USA > Tennessee > Monroe County > Sweetwater > History of Sweetwater Valley > Part 3
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"When the pioneers settled in Southwest Virginia and the coterminous part of North Carolina, those sections had ceased to be, probably never had been, the settled residence of the modern aboriginal tribes. It was used as the common hunting ground of the Shawnees, Chero- kees and other Southern Indians. East and north of the Tennessee to the Ohio there was not a single Indian
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hut. The Choctaws, Chickasaws and Cherokees, how- ever, of the South, used to engage in war with the Miami confederacy of the North. In their excursions they no doubt had certain trails which they were accustomed to travel."
The Uchees were a small tribe which once occupied the country near the mouth of the Hiwassee River. Their warriors were exterminated in a desperate battle with the Cherokees. This took place at "old fields" in Rhea county sometime between 1750-1775. The remainder of the tribe were incorporated with the Cherokees. "Chera" in their language means fire. Chera-tage, men possessed of divine fire-of great courage. They were formidable alike for their numbers and their passion for war. When asked to make peace with the Tus- caroras, their reply was: "We cannot live without war. If we make peace with the Tuscaroras we must find some other tribe to war with. It is our occupation."
According to Adair, in 1735 the Cherokees had sixty- four towns and could collect six thousand warriors. This included all the men not too old or too young to fight, which would probably be one-fourth of the population. In 1750 there were not so many, they having been decimated by wars with the Creeks.
(Ramsey, p. 89) : "Little of the history of the Chero- kees can be ascertained from their traditions. These ex- tend little farther back than the early days of O-ka-na- sto-to, their chief, who visited George II. of England. He was practically their king. His seat of government was E-cho-ta (more properly E-tsawty) on the Tellico River, which afterwards became the property of John McGhee.
FORT LOUDON.
After the visit of Okanastoto, Hugh Waddell, as com- missioner for North Carolina, negotiated a treaty with the Cherokees. In pursuance with that treaty, Governor Glenn erected a line of forts, the easternmost of which was Fort Loudon at the highest point of navigation on the south bank of Tennessee River, near the mouth of the Tellico, and on the east bank of this river.
This fort was erected, Ramsay says, in 1756; Hay-
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wood gives the date at 1757. The fort surrendered after a long siege on August 7, 1760, being besieged by the united forces of the Cherokee nation. The English were to be allowed to march to the white settlements un- molested. The marching consisted of men, women and children, amounting to about three hundred. They were treacherously assaulted and massacred about daylight on the morning of the 10th of August. They had marched about twenty miles up the Tellico River, which would bring them not far from the site of the terminus of the Athens and Tellico Railway, now a part of the Louis- ville and Nashville system. There were only three or four survivors. One of them escaped to the town of Chota.
THE TOWN OF REFUGE.
"Every Indian tribe," says Adair, "had a town or house of refuge, which is a sure asylum to protect a man- slayer or an unfortunate captive if he can once enter it. Among the Cherokees Chota, about five miles above Fort Loudon, was their city of refuge. Thus passed Fort Loudon, the first place in the bounds of what is now Monroe county, that was inhabited by the whites. The story has been told by numerous writers. Romance and truth have become so entangled that it is a matter of ex- treme difficulty to separate them. What happened to those pioneers or early settlers forms one of the most interesting and pathetic stories in the annals of that time.
After the fall of Fort Loudon the next we hear (historically) of the Cherokees was in 1769. They invad- ed the country of the Chicasaws beyond (west of) the Cumberland Mountains. They had what was called a bloody conflict. Not much is known of the battle except that the Cherokees were defeated and retired to their own country. The Chickasaws were content with their victory and did not follow it up. "This defeat of the Cherokees," Ramsey remarks, "probably saved the Watauga settlement." Since the extinction of the gar- rison at Fort Loudon they had shown evidence of inten- tion of attacking it.
A treaty was concluded at Fort (Patrick) Henry on the Holston (Hogehogee) River near Long Island, July
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20, 1777, between the commissioners of the State of North Carolina and the Overhill Indians. By this treaty the Indians conveyed the upper Holston from the moun- tains and the Nolichucky River to the Virginia line. It is not necessary to go into details which, anyhow as to exact territory, are somewhat vague. I refer to it more than any other reason as showing who the signers were to the instrument.
