USA > Tennessee > The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Its Settlement, as the. > Part 8
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It was further directed and required, that "all traders should take out licenses from their respective governors, for carrying on commerce with the Indians." In accordance, also, with the provisions of this proclamation, the boundaries of the Indian hunting grounds were fixed, and a superinten- dent of Indian affairs was appointed for the southern district. This office was conferred upon Captain John Stuart, who, as we have already seen, owed his life, at the massacre of the garrison at Fort Loudon, to the clemency and interposition of his captor, a Cherokee chief.
However well intended, this proclamation of the distant king was a dead letter. In the back woods of America, it received no hearty response-exacted not the lowest whisper
* Marshall.
72
VIRGINIA GRANTS LANDS ON THE OHIO.
of obedience. It was every where, and by all classes of men, disregarded. Masses of population were, upon the western boundary of all the middle and southern colonies, ready and impatient for the occupancy of the new lands in the wilderness. Hunters and traders had discovered and explored them. They knew the avenues by which they could be reached, and had spread abroad among their countrymen enchanting accounts of their value and beauty. Another circumstance hastened the more perfect exploration and future settlement of the western country. It was the bounty given in these very lands, by several of the provinces, with the approbation of the crown, to the officers and soldiers who had served in the British army, in their wars with the French and their Indian allies .* These, with the script and military warrants in their hands, and accompanied by hundreds of surveyors and agents, were constantly employed in selecting and locating their respective claims. The proclamation of the king could not deter them from their locations and surveys. Even the wise and virtuous George Washington and Chancellor Li- ving ston admitted it to be intended merely to quiet the jealous apprehensions of the Indians, against the advance of the white settlements on the western side of the mountains. It was not, in any wise, designed, really, to check the ultimate occupation of the country. Virginia, viewing the procla- mation in no other light than as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians, soon afterwards patented considerable tracts of land on the Ohio, far beyond the Apa- lachian mountains.t Thus the discontents of the Indians were increased, and by the opening of the spring of 1768, along the whole line of the western frontier, from the sources of the Susquehannah to those of the Tennessee, they became exasperated, and united in their determination to check fur- her encroachments, and to enforce an observance of their rights ; still they refrained from open hostilities, while the
* By the proclamation of the king, the governors were directed to grant "to every person having the rank of a field officer, 5000 acres; to every captain, 8000 acres ; to every subaltern or staff officer, 2000 acres ; to every non-commissioned officer, 200 acres; and to every private, 50 acres.
t See Sparks's writings of Washington.
78
MOST OF TENNESSEE UNOCCUPIED BY INDIANS.
restless population of the Atlantic border continued to press forward into the west, regardless, alike of the rights of the Indians and the proclamation of the king, issued five years previously .*
At the recommendation of Gov. Tryon, an appropriation 1767 [ was made by the Province of North-Carolina, on the ( application of the Cherokee nation, for running a dividing line between the western settlements of the pro- vince and their hunting grounds, and the governor was authorized to appoint three commissioners for that purpose. " In May of this year, an appeal was made to the proper autho- [ rities, to restrain further encroachments on the part of the frontier 1768 people, upon the lands claimed by the Indians. Some of the settlements now being formed upon the head of the Kenhawa, and the north fork of Holston, were upon territory to which the Indian title had not been extinguished, and parties of woodmen, explorers, and surveyors, were distributed in the vallies below, preparatory to a further occupancy. The superintendents of Indian affairs were, accordingly, instructed by the royal government to establish the boundaries between the whites and the Indians, and to purchase from the latter the lands already occu- pied by the king's subjects. But what tribe owned these lands ? Who were the proprietors of the soil !"
At the time of its earliest exploration, the country east and north of the Tennessee river was not in the occupancy of any Indian tribe. Vestiges were then found, and, indeed, still remain, of an ancient and dense population-indicating higher progress in civilization and the arts than has been attained by more modern tribes in this part of the con- tinent. A fresh hunting camp was occasionally found,
" But in their frequent peregrinations and trading expeditions through the vast territories between the Ohio and the Tennessee rivers, the first traders, hunters and explorers never found, within that extent of coun- try, a single wigwam or modern Indian village. The Indian settlements nearest to the frontier border of the Carolinas, and of south-western' Virginia, were on the Sciota and Miami, in the north, and on the waters of the Little Tennessee in the south. From these points the various war or hunting parties issued, to engage in the one or the other pursuit, as the passions or the opportunities of their expeditions might lead. Here the Choctaws, Chickasaws or Cherokees, of the south, used to engage with the various tribes of the Miami Confederacy, of the north ; here they indulged their. passion for hunting, in the profusion of game afforded by Tennessee at That part of these two states embraced within the bow" med, was one great park, where
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74
ABORIGINAL CLAIMS.
