced Conduct of the Creeks and Cherokees.

The difficulties of Blount and the Tennessee frontiersmen were increased by the very fact that the Cherokees and Creeks still nominally remained at peace. The Indian towns nearest the frontier knew that they were jeopardized by the acts of their wilder brethren, and generally strove to avoid committing any offense themselves. The war parties from the remote towns were the chief offenders. Band after band came up from among the Creeks or from among the lower Cherokees, and, passing through the peaceful villages of the upper Cherokees, fell on the frontier, stole horses, ambushed men, killed or captured women and children, and returned whence they had come. In most cases it was quite impossible to determine even the tribe of the offenders with any certainty; and all that the frontiersmen knew was that their bloody trails led back towards the very villages where the Indians loudly professed that they were at peace. They soon grew to regard all the Indians with equal suspicion, and they were so goaded by the blows which they could not return that they were ready to take vengeance upon any one with a red skin, or at least to condone such vengeance when taken. The peaceful Cherokees, though they regretted these actions and were alarmed and disquieted at the probable consequences, were unwilling or unable to punish the aggressors.

Blount Warns the Federal Government.

Blount was soon at his wits' ends to prevent the outbreak of a general war. In November, 1792, he furnished the War Department with a list of scores of people--men, women, and children--who had been killed in Tennessee, chiefly in the Cumberland district, since the signing of the treaty of Holston. Many others had been carried off, and were kept in slavery. Among the wounded were General Robertson and one of his sons, who were shot, although not fatally, in May, 1792, while working on their farm. Both Creeks and Cherokees took part in the outrages, and the Chickamauga towns on the Tennessee, at Running Water, Nickajack, and in the neighborhood, ultimately supplied the most persistent wrongdoers. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of War, Nov. 8, 1792; also page 330, etc. Many of these facts will be found recited, not only in the correspondence of Blount, but in the Robertson MSS., in the _Knoxville Gazette_, and in Haywood, Ramsey, and Putman.]

Effect of the Defeat of Harmar and St. Clair.
Growth of the War Spirit.

As Sevier remarked, the Southern, no less than the Northern Indians were much excited and encouraged by the defeat of St. Clair, coming as it did so close upon the defeat of Harmar. The double disaster to the American arms made the young braves very bold, and it became impossible for the elder men to restrain them. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., pp. 263, 439, etc.] The Creeks harassed the frontiers of Georgia somewhat, but devoted their main attention to the Tennesseeans, and especially to the isolated settlements on the Cumberland. The Chickamauga towns were right at the crossing place both for the Northern Indians when they came south and for the Creeks when they went north. Bands of Shawnees, who were at this time the most inveterate of the enemies of the frontiersmen, passed much time among them; and the Creek war parties, when they journeyed north to steal horses and get scalps, invariably stopped among them, and on their return stopped again to exhibit their trophies and hold scalp dances. The natural effect was that the Chickamaugas, who were mainly Lower Town Cherokees, seeing the impunity with which the ravages were committed, and appreciating the fact that under the orders of the Government they could not be molested in their own homes by the whites, began to join in the raids; and their nearness to the settlements soon made them the worst offenders. One of their leading chiefs was John Watts, who was of mixed blood. Among all these Southern Indians, half-breeds were far more numerous than among the Northerners, and when the half-breeds lived with their mothers' people they usually became the deadliest enemies of their fathers' race. Yet, they generally preserved the father's name. In consequence, among the extraordinary Indian titles borne by the chiefs of the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws--the Bloody Fellow, the Middle Striker, the Mad Dog, the Glass, the Breath--there were also many names like John Watts, Alexander Cornell, and James Colbert, which were common among the frontiersmen themselves.

Fruitless Peace Negotiations.

These Chickamaugas, and Lower Cherokees, had solemnly entered into treaties of peace, and Blount had been taken in by their professions of friendship, and for some time was loath to believe that their warriors were among war parties who ravaged the settlements. By the spring of 1792, however, the fact of their hostility could no longer be concealed. Nevertheless, in May of that year the chiefs of the Lower Cherokee Towns, joined with those of the Upper Towns in pressing Governor Blount to come to a council at Coyatee, where he was met by two thousand Cherokees, including all their principal chiefs and warriors. [Footnote: Robertson's MSS., Blount to Robertson, May 20, 1792.] The head men, not only from the Upper Towns, but from Nickajack and Running Water, including John Watts, solemnly assured Blount of their peaceful intentions, and expressed their regret at the outrages which they admitted had been committed by their young men. Blount told them plainly that he had the utmost difficulty in restraining the whites from taking vengeance for the numerous murders committed on the settlers, and warned them that if they wished to avert a war which would fall upon both the innocent and the guilty they must themselves keep the peace. The chiefs answered, with seeming earnestness, that they were most desirous of being at peace, and would certainly restrain their men; and they begged for the treaty goods which Blount had in his possession. So sincere did they seem that he gave them the goods. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, March 24,1792; American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of War, June 2, 1792, with minutes of conference at Coyatee.]

