USA > Tennessee > The civil and political history of the state of Tennessee from its earliest settlement up to the year 1796 : including the boundaries of the state > Part 27
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To prevent the coalition of the southern with the northern Indians, who had defeated Gen. St. Clair on the 4th of Novem- ber of this year, the President had devised the plan of inducing the former, if possible, to join the United States in their war against the northern tribes. This would create a misunder- standing that would for a long time to come prove an effectual bar to the coalescence of their forces. Gov. Blount was earnest- ly solicited to hold a treaty at Nashville in the ensuing sum- mer, to which he should invite the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokees, and to make the proposal to them. Gen. Pickens was requested, by a letter from the Secretary of State, to attend, and to use his influence for the promotion of these designs.
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It was to be expected, after the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783, when the Indians were no longer urged on by British incitements, nor backed by their resources, that their propensi- ties for war with the United States would naturally have died away, and would have been replaced by amicable dispositions. The experience of eight years had proved the contrary, and that the disinclination of the savages toward the United States was now as excessive as ever. As the new Constitution had devolved upon the government of the Union the" power to make treaties and to carry on war, it of course fell to the lot of the President to investigate the causes of their dissatisfaction, in order to learn what remedy could be most properly applied to the disor- der. On the 16th of January, 1792, he referred it to the Secre- tary of War, to report to him the causes of the inveterate and deep-rooted enmity of the Indians. On the 26th of the same month the report was made and submitted to public examina- tion.
This report afforded the melancholy foreboding that humane expedients for the maintenance of peace would have but very transient effects; and that, like nocturnal moonlights breaking through the clouds and falling in parcels upon the marginal for- est, the fragments of hostility would still break upon the frontier settlements through every opportunity that offered. Notwith- standing the treaty of Holston, the Cherokee towns of Running Water, Nickajack, Long Island Villages, Crow Town, and Look- out Mountain gave strong indications, early in the year 1792, of hostile intentions. The four towns first named lay on the south bank of the Tennessee, and were the common crossing- places of the Creeks and northern tribes, as they passed, which they frequently did, from one nation to the other. The fifth was situated on a creek of the same name, about twelve miles south of the other four. They were all quite detached from the other towns of the Cherokees, divided therefrom by the Chata- nuga Mountains. In the early part of March, 1792, the five lower towns had a scalp dance, also the eagle tail dance-the forerunners of war. All declared themselves for war against the United States, and for joining the Shawnees. On the 22d of March, 1792, "The Glass," of Lookout Mountain, and "The Turtle," the head men of "The Running Water," arrived at their respective towns, "The Glass " having a white girl, aged about
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eight years, a prisoner, and two scalps. The girl said the party of which she was consisted of her father and two other men, her mother, and several children, on their way from Natchez to Nashville, and that her mother and one child were killed and scalped. The men of the party escaped. The account of the girl accorded with that of the Indians themselves. Little Tur- key, the principal chief of the Cherokees, was so incensed at the conduct of the five towns that he forbade in positive terms, in a general talk addressed to his nation, all intercourse and society with them.
Appearances were so threatening as made it proper to guard the frontiers. Gov. Blount, on the 1st of April, 1792, authorized Gen. Robertson to call into active service one hundred and fifty- two militia-men, and informed the general at the same time that he would send Capt. Cooper with his company into the Cumber- land settlements; and at the expiration of their term of service, which was three months, he caused their places to be supplied by new levies. Gen. Robertson, in his letter, attributed the war of the Indians to Spanish instigation.
On the 6th of April, 1792, a party of Indians, five or six in number, went to the house of Harper Ratcliff, in Stanley Valley, about twenty miles from Hawkins Court-house, and killed his wife and three children, plundered the house, and instantly made off. They left behind them three war clubs, a bow, and sheaf of arrows, to signify that war was declared. Upon this event, the company under the command of Capt. James Cooper, which was ordered to proceed to Mero District, received orders to range on the frontiers of Hawkins County. They were ordered to range from the Virginia line to the Powder Spring Gap, on Clinch Mountain, and from the Powder Spring Gap to the river Holston.