the skill of the uncivilized hunter was practiced, and a central theatre, upon which the desperate conflicts of savage warriors and bloody rivals were perpetrated. By common agreement of all the surrounding tribes, this whole section of country seems to have been reserved for these purposes, from permanent occupancy ; and so much was it exempted from settlement, that south of the Ohio, and north and east of the Ten- nessee, it is not known that a single village was settled by the Indians; yet no situations have generally delighted savage tribes, so much as the margins of water courses ; the opportunities of navigation, and of fishing, unite to attract them to such spots. Some known and acknowledged inhibition must have, therefore, prevented the settlement and possession of this great Mesopotamia. What was it? On this subject, tradition and history are alike indistinct and unsatisfactory."*
At the point of time to which these annals have reached, the territory of which we are speaking was claimed, though not occupied, by the Confederacy of the Six Nations. These were called by the early French historians, Iroqouis, and by the English, Mohawks. In 1672 these tribes conquered the Illinois and Shawanee Indians, the latter of whom were also incorporated with them. To these' conquests they added, in 1685, that of the Miamis, and about the same time carried their victorious arms westward to the Mississippi, and south- ward to what is now Georgia. In 1711 they incorporated with them the Tuscaroras, when expelled from North-Caro- lina.t Gov. Pownal, in his " administration of the British Colonies," says that these tribes carried their arms as far south as Carolina and as far west as the Mississippi, over a vast country, twelve hundred miles in length and six hun- dred in breadth, where they destroyed whole nations, of whom there are no accounts remaining among the English : and, continues the same writer, the rights of these tribes to the hunting lands on the Ohio may be fairly proved by their con- quests over the Shawanees, Delawares, &c., as they stood possessed thereof at the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. In fur- ther confirmation of this Indian title, Butler adds :
" It must be mentioned that Lewis Evans represents, in his map of the Middle Colonies of Great Britain, the country on the south-easterly side of the Ohio river, as the hunting lands of the Six Nations. In the analy- sis to his map, he expressly says that the Shawneese, who were once a most considerable nation, have been subdued by the confederates, and
. Butler's Kentucky. + Butler.
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75
TREATY OF FORT STANWIX.
their country has since become their property. At a celebrated treaty, held more than a century since at Lancaster, the statement made by the delegates in attendance from the Six Nations to Dr. Franklin, was, 'that all the world knows that we conquered all the nations back of the great mountains ; we conquered the nations residing there, and that land, if the Virginians ever get a good right to it, it must be by us.' These In- dian claims are solemnly appealed to in a diplomatic memorial, addressed by the British ministry to the Duke Mirepoix, on the part of France, June 7, 1755. 'It is a certain truth, states the memorial, that these lands have belonged to the Confederacy, and as they have not been given up or made over to the English, belong still to the same Indian Nations.' The court of Great Britain maintained, in this negotiation, that the con- federates were, by origin or by right of conquest, the lawful proprietors of the river Ohio and the territory in question. In support of this an- cient aboriginal title, Butler adds the further testimony of Dr. Mitchell's map of North America, made with the documents of the Colonial office before him. In this map, the same as the one by which the boundaries in the treaty of Paris, in 1783, were adjusted, the Doctor observes, 'that the Six Nations have extended their territories ever since the year 1672, when they subdued and were incorporated with the ancient Shawaneese, the native proprietors of these countries.' This, he adds, is confirmed by their own claims and possessions in 1742, which include all the bounds as laid down in the map, and none have even thought fit to dispute them."*
Such was the aboriginal title to the greater part of Ten- nessee in 1767, when the white settlers approached its east- 1768 ern boundary. On the 6th of May of this year a
deputation of the Six Nations presented to the super- intendent of Indian affairs, a formal remonstrance against the continued encroachments of the whites upon their lands. The subject was immediately considered by the royal go- verment ; and near the close of summer, orders were issued,to Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Northern Indian Affairs, instructing him to convene the chiefs, warriors and sachems of the tribes most interested. Agreeably to these orders, Sir William Johnson convened the delegates of the Six Nations, and their confederates and dependents, at Fort Stanwix, (now Utica, N. Y.,) October 24 .. Three thousand two hundred Indians, of seventeen different tribes, tributaries to the Confederacy, or occupying territories coterminous with theirs, attended. ' On the 5th of November, a treaty of limits and a deed of cession to the King of England, were
. Franklin's works, as quoted by Butler.