This meeting began on the 17th of May, yet on the 16th, within twelve miles of Knoxville, two boys were killed and scalped while picking strawberries, and on the 13th a girl had been scalped within four miles of Nashville; and on the 17th itself, while Judge Campbell of the Territorial Court was returning from the Cumberland Circuit his party was attacked, and one killed. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 2, 1792.]

Chickamaugas Make Open War.
Try to Deceive Blount.

When such outrages were committed at the very time the treaty was being held, it was hopeless to expect peace. In September the Chickamaugas threw off the mask and made open war. When the news was received Blount called out the militia and sent word to Robertson that some friendly Cherokees had given warning that a big war party was about to fall on the settlements round Nashville. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of War, Sept. 11, 1792.] Finding that the warning had been given, the Chickamauga chiefs sought to lull their foes into security by a rather adroit peace of treachery. Two of their chiefs, The Glass and The Bloody Fellow, wrote to Blount complaining that they had assembled their warriors because they were alarmed over rumors of a desire on the part of the whites to maltreat them; and on the receipt of assurances from Blount that they were mistaken, they announced their pleasure and stated that no hostilities would be undertaken. Blount was much relieved at this, and thought that the danger of an outbreak was past. Accordingly he wrote to Robertson telling him that he could disband his troops, as there was no longer need of them. Robertson, however, knew the Indian character as few men did know it, and, moreover, he had received confidential information about the impending raid from a half-breed and a Frenchman who were among the Indians. He did not disband his troops, and wrote to Blount that The Glass and The Bloody Fellow had undoubtedly written as they did simply to deceive him and to secure their villages from a counter-attack while they were off on their raid against the Cumberland people. Accordingly three hundred militia were put under arms. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Sept. 6, 1792; Blount to The Bloody Fellow, Sept. 10, 1792; to Robertson, Sept. 12; to The Glass, Sept. 13; to The Bloody Fellow, Sept. 13; to Robertson, Sept. 14; Robertson to Blount, Sept. 26, 1792.]

Attack Buchanan's Station.
Failure of the Attack.

It was well that the whites were on their guard. Towards the end of September a big war party, under the command of John Watts and including some two hundred Cherokees, eighty Creeks, and some Shawnees, left the Chickamauga Towns and marched swiftly and silently to the Cumberland district. They attempted to surprise one of the more considerable of the lonely little forted towns. It was known as Buchanan's Station, and in it there were several families, including fifteen "gun-men." Two spies went out from it to scour the country and give warning of any Indian advance; but with the Cherokees were two very white half-breeds, whose Indian blood was scarcely noticeable, and these two men met the spies and decoyed them to their death. The Indians then, soon after midnight on the 30th of September, sought to rush the station by surprise. The alarm was given by the running of the frightened cattle, and when the sentinel fired at the assailants they were not ten yards from the gate of the blockhouse. The barred door withstood the shock and the flame-flashes lit up the night as the gun-men fired through the loop-holes. The Indians tried to burn the fort, one of the chiefs, a half-breed, leaping on the roof; he was shot through the thigh and rolled off; but he stayed close to the logs trying to light them with his torch, alternately blowing it into a blaze and halloing to the Indians to keep on with the attack. However, he was slain, as was the Shawnee head chief, and several warriors, while John Watts, leader of the expedition, was shot through both thighs. The log walls of the grim little blockhouse stood out black in the fitful glare of the cane torches; and tongues of red fire streamed into the night as the rifles rang. The attack had failed, and the throng of dark, flitting forms faded into the gloom as the baffled Indians retreated. So disheartened were they by the check, and by the loss they had suffered, that they did not further molest the settlements, but fell back to their strongholds across the Tennessee. Among the Cherokee chiefs who led the raid were two signers of the treaty of Holston. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Oct. 17, 1792; _Knoxville Gazette_, Oct. 10, and Oct. 20, 1792; Brown's Narrative, in _Southwestern Monthly_.]

Monotony of the Indian Outrages.