About the beginning of April, in the year 1792, a party of In- dians, at the foot of the Cumberland Mountains, were fired on by the white people. The head man of the Hiwassee was killed, and their camp plundered. On the same day a woman and chil- dren were killed, on their own plantation, near the Clinch, just be- low the Virginia line. Such was the irreconcilable hatred which the Indians and whites had contracted for each other, by a long- continued course of aggression and sufferings, that it was almost as impossible for the government of the United States to restrain
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some of her citizens from acts of enmity as it was for the Indian chiefs to restrain and keep within bounds all those who were of their nation.
On the 5th of April, 1792, as a Cherokee with four squaws was passing peaceably near the house of James Hubbard, on the French Broad River, two guns were discharged at him. One ball grazed his cheek; another passed through his side, giving him a slight wound. Hubbard was one of those who went down - the Tennessee in the spring of the year 1791, to attempt a set- tlement at the Muscle Shoals, and suspicion fell on his two sons, who lived with him, as having fired the guns at this Indian. The frontier settlers, so far from approving, held this act in great abhorrence. They were satisfied with the treaty of the Holston, and were resolved to preserve it inviolate if they could.
On the 5th of April, 1792, a party of Indians, supposed to be Cherokees, stole a number of horses from Cox's settlement and the neighborhood of Powell's Valley, in Virginia. They took the Kentucky trace through the Cumberland Mountain to Yellow Creek, to which place they were followed by two men, who returned without overtaking them. Col. Cox then set out with a party of men down Powell's Valley, to a gap in the Cum- berland Mountain, where he was persuaded they must pass in recrossing the mountain to reach their towns, if Cherokees. On his way down, about 2 o'clock in the morning of the 6th, near the Indian old towns, on the land known by Henderson's sur- vey, he fell in with an Indian camp; which he fired into, and killed a Cherokee chief named Hootaquah, or Big Aron, and wounded two others, who made their escape. Amongst the arti- cles found in this camp were a number of halters, some chil- dren's apparel, and some cotton on quills. It was soon ascer- tained that the party of Indians who had killed Mrs. Ratcliff was headed by one Bench, a Cherokee by birth, who for some time past had resided amongst the northern Indians, and who may be considered as belonging to the latter nation.
The Creeks about this time expelled Bowles from their na- tion, and again re-instated MeGillevray in his office; who imme- diately requested the Governor of Georgia to make provision for two thousand men, who would be present at running the lines agreed on by the Creek treaty of August, 1790. Bowles, with a
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party of Indians, had lately robbed a Spanish store, for which the Spaniards took him into custody.
About the Ist of May, 1792, six hundred Indians invaded the county of Fayette, in Kentucky, burned Frankfort, and killed fifty persons.
About the last of April three Indians stole horses from Crooked Creek, in Kentucky. They were pursued and over- taken. At the Big Tellico the white people were joined by some Indians, who were active in the pursuit and recovery of the horses.
On Sunday, the 17th of May, Gov. Blount visited the Indian town of Cayette, and was received with tokens of highest respect and affection. He staid there till Thursday, holding public and private discourses with the chiefs, many of whom were from the lower towns, and unanimously expressed their contrition for the depredations committed since the treaty of Holston, and their firm determination to prevent them for the future. But if these chiefs were really in earnest, they had not the means of compel- ling the observance of the treaty; for on the 10th of May, as two sons of Mr. Wells, in Hindes's Valley, within twelve miles of Knoxville, were picking strawberries, six Indians came up, tom- ahawked and scalped them in his view, and went off without making further attempts on his family. Suspicion attached to the Creeks and Cherokees. Early in the morning of the 17th Judge Campbell and his party, on their return from Cumber- land, four miles east of Emery's River, were attacked by a party of Indians, who fired on them in front and killed William Clack, the only person in the company who had a gun.
About the last of May a party of Indians fired upon a man who was hunting horses, between German and Flat Creeks, near the end of the Clinch Mountain. Four balls passed through his clothes and shattered his powder-horn, without grazing his skin. The same Indians, early in June, stole a number of horses from German Creek.
In the month of June of this year the Governor established two new counties, Knox and Jefferson.