76
FIRST CESSION FROM ABORIGINAL OWNERS.
signed. In this, the delegates of their respective nations aver that " they are the true and absolute proprietors of the lands thus ceded, and that for the considerations mentioned, " we have continued the line south to the Cherokee or Hogoko- gee rivers," because the same is, and we declare it to be, our true bounds with the Southern Indians, and that we have an un- doubted right to the country as far south as that river."
The cession thus made by the Six Nations, of the country north and east of the Tennessee river, is the first deed from any of the aboriginal tribes for any territory within the boundaries of our state. The title of the Confederates to these lands was, by the treaty of Fort Stanwix, forever transferred from them; but other tribes contended that the Six Na- tions had not an exclusive claim to them, but that they were the common hunting grounds of the Cherokees and Chioka- saws also. In the journal of the commissioners, detail- ing the progress of the treaty, the tribes represented, &c., no mention is made of delegates in attendance from any of the southern Indian tribes. It is said by Haywood, that some visiting Cherokees were present at the treaty, who upon their route had killed game for their support, and on their arrival at Fort Stanwix, immediately tendered the skins to the Indians of the Six Nations, saying : "they are yours; we killed them after we passed the big river," as they always designated the Tennessee. This would seem to imply an acquiescence on their part, in the validity of the claim of the Six Nations. These claimed the soil, not as its aboriginal owners, but by the right of conquest ; and all tra- dition concurs in admitting their right to that extent. But the Cherokees had long exercised the privilege of hunting upon these lands, and therefore regarded, with jealousy and dissatisfaction, the approaches of the white settlements. Mr. Stuart, the Superintendent of Southern Indian Affairs, was therefore instructed to assemble the southern Indians for the purpose of establishing a boundary with them ; and before negotiations with the confederates at Fort Stanwix had be- gun, he concluded a treaty with the Cherokees at Hard La- bour, in South-Carolina, October 14, 1768. By this treaty, it . The Holston was thus called.
77
ABORIGINES OF TENNESSEE.
was agreed that the south-western boundary of Virginia should be a line " extending from the point where the northern line of North-Carolina intersects the Cherokee hunting grounds, about thirty-six miles east of Long Island, in the Holston river, and thence extending in a direct course, north by east, to Chiswell's Mine, on the east bank of the Kenhawa river, and thence down that stream to its junction with the Ohio." This line, however, did not include all the settle- ments then made ; and even during the progress of the treaty, the settlers were advancing further west, and erecting their cabins north-west of the Holston, and upon the branches of the Clinch and Powell's river, within the limits of the Indian territory. This fact being ascertained, a subsequent treaty became necessary for the adjustment of a new boundary and the remuneration of the savages for an additional extent of country."*
ABORIGINES OF TENNESSEE.
At the time of its first exploration, Tennessee was a vast and almost unoccupied wilderness-a solitude over which an Indian hunter seldom roamed, and to which no tribe put in a distinct and well defined claim, For this reason, and on ac- count of the mildness of its climate, and the rich pasturage fur- nished by its varied ranges of plain and mountain, Tennessee, in common with Kentucky, had become an extensive park, of which the beasts of the forest held undisturbed possession. Into these wild recesses, savage daring did not often venture to penetrate. Equi-distant from the settled territories of the southern and northern Indian tribes, it remained, by common consent, uninhabited by either, and little explored. The ap- proach of civilization, from several directions, began to abridge the territories of surrounding Indian nations ; and the mar- gin offthis great terra incognita was occasionally visited by parties of savages in pursuit of game, and as places of retreat from the encroachments of a superior race. In these respects, the value of the country began to be appreciated as hunting
* Monette.
