USA > Tennessee > The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Its Settlement, as the. > Part 50
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Further attempts were made to reach Cumberland. This year was signalized by an adventure of Col. James Brown, a Revolutionary officer in the North-Carolina line, who was now emigrating to Cumberland, to enter into possession of the lands allotted to him for military services. Taking with him to the distant wilderness, his family, consisting of his wife, five sons, two of whom were grown, and three younger, four small daughters, together with several negroes, he was unwilling to expose them to the dangers of the route through Cumberland Gap, or the more direct, but no less unsafe pas- sage, over the mountain ; and, therefore, determined to de- scend the Tennessee River, and reach Nashville, by ascend- ing the Ohio and Cumberland, to that place. The boat was built on Holston, a short distance below Long Island. He took the precaution to fortify it, by placing oak plank, two inches thick, all around above its gunwales. These were perforated with port-holes, at suitable distances. To these measures of defence was added a swivel, placed in the stern. Besides his two grown sons, James and John, Colonel Brown had five other young men, viz : J. Bays, John Flood, John Gentry, Wm. Gentry and John Griffin. These were all good marksmen. The emigrants, adventurers rather, embarked on the fourth of May. On the ninth, the boat passed the Chickamauga towns, about daybreak, and the Tuskigagee Island Town, a little after sunrise. The head man, Cutley Otoy, and three other warriors, came on board there, and were kindly treated. They then returned to their town, from which they immediately dispatched runners across the moun- tain to Running Water Town and Nickajack, to raise all the
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AND DISASTER OF COLONEL BROWN.
warriors they could get, to ascend the river and meet the boat. The narrative of the capture of the boat, the massa- cre of most of the passengers, and the captivity of such as survived, will be given in the words of the narrator-the youngest son-the late Colonel Joseph Brown, of Murray county, Tennessee .* It contains such a horrid recital of In- `dian cruelty and barbarism by the savage banditti, that so long lay concealed in the fastnesses of Nickajack and Run- ning Water Towns-is withal, so truthful and minute in its details of the captivity and sufferings of one of the prison- ers, who himself piloted the expedition in 1794, which pene- trated these mountain recesses, and extirpated the miscreant land pirates and murderers that infested them-and is, besides, now for the first time published, that no apology is needed for giving it entire without condensation or abridgment :
" Only four canoes came, meeting us in the current of the river, which at the time was very high. Seven or eight came up through the bot- toms, in some ponds, and after the Indians in the four first got on board, the other canoes came out through the cane, and the Indians in them, also came aboard. The first four came two and two, side by side, hold- ing up white flags, but had their guns and tomahawks covered in the bottom of their canoes. But as there were forty men in the four ca- noes, my father ordered them not to come nigh, as there were too many of them. We then wheeled our boat, levelled our swivel, and had our match ready to sink their canoes, when they claimed protection under the treaty, and said, by a man named John Vann, whom they had got to come and talk for them, that it was a peaceable time, and they only wished to see where we were going to, and to trade with us, if we had anything to trade on. My father ordered the young men not to fire, as he was coming to an Indian country, and did not wish to break any treaty.
" After they came to us, they appeared friendly, until the other canoes came around ; and then they began to gather our property, and put it into their canoes. My father begged Vann not to let them behave 80, and he replied, that the head man of the town was gone from home, but that he would be at home that night, and would make them give up everything. He also promised that one of them should go with us over the Muscle Shoals, and pilot us, as the passage was dangerous for boats. " Before they had finished robbing the boats, however, a dirty black- looking Indian, with a sword in his hand, caught me by the arm, and was about to kill me, when my father, seeing what he was attempting, took hold of him, and said, that I was one of his little boys, and that he must not interrupt me. The Indian then let me go, but as soon as
*For this narrative, I am indebted to the kindness and politeness of General Zollicoffer, of Nashville.
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TRAGIC MURDER OP BROWN,
my father's back was turned, struck him with the sword, and cut his head nearly half off. Another Indian then caught him, and threw him overboard. I saw him go overboard, but did not know that he was struck with the sword ; it, therefore, astonished me to see him sink down, as I knew him to be a good swimmer. As this took place in the stern, and my brothers and the other young men were with Vann in the bow, I went to them, and told them that 'an Indian had thrown our father overboard, and he was drowned.'