Those on the part of North Carolina were Waightstill, Avery, William Sharp, Robert Lanier and Joseph Win- ston. The Indian signers were Oconostota, of Chota; Rayetawah (Old Tassel), of Toquoe; Savannech (Raven), of Chota ; Quillanuwah, of Toquoe; Octossetch, of Hiwassee; Attusah (Northward Warrior), of Mouth of Tellico; Ooskuah or Abram, of Chilhowee; Rollowah, of Tellico River; Toostook, of Tellico; Amoyah (Pigeon), of Notchey Creek; Oostosseteh (Man Killer), of Hiwas- see; Tellehaeveh (Chestnut), of Tellico; Que-lee-kah, of Hiwassee; Annakehujah, of Tuskeega; Suahtukah, of Citico; Atta-kulla-kulla (Little Carpenter), of Notchey Creek; Okoo Neekah (White Owl), of Notchey Creek; Kata Quilla (Pot Cloy), of Chilhowee; Tuskasah (Ter- rapin), of Chiles Toosch; Sunne Waugh (Big Island). The Indians made their marks. The witnesses were Jacob Womack, James Robins, John Reed, Isaac Bled- soe, Price Martin, John Kearns. Joseph Vann was in- terpreter.
INDIAN NAMES OF MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS.
Thus we see from the location or dwelling place of the principal men who signed this treaty that there were no Indian towns west of Notchey Creek. Ramsey aptly re- marks the Indian proper names and the appellation of the creeks and rivers were euphonious. The names of the mountain ranges were smooth and musical, such as Alleghanee. Tenasee, Chilhowee, Unaka, Chattanooga, Dumplin, Sandy Mush, Calf Kilier, High Tower, Hangin' Dog, Beaver Dam, and even Sweetwater would grate harshly upon the ears of those who sang their war songs upon the banks of the Allejoy, Oustanallee, Etowah and Euphassee.
The Tennessee River was so named from the Little
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Tennessee River. By Tennessee River is meant that river from the Unaka Mountains and probably east- ward to the Tuckaseega and westward from its junction with the Holston clear to the mouth on the Ohio River. That is what the Tenasee River of the treaties means. The French called it Riviere des Cheraquis or Cos- quinambeaux; the aborigines named it Kallamuchee. From Little Tennessee to French Broad, Agiqua (Racing River) ; Clinch, Pellissippi; Little River in Blount county, Canot; Hiwassee, Euphassee. Right here I think it proper to say that there is absolutely no foundation for the spelling or pronunciation Hi-a-was-see. The mistake must have arisen from confounding the word Hiwassee (more properly Euphassee) with the Hiawatha of Longfellow's poem. The district was spelled Hiwas- see in the old surveys, the river the same, the college always too. Dr. J. H. Brunner, former president of Hiwassee College, agrees that this is the correct spelling. I would not feel called upon to mention this attempted change in spelling, and also of pronunciation, had it not received the sanction of so high an authority as an ex- president of the United States. I am glad to say, how- ever, that his suggested changes in that line have not always met with eminent success; and I hope much that for the sake of preserving the real Cherokee names we have (I wish there were more), that this attempted change will also prove a failure. The Cumberland River was the Warioto, French name Chauvanon. We still have left the Indian names Lousatchie, Hatchee, Se- quachee, Ocoee, Conasauga, Chestua, Tellico (Psallico),
Watauga and others. Watauga (properly, Waugh- taugah) signifies many islands, the river of islands. Hay- wood says in his History of Tennessee that the Holston, from its confluence with the Tennessee at what is now Lenoir City upward to the French Broad, was known as Watauga to the Cherokees. Until 1889 it was Big Tennessee from the junction of the Holston and Little Tennessee to its mouth. By an act of the General As- sembly, approved April 6, 1889, it was enacted as fol- lows: "That the Tennessee extend from its junction with the Ohio River at Paducah, Ky., past the Clinch and French Broad Rivers to the junction of the north fork of the Holston River with the Holston at Kings-
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port in Sullivan county, Tenn., all usages to the contrary notwithstanding."