78
SHAWNEES OCCUPIED THE LOWER CUMBERLAND,
grounds, and as affording immunity from the molestations of civilized man. Vague and uncertain claims to several por- tions of the territory, were asserted by as many several tribes ; but no part of the present Tennessee was held by the actual and permanent occupancy of the Indians, except that section embraced by the segment of a circle, of which Tennessee ri- ver is the periphery, from the point where it intersects the North-Carolina line to that where this stream enters the State of Alabama. This was settled by the Cherokees. All of Ten- nessee, besides this, was uninhabited, though a portion of it was claimed or occupied as hunting grounds by the Shaw- nees, the Chickasaws, the Choctaws and the Cherokees.
The limits of these several territorial claims were ill defin- ed and indistinct. An ideal line, merely, passing through boundless forests and pathless mountains, with no river or other notorious object to ascertain its exactness, became the occasion of misunderstanding between rival Indian nations.
Of the four tribes, as above enumerated, a brief notice will be given, as connected with and illustrative of, the settlement of Tennessee.
SHAWNEES.
The earlier French explorers, and geographers after them, designate the banks of the Lower Cumberland as the country of the Shawnees. Numerous villages are laid down on the map, published with Marquette's Journal in 1681, within the pre- sent boundaries of Tennessee. They were a wandering na- tion-one of their tribes being mentioned as dwelling for a time in Eastern Virginia, and another, soon after, on the head- waters of the Savannah. Adair, little more than a century since, " saw the chief part of the main camp of the Shawano, consisting of about four hundred and fifty persons, on a tedious ramble to the Muskoghee country, where they settled, seventy miles above the Alabahma garrison."
The late General Robertson learned from the Indians, that more than a century and a half ago, (1665,) the Shawnees oc- cupied the country from the Tennessee river to where Nash- ville now is, and north of the Cumberland ; and that about 1700, they left this country and emigrated north, and were re-
79
AND WERE EXPELLED BY CHEROKEES
ceived as a wandering tribe by the Six Nations, but were not allowed to have there any claim to the soil. As late as 1764, the Shawnees moved from Green river, in Kentucky, where a part of them then resided, to the Wabash.
In 1772, the Little Corn Planter, a most intelligent Chero- kne chief, narrated, that the Shawnees, a hundred years be- fore, by the permission of his nation, removed from the Sa- vannah river to Cumberland. That many years afterwards, the two nations becoming unfriendly, the Cherokees marched, in a large body, to the frontiers of the Shawnees-and divi- ding themselves into several small parties, unexpectedly and treacherously, as Little Corn Planter expressed himself-fell upon the Shawnees, and put a great many of them to death. The survivors then forted themselves, and maintained a pro- tracted war in defence of their possession of the country. At length the Chickasaws became the allies of the Cherokees ; and the expulsion of the Shawnees from the Cumberland val- ley was gradually effected. This was about the beginning of the last century. A few years later, when Monsieur Char- 1714 ( leville opened a store where Nashville now is, he oc- ¿ cupied this fort of the Shawnees, as his dwelling. They were then, and had been for several years, so harassed by their enemies, that small parties of them had been, for a long time, gradually withdrawing from the country ; and their number had become so inconsiderable, that they determined to abandon Cumberland entirely, and soon after did so. The Chickasaws, hearing of the intended removal of the Shawnees, resolved to strike an effectual blow against them, and, if pos- sible, possess themselves of their stores. For this purpose, a large party of Chickasaw warriors posted themselves on both sides of Cumberland, above the mouth of Harpeth, provided with canoes, to prevent escape by water. Their attack was successful. All the Shawnees were killed, and their property was captured by the Chickasaws.
The hostilities between these tribes not being brought to a close, by any formal treaty of peace, they continued to destroy each other as often as opportunity offered. At length, afraid of meeting each other, all of these tribes wholly forsook the country ; and for sixty years it remained not only unoccupied by either, but was seldom visited by a hunting party. In this
80
CHICKASAWS.
way, when it was first explored and began to be settled by the whites, the whole country west of Cumberland mountain was found uninhabited, and abounding with all the wild beasts of the forest.
Small parties of wandering Shawnees occasionally infested the frontiers, and from their familiarity with the mountains, the rivers, and the paths to and from the country, were able to inflict serious damage to the infant settlements. A part of the banditti who afterwards infested the narrows of the Tennessee river, and committed such enormous outrages on emigrants and navigators, at these celebrated passes, were Shawnees.