" Our boat was landed at the upper end of the town of Necojack, but before it reached shore, an Indian wanted me to go out of the boat into canoe, which I refused, not dreaming that I was a prisoner. As soon as we landed, the same Indian brought an old white man and his wife to me, who said to me, " My boy, I want you to go home with me." I enquired where he lived, and he said his house was about a mile out of town. I told him that I supposed I could go home with him that night, but that we would continue our journey in the morning. On his say- ing that he was ready to start, and wished me to go with him, I men- tioned to one of my brothers the old man's wish that I should go with him, and told him that I would return early in the morning, to which he replied, 'Very well.'
" Before I went, however, the Indians were telling my brothers and the other young men of a certain house, in which they could stay till morning ; after I had left them, they were told that there was a better "house down toward the lower end of the town, and that a young man would pilot them that far. Now the town of Necojack was on a higher bank than common, and had only been settled about three years ; thus the banks were still full of cane. When the boat was about to drop down to the lower end of the town, the Indians placed themselves behind stumps and in the cane, and as she floated down, they picked off the men with their rifles. Three of them fell, the others ran, but were all butchered, some with knives and some with tomahawks and guns.
" I had not got half way to the old man's house, before I heard the report of the guns which were killing my brothers and the other young men ; but thought it was the noise of our guns, probably taken out of the boat to see how they would shoot. I had been at the old man's only fifteen or twenty minutes, when a very large corpulent old woman came in, the sweat falling in big drops from her face, who appeared very angry, and told the old white people that they had done very wrong in taking me away, that I ought to be killed, that I would see everything, and that I would soon be grown and would guide an army there and have them all cut off ; in short, that I must be killed. This was said in Indian, so that I did not understand it, nor what she went on to say, viz : that all the rest were killed, and that her son would be there directly and would kill me, she knew.
"The old Irishman, however, informed me that my people were all slain, but added that I should not be hurt, though the squaw had just told him that her son would kill me immediately. He then directed me to sit on the side of the bed, and getting up stood in the door with his face outward, talking all the time to his wife and the old squaw in In- dian, which of course I did not understand. In about ten or fifteen
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AND PILLAGE OF THE BOATS.
minutes, the old squaw's son arrived, sure enough, but had not come up the road, so that the old man did not see him till he reached the corner of the house. He asked at once if there was a white inan within. The old man answered ' No,' that there was a 'bit' of a white boy in there ; to which the Indian replied, that he knew how big I was, and that I must be killed. The old white man plead for my life, saying it was a pity to kill women and children ; but the Indian used the same argu- ment that his mother had employed, i. e. that I would get away, when I grew up, and pilot an army there and have them all killed, and that I must be killed. This old fellow was a British deserter, who had come to America before the Revolutionary war, and had deserted several times, and had at length got into the Cherokee nation, having been there about eighteen years. His name was Thomas Tunbridge; he had lived with his wife about sixteen years. She was a French woman, who had been taken by the Indians when a small girl, and grew up and had children to them, before she had an opportunity of returning to her people. Her name, she said, was Polly Mallett. She had no children by Tunbridge, but it was an Indian son of hers that took me prisoner ; he gave me to his mother, telling her that I was large enough to help her hoo corn. He had also said that they would kill the rest directly, and that I was so large that when they got in a frolic killing the others, some of them
would knock me over. When, therefore, Cutleotoy insisted on killing me, old Tunbridge told him that I was his son's prisoner, and he was still in town, and that I must not be killed. No greater insult could be offered him, for he was a great man and did as he pleased usually ; while Tunbridge's son was only twenty-two years old, and a perfect boy in Cutleotoy's estimation. Incensed at this insult, he came to Tun- bridge, with his knife drawn and tomahawk raised, and asked him if he was going to be the Virginian's friend; in fact, he would have killed him instantly, had he admitted it, but Tunbridge said ' no,' and step ping back from the door-sill into the house, spoke for the first time in English : ' Take him along.' Cutleotoy, who was a very large strong Indian, followed in a rage, and came to me with his knife and tomahawk both drawn ; but the old woman begged him not to kill me in her house, to which he agreed, and catching me by the hand, jerked me up and out of the house. Outside were ten of his men surrounding the house door, and one had in his hand the scalp of one of my brothers, and another that of the other men, on a stick. Some had their guns cocked, and others their knives and tomahawks drawn, ready to put me to death. I requested Tunbridge to beg them to let me have one half hour to pray, to which he replied that it was not worth while ; but they concluded to strip my clothes off, so as not to bloody them, and while they were doing so, the old French woman begged them not to kill me there, nor in the road that she carried water along, for the road passed by her spring. They answered that they would take me to Running Water Town, as there were no white people there, and would have a frolic knocking me over. All this was said in Indian, however, and I knew nothing of what they discussed ; and as soon as my clothes were of, I fell on my knees, and cried, like the dying Stephen, .Lord Jesus, into thy hand I commend my spirit,' expecting every moment to be
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512
CAPTIVITY OF BROWN'S FAMILY.
