USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee the making of a state > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
On the sixth of September, 1794, General Robertson ordered Major Ore to destroy the lower Cherokee towns. Guided by Brown and a trusty half breed scout, the troops advanced to the Tennessee, and arrived upon its banks several miles below the mouth of the Sequatchie. Rafts and floats were rapidly and silently constructed. With the assistance of these and several hide canoes brought for the purpose, the soldiers passed secretly and swiftly over the river, in the early dawn, before the first rays of sunshine had fallen upon the tree tops above them. Some had been forced to swim, although the current of the river, which is here about three quarters of a mile wide, was strong and swift. Having all assembled upon the opposite bank, the ranks were formed and the number counted. There were five hundred.1 The Indians were as yet totally oblivious of their danger. The troops were divided into two wings .. The main body under Whitly was to make a detour and attack Niekojack above; the other, under Montgomery, below. The knowledge of the
1 Haywood says two hundred and sixty. I follow the official report of Ore, which gives this number.
161
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
topographical features of the ground obtained from the former captive, to whom every path, every tree, every knoll was familiar, was invaluable, and alone rendered possible the complete surprise without which the expedi- tion would, at least partially, have miscarried. Having once ascended the narrow path and gotten upon the pla- teau on which the town stood, without alarming its in- mates, the main points of the campaign had been gained, and the details were easy of execution. The silence of death brooded over the little village. The soldiers, chiefly those from the Cumberland settlement, gazed with a sort of joyous exultation upon the unprotected homes and families of those who had often brought misery and destruction upon their homes and their families. They had come as destroyers and avengers. Two houses in a field of corn were seen. Beyond these stood the village. Here the first shot was fired, and orders were given by Montgomery to push steadily forward to the main village, abont two hundred and fifty yards distant. Hurrying rap- idly forward, the huts were found vacant. Whitly. hear- ing the firing and being advised by Brown, sent him back with a detachment of about twenty men to intereept those who might try to escape from the mouth of the creek that emptied into the river below the village. The Indians, as soon as they heard the first firing, had hurried to the landing where the canoes were fastened in the vain hope of escape. But being warned in advance by Brown, Montgomery's men hastened forward, and falling upon them slaughtered them in pitiless rage as they came upon them. Whitly, having placed his guards so as to prevent any escape to the upper towns or any reinforcements from them, came down upon them from the other side. The surprise was complete - the destruction was thorough. Running Water. a large village but strategically less im- portant than Niekojack, was four miles higher up the river. Having destroyed Niekojack and slaughtered its
-
ـيبة
162
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
inhabitants, the troops pushed forward towards Running Water, and although the inhabitants had made good their escape, they razed it to the ground. The villages higher up the river than these were small and of little moment. Their destruction could be accomplished when it became necessary. The utter annihilation of Nickojaek and Run- ning Water accomplished the objects of the raid, and the brave old Cumberland settlers recrossed the river, exultant and triumphant, flushed with victory and glutted with revenge. This was not then regarded an ignoble passion. To those who had lost a child, a wife, some relative, many friends, it became a duty, and its gratification an expia- tion. The Cumberland people looked forward to a long period of quiet and peace. Now that entrance had been obtained, the idea of perfect seclusion was gone. With this went all hope of continuing successfully the old sys- tem of warfare. The Indians who escaped, either joined the Overhill Cherokees or moved lower down the river.
With the fall of Nickojack the question of Indian depredations passed out of the daily thoughts of the Cum- berland people. There were occasional murders and thefts of horses, waylaying of trains of merchandise. and at times captures of emigrant boats. Runners or scouts paid out of the public funds, whose duty it was to pass from settle- ment to settlement and keep an outlook for Indians. sur- vived nearly to the Creek wars. But the dangers were chiefly such as were natural incidents of frontier life and an unsettled state of society, and were as frequently caused by desperadoes and lawless white men as Indians. The secretary of war wrote to Governor Blount. and Gov- ernor Blount wrote a severe letter to Robertson, when news of the destruction of Indian towns in the limits of Indian territory arrived in Washington and Knoxville. A correspondence ensued, and General Robertson offered his resignation as brigadier-general of Mero District. But here the matter ended. It soon passed from public discussion and was forgotten.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SPANISH INTRIGUES.