In the map accompanying Adair's book, the river from the head of Holston to the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio, is called Cherake. The Cumberland is called Old Shanvanon, or river of the Shawnees. Near the source of the latter stream, a tributary of the Tennessee takes its rise ; it is probably intended for the modern Clinch. The Hiwassee is called Euphasee, of which Chestoe is a confluent. Ten- nase is the stream now known as Little Tennessee.
CHICKASAWS.
This nation of Indians inhabited the country east of the Mississippi, and north of the Choctaw boundary; their vil- lages and settlements were generally south of the 35th degree of north latitude, but they claimed all the territory within the present States of Tennessee and Kentucky, which lies between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, and a considerable por- tion north of the former. These they claimed as hunting grounds, though they had few or no permanent settlements within them. Tradition assigns to this tribe, when they first emigrated to this country, a very considerable population, but when Adair first visited them, (1735,) the Chickasaw . warriors were estimated below five hundred. Though thus inconsiderable in numbers, the Chickasaws were war- like and valiant. They exercised an unwonted influence over the Natches, Choctaws and other tribes. Their peace- able but brave warriors, were instrumental in preventing hostilities between their more numerous neighbouring tribes, or in concentrating their hostile operations against the
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81
UCHEES, MUSKOGEES AND CHEROKEES.
French and Spaniards. Generally they were the friends and allies of the Anglo-Americans.
At the time of De Soto's invasion, this tribe, as has been al- ready mentioned, occupied the same territory which has since been the seat of that nation, extending south from the mouth of the Tennessee river, to the country of the Natches and Choctaws. Chickasaw tradition assigns to this tribe a resi- dence, at one time, upon the Savannah. Chonubbee, one of their chieftains, said, that when his tribe occupied the country opposite to and east of Augusta, Georgia, hostilities arose between their people and the Creeks, and forced a great part of them to migrate to the country bordering on the Mississippi, while another fragment of their tribe was sub- dued by, and became incorporated with, the Creeks. As late as 1795, the Chickasaws presented to Congress their claim for lands on the Savannah.
There is a close affinity between the Chickasaws and Choctaws, in their physical appearances, their languages, onstoms, traditions and laws. These tribes are believed to have had a common origin.
UCHEES.
A small tribe of Uchees once occupied the country near the mouth of Hiwassee. Their warriors were exterminated in a desperate battle with the Cherokees. Little else is known of them.
MUSKOGEE OR CREEKS.
Fragments of this powerful tribe occasionally lived on the southern boundary of Tennessee, but never formed a perma- nent settlement in it.
CHEROKEES.
Adair says of the Cherokees, " their national name is derived from Chee-ra-fire-which is their reputed lower heaven and hence they call their magi, Cheera-tahge, men possessed of the divine fire. The natives make two divisions of their coun- try, which they term Ayrate and Ottare, signifying low and 8
82
SILVER MINE IN TENNESSER.
mountainous. The former is on the head branches of the beautiful Savannah, and the latter on those of the eastern- most river of the great Mississippi."
The same writer says, that forty years before the time he wrote, (1775,) the Cherokees had sixty-four populous towns, and that the old traders estimated their fighing men at above six thousand. The frequent wars between the Over-hill Towns and the northern Indians, and between the Middle and Lower Towns and the Muskogee or Creek Indians, had greatly diminished the number of the warriors, and con- tracted the extent of their settlements.
" Within twenty miles of the late Fort Loudon," continues Mr. Adair, " there is a great plenty of whet-stones for razors, of red, white and black colours. The silver mines are so rich, that by digging about ten yards deep, some desperate va- grants found at sundry times, so much rich ore, as to enable them to counterfeit dollars to a great amount, a horse-load of which was detected, in passing for the purchase of negroes at Augusta." He also mentions load stone as being found there and at Cheowhee, and also a variety of precious stones, of "various colour and beautiful lustre, clear and very hard." A tradition still continues of the existence of the silver mine mentioned thus by Adair. It is derived from hunters and traders who had seen the locality, and assisted in smelting the metal. After the whites had settled near and began to encroach upon the Over-hill towns, their inhabi- tants began to withhold all knowledge of the mines from the traders, apprehending that their cupidity for the precious metals would lead to an appropriation of the mines, and the ultimate expulsion of the natives from the country. The late Mr. De Lozier, of Sevier county, testified to the existence and richness of mines of silver, one of which he had worked at, in the very section of the Cherokee country described by Adair.
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