It is greatly surprising that the Cherokee Indians, whose language was so musical, attempted so little in the way of song and had no musical instruments at all, unless the tom-tom and the rattle can be called so. Their chants and war songs were far from pleasing to the ear of the pioneer even though he did not happen to be tied to a stake during the ceremonial. Little of the Cherokee music so called has been preserved, and in an artistic sense is no loss. One hymn called "Lamenta- tion," found in some of the old hymn books published in East Tennessee, is said to be an Indian air adapted to some English words.
Francis S. Mitchell, Athens, Ga., in Confederate Veteran of July, 1916:
The aborigines lived so near the heart of nature that they learned her secrets and were unconscious poets. Their language, abounding in vowels, was soft and musi- cal. Every proper noun had a meaning that was sig- nificant and often wonderfully poetic, as Cohuttan (Frog Mountain), Tallulah (Terrible), Toccoa (Beau- tiful), Amicalolah (Tumbling Water), Hiwassee (Pretty Fawn), Okefinokee (Quivering Earth), and Chattahoo- chee (Rocky River), Nacoochee (Evening Star). Neither the Creeks nor the Cherokees had a written language, and their history is a matter of tradition. The Creek language bore a resemblance to classic Greek. Their legends-wild, romantic, often tragic-are still full of interest for their pale-faced successors.
Extract from M. V. Moore, in March Harper, 1889 :
RIVERS OF TENNESSEE.
Tennessee! How were her rivers in the olden Indian tongue? What syllabic rhythm had they ere the white man's changes rung ?
Wascibia and Shewanee-thus the Cumberland was known,
With Obed, Caney, Obe, Sulphur, Harpeth, New and Stone.
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Holston once was Hogeehogee; and from the mouth of French Broad down (which was then the Taquas- tah) Cootchla on to Chota-town,
This an Indian refuge city of an ancient, wide renown, where there empties into Tennesa, this the Little Tennessee ;
Then began great Kalamuckee (Chalaqua in Cherokee), Once Hiwasse was Euphasa, with its brawling Chestoee, Estinaula, "where they rested," and Amoah or Ocoee. Through Chilhowee comes the Little, once the red man's swift Canoee-
Where the wingless Pigeon flutters, once the Aguqua they knew,
Where Unaka sent his daughter Salacao is Tellico; Where was once the Nalachuckee, simply Chucky now we know.
Thundering through the Alleghanies with the Doe is yet Watauga ;
Out and in with Georgia pranking, straight to gulf goes Connesauga ;
Out but never more returning, "stream of death" is Chicamauga.
By these waters fought the Shawnee, Uchee, Choctaw, Cherokee-
Dead and vanquished are these warriors, but the music of the rivers,
And the sweet syllabic rhythm of its names shall live forever.
The following article will illustrate how, sometimes, history which is not history is accepted as history. It is taken from the Sweetwater Telephone:
"SOITEE WOITEE." By W. B. Lenoir.
"Which I rise to explain" that things do sometimes turn out peculiar. In a very readable article in the Southern Field as reproduced in the Sweetwater Tele- phone of February 12, 1913, occurs this paragraph :
"The name Sweetwater came about in an unusual way. The Cherokee Indians, who formerly occupied the sec- tion, called the creek and valley 'soitee woitee,' which
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means in the Cherokee language 'happy homes.' But when the early settlers came they heard the Indians pro- nouncing the name, and, getting the pronunciation only half correct, they referred to the section as Sweetwater, which is merely what 'soitee woitee' sounds to them."
It may really not matter how a town or a valley may have gotten its name; and although the name Sweet- water is not uncommon for branches, creeks and towns vet people are usually curious to know why it is called so. They want some sort of an explanation; and if an explanation is not ready to hand one must be invented. Often the more unreasonable the explanation, the greater the credence given it. Repetition, too, gives it more and more a semblance to truth. Usually I would let such paragraphs as the above go uncontradicted, as no real harm could come of it. My main reason for writing this is that I feel myself partly responsible for having started the yarn. I am aware that fiction, fairy tales, fables and legends have their proper place in literature, and they often entertain and sometimes instruct. Santa Klaus and St. Valentine are patron saints and national institutions with ns whether they ever had existence or not. Sometimes, too, a man writes an article, which is accepted as truth, when at the time of its writing noth- ing was further from his desire than to have it so ae- cepted. This brings me to my confession, so to speak.