Ix Ore's report to Governor Blount of the destruction of the Cherokee towns, we find the following significant passage : " A quantity of ammunition powder and lead lately arrived there from the Spanish government, and a commission for the Breath, the head man of the town (who was killed), and sundry horses and other articles of prop- erty were found at Nickojack and Running Water, which were known to have belonged to different people killed by the Indians in the course of the last twelve months." In the same letter he says, " At Nickojack were found two fresh scalps, which had lately been taken at Cumberland. and several that were old were hanging in the houses of the warriors as trophies."
The juxtaposition of the two articles of Spanish ammu- nition and American scalps typifies the relative attitudes occupied by the Indians towards the two nations who then owned the region of country which is now the South- west of the United States. By the treaty of 1762 Spain came into possession of all territory held by the French, west of the Mississippi River. By the treaty of 1783 Spain gained from England what was indefinitely known as Florida, and claimed the ownership of all the country east of the Mississippi up to the 31st degree of latitude. Succeeding the French in their North American posses- sions, the Spanish fell heir also to their policy. The French, in their futile endeavor to unite the North Ameri- can continent, of which they owned the two extremes of
164
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
north and south, connected their possessions by building forts and trading posts through the vast valley of the Mississippi. Between these they kept up a constant line of communication. In this way Du Quesne had been built, and St. Genevieve, Kaskaskia, Vincennes, Nachito- ches on Red River, and St. Louis and Natchez on the banks of the Mississippi itself. The Spaniards subse- quently added Lance de Grace, now New Madrid in Mis- souri. Du Quesne had passed into the possession of the United States, but the old trading posts still remained under the sway of the great bankrupt monarchy of the Old World. In 1783 the statesmen of Spain were filled with the same vain dreams which have raised up gorgeous visions of a magnificent southwestern empire in the minds of the statesmen of four nationalities. Indeed, this idea is almost indestructible. There is something in the geo- graphical outlines, in the natural outlets of commerce, in the resources of the soil, which suggests almost sponta- neously a great empire in the region of country drained by the Ohio, the Tennessee. the Arkansas, the Tombigbee, the Red, the Sabine, and the Mississippi rivers. From La Salle, who saw its primitive wonders and whose life was the noble offering to the sincerity of his aspirations, to Aaron Burr, the unstable and meteoric American in whom the hope was treason, the finest, the broadest, and the most statesmanlike ininds of two continents have been caught by the fascination of the thought.
Spain's intercourse with the Indians was directly subser- vient to the scheme of extending her territory as far north as the valley of the Ohio. This was the coveted prize, but the means adopted for its attainment lie beyond the scope of a popular history of Tennessee. It is one of the romances of history. It is remarkable as being one of the few instances where diplomacy accomplished great results unaided by force. The various phases of the intel- lectual contest, where the keenest weapons were the wits
1
165
SPANISH INTRIGUES.
of statesmen and the most effective feints the subter- fuges of diplomats, make one of the most entertaining and absorbing pages of the world's history. But Tennes- see was touched only at various points, and, in as far as its own development was concerned, in no decisive man- ner. A part of the present State was claimed by Spain, but none of the region then settled.
A more dangerous claim, however, was the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi River. The policy of the Spanish governors who represented that country at Pen- sacola and New Orleans was to attempt the extirpation of the young and growing settlements by instigating the Indians to continued hostilities, furnishing them ammuni- tion for their purposes and playing upon their cupidity. Failing in this, the next attempt was to act directly upon the settlers themselves, first winning their friendship by allowing their commerce special privileges in the naviga- tion of the Mississippi River, and then exciting their fears by threats of excluding them entirely from a trade which they found lucrative. The name of Governor Mero was given the Cumberland district as an expression of regard and gratitude on the part of the Cumberland people for favors extended their trading boats and the freight they carried to Natchez and New Orleans.
