USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee the making of a state > Part 12
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The Territory being formed, it became necessary to find
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a man capable of meeting the delicate requirements of the governorship. Patrick Henry, who knew the stubborn temper of the Western people, suggested and urged the nomination of Mason of Virginia. But unfortunately for Henry's nominee, there appeared a man singularly fitted for the position by his character, his affiliations with the inhabitants of the new country, his popularity among them, his knowledge of Indian affairs, and his personal intimacy with Washington himself. This was William Blount of North Carolina, who received the appointment. The choice could not have been more fortunate. It is true he lacked the thorough knowledge of Indian character which only came from personal contact and was too cred- ulous. But he understood better than any man of his day the diplomatic relations of the Indian tribes and the United States, and was heartily in accord with those who regarded the aborigines as blocks in the path of progress and civilization. He possessed in an eminent degree the confidence of the people of the Territory. He appreciated as no man of equal knowledge of law and government appreciated the difference between the lack of social polish and the sturdy spirit of independence which, though rugged and uncouth, brooked no infringement of right and no trespass on accepted custom. He had perhaps involun- tarily caught something of the Old World elegance from the foreign element which in those days thronged our larger cities and was himself on occasions as stately, dignified, and courtly as any of those who frequented the salons of Paris, to pay light compliments to Madame Recamier or to laugh at the saturnine witticisms of the Encyclopedists. But he also possessed the soldierly cama- raderie that embraces all noble spirits irrespective of outward habiliments. His nomination was hailed with universal satisfaction, and the machinery of the new gov- ernment started off without a jar. David Campbell, who appeared to have a prescriptive right to the position, was
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appointed judge. Daniel Smith was made secretary. When the General Assembly was organized, in 1794, the members of the legislative council were Griffith Ruther- ford, John Sevier, James Winchester, Stockley Donelson, and Parmenas Taylor. In the east the Franklinites, or " Franks," were generally appointed to office. Upon the recommendation of Blount, Sevier was made brigadier- general of Washington Distriet and James Robertson of Mero District.
The administration of Governor Blount is undistin- guished by any event of great legislative importance. A few counties were formed, among the number, Tennessee County, the act for the establishment of which had been passed by the General Assembly of North Carolina be- fore the cession.
The seat of government was removed from Rogersville, where it had been first located, to Knoxville, and with it the " Knoxville Gazette," the first Tennessee newspaper, which had received its name in anticipation of the change. The proprietor, James White. the father of Hugh Lawson White, laid off a town which he named Knoxville, in honor of the secretary of war of Wash- ington's cabinet. In 1792 Knox County was taken from Greene and Hawkins counties, and immediately the beginnings of a town began to appear at Knoxville. the county seat. The three leading features of Governor Blount's administration were the contests with the In- dians, the gradual extinguishment of their title to lands in the limits of the present State, and the final triumph of America in the diplomatie contests with Spain.