On Saturday, the 11th of August, 1792, a party of Indians at- tacked a house at New Garden, Russell County, Va., killed six- teen persons, and took a woman and her children prisoners. A company of horsemen followed them and retook the prisoners.
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On the 24th of August the Creeks killed and scalped Mr. Ram- sey, an old resident among the Cherokees, and a person recent- ly arrived from Charleston, at the beloved town of Estanaula, among the Cherokees in open day. They declared it was their orders and determination to kill the Virginians wherever they could find them, for thus they called all the citizens of the United States. This outrage gave offense to the Cherokees. The Creeks, also, about the same time, committed similar out- rages upon the whites resident in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, killing all of them they could find, calling them Virgin- ians, and proclaiming that they would kill them wherever they could find them.
On the 6th of September, 1782, John Cochrane, as he was re- turning home to his father's house on Little River, was fired on by three Indians. Two balls passed through his clothes, without doing him any further injury.
On the 3d of October, 1792, Black's block-house, on the head of Crooked Creek, a branch of Little River, at which there was a sergeant's command, was attacked by surprise, an hour and a half in the night, by a party commanded by a Cherokee of Wills' Town, called "The Tail," a brother of "The Bench" and Tolot- iskee, consisting of three other Cherokees and five Creeks. James Paul was killed in the house, and George Morse and Robert Sharp at a fire on the outside, and John Shackland wounded. Three horses were killed and seven taken. Five of the Chota Indians and eight of the Chilhowee were with Tolotiskee when, in November, 1792, they killed several white men on the Ken- tucky River.
Early in October, 1792, young Gillespie was conducted in safe- ty to Nine Mile Creek, Craig's Station, by John Christian and two young Cherokees-the warrior's son and Kulsatahee-from Estanaula, where he was purchased from the eight Creeks who took him, by James Carey, with the assistance and interposition of Chunelah and other chiefs of the Upper Cherokees, for two hundred and fifty pounds of leather, equal to $$3.30, and a horse estimated at £15. The Creeks value a white prisoner and a negro at the same price, and treat them equally as slaves. Young Gillespie was taken from his father's house, within twen- ty miles of Knoxville, on the 12th of September. His elder brother was killed and scalped by the same party. Many of the
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chiefs were now in openly professed hostility, who as late as July in this year gave the most unequivocal proofs of attach- ment to the United States. This sudden change of conduct was at the time attributed to the Spanish government.
On Saturday, the 6th of October, 1792, a company of travel- ers, on their way from Kentucky through the Territory, were fired upon in the wilderness, and two men were killed, and one said to be mortally wounded. The party who attacked this com- pany consisted of sixty warriors, and were headed by the noted Cherokee chief, Tolotiskee, a signer of the treaty of the Holston, and one who accompanied John Watts on his visit to Gov. Oneal in July and August, 1792. Inspired with the spirit of war by the persuasions of Gov. Oneal, as the people of the Territory believed, he painted himself black before he left Pensacola, de- clared himself for war, and with that appearance and spirit he passed through the Creek Nation. While he was at Pensacola Gov. Oneal showed him five magazines. "This," said he, "is for the Cherokees, that for the Creeks, these two for the Choc- taws and Chickasaws, and this for ourselves, to assist you if nec- essary."
The Cherokees, some time in the month of October, 1792, agreed with the Creeks to erect three strong stockade forts, with block-houses-one at the confluence of the Tennessee and Clinch Rivers; the second in the Running Water Town, on the Tennes- see; and the third at the Creek's crossing-place, near the Mus- cle Shoals-by which means they expected to be able conveni- ently to continue occasionally their hostile depredations on any part of our south-western territory. Every thing wore the ap- pearance of war; but Hanging Maw desired to be at peace and not to be disturbed, as he would remain at home.