After this the war was open, so far as the Indians of the Lower Cherokee Towns and of many of the Creek Towns were concerned; but the whites were still restrained by strict orders from the United States authorities, who refused to allow them to retaliate. Outrage followed outrage in monotonously bloody succession. The Creeks were the worst offenders in point of numbers, but the Lower Cherokees from the Chickamauga towns did most harm according to their power. Sometimes the bands that entered the settlements were several hundred strong; but their chief object was plunder, and they rarely attacked the strong places of the white frontiersmen, though they forced them to keep huddled in the stockaded stations; nor did they often fight a pitched battle with the larger bodies of militia. There is no reason for reciting in full the countless deeds of rapine and murder. The incidents, though with infinite variety of detail, were in substance the same as in all the Indian wars of the backwoods. Men, women, and children were killed or captured; outlying cabins were attacked and burned; the husbandman was shot as he worked in the field, and the housewife as she went for water. The victim was now a militiaman on his way to join his company, now one of a party of immigrants, now a settler on his lonely farm, and now a justice of the peace going to Court, or a Baptist preacher striving to reach the Cumberland country that he might preach the word of God to the people who had among them no religious instructor. The express messengers and post riders, who went through the wilderness from one commander to the other, always rode at hazard of their lives. In one of Blount's letters to Robertson he remarks: "Your letter of the 6th of February sent express by James Russell was handed to me, much stained with his blood, by Mr. Shannon, who accompanied him." Russell had been wounded in an ambuscade, and his fifty dollars were dearly earned. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, March 8, 1794. The files of the _Knoxville Gazette_ are full of details of these outrages, and so are the letters of Blount to the Secretary of War given in the American State Papers, as well as the letters of Blount and Robertson in the two bound volumes of Robertson MSS. Many of them are quoted in more accessible form in Haywood.]

Horse-stealing.
Brutal White Ruffians.

The Indians were even more fond of horse-stealing than of murder, and they found a ready market for their horses not only in their own nations and among the Spaniards, but among the American frontiersmen themselves. Many of the unscrupulous white scoundrels who lived on the borders of the Indian country made a regular practice of receiving the stolen horses. As soon as a horse was driven from the Tennessee or Cumberland it was hurried through the Indian country to the Carolina or Georgia frontiers, where the red thieves delivered it to the foul white receivers, who took it to some town on the seaboard, so as effectually to prevent a recovery. At Swannanoa in North Carolina, among the lawless settlements at the foot of the Oconee Mountain in South Carolina, and at Tugaloo in Georgia, there were regular markets for these stolen horses. [Footnote: Blount to the Secretary of War, May 5, 1792, and Nov. 10, 1794. As before, I use the word "Tennessee" instead of "Southwestern Territory" for convenience; it was not regularly employed until 1796.] There were then, and continued to exist as long as the frontier lasted, plenty of white men who, though ready enough to wrong the Indians, were equally ready to profit by the wrongs they inflicted on the white settlers, and to encourage their misdeeds if profit was thereby to be made. Very little evildoing of this kind took place Tennessee, for Blount, backed by Sevier and Robertson, was vigilant to put it down; but as yet the Federal Government was not firm in its seat, and its arm was not long enough to reach into the remote frontier districts, where lawlessness of every kind throve, and the whites wronged one another as recklessly as they wronged the Indians.

Sufferings of the Honest Settlers.
Blount's Efforts to Prevent Brutality.

The white scoundrels throve in the confusion of a nominal peace which the savages broke at will; but the honest frontiersmen really suffered more than if there had been open war, as the Federal Government refused to allow raids to be carried into the Indian territory, and in consequence the marauding Indians could at any time reach a place of safety. The blockhouses were of little consequence in putting a stop to Indian attacks. The most efficient means of defence was the employment of the hardiest and best hunters as scouts or spies, for they travelled hither and thither through the woods and continually harried the war parties. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., p. 364; letter of Secretary of War, May 30, 1793.] The militia bands also travelled to and fro, marching to the rescue of some threatened settlement, or seeking to intercept the attacking bands or to overtake those who had delivered their stroke and were returning to the Indian country. Generally they failed in the pursuit. Occasionally they were themselves ambushed, attacked, and dispersed; sometimes they overtook and scattered their foes. In such a case they were as little apt to show mercy to the defeated as were the Indians themselves. Blount issued strict orders that squaws and children were not to be slain, and the frontiersmen did generally refuse to copy their antagonists in butchering the women and children in cold blood. When an attack was made on a camp, however, it was no uncommon thing to have the squaws killed while the fight was hot. Blount, in one of his letters to Robertson, after the Cumberland militia had attacked and destroyed a Creek war party which had murdered a settler, expressed his pleasure at the perseverance with which the militia captain had followed the Indians to the banks of the Tennessee, where he had been lucky enough to overtake them in a position where not one was able to escape. Blount especially complimented him upon having spared the two squaws, "as all civilized people should"; and he added that in so doing the captain's conduct offered a most agreeable contrast to the behavior of some of his fellow citizens under like circumstances. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount's letter, March 8, 1794.]