Indian hostilities eame practically if not absolutely to an end with the Niekojaek expedition. The final extin- guishment of the Indian title was not accomplished until many years after Tennessee had become a State. But the treaty of 1791 and its ratifieation in 1794 inaug- urated the policy which was to control the future dealings
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of the United States with the Indians. Treaties. how- ever, merely secured the results which were assured by the expedition against the lower towns. In the east, Se- vier made various expeditions against the Indians, upon each of which he destroyed their towns and their corn- fields. Immediately upon his return from North Caro- lina after his escape, he was called into active service. During his absence General Joseph Martin attempted to lead an expedition against the Cherokees, but his men, accustomed to Sevier, lost confidence and forced him to return. Scarcely had they arrived at Knoxville and dis- persed when a body of Creeks and Cherokees fell upon Fort Gillespie and destroyed it. Sevier precipitated him- self upon them with the flight of an eagle, and took pris- oners enough to release by exchange all white captives in the Indian villages. In this way, Joseph Brown, at that time a prisoner in one of the lower towns and the future guide of the Niekojack expedition, was set free. Other attempts of the Indians to break the power of the east- ern settlements met with like fate. In 1793 occurred the attack on Cavet's Station. The government at Washing- ton had been trying to keep down all hostilities against the Indians, fearing an interruption of the negotiations with Spain. After the attack on Cavet's Station, Daniel Smith, the acting governor of the Territory, disregarded the orders of Congress and gave the permission for which the whole body of the people were elamoring - an organ- ized invasion of their territory. John Sevier, reinforced by large bodies of troops from the three distriets of the Territory, pushed immediately into the enemies' country. He crossed the Little Tennessee and burnt Estimaula, one of their largest villages. Expecting an attack from the Indians who were lurking in the woods around their de- serted villages, he formed his men in two parallel lines along the banks of the Estimaula River. A midnight at- tack resulted in the defeat of the Indians. Sevier ad-
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vanced through the fairest section of the Indian territory, burning and destroying as he went. Arriving at Etowah, an Indian village situated in the vicinity of the present town of Rome in Georgia, he came upon the retreating forces of the Indians which had been augmenting as they fled. Falling fiercely upon them with more than his usual impetuosity, Sevier put them utterly to rout and over- threw their power. This was the heaviest disaster which had ever befallen the Indians, and with the fall of Eto- wah came practically to an end the long line of Indian massacres in East Tennessee, which had begun almost with the building of William Bean's cabin. This was Sevier's last campaign. On his return he was met with enthusiastic applause by the people for whom he had accomplished so much, and the Cumberland settlers sent him messages of earnest gratitude.
In the west the entire administration of Governor Blount was filled with the annals of Indian warfare. On the 20th of July, 1788, Colonel Anthony Bledsoe, the brave old Indian fighter and surveyor, who had passed unscathed through all the dangers and hardships of pitched battles and frontier life, was assassinated in his own cabin. Hearing his cattle rushing by his cabin, he stepped out of his room and was shot. In 1789, Robert- son, while working with several laborers in a field near his house, was wounded in the foot by a shot from a thicket of cane. In the pursuit which followed, Andrew Jackson, a newly arrived lawyer, distinguished himself by his reckless daring and cool presence of mind.1 Danger was ever present. The fields could not be worked without
1 Parton confuses this event, which took place in 1789, with the wound which General Robertson received in 1792. Andrew Jackson figured in the former. The only pursuit in the latter year was that by the Indians of General Robertson and his son Jonathan. In the the first case, Robertson was wounded in the foot, in the second, in the arm. The latter wound was a running sore for many years.
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guards on the outlook. Every step was, perhaps, a step towards the grave. We still have a general order of Robertson's, dated April 5, 1789, calling on the militia to be ready to march at any moment. The low under- growth of cane offered an almost perfect shelter to a lurk- ing foe, and it became necessary to destroy it along the paths which ran between the various forts. In 1791, about the time of the Holston Treaty, Robertson tried to stay the hostilities of the Indians by a visit to their na- tion. But he soon found that the lull was merely tempo- rary. Information came of a scalp-dance and war-orgie among the Chickamauga-Cherokees, who acknowledged no obligations of treaty. The Treaty of New York at which Alexander McGillivray, the wonderful Talleyrand of the Creeks, duped Washington and his representatives out of $100,000 as a douceur for himself and an indefinite quan- tity of blankets, dry goods, and hardware for his people, had never been regarded by the Creeks as anything more than an evidence of their finesse and of American credu- lity. Americans made treaties, gained possession of the land, and then violated the provisions of the treaties. For lands, the Creeks substituted supplies of the things they prized, and considered their policy not less laudable than that of their white brothers. In 1792 the Creeks changed their line of conduct, and actuated, no doubt, by the for- eign traders, chiefly Spanish, who feared to see the trade which they found so lucrative slip from their grasp, at- tempted to gain advantage of the Robertson people by diplomacy. Several of their chiefs called on Robertson at Nashville, to smoke the pipe of peace in the big wig- wam of their brother. The old soldier received them with cordiality. He fed them bountifully, gave them
drink, and dismissed them with presents. But he kept Rains and Jennings and Castleman and other eseorts in the woods. Having had some peace talks, Governor Blount became elated and wrote to Robertson, " Watts
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has sent me a peuce talk, and a string of white beads. I believe he is in earnest." He saw the near end of Indian warfare. But Sevier possessed a clearer, a more pene- trating vision. "The governor is too hopeful," he wrote. ' Ile hopes against hope." Even in the midst of these friendly interchanges, Robertson continued his prepara- tions for war, and organized anew the militia of three counties - Tennessee County having been recently added. The regular militia was distributed among the various forts for local duty. A reserve of five hundred men. ex- empt from local duty, was kept constantly ready to serve at a moment's notice. The military household of the dis- . trict was further strengthened by the presence of a body of cavalry under Major Sharpe. Though under the im- mediate command of the governor of the Territory, he was required to act in conjunction with General Robert- son, and being put in rank above the colonels of the dis- trict, though only a major, was the cause of one of them, Winchester, resigning.