The question of the navigation of the Mississippi River, however, never resulted in exciting any feeling at all friendly towards Spain. Any threats to exclude the Wa- tauga or the Cumberland people from that river aroused their earnest indignation. The intrigues of the Spanish authorities were directed towards the estrangement of the western settlements from the United States and their ultimate union with Spain. Sevier and Robertson have both been accused of complicity in these intrigues. Letters of Robertson are extant which are proof conclu- sive. But it is scarcely a matter of doubt that he was merely trying to placate the Spaniards in hopes of pro-
166
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
tecting the settlement under his charge. Governor Mero at New Orleans was the leading mind among the repre- sentatives of Spain in the new country, and there is reason to believe that his urbane and liberal character turned with disgust from the policy which supplied the Indians with the weapons of assassination and the means of de- bauchery. Up to 1792, when he was succeeded by Car- ondelet, a man of narrower mind and a smaller heart, he used all available weapons of diplomacy to accomplish his purpose, without the exercise of violence. Besides grant- ing commercial privileges and exemptions, he attempted to found an American colony on Spanish soil, at Lance de Grace or New Madrid, west of the Mississippi River. He held out glittering promises to those who would break from the bondage of the weak government that languished at the American capital, either to form a separate govern- ment or to become a part of the Spanish Empire.
The policy of extermination was productive of the bitterest results to the settlements. Generally the Ameri- can frontier men only felt the effects of Spanish malig- nancy in the acts of Indian hostilities, but occasionally they came face to face with the evil influence in the persons of Spanish traders.1 In a letter written by Robertson and Bledsoe to Governor Caswell in 1787, they say, " It is certain, as the Chickasaws inform us, that the Spanish traders offer rewards for scalps of the Americans." The only Indian of great ability among the aborigines at that time was a Creek chief, Alexander McGillivray, who, according to an enthusiastic Alabamian, was the greatest man ever born on Alabama soil. Though not a Cherokee. his influence among all the tribes was great, and around
1 Haywood, Ramsey, and Putnam speak indiscriminately of Spanish and French traders. As a rule they were of French extraction, but baving come under the dominion of Spain, and having no national principles or preferences, they were, for the purposes for which Gayoso, Mero, and Carondelet used Indian traders, Spaniards.
------
1
167
SPANISH INTRIGUES.
him revolved the intrigues which involved the Indians in the struggles between America and Spain. MeGillivray was one of the most remarkable products of his age. Closely connected by blood with both races, he inherited in a strangely incongruous degree the peculiarities of both. His bearing was so winningly gracious, and so frankly cor- dial, and his speech so clear and so fluent, that strangers meeting him for the first time could only stare at him in silent amazement. Living in the squalor of an Indian cabin, he had accumulated what the finest gentleman in Madrid would have regarded as wealth. Possessing the manners and the education of a man of the world, he took pride in cheap titles and badges of distinction which the least philosophie white man of his day would have deemed trivial if not contemptible. He hated all of the race from which he derived the better part of his blood, but he unhesitatingly and unscrupulously united with all through whom he could accomplish his purpose. His cupidity was marvelous, and was open to temptations from the things which appealed to the Indian's fancy as well as the things which excited the white man's love of gold. He lacked all idea of moral rectitude both from the Indian's and the white man's standpoint, and having accepted a bribe from the United States, he at once notified the Spanish authorities of his readiness to hear from them. In 1784 he entered into a treaty with the Span- iards looking to the total destruction of the Cumberland settlement. For ten years he never relaxed his exertions for the attainment of that object.
Robertson knew his influence among his people and the Cherokees, and knowing also the magnitude of his vanity, addressed him on one occasion a formal communication full of vague flatteries in the hope that he could be in- duced to exert his influence for peace. McGillivray received his messengers with lavish hospitality and over- whelmed them with praises of Robertson, and promises
1
168
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of eternal peace. The presents offered he graciously ac- cepted. Nothing was changed, however, in the status of affairs.