Repeated Failures to Secure Peace.

Repeated efforts were made to secure peace with the Indians. Andrew Pickens, of South Carolina, was sent to the exposed frontier in 1792 to act as peace Commissioner. Pickens was a high-minded and honorable man, who never hesitated to condemn the frontiersmen when they wronged the Indians, and he was a champion of the latter wherever possible. He came out with every hope and belief that he could make a permanent treaty; but after having been some time on the border he was obliged to admit that there was no chance of bringing about even a truce, and that the nominal peace that obtained was worse for the settlers than actual war. He wrote to Blount that though he earnestly hoped the people of the border would observe the treaty, yet that the Cherokees had done more damage, especially in the way of horse stealing, since the treaty was signed than ever before, and that it was not possible to say what the frontier inhabitants might be provoked to do. He continued: "While a part, and that the ostensible ruling part, of a nation affect to be at, and I believe really are for, peace, and the more active young men are frequently killing people and stealing horses, it is extremely difficult to know how to act. The people, even the most exposed, would prefer an open war to such a situation. The reason is obvious. A man would then know when he saw an Indian he saw an enemy, and would be prepared and act accordingly." [Footnote: American State Papers, Pickens to Blount, Hopewell, April 28, 1792.]

The Georgia Frontier.

The people of Tennessee were the wronged, and not the wrongdoers, and it was upon them that the heaviest strokes of the Indians fell. The Georgia frontiers were also harried continually, although much less severely; but the Georgians were themselves far from blameless. Georgia was the youngest, weakest, and most lawless of the original thirteen States, and on the whole her dealings with the Indians were far from creditable, More than once she inflicted shameful wrong on the Cherokees. The Creeks, however, generally wronged her more than she wronged them, and at this particular period even the Georgia frontiersmen were much less to blame than were their Indian foes. By fair treaty the Indians had agreed to cede to the whites lands upon which they now refused to allow them to settle. They continually plundered and murdered the outlying Georgia settlers; and the militia, in their retaliatory expeditions, having no knowledge of who the murderers actually were, quite as often killed the innocent as the guilty. One of the complaints of the Indians was that the Georgians came in parties to hunt on the neutral ground, and slew quantities of deer and turkeys by fire hunting at night and by still hunting with the rifle in the daytime, while they killed many bears by the aid of their "great gangs of dogs." [Footnote: American State Papers, Timothy Barnard to James Seagrove, March 26, 1793.] This could hardly be called a legitimate objection on the part of the Creeks, however, for their own hunting parties ranged freely through the lands they had ceded to the whites and killed game wherever they could find it.

Evil and fearful deeds were done by both sides. Peaceful Indians, even envoys, going to the treaty grounds were slain in cold blood; and all that the Georgians could allege by way of offset was that the savages themselves had killed many peaceful whites.

Brutal Nature of the Contest in Georgia.

The Georgia frontiersmen openly showed their sullen hatred of the United States authorities. The Georgia State government was too weak to enforce order. It could neither keep the peace among its own frontiersmen, nor wage effective war on the Indians; for when the militia did gather to invade the Creek country they were so mutinous and disorderly that the expeditions generally broke up without accomplishing anything. At one period a militia general, Elijah Clark, actually led a large party of frontiersmen into the unceded Creek hunting grounds with the purpose of setting up an independent government; but the Georgia authorities for once summoned energy sufficient to break up this lawless community. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., pp. 260, 295, 365, 394, 397, 410, 412, 417, 427, 473, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, Sept. 26, 1794. For further allusion to Clark's settlement, see next chapter.]

Blount's Faithful Efforts to Preserve the Peace.