In this year the settlers received an earnest of the friendliness of the Creeks in the murder of the three sons of Colonel Valentine Sevier, the brother of General Se- vier. Valentine Sevier had settled at the mouth of the Red River, near where the hilly and picturesque little town of Clarksville now stands, and his sons, when killed, were in a boat going up Cumberland River. But filled with the courage of his race, Sevier strengthened his fortification and remained at his post. This was but one instance of the outeropping of the spirit which, over and above the question of self-interest, introduced an element of heroism and chivalric loyalty to a noble mission into the desperate struggles which characterized the founding of this State. A few months after the death of Sevier's three sons and their companions, the Indians attacked Zigler's Station, a fort on the west fork of Bledsoe's Creek. During a time when one man dared not drink
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from a spring unless another stood with a rifle cocked to protect him, the night guards of a large station slumbered at their posts. The Indians stealthily surrounded the fort, opened the gate, and rushed in. Resistance was use- less. They killed five people and captured about twenty more. This disaster came heavily home to the settlers. Never before had so many of their friends fallen at one blow. The indignant troops clamored to be led against the common foe. Robertson refused. It was against or- ders, and the old settlers listened with incredulous aston- ishment as they were told by one who never trifled, that the governor of the Territory had forbidden any pursuit of the Indians into their own country. This meant, of course, the interdiction of all pursuit. Washington at this time was engaged in an arduous diplomatic struggle. The least jar might break the fine network of diplomatic threads in which Jay was endeavoring to entangle the Spanish authorities. The murder of a trader might bring about a refusal on the part of Spain to allow to America the free navigation of the Mississippi River. This re- fusal meant something which was frequently heard in the thriving young settlements of the Ohio valley, and even in the senate chamber at Philadelphia, but not from the persuasive lips of the American diplomat. On this ac- count, for this reason, Blount was ordered by Knox, the secretary of war, to allow no offensive operations beyond the bounds of the Territory of which he was governor. Blount in turn ordered Robertson to forbid all offensive operations beyond the limits assigned the Indians by the Treaty of Holston, that is, east of the ridges which divide the waters of the Cumberland and the Tennessee. But the people chafed. One John Edmiston organized a company of his own to invade the Indian country, but was restrained by an order of Robertson which compelled him to disband his troops. In return for this, Robertson received an anon- ymous letter from "a citizen of the new district," who
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vented his spleen by wishing " Edmiston great success, and you gone from hence and a better in your room."1 The navigation of the Mississippi River was an important ques- tion to the broad vision, the clear foresight, and the happy statesmanship of Sevier. But to Robertson, with his brother and his sons and his friends falling about him, and with the marks of two bullets on his own person, it was vague, shadowy, intangible. A burning fort and a dozen or so scalped women and children were, on the contrary, an absolute tangibility, a thing full of arguments, reasons, and conelusions. It requires but little imagination to picture the strain placed upon his sense of duty. It finally be- came too great and he yielded. But in both it is no diffi- cult matter to see that he was actuated by motives which the most captious must allow to have been pure and noble. Robertson's self-containment in one thing found its reward. A Creek chief falsely reported to his tribe a threat of Robertson's: "There has been a good deal of blood spilt in our settlement, and I will come and sweep it clean with your blood." Robertson was known among all the Indians of the four nations as a man of his word in peace and in war, and the Creeks thought it best to take the initiative. From Lookout Mountain they sent friendly talks to Governor Blount, filled with assurances of good- will and abiding friendship. Blount was completely de- ceived. On the 12th of September, before the arrival of the messenger with the friendly talk, he sent an order to Robertson to enroll as mauy men as possible for the pur- pose of resisting the impending invasion. On the 14th of September he sent directions to Robertson to " dis- charge such part of the brigade of Mero District as may be in service under my order of the 12th instant. I
1 This, however, was merely a babbler's expression of the senti- ment of discontent that prevailed generally throughout the entire community, an impatience directed not against Robertson so much as the authority that controlled his actions. Robertson himself shared the same feeling.