The evil influence exerted by the Spaniards finally came to an end with the opening of the Mississippi River to the free navigation of both nations. The Niekojack expedition of 1794, and the treaty of 1795, each removed from Tennessee history a disturbing factor. But one impediment remained in the presence of Indians on the territory of the future State. These were removed grad- ually and at various times as required by the exigencies of progress in the making of the State.
--
CHAPTER XIX.
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE.
A DESCRIPTION of the manners and customs and mode of life of those who inhabited Tennessee at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury is, with minor modifications, a description of the manners and customs and mode of life of those who, at the present day in the far West, are still extending the limits of civilization and laying the foundations of un- named republics. The same general conditions exist, the same desires for self-advancement, the same longing for material prosperity and mental improvement, the same instinct of self-government. We have passed the primi- tive stage of our existence by a lapse of time which, com- pared with the period of notable change in older commu- nities, is scarcely worthy of historical notice, but which is the interval separating youth and inexperience from age and full-blown maturity in the history of the western American States. With all the evidences of the most progressive state of civilization around us, and being in the very foremost files of time, it is difficult for us to grasp as an actual state of society that in which our grand- fathers and grandmothers lived. There is but a step from the wild fox to the cotton-gin, an almost inapprecia- ble point of time from the packhorse to the railroad. With the change in material conditions has come a change in habits of life, in social customs. in the very woof of our daily existence. But we should not forget that this change has been greater in the city than in the country.
170
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
As we pass in review the life of our near ancestors, as we look into their cabins and follow them to their social gatherings, those who know the present will be struck by the points of resemblance between the things of that day and what still remains in many of the rural districts of this State, especially East Tennessee.
The population of Tennessee in 1790 is given in the federal census of that year, as 25,691. In 1795, when the census was taken under Governor Blount, the total number of inhabitants was discovered to be 77,262. In five years the population had more than trebled. Of these only about 2,500 were in Davidson, Tennessee, and Sum- ner counties. The emigrants who had come in since the formation of the Territory, which had increased the impetus of inflow, were, as a rule, in better circum- stances than the old Watauga heroes. They also had less dangers to encounter. Many were soldiers of the Revo- lution who had come to locate their grants of land. Many were families brought in by speculators who held lands they were anxious to have cleared. Many came for vari- ous other reasons. Some came from New England and Pennsylvania, traveling down the ridge along which lay the great highway of emigration. The greater number, however, came from Virginia, by what was called the Good-Spur route, passing through Western Virginia and down the Holston valley. Others came across the Stone and the Yellow Mountains. A wagon road had been opened from Burke County to Jonesboro, but it was not always possible to use wagons in traveling it. But whether on foot, on horseback, or in wagons, they came, and from early spring until late fall the road leading into Jonesboro presented the appearance of a desultory pro- cession. Arrived here, each party rested, mingled with the people, distributed letters which they had brought. gave the latest news from the sea-board, found out the location of their lands, or the nearest and best road to
171
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE.
the place they were seeking, and then pushed resolutely on, to Rogersville, to Greeneville, to Knoxville, or to some of the intervening forts or stations. Perhaps they de- sired to go to the Cumberland settlements. If so, they made their way by land over the newly opened and level road by way of the Clinch River, from the lower end of Clinch Mountain, or they embarked at Fort Patrick Henry, or Knoxville, to make the attempt by water. This, however, not so often, on account of the river pirates who made the voyage but little less dangerous than it had been during the time of the five lower towns.