Something like a decade ago, the late Mr. D. L. Smith, the then proprietor of the Sweetwater Telephone, on one of its anniversaries, possibly the tenth, with commen- dable zeal got out a special edition or magazine exploit- ing Sweetwater and Sweetwater Valley. He requested me some time previous to its publication to write a paper on the legends of the Cherokee Indians. I told him I didn't know, couldn't find out any. If 'twas to indite a sonnet to beauty's brown mouth or rosebud eyes, I could sing my little song with more confidence. I then thought no more of the matter. I left town to visit a friend. Whilst on that visit I got another letter from Mr. Smith insisting that I send in my communication about legends of Sweetwater Valley Cherokees. Not wishing to disappoint Mr. Smith I consulted a friend who was versed in Indian lore and asked him what was to be done in the case. "The Cherokees," said he, "have
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few if any traditions or legends and never occupied Sweetwater Valley so far as is known" (see Ramsey's Annals, page 87), but that he would help me invent a legend. I agreed to this provided we evolved a legend that would not be taken at all as history. How would this do? he remarked. Have John Howard Payne on his trip from Virginia to Georgia travel through Sweet- water Valley, stop there and be entertained by a hos- pitable and highly intelligent chief and draw a fancy sketch of the beauty and fertility of the country as it ap- peared then; narrate that he was also so much taken with the happiness of the Indian home that it inspired him to write the words and music of the song of "Home, Sweet Home"; naming it "Swatce Watee," which in the Cherokee vernacular meant "happy home." As a matter of fact neither of us knew of such words in the Cherokee language, and if there were such words had not the remotest idea what they meant. There could be no equivalent in any Indian language to our word "home," with its hallowed associations and civilized embellish- ments. "What is Home Without a Mother?" when translated into the Indian's idea would be, "What is a (smoky) tepee without a squaw (maybe two or three squaws, to fetch and carry and dig and cook and bear warriors to scalp the enemy?" An Indian squaw was no better than a beast of burden, to be thrown aside when she became useless. As the article referred to was signed by myself, the responsibility for the statements rested on me. On the one hand I was guyed for attempt- ing to "palm off any such silly stuff on an unsuspecting public," and on the other hand, which was worse, have the statements taken as true and come to me for con- firmation. I was sometimes tempted to stick to what I said and let them believe the lie and go their way; but here I am confessing my sins like a little man, as I should do, and promising to refrain from doing the like again. But-John Howard Payne, O, John Howard Payne! I almost wish that Home, Sweet Home, had not evolved from your fertile brain. Ramsey says in his Annals that Sweetwater had no Indian name, and, if it did, it bore no resemblance to its present one.
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A CHAPTER ON RACES.
There are recognized at least four races of men. Once geographically and more accurately than now they could have been named from the locations they occupied as the European, the Asiatic, the African, the American; or according to characteristics the Caucasian, the Mon- golian, the negro, the Indian; in relation to color, the white man, the yellow, the black and the red. Adopting either the biblical or evolutionary origin of man, it is equally uncertain where the cradle of the human race was. It is generally given as the highlands of Asia. This is, however, more speculation than actual history. There are individuals and even nations that are diffi- cult to be classed under any one of these heads and may resemble several of them. The most plausible explana- tion is that they are an admixture. In the early dawn of history, sacred and profane, the races were not so much inclined to amalgamate, but kept more distinct. Yet even the divine command could not keep the Hebrews apart from others. It is scarcely conceivable that the ten "lost" tribes of Israel were lost sight of except as being mingled with other nations of the globe. In the contest of races the strongest or, if you insist on the word, the "fittest" survives; mental and physical capa- city and environment make men and nations. A Ken- tuckian might use the phrase "blood will tell."
In the scheme of humanity or nations only two of these races, the white and the yellow, need to be taken into consideration in the future as determining the destiny of the world. They already occupy or control much the greater part of it. The white men own by far the most territory, but have not a very large preponder- ance in number. Judging the future by the past it is more than probable at some time the whole habitable globe will be controlled by one race, and we think that will be the white man.