On the night of the 5th of November, 1792, five Creeks, head- ed by young Lashley, the son of a Scotchman in the Creek Na- tion, the same that headed the party who killed and captured Gillespy's sons on the 12th of September, came in upon the waters of the Little River, about twenty miles from Knoxville, and stole and took off eight horses. They were tracked toward Chilhowee, the nearest Cherokee town. This gave reason to sus- pect the Chilhowee Indians of the theft, whereupon as many as fifty-two of the neighboring people, including the sufferers, as- sembled together in arms, and resolved to go and destroy Chil-
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howee and Talassee, a little adjacent town; and actually did march, but Gen. Sevier, receiving information of their intentions, dispatched orders to them to disperse and return home, which they did. As young Lashley passed the Cherokees he assured them that the Spaniards had ordered the Creeks to go to war against the United States, and had supplied them with arms and ammunitions for the purpose; and as an evidence of the truth of what he said, he called their attention to four of his party having new guns, which they were going to use as the Spaniards had directed.
In the latter part of October sixteen Indians, with arms, passed from the north to the south of the Ohio. Their trail was dis- covered where they crossed the trace between the Cumberland and the Kentucky, and it was believed that they crossed the trace which leads from Knoxville to Nashville, and fired the woods to prevent the discovery of their trail. These were sup- posed to be Cherokees, called home on the declaration of war; or Shawnees, coming to the aid of the Cherokees; or a mixture of both.
On Monday, the 12th of November, 1792, a party of fifteen Cherokees attacked the house of Mr. Ebenezer Byron, in Grassy Valley, about eight miles from Knoxville, in which were only two men with their families. The Indians had surrounded the house before they were discovered, and forced open a window and pointed their guns into it, when by a timely and well-directed fire from the two men two of the Indians were wounded, and the rest put to flight without firing a gun, leaving one of the wounded behind, who was shot through the head by a second fire from the house. From the quantity and pieces of bone which were found upon the trace, a small distance from the house, it was presumed that the other Indian had received a mortal wound. The irruptions of the Indians became so fre- quent and destructive as to call for the interposition of an armed. force. Gen. Sevier was ordered into service, and with his main force was stationed at South-west Point, thirty-nine miles from Knoxville. This point is formed by the junction of the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers. The other part of his brigade was posted in the different points of the frontiers for the protection of the frontier inhabitants.
On Friday, the 22d of November, Capt. Samuel Henley, of
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Washington County, marched from South-west Point (Gen. Se- vier's camp), with forty men, for the District of Mero, there to perform a three months' tour for the protection of the district. Early on Sunday morning he was fired upon by a party of In- dians, who had formed an ambuscade upon a well-chosen piece of ground, near the Flat Rock in the Cumberland Mountains. Thirty-two of his party returned to Gen. Sevier's camp, and re- ported the number of Indians at from one hundred and sixty to two hundred and fifty. They saw Henley taken by the Indians. There were eight others missing, supposed to be killed. The Indians discovered that Henley had passed on the road near about the Crab Orchard, and pursued him the distance of twenty-five miles, passing him on Saturday night about three miles. The names of the men who were missing were: Capt. Henley, Lewis Carr, Armstead Morgan, Samuel Leiper, Edward Burke, John Primer, William Harrison, Charles Hays, and James Martin.
Three parties of Cherokees and Creeks, in the latter part of November, 1792, went from their towns upon some enterprise against the white settlements. Col. Watts headed one party of twenty men. The other two parties consisted one of thirty, the other of fifty men.
Early in the same month three Creeks-two fellows and a squaw-who had gone into the settlements of Tugulo, in Geor- gia, on friendly purposes, were fired on by a party of neighbor- ing white people, at or near the house of Bryan Wood. The two former were killed and the latter wounded, but she escaped to her nation and friends. It seemed as if the government of the white people was as equally incapable of restraining the whites from excesses as was the government of the Indians in restraining them, and that a state of war was inevitable.
On the 5th of November a marauding party from Elliot County, in the State of Georgia, destroyed the Cherokee town Estotee by fire, and killed two of the inhabitants -- a fellow and a squaw.
It was now ascertained who was the Indian killed at Byron's. He was "The Blackfish," of Chota, a fellow who had long lived in the most intimate habits of friendship with the white people. The one wounded, it was also learned, was "The Forked-horn- buck," of Sitico, a town not far distant from the frontiers of
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North Carolina. The remainder of the party consisted mostly of warriors from the lower towns.