The Georgians were thus far from guiltless themselves, though at this time they were more sinned against than sinning; but in the Tennessee Territory the white settlers behaved very well throughout these years, and showed both patience and fairness in their treatment of the Indians. Blount did his best to prevent outrages, and Sevier and Robertson heartily seconded him. In spite of the grumbling of the frontiersmen, and in spite of repeated and almost intolerable provocation in the way of Indian forays, Blount steadily refused to allow counter-expeditions into the Indian territory, and stopped both the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians when they prepared to make such expeditions. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Jan. 8, 1793; to Benjamin Logan, Nov. 1, 1794, etc.] Judge Campbell, the same man who was himself attacked by the Indians when returning from his circuit, in his charge to the Grand Jury at the end of 1791, particularly warned them to stop any lawless attack upon the Indians. In November, 1792, when five Creeks, headed by a Scotch half-breed, retreated to the Cherokee town of Chiloa with stolen horses, a band of fifty whites gathered to march after them and destroy the Cherokee town; but Sevier dispersed them and made them go to their own homes. The following February a still larger band gathered to attack the Cherokee towns and were dispersed by Blount himself. Robertson, in the summer of 1793, prevented militia parties from crossing the Tennessee in retaliation. In October, 1794, the Grand Jury of Hamilton County entreated and adjured the people, in spite of the Indian outrages to stand firmly by the law, and not to try to be their own avengers; and when some whites settled in Powell's Valley, on Cherokee lands, Governor Blount promptly turned them off. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Dec. 31, 1791; Nov. 17, 1792; Jan. 25, 1793; Feb. 9, Mar. 23, July 13, Sept. 14, 1793; Nov. 1 and 15, 1794; May 8, 1795.]

Seagrove's Difficulties.

The unfortunate Indian agent among the Creeks, Seagrove, speedily became an object of special detestation to the frontiersmen generally, and the inhabitants of the Tennessee country in particular, because he persistently reported that he thought the Creeks peaceable, and deemed their behavior less blameable than that of the whites. His attitude was natural, for probably most of the Creek chiefs with whom he came in contact were friendly, and many of those who were not professed to be so when in his company, if only for the sake of getting the goods he had to distribute; and of course they brought him word whenever the Georgians killed a Creek, either innocent or guilty, without telling him of the offence which the Georgians were blindly trying to revenge. Seagrove himself had some rude awakenings. After reporting to the Central Government at Philadelphia that the Creeks were warm in professing the most sincere friendship, he would suddenly find, to his horror, that they were sending off war parties and acting in concert with the Shawnees; and at one time they actually, without any provocation, attacked a trading store kept by his own brother, and killed the two men who were managing it. [Footnote: American State Papers, Seagrove to James Holmes, Feb. 24, 1793; to Mr. Payne, April 14, 1793.] Most of the Creeks, however, professed, and doubtless felt, regret at these outrages, and Seagrove continued to represent their conduct in a favorable light to the Central Government, though he was forced to admit that certain of the towns were undoubtedly hostile and could not be controlled by the party which was for peace.

Blount calls Seagrove to Account.

Blount was much put out at the fact that Seagrove was believed at Philadelphia when he reported the Creeks to be at peace. In a letter to Seagrove, at the beginning of 1794, Blount told him sharply that as far as the Cumberland district was concerned the Creeks had been the only ones to blame since the treaty of New York, for they had killed or enslaved over two hundred whites, attacking them in their houses, fields, or on the public roads, and had driven off over a thousand horses, while the Americans had done the Creeks no injuries whatever except in defence of their homes and lives, or in pursuing war parties. It was possible of course that occasionally an innocent hunter suffered with the guilty marauders, but this was because he was off his own hunting grounds; and the treaty explicitly showed that the Creeks had no claim to the Cumberland region, while there was not a particle of truth in their assertion that since the treaty had been entered into there had been intrusion on their hunting grounds. Seagrove, in response, wrote that he believed the Creeks and Cherokees sincerely desired peace. This was followed forthwith by new outrages, and Blount wrote to Robertson: "It does really seem as if assurances from Mr. Seagrove of the peaceful disposition of the Creeks was the prelude to their murdering and plundering the inhabitants of your district." [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793; Blount to James Seagrove, Jan. 9, 1794; Seagrove to Blount, Feb. 10, 1794; Blount to Robertson, March 8, 1794.] The _Knoxville Gazette_ called attention to the fact that Seagrove had written a letter to the effect that the Creeks were well disposed, just four days before the attack on Buchanan Station. On September 22d Seagrove wrote stating that the Creeks were peaceable, that all their chief men ardently wished for the cessation of hostilities, and that they had refused the request of the Cherokees to go to war with the United States; and his deputy agent, Barnard, reiterated the assertions and stated that the Upper Creeks had remained quiet, although six of their people had been killed at the mouth of the Tennessee. The _Gazette_ thereupon published a list of twenty-one men, women, and children who at that very time were held in slavery in the Creek towns, and enumerated scores of murders which had been committed by the Creeks during precisely the period when Seagrove and Barnard described them as so desirous of peace. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Dec. 29, 1792; Dec. 19, 1793.]