Compared with the actual dimensions of the State, the portions then inhabited were but as tufts of civilization in a Sahara of wilderness and barbarous solitude. If one of the new-comers had been carried up so high as to have a bird's-eye view of the settlements, he would have seen little to please the fancy beyond the wilderness of natural scenery. In the far west he would have seen on the banks of the Mississippi where Memphis now stands a small fort filled with a few Spanish officers and soldiers, perhaps a drunken Indian in the door of a hut. Here and there he would have detected isolated wigwams reach- ing towards the south. Perhaps he might have seen glimpses of the Great Natchez Trace, which led from Nashville to the great trading emporium of the South- west. After his eye had passed over miles of silent for- ests, fields, and streams, he would have seen an irregular collection of cabins and block-houses scattered up and down the Cumberland and along the banks of the Caney Fork, Stone River, and a few creeks that emptied into the Cumberland in the neighboring district of country. The whole settlement would not have covered much more than forty miles square, and when the mouth of Red River with its germ of Clarksville had been passed, wil- derness and desolation would again have met the eye. In the extreme east the sight would have been little more
1
1
172
ILISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
gratifying. There he. would have seen small wooden- house villages and palisaded cabins seattered up and down a half dozen valleys, beginning in a kind of point in Sul- livan County, far away among the head waters of the Hol- ston River, spreading out through valley and glen and along river and creek, and gradually coming again to an end at Southwest Point near the junction of the Clinch and the Tennessee Rivers. Not quite one eighteenth of the State was occupied.
If the condition of the highways of a country be taken as an index of a country's prosperity, the condition of Tennessee during these times was deplorable indeed. It is a pardonable exaggeration to say that there were no roads worthy the name. At first the line of emigration advanced to the Watauga settlements by tortuous paths leading over the Appalachian Mountains. In some places, where the forest was unusually dark and intricate, an occasional tree was blazed along the line of travel. The deserted campfires, with their heaps of ashes and broken undergrowth, assisted those who followed in the wake of more adventurous travelers. If rains or storms came, shelter was sought under a neighboring tree or ledge of rock. It was nothing unusual for a traveler to lose his way. Returning from Tennessee to North Carolina, James Robertson barely escaped with his life, having lost his way. At times the declivities of the mountains were so great that it became necessary to alight from the horse and descend on foot. The first road which was made by man was one for vehicles which ran from Jonesboro court - house into Burke County, and the chroniclers all observed that the number of emigrants with some. degree of wealth at once increased in a re- markable degree. The roads which led from the various settlements were long neglected. Even as late as 1797, Bishop Asbury says sarcastically, "My horse hath the honor of swimming Holston River every time I visit the
1
173
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE.
country." Nor were the rivers and ravines the only sources of danger, for many an unwary traveler received a blow under the chin from an overhanging limb, or had his knee crushed against a tree, even where the roads were best. When lost, the traveler had but three sources of comfort- chance, Providence, and the instinct of his horse, and in the absence of Indian violence it rarely happened that he failed of all three. Among the most romantic passages of our early history were the adven- tures which befell those who traveled from East to Mid- dle Tennessee. Up to 1787 the usual route of emigrants was by way of the Kentucky wilderness in a direct line from the east. But in 1787 the General Assembly of North Carolina made provision for a troop of three hundred men who were first to cut a road from the lower end of Clinch Mountain in a direct line to Nashville, at least ten feet wide, and then to act as guards for bands of incoming emigrants. The starting point was Campbell's Station, and it was customary to give public notice of the time of departure.
As early as 1783, and in fact earlier, the western settle- ments began to turn their attention to the improvement of the roads connecting the various forts and stations. In 1783 a road which had been previously laid out was ordered cleared from Mansker's Station to Nashville. The undergrowth of cane was so great that it was dangerous to go from one fort to another. and as a measure of pre- caution this was gradually cleared away.
The general topography of the country was primitive and barbarous. Bishop Asbury in his Journal, makes constant allusions to the gloomy scenes through which he passes. Tyger's Valley he calls the " Valley of Distress." This he reached " after crossing six mountains and many rocky creeks and fords." The Gap he compares to " the shades of death in the Alleghany Mountains." On an- other occasion a Mrs. Scott was four days in traveling two miles through a declivitous thicket.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.