my last. But I had not been on my knees more than one minute, when Tunbridge said, 'My boy, you must get up and go with them ; they will not kill you here,' but told me nothing of what they said of having a frolic at Running Water Town.
" We had not gone more than seventy or eighty yards, when Cut- leotoy stopped his men, and said to them, that he could not, and they must not kill me, as they were his men, and it would be as bad for him, as though he himself had done it; for that I was the prisoner of poor Job, (the French woman's son,) who was a man of war.
" 'Now,' said he, 'I have taken a negro woman out of the boat, and sent her by water to where I live, and if we kill this fellow, poor Job will go and kill my negro, and I don't want to lose her ; nor could all the Indians in the nation keep him from putting her to death.' Well might he fear poor Job, for, although he was only twenty-two years old, and it had been a time of peace since he was a small boy, he had taken the lives of six white men. The Hopewell and Holston treaties bound them to peace, but their young men were away with the Creeks and Shawnees at war; the Chickasaws and Choctaws were exceptions to the rule, however.
" Now, when Cutleotoy spoke thus, the thought of my being one day a man, and leading an army there, and having them killed, had given way to avarice, for the old woman, as well as her son, wanted the service of the negro. As I knew nothing of what they were saying, I was on my knees, trying to give my soul to God, through the merits of the Saviour, and expecting the tomahawk to sink into my skull every moment. At length, the favour given to Stephen in his dying mo- ments, came to my mind; how he saw the heavens opened, and the blessed Saviour sitting at the right hand of God. I opened my eyes, and looking up, saw one of the Indians, as they stood all round me, smile ; then, glancing my eyes round on them, saw that all their coun- tenances were changed from vengeance and anger, to mildness.
" This gave me the first gleam of hope. Cutleotoy then called to old Tunbridge to come after me, that he loved me, and would not kill me then, but that he would not make peace with me then ; but if I lived three weeks, he would be back again to make peace with me. The other Indians, however, explained the reason of this sudden love for me; that it was the negro he loved so much. The old squaw said, she would have some of my hair any how, and coming behind me, loosed my hair, (it was customary for young people, then, to wear their hair long,) and gathering a lock from the crown of my head, with an old dull knife, cut off a parcel, and kicked me in the side, and called me a poor Vir- ginian. That day the old head-man of the town had gone to a beloved . town sixteen miles off, called Stecoyee, south-east from Nicojack Town. I understood that he was much displeased with their conduct, for he was a man of fine mind, and boasted that he had never stained his knife in the blood of a white man ; but he had killed a Shawnee, when that nation was at war with the Cherokees; his name was the Breath ; he sent for me the second day after I was taken, and warned me that some of them would kill me, if I was not put into a family, with my hair trimmed like an Indian's, and my face painted. He also said that
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BROWN IS DENUDED-HIS EARS BORED, ETC.