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heartily congratulate you and the District of Mero upon the happy change of affairs. I really had dreadful ap- prehensions for you." On the 16th he sends an express : " The danger is imminent." Between the 14th and the 16th the lower Creek towns had declared war, and six hundred Indians had erossed the Tennessee River to wage a war of extermination. The spies reported danger be- fore Blount's last message came. Notably, Abraham Castleman had, made a circuit of the woods of more than sixty miles, and returning predicted an impending inva- sion. Blount's congratulations, however, had deceived the people. Even Robertson, who had a high estimate of Castleman's woodcraft and a very low estimate of Gov- ernor Blount's, was perplexed. He sent out Rains and Kennedy in one direction, Clayton and Gee in another. The latter were never seen again. The former returned and reported no traces of Indians to be found. Castle- man was good-naturedly chided for his over-caution, and John Rains looked with kindly malice at the old Indian fighter as he drily continued his preparations for an elab- orate war.
Castleman was right. The Creeks, Cherokees, and Shaw- nees, to the number of six hundred, had stolen within a few miles of the Cumberland settlement before their presence was discovered. Their first point of attack was Buchanan's Station, which was defended by only fifteen available men. But for some cause the attack of the en- tire force was easily repulsed without the loss of a life in the station. One of the Indian chiefs was killed in an attempt to fire the buildings, and another was wounded. The number of killed was not known. This is one of the most remarkable incidents in the early border warfare of the Southwest. So wonderful, indeed, that even some of the pioneers believed in the direct interposition of Provi- dence. Both Haywood and Ramsey agree in estimating the number of the Indians at about six hundred. Blount
Ł
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in a letter describing the attack says the Indians num- bered from three to four hundred. An account of the attack, published in the Whig " Review " of 1852, which was founded on information derived from the Indians themselves, agrees with these estimates in putting the number of the assailants among the hundreds.
The repulse of the Indians by the Buchanan Station people failed to cause even a temporary cessation of their hostilities, and scattered in small bands through the set- tlements, they wrought more mischief than when organ- ized. Governor Blount, who had sufficiently elear ideas of the exigeneies of Indian warfare, and who among other things had a block-house built at Southwest Point,1 or- ganized two regiments of militia and placed them under the command of John Sevier. But scarcely had the troops been properly formed when orders came from the secretary of war to have them mustered out of service.
In 1793 another war broke out, in consequence of the killing by John Beard and his party of several Indian chiefs who had assembled at Knoxville by order of the president to arrange some dispute in reference to bound- ary lines. It was found impossible to get a court-martial to punish Beard. The Cherokees retaliated, Henry's Station was attacked and its inmates slaughtered. In turn a company of riflemen under Doherty and Mc- Farland invaded the Indian country and destroyed six of their villages.
All during 1792 and 1793 the Cumberland settlement still suffered from the effects of Indian warfare. In 1793 Abraham Castleman, whom the Indians called the " Fool Warrior," with Eli Hammond and others, in direet viola- tion of the orders of Congress and Governor Blount, crossed the Tennessee River and made a raid into the Indian country. The indignation of the frontier had gradually grown too strong for restraint. The people, in 1 Near Kingston of this day.