Increasing Indignation of the Settlers.

Under such circumstances the settlers naturally grew indignant with the United States because they were not protected, and were not even allowed to defend themselves by punishing their foes. The Creeks and Cherokees were receiving their annuities regularly, and many presents in addition, while their outrages continued unceasingly. The Nashville people complained that the Creeks were "as busy in killing and scalping as if they had been paid three thousand dollars for so doing, in the room of fifteen hundred dollars to keep the peace." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, March 23, 1793.] A public address was issued in the _Knoxville Gazette_ by the Tennesseeans on the subjects of their wrongs. In respectful and loyal language, but firmly, the Tennesseeans called the attention of the Government authorities to their sufferings. They avowed the utmost devotion to the Union and a determination to stand by the laws, but insisted that it would be absolutely necessary for them to take measures to defend themselves by retaliating on the Indians.

Nature of the Indian Inroads.

A feature of the address was its vivid picture of the nature of the ordinary Indian inroad and of the lack of any definite system of defence on the frontier. It stated that the Indian raid or outbreak was usually first made known either by the murder of some defenceless farmer, the escape of some Indian trader, or the warning of some friendly Indian who wished to avoid mischief. The first man who received the news, not having made any agreement with the other members of the community as to his course in such an emergency, ran away to his kinsfolk as fast as he could. Every neighbor caught the alarm, thought himself the only person left to fight, and got off on the same route as speedily as possible, until, luckily for all, the meeting of the roads on the general retreat, the difficulty of the way, the straying of horses, and sometimes the halting to drink whiskey, put a stop to "the hurly-burly of the flight" and reminded the fugitives that by this time they were in sufficient force to rally; and then they would return "to explore the plundered country and to bury the unfortunate scalped heads in the fag-end of the retreat"; whereas if there had been an appointed rendezvous where all could rally it would have prevented such a flight from what might possibly have been a body of Indians far inferior in numbers to the armed men of the settlements attacked. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, April 6, 1793.]

The Frontiersmen Ask Permission to Retaliate.

The convention of Mero district early petitioned Congress for the right to retaliate on the Indians and to follow them to their towns, stating that they had refrained from doing so hitherto not from cowardice, but only from regard to Government, and that they regretted that their "rulers" (the Federal authorities at Philadelphia) did not enter into their feelings or seem to sympathize with them. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, August 13, 1792.] When the Territorial Legislature met in 1794 it petitioned Congress for war against the Creeks and Cherokees, reciting the numerous outrages committed by them upon the whites; stating that since 1792 the frontiersmen had been huddled together two or three hundred to the station, anxiously expecting peace, or a legally authorized war from which they would soon wring peace; and adding that they were afraid of war in no shape, but that they asked that their hands be unbound and they be allowed to defend themselves in the only possible manner, by offensive war. They went on to say that, as members of the Nation, they heartily approved of the hostilities which were then being carried on against the Algerines for the protection of the seafaring men of the coast-towns, and concluded: "The citizens who live in poverty on the extreme frontier are as much entitled to be protected in their lives, their families, and their little properties, as those who roll in luxury, ease, and affluence in the great and opulent Atlantic cities,"--for in frontier eyes the little seaboard trading-towns assumed a rather comical aspect of magnificence. The address was on the whole dignified in tone, and it undoubtedly set forth both the wrong and the remedy with entire accuracy. The Tennesseeans felt bitterly that the Federal Government did everything for Kentucky and nothing for themselves, and they were rather inclined to sneer at the difficulty experienced by the Kentuckians and the Federal army in subduing the Northwestern Indians, while they themselves were left single-handed to contend with the more numerous tribes of the South. They were also inclined to laugh at the continual complaints the Georgians made over the comparatively trivial wrongs they suffered from the Indians, and at their inability either to control their own people or to make war effectively. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Feb. 26, 1794, March 27, 1794, etc., etc.]

The Situation Grows Intolerable.