as his was one of the strongest families in the nation, he would receive me into it, directing me to call him uncle, and poor Job, brother. On the same day, the 11th of May, 1788, he bored holes in my ears, cut off my hair, ony leaving a scalp-lock on the top of my head, and ta- king of my pantaloons, gave me a flap and short shirt, pulling open - the collar and putting a small broach in my bosom. On the 12th, which was next day, I was turned out to hoe corn, in the broiling sun ; by noon, all my forehead and ears, and the back of my head, and my neck and thighs, were all blistered with the heat; but the Lord was good, and when I was sick with sun-burns, sent a good thunder cloud, and drove us all out of the field. The next day it rained all day, and the third day I was able to go to the field again ; after that there came a skin on me that stood everything. A grand-son of the French woman went every where with me, to let me know who were Creeks, for they said that if the Creeks caught me out by myself, they might kill me; I was also cautioned not to look at a Cherokee, because it made an Indian angry to look at him. I had never seen any Indians before, so that every movement they made was strange to me. About three weeks after I was taken, I was going to the spring for water, and saw several Indians sitting about there. The little boy seemed alarmed, and I knew that it was on my account, for he said they were Creeks ; but after looking again he pronounced them Cherokees, saying he knew some of them. My fears being removed, I went on, and his being a small tin bucket, I dipped it full first, and handed it up the bank to him, and, never look- ing at the Indians, dipped up my bucket full. Just as I climbed up the bank, two of them jumped on their horses and came galloping across the branch which ran from the spring. As they came along, I stole a glance at one of them ; he had one side of his head painted red and the other black, and a scalp on his breast. Jumping off his horse, he struck me with the butt-end of a white-oak stick, about an inch in diameter and four feet long, on the side of the head. He was so near me that he did not hurt me much, but the second time, he was farther off, and that staggered me very much. He and his party con- sisting of five others, had been away with the Shawnees and northern Indians, at war, and they had heard that war had broken out at home, and as they were coming home they determined to come by the Hol- ston settlements and steal some horses ; they found two little boys, one morning, feeding some cows, and having killed the little fellows, were pursued by the whites, who killed three of them, while they were cross- ing the Tennessee River. The anger excited by this occurrence, caused him, on seeing me, to strike me, thinking, as he said, that he would knock me down and beat me as long as he thought he could without killing me. I do not suppose he would have cared if I had died.
"During that whole summer there was war, with frequent alarms of white people coming, and at one time a Col. Martin got to Chattanooga, within twenty miles of where I lived; but the Indians killed three of "his captains, and he only killed one Shawnee and one negro. No Che- rokees were killed, but they raised an army of three thousand men, bor- rowed one thousand Creeks, to go with fifteen hundred Cherokees on
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514
, MEETING OF BROWN WITH HIS CAPTIVE SISTE
foot, and five hundred mounted Cherokees, many of whom were hel- breeds, and dressed like white men ; they kept them ahead of the any, and white men who met them thought them a scouting party of white, and were by this scheme readily taken prisoners, when they would be kept until it was convenient to kill them without giving alarm. Sevenl men were taken in this way the day they got to Gillespie's Fort. Their object in raising the army was to drive all the whites from the south side of French Broad, on the pretext that the Indians who sold land ca the south side of that river, were not authorized to do so by the nadie; but finding only one man in the fort, Captain William Gillespie, they plundered it, and got so much booty from it and the surrounding farms, as sufficed, together with their twenty-seven prisoners, taken withod the loss of a single man, to induce them to return home, and that will great triumph.
"Most of us at Necojack Town, now moved off for the winter; ch Tunbridge went down to Crow Town, thirty miles below Necojack Tom; and one of the prisoners, Major Glass's wife, was purchased from the Indians who owned her, by Moses Price, who lived about half a mile from us, opposite the head of Crow Island, at an old crossing place of the Creeks, where the river could be forded nearly across.
" Price went to Pensacola for goods, and left Richard Findelston and two negro men with Mrs. Glace, to take care of his stock. One day, while Findelston was away from home, a large Creek Indian came by and seized Mrs. Glass's sucking child; the negro dared not interfere, for the Indian would have killed him instantly. He ran to our house to give the alarm, and said that he had left them at the door. Old Tunbridge went at once, but only in a walk, and when he got. there, they were about eighty yards from the house, on the Creek path, the Indian hold- ing the child, and its mother still hanging to it. The old man made him release the child, and brought it and its mother home with him, and kept them there some time. It was but a few weeks, however, that we got information that Gov. Sevier had taken a town on the waters of the Coosa River, and there would be an exchange of prisoners shortly. In a few weeks more, sure enough, there was a runner sent after us to come to Running Water Town ; and when we reached Necojack Town, I found there the Indian who had my little sister, having just returned from his winter's hunt, bringing his wife and my little sister. The old squaw seemed to think as much of her as though she had been her own child. The little girl was stripped of all her finery, it is true, but she was only five years old, and when I told her I was going to take her to her own mother, she ran to the old Indian woman and caught her round the neck, so that I had to take her by force and carry her twenty or thirty yards; then telling her she should go to see her own mother, I set her down and led her by the hand. My eldest sister was at another place, a child of ten years old.