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the exereise of that right which in America is considered superior to all written law, the right of self-defense, began in a spirit of stern determination to make preparations for a war of retaliation and invasion. General Robertson raised troops in Nashville, Montgomery in Clarksville, Miles and Ford in the region of country between these two points. Major Ore who had been sent to Mero Dis- triet by Blount with troops, immediately joined the enter- prise. Kentucky was invited to lend aid, and Colonel Whitly of that State, having brought to the rendezvous a small body of troops, was given nominal command of the combined forces. The expedition at first was called Ore's Expedition. Ore was then in the service of the United States, and it was hoped this would give the expedition a certain appearance of authority. Both Ore and Rob- ertson were acting contrary to orders. But the exaspera- tion of the people was too great - delay was impossible. The immediate cause of the expedition was the murder of a man named Chew. with a party of fifteen, the assassina- tion of two young Bledsoes. sons of Anthony Bledsoe. and the murder of Major Winchester one of the magistrates of Sumner County. The point of attack was the five lower towns of the Chickamaugas, of which the most noted was Nickojack. From this, the expedition received its name of the Nickojack Expedition, by which it is still known. For a long time, this expedition, which is the most celebrated of all the incidents of early Indian war- fare in Tennessee, received a kind of apocryphal notoriety as being the first military exploit of Andrew Jackson since his boyish rencontre with the British officer. Ram- sey gives him the credit of having planned the entire attack. But recent research has placed it beyond doubt that Jackson was not present.
There is something suggestive of the fatuitous march of events in a Greek tragedy, in the Nickojack expedition and the fate of the lower Cherokee towns. Even the
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element of prophecy was not lacking, and the destruction which came was terrible, complete, and directly the result of the fiercest passion for revenge. The situation of these towns caught a certain air of picturesque grandeur from the natural scenery around them. The two most important were Nickojack and Running Water. They were situated on a precipice which was all but impregnable. A deep, broad, and dangerous river ran below. Beyond were the dense forests. penetrated only by the paths which successive generations of wild beasts had made, and the tall. inac- cessible peaks of the Cumberland Mountains, down whose dark and precipitous ravines it was supposed no horse could ever descend. The approach in the rear was im- possible to all but friends, and the Indians exultingly boasted that "Chucky Jack " himself would never be able to reach them in their retreat. The eagle in his eerie, the panther in his lair, could not be safer. Here dwelt the fierce and implacable Chickamangas, whose villages above had been destroyed by Shelby, and who, learning a lesson from the first surprise. had hoped to select a place where Nature herself would keep eternal guard over their women, children, and wigwams. Here, too, they had been joined by all the elements of lawlessness which had been outlawed by neighboring tribes as unfitted even for the duties which the laxity of Indian customs imposed. In addition to these had come some few of the white race - Ishmaels and outcasts from all the western world. Here they returned to rest after their labors of war. From here they could see the boats of traffic and emigration as they dropped down the Tennessee from Knoxville and Fort Henry on their way to Nashville, to Natchez, to Lance de Grace, to New Orleans, and from here they made the descents upon them which often brought them rich returns of plunder, of scalps, and of revenge. In 1788 a party of emigrants had thus fallen into their hands. It consisted of the family of a man named Brown,
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on his way to Cumberland. Having treacherously and by fair words gotten the party into their power, the Indians slew all but the smallest children. These were reserved for adoption into the tribe or for torture, as the accident of the hour might suggest. One of the children, a half grown boy, was held a prisoner for several years and eventually released by exchange through the instrumen- tality of John Sevier. Before his departure an old squaw predicted that he would live to bring back an expedition to destroy them all, and insisted on tomahawking the lad to prevent the evil. The fear of Sevier, however, pre- vailed. The boy of 1788 was a man in 1794, and being urged by Robertson, he succeeded in discovering a horse- path through the thick and almost impenetrable forest and undergrowth that stretched between Nashville and the lower towns.
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