The black and the red men have been nomadic in their nature. They have not the same attachment to home and country as the white man. When an Anglo-Saxon gets hold of a piece of land he erects his castle, and there he
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stays until driven off by a more powerful foe or is dis- possessed by legal process by the sheriff. The white man has the inventive power, he progresses. The yellow has only imitation, he is conservative. The white man has always held in slavery the black man, either by chains or commercially. The black man is no fighter. He doesn't know how to fight. The Indian lacks numbers, in- dustry and persistence. It is impossible either to enslave him or impart to him successfully the civilization and habits of the white man. When once he loses against the white man the places that knew him once know him no more forever. In one hundred years from now the small boy will give his dime to see a pure blooded Indian in a side show. The "barker" will say : "Ladies and gen- tlemen and children, buy your tickets here and step right in and behold one of the few pure living descendants of the powerful red man, who once held undisputed sway over our mighty continent. He was finally overcome by superior arms and numbers and such was his pride of race that he preferred extinction to becoming the serf or underling of his hated conqueror. Don't neglect this wonderful opportunity ; for it may be many, many moons before you have a chance to view his like again !"
The words of Pope have become so familiar that car- toonists sometimes name the Indian "Lo."
"Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in the clouds, or hears Him in the wind, His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill an humble heaven;
Some safer world in depths of woods embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be content's his natural desire.
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire.
But thinks admitted to yon oqual sky
His faithful dog shall bear him company."
"There is no good Indian but a dead one," said Kit Carson, and it. used to be such a favorite phrase out
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West as to become wearisome. Here you have the two views entirely opposite, the poet who knew the Indian from hearsay and the soldier and scout who thought he knew all about him from experience. However, Car- son's experience was more with the Sioux, Comanche and Apache than with the Cherokee. The fact remains that an Indian is Indian, a negro a negro and the white man a white man, and the two hundred years they have lived under the same government have not changed them.
The Hon. John B. Brownlow in an issue of the Knox- ville Daily Journal in speaking of how history is some- times made, or how error or a lie may become an ac- cepted fact among a people, says :
"A lie will beget permanent belief by constant itera- tion and reiteration. Constant dripping will wear a stone, and the muddier the water the faster the wear. We all believe a great many things which we know are not true. The thing most widely known about George Washington is that he cut down his father's cherry tree with 'his little hatchet,' and then expressed his inability to lie. No fact in the history of Washington has wider or deeper prevalence. We all know now that it is not true-but what is the use to 'argufy'? About the only thing that the best read people in the world know about William Tell is that he shot an apple off his little son's head. That never occurred-but why 'argufy' about it ? Lee did not surrender to Grant under an apple tree at Appomattox, but what is the use of taking issue with every old woman and school child in the land who says he did?"
It is just as popular an error that the Indians were cruelly treated when it was thought best to cause their removal across the Mississippi; but more of this here- after.
TREATIES WITH THE CHEROKEES.
Cessions o the State of North Carolina and the U. S. Government.
In May, 1783, the General Assembly of North Caro- lina opened an office for the sale of western .lands for the purpose of paying the arrears due officers and sol- diers on that part of the continental line which was raised in North Carolina and for the purpose of extin-
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guishing part of the national debt acquired in the pro- gress of the Revolutionary War. Without previous con- sultation with the Indians they enlarged the boundaries as follows: "Beginning at the point on the line be- tween Virginia and North Carolina due north from the mouth of Cloud's Creek; thence west to the Mississippi River; thence down said river to the line of 35 degrees of north latitude; thence east to the Appalachian Moun- tain chain ; thence with the same to the ridge that divides the waters of the Nolichucky and French Broad Rivers; thence with that ridge to Brown's line (Acts of North Carolina, 1778) ; thence with Brown's line to the be- ginning."
This was going farther than the General Assembly had a right to do and was almost certain to involve the State and settlers in bloody and expensive wars with the Cherokees and other Indian tribes. However, before much of the territory mentioned had been taken up under this act, the Legislature saw the unwisdom of it, and for this and other reasons they ceded their claim to this and other territory to the United States with certain con- ditions attached. This was in the year 1784. Congress, however, refused to accept the cession, and the act was afterward repealed.
Then John Sevier and others claiming that the State of North Carolina had parted title to the land so ceded to the United States, organized the State of Franklin, and held a session of the Legislature in Greenville in 1785.
They elected United States senators, passed acts and attempted to exercise all the powers of a State. "Thus," says Ramsey, "in the beginning of 1786 was presented the spectacle of two empires exercised at one time over the same people and territory."
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