" We got to Running Water about three o'clock, and found that the Head-man from the Upper Towns had come after us. The old Head- man of Necojack grumbled at giving us up, as we, who were taken out of the boat, had come from North-Carolina, and did not belong to Hol- ston settlement. The old Indian who had come for ua, said that was
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THEY ARE EXCHANGED AND RESTORED.
all true, but that Little John (their name for Gov. Sevier) was so mean and ugly that he could do nothing with him. This word ugly is their hardest term of abuse. He went on to say that "Little Jolin" declared he would not let one of their people free, unless he got all the whites , who were in the nation, naming those taken from the boat particularly. The next morning they spoke of starting, but I told them I could not go without my sister ; a young man was immediately started after her. She was thirty miles off, and the third day the messenger returned about ten o'clock in the morning without her, and announced that the man who had her, would not let her come without pay. There was an old warrior sitting by, his sword hanging on the wall, and his horse standing at a tree in the yard. He rose, and putting on his sword, made this short speech : 'I will go and bring her, or his head.' Sure enough, the next morning, here he came with her; when asked what the Indian said, he replied, 'nothing.' The next morning we started, and in a few days were at Coosawatee, where an exchange of prisoners was made instead of at Swannanoa, as at first proposed. This was about the 20th of April, 1789. At this time my weight was only eighty pounds, though I was in my seventeenth year."
After the capture and plunder of the boat and the mas- 1788 ยง sacre of the men, the Creek banditti started to their towns, having two of the daughters of the unfortu- nate Colonel Brown-Jane, aged ten, and Polly, five-pri- soners. These were pursued by the Cherokee braves, re- captured, and brought back to Nickajack. The trader's wife had the humanity to allow their brother Joseph to go there and see his sisters. From these, he learned that the Creek confederates had gone with his mother, his brother George, a lad ten years old, and his three small sisters, and much of the booty taken in the boat, in the direction of their distant homes on the Tallapoosa River, and that two of the children .had been recaptured by the Cherokees, as already mentioned. The negroes were despatched by water to the Upper Chero- kee towns. The children remained in the town where they were captured, and being adopted into several Indian fami- lies, were generally well treated. The usual menial offices of savage life were imposed upon them, during their captivity of nearly twelve months. They had the melancholy plea- sure of seeing one another. Occasionally they were threa- tened, and often had to listen to accounts brought by war- riors, returning from their hostile excursions, of horrid bar- barities and cruel murders inflicted upon the distant frontier
These atrocities, at length, invited further invasion and
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NOBLE CONDUCT OF M'GILLEVRAY.
retaliation, by the aggrieved frontier men ; war was brought to the immediate vicinity of the banditti Indians themselves, which resulted in a Peace Talk from General Sevier, and a proposal of an exchange of prisoners followed, and the young prisoners were restored.
Mrs. Brown, when hurried off by her captors, heard the savage yells, that she but too well knew, announced the hard fate of her sons and their comrades. To increase the poignancy of her bereavement, two of her daughters were snatched from her side, and carried back to the scene of the calamity which had overwhelmed her family. A single source of consolation was left to her-her two children-the son, aged nine, and the daughter, seven. These were after- wards separated from her, and sent to two neighbouring vil- lages, whilst she continued the prisoner and slave of a Creek warrior, and remained for some time in the condition of hope- less bondage and exile. By the influence and assistance of the wife of Durant, a French trader, Mrs. Brown contrived to escape to the residence of McGillevray, the Head-man of the Creek nation, who generously ransomed her from her savage owner. The daughter was, some time after, also ransomed, and with Mrs. Brown, was taken by Col. McGillev- ray, in November, 1789, to Rock Landing, in Georgia, and restored to her surviving friends. McGillevray was offered compensation for the kind offices he had performed in ransom- ing and restoring the captives. This was nobly declined, with the further assurance, that he would endeavour to re- cover the son, still in captivity in his nation. This was at length effected. We will see more of Joseph Brown hereafter, when, in 1794, the prophecy was fulfilled of one of his cap- tors, who said, " he will soon be grown, and will pilot an army here, and have us all cut off."
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