Such a state of things as that which existed in the Tennessee territory could not endure. The failure of the United States authorities to undertake active offensive warfare and to protect the frontiersmen rendered it inevitable that the frontiersmen should protect themselves; and under the circumstances, when retaliation began it was certain sometimes to fall upon the blameless. The rude militia officers began to lead their retaliatory parties into the Indian lands, and soon the innocent Indians suffered with the guilty, for the frontiersmen had no means of distinguishing between them. The Indians who visited the settlements with peaceful intent were of course at any time liable to be mistaken for their brethren who were hostile, or else to be attacked by scoundrels who were bent upon killing all red men alike. Thus, on one day, as Blount reported, a friendly Indian passing the home of one of the settlers was fired upon and wounded; while in the same region five hostile Indians killed the wife and three children of a settler in his sight; and another party stole a number of horses from a station; and yet another party, composed of peaceful Indian hunters, was attacked at night by some white militia, one man being killed and another wounded. [Footnote: State Department MSS., Washington Papers, War Department, Ex. C., page 19, extract of letter from Blount to Williamson, April 14, 1792.]

Scolacutta, the Friendly Cherokee.

One of the firm friends of the whites was Scolacutta, the chief of the Upper Cherokees. He tried to keep his people at peace, and repeatedly warned the whites of impending attacks, Nevertheless, he was unwilling or unable to stop by force the war parties of Creeks and Lower Cherokees who came through his towns to raid against the settlements and who retreated to them again when the raids were ended. Many of his young men joined the bands of horse-thieves and scalp-hunters. The marauders wished to embroil him with the whites, and were glad that the latter should see the bloody trails leading back to his towns. For two years after the signing of the treaty of Holston the war parties thus passed and repassed through his country, and received aid and comfort from his people, and yet the whites refrained from taking vengeance; but the vengeance was certain to come in the end.

His Village Attacked.

In March, 1793, Scolacutta's nearest neighbor, an Indian living next door to him in his own town, and other Indians of the nearest towns, joined one of the war parties which attacked the settlements and killed two unarmed lads. [Footnote: American State Papers, Blount's letter, March 20, 1793. Scolacutta was usually known to the whites as Hanging Maw.] The Indians did nothing to the murderers, and the whites forbore to attack them; but their patience was nearly exhausted. In June following a captain, John Beard, with fifty mounted riflemen, fell in with a small party of Indians who had killed several settlers. He followed their trail to Scolacutta's town, where he slew eight or nine Indians, most of whom were friendly. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Smith to Robertson, June 19, 1793, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, June 15 and July 13, 1793, etc.] The Indians clamored for justice and the surrender of the militia who had attacked them. Blount warmly sympathized with them, but when he summoned a court-martial to try Beard it promptly acquitted him, and the general frontier feeling was strongly in his favor. Other militia commanders followed his example. Again and again they trailed the war parties, laden with scalps and plunder, and attacked the towns to which they went; killing the warriors and capturing squaws and children. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, July 13, July 27, 1793, etc., etc.]

Revengeful Forays.

The following January another party of red marauders was tracked by a band of riflemen to Scolacutta's camp. The militia promptly fell on the camp and killed several Indians, both the hostile and the friendly. Other Cherokee towns were attacked and partially destroyed. In but one instance were the whites beaten off. When once the whites fairly began to make retaliatory inroads they troubled themselves but little as to whether the Indians they assailed were or were not those who had wronged them. In one case, four frontiersmen dressed and painted themselves like Indians prior to starting on a foray to avenge the murder of a neighbor. They could not find the trail of the murderers, and so went at random to a Cherokee town, killed four warriors who were asleep on the ground, and returned to the settlements. Scolacutta at first was very angry with Blount, and taunted him with his inability to punish the whites, asserting that the frontiersmen were "making fun" of their well-meaning governor; but the old chief soon made up his mind that as long as he allowed the war parties to go through his towns he would have to expect to suffer at the hands of the injured settlers. He wrote to Blount enumerating the different murders that had been committed by both sides, and stating that his people were willing to let the misdeeds stand as off-setting one another. He closed his letter by stating that the Upper Towns were for peace, and added: "I want my mate, General Sevier, to see my talk ... We have often told lies, but now you may depend on hearing the truth," which was a refreshingly frank admission. [Footnote: American State Papers, iv., pp. 459, 460, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, Jan. 16, and June 5, 1794.]

Sevier Takes Command.
He makes a Brilliant Raid.