On the 6th of November, 1792, a detachment of the Ken- tucky militia, under the command of Maj. Adair, were attacked by a party of Indians, near Fort St. Clair, and after a short en- gagement were forced to retreat. The Indians took off one hundred and forty pack-horses.
On Saturday, the 22d of December, 1792, a party of Indians went to the house of Mr. Richardson, in Jefferson County, on the Little Pigeon, twenty-five miles from Knoxville, and killed Mrs. Richardson, Mrs. Foster, Miss Schull, and two children with tomahawks and a war club, the latter of which they left in the house. They robbed the house and went off. They had laid in wait upon a hill which overlooked Richardson's door many hours, and took the opportunity of his absence only half an hour to massacre his family.
On Monday, the 31st of December, the Indians drove eighteen head of horses from the Big Pigeon, in Jefferson County, near where Richardson's family were killed, and wantonly killed sev- eral cattle and hogs. These Indians were from Nickajack. On the next Sunday John Bartram, in the same neighborhood, in search of his horses. saw two Indians attempting to catch them, upon which he fired at one, who dropped his arms; but it was feared that he did not kill him.
Mrs. Crockett and eight children were killed in December, 1792, on the frontier of Georgia by the Creeks. The white peo- ple now learned that Capt. Henley was a prisoner at Wills Town, in the Cherokee Nation.
On the 25th of December, in the year 1792, messengers from Watts arrived at Gov. Blount's house with what they called peace talks for him. The distressed people, and particularly those of the frontiers, were pleased with the intelligence. They did not reflect that preceding treaties had only thrown the white people off their guard, and caused them to be more exposed than otherwise they would have been.
Let us now turn back to the beginning of May, in this year, and explore the sources of the disorders into which the Indian nations were thrown soon afterward, and of those acts of hostil- ity which they committed upon our people with such fatal fre- quency in the course of this year; for on the 20th of May, 1792,
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when the goods were to be divided amongst the Cherokees, which were delivered to them pursuant to the treaty of 1791, Gov. Blount, at the pressing invitation of the chiefs, went to Coyatee, where he was received by the chiefs and two thousand Cherokees with all the tokens of respect and joy that it was possible to man- ifest. The chiefs and warriors of the lower towns arrived at Coy- atee a few days before. They marched in, painted black, sprink- led over with flour, to signify that they had been at war, but were then for peace. They were received by the other chiefs under the standard of the United States. In the address of Gov. Blount to them he mentioned the massacres which had been lately com- mitted, and the horses which had been stolen, and said that it was with much difficulty he had been able to restrain the suffer- ers from taking satisfaction. He specified the instances and the number of horses and prisoners which had been taken; and he stated to them that it was necessary that there should be not only a disposition in the chiefs to keep the treaty unbroken, but a restraint of their people also from the commission of offenses. The President, he said, loved the red men, but could not suffer their people to kill the white people, and yet continue in peace with them; their young men must be restrained. He had or- dered, he said, a part of the militia upon the frontiers from the Holston to the Clinch, and up the Clinch, and upon the frontiers to the Cumberland; but they were not ordered into the Indian country, the only object in calling them out being to prevent the bad Cherokees from coming to the settlements of the white peo- ple. Their people, in coming to visit him, he said, must come to Craig's Station. No one had been killed in that neighbor- hood, and the people were not so much irritated as in other places; and he informed them that the prisoners must be deliv- ered at the ensuing council at Estanaula. "The Breath," of Nickajack, promised a return of the prisoners, and to find out who had done the mischiefs complained of; and to state their names at the meeting of the council of Estanaula, and he deliv- ered to the Governor a string of white beads, the usual token of peace.
"The Hanging Maw" gave public notice that the great coun- cil was to meet at Estanaula on the 23d of June, to hear the re- port of Gen. Eskaqua and of the other agents, and desired that all the chiefs might be present.
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At this time it is a fact which ought to be particularly noticed that Gen. Eskaqua and John Watts were so forward in promot- ing the plans of peace, and seemed to be so greatly pleased at the peaceable appearances held by the chiefs of the lower towns, that they were considered and called by the Governor the cham- pions of peace. We shall soon see John Watts a leader in the attack on John Buchanon's Station.
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