When, towards the close of 1792, the ravages became very serious, Sevier, the man whom the Indians feared more than any other, was called to take command of the militia. For a year he confined himself to acting on the defensive, and even thus he was able to give much protection to the settlements. In September, 1793, however, several hundred Indians, mostly Cherokees, crossed the Tennessee not thirty miles from Knoxville. They attacked a small station, within which there were but thirteen souls, who, after some resistance, surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared; but they were butchered with obscene cruelty. Sevier immediately marched toward the assailants, who fled back to the Cherokee towns. Thither Sevier followed them, and went entirely through the Cherokee country to the land of the Creeks, burning the towns and destroying the stores of provisions. He marched with his usual quickness, and the Indians were never able to get together in sufficient numbers to oppose him. When he crossed High Tower River there was a skirmish, but he soon routed the Indians, killing several of their warriors, and losing himself but three men killed and three wounded. He utterly destroyed a hostile Creek town, the chief of which was named Buffalo Horn. He returned late in October, and after his return the frontiers of Eastern Tennessee had a respite from the Indian ravages. Yet Congress refused to pay his militia for the time they were out, because they had invaded the Indian country instead of acting on the defensive. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Oct. 29, 1793; _Knoxville Gazette_, Oct. 12, and Nov. 23, 1793.]

Destruction of Nickajack and Running Water.

To chastise the Upper Cherokee Towns gave relief to the settlements on the Holston, but the chief sinners were the Chickamaugas of the Lower Cherokee towns, and the chief sufferers were the Cumberland settlers. The Cumberland people were irritated beyond endurance, alike by the ravages of these Indians and by the conduct of the United States in forbidding them to retaliate. In September, 1794, they acted for themselves. Early in the month Robertson received certain information that a large body of Creeks and Lower Cherokees had gathered at the towns and were preparing to invade the Cumberland settlements. The best way to meet them was by a stroke in advance, and he determined to send an expedition against them in their strongholds. There was no question whatever as to the hostility of the Indians, for at this very time settlers were being killed by war parties throughout the Cumberland country. Some Kentuckians, under Colonel Whitley, had joined the Tennesseeans, who were nominally led by a Major Ore; but various frontier fighters, including Kaspar Mansker, were really as much in command as was Ore. Over five hundred mounted riflemen, bold of heart and strong of hand, marched toward the Chickamauga towns, which contained some three hundred warriors. When they came to the Tennessee they spent the entire night in ferrying the arms across and swimming the horses; they used bundles of dry cane for rafts, and made four "bull-boats" out of the hides of steers. They passed over unobserved and fell on the towns of Nickajack and Running Water, taking the Indians completely by surprise; they killed fifty-five warriors and captured nineteen squaws and children. In the entire expedition but one white man was killed and three wounded. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Robertson to Blount, Oct. 8, 1794; Blount to Robertson, Oct. 1, 1794, Sept. 9, 1794 (in which Blount expresses the utmost disapproval of Robertson's conduct, and says he will not send on Robertson's original letter to Philadelphia, for fear it will get him into a scrape; and requests him to send a formal report which can be forwarded); _Knoxville Gazette_, Sept. 26, 1794; Brown's Narrative.]

This Brings the Cherokees to Terms.

Not only the Federal authorities, but Blount himself, very much disapproved of this expedition; nevertheless, it was right and proper, and produced excellent effects. In no other way could the hostile towns have been brought to reason. It was followed by a general conference with the Cherokees at Tellico Blockhouse. Scolacutta appeared for the Upper, and Watts for the Lower Cherokee Towns. Watts admitted that "for their folly" the Lower Cherokees had hitherto refused to make peace, and remarked frankly, "I do not say they did not deserve the chastisement they received." Scolacutta stated that he could not sympathize much with the Lower Towns, saying, "their own conduct brought destruction upon them. The trails of murderers and thieves was followed to those towns ... Their bad conduct drew the white people on me, who injured me nearly unto death.... All last winter I was compelled to lay in the woods by the bad conduct of my own people drawing war on me." At last the Cherokees seemed sincere in their desire for peace. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount's Minutes of Conference held with Cherokees, Nov. 7 and 8, 1794, at Tellico Blockhouse.]

Cherokees and Chikasaws Restrain Creeks.

These counter-attacks served a double purpose. They awed the hostile Cherokees; and they forced the friendly Cherokees, for the sake of their own safety, actively to interfere against the bands of hostile Creeks. A Cherokee chief, The Stallion, and a number of warriors, joined with the Federal soldiers and Tennessee militia in repulsing the Creek war parties. They acted under Blount's directions, and put a complete stop to the passage of hostile Indians through their towns. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Ecooe to John McKee, Tellico, Feb. 1, 1795, etc.] The Chickasaws also had become embroiled with the Creeks. [Footnote: Blount MSS., James Colbert to Robertson, Feb. 10, 1792.] For over three years they carried on an intermittent warfare with them, and were heartily supported by the frontiersmen, who were prompt to recognize the value of their services. At the same time the hostile Indians were much cowed at the news of Wayne's victory in the North.

Treachery of the United States Government to the Chickasaws.
The Frontiersmen Stand by Chickasaws.