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 28
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We are to search for the powerful influence which transformed his sentiments in the conferences which they soon after held at Pensacola, preparatory to the attack on Buchanon's Station.
Gov. Blount, no longer able to be a tame spectator of the num- berless injuries inflicted upon his country, nor to view the suf- . ferings of the unoffending inhabitants with the cold indifference which is said to have marked the conduct of the government of the Union at this time, ordered Gen. Sevier into service with a part of his brigade. The main force was stationed, in Novem- ber, 1792, at South-west Point, and small detachments at differ- ent stations on the frontiers, which proved exceedingly useful for securing the District of Washington against the assaults of the Indians. To alleviate the censure which the impatience of the western people, excruciated with suffering, began to utter, it is to be remembered that the Indian war to the north and the western insurrection gave full employment to all the faculties of the government, and left no time for the prosecution of others. The proportion of the new levies called forth to suppress the in- surrection was demanded from the Territory; but such was the tardiness of the inhabitants and their disinclination to the sery- ice that the requisition was never completely complied with. The people murmured, and said it was peculiarly hard that the South-western Territory should be called upon for three hundred men, when they were every day harassed with Indian massa- cres and robberies, without any aid from the government to shield them from their outrages. Probably the truth is that a considerable portion of the people who lived in the Territory at that time were averse to the exhibition of governmental energies, and secretly dreaded the extent of their consequences. The unin- structed rambler, who has for some time traversed the wilderness and tyrannized over its inhabitants, free as the air he breathes, will never fail to view the first precedent that shall be set for forcing a compliance with regulations as the beginning of tyr-
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anny over himself, and, though willing to be lord of the crea- tion, he contemplates with the utmost aversion the exercise of lordly power over himself.
The Indians, though they rioted in the excess of cruelty against the people of Cumberland and the Holston, and were preparing to bring fresh and multiplied misfortunes upon them, were viewed by the government of the Union with indifference, and not even with displeasure. The people of the United States turned a deaf ear to the tale of suffering anguish which the western people never ceased to utter. They were unwilling to incur the expenses of more Indian wars, and they held all that could be said upon the subject as a threadbare story, which they had no longer any patience to hear. And notwithstanding the great danger to which the people were hourly exposed, the gov- ernment was inclined to disband the militia which was stationed on the frontiers for their protection.
Gen. Sevier fixed his encampment, and determined to erect a fort at a spring a small distance above the confluence of the rivers Tennessee and Clinch. The situation was not altogether so com- manding and elegant as at the extreme point of the peninsula, where there is no water except that of the river, which is six hun- dred perpendicular feet, at least, below the surface of the ground above, and in the fork, suitable for a garrison. At this place it was very unlikely that water could be got by digging; the pros- pect at the spring was extensive and handsome, the water pleas- ant and conducive to health. At this place both rivers were suf- ficiently under the command of the garrison, and accessible on either side. In addition to these advantages was the spring, which would be under the walls, or within them if necessary. The possession of this place would effectually prevent the inter- course between the upper and lower Cherokees, together with that of the small tribes of Northwards settled on the Tennessee; which communication extended at least three hundred miles up and down the river, and up the river Clinch, which takes its rise in the vicinity of the Ohio and the Cole and Sandy, two branches of the latter, by which advantages they had but a small passage by land, from either of these rivers into the Clinch, which communicates with the Tennessee. It would also obstruct the passage of the Indians up and down the Clinch River, which the Creeks and Cherokees used in going and returning on their
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incursive expeditions up this river. The northern and southern tribes often passed in canoes one hundred and fifty miles, up and down, to its junction with the Tennessee, and then up or down this latter river into any part of the Cherokee country. A gar- rison fixed at the situation before mentioned would not only de- stroy the water communication, but, being directly on the road between the southern and northern tribes, would obstruct their passage by land.
The only two practicable fords on the Tennessee were both within five miles of this place; the same number on the Clinch, which were only eight miles from the same place; and the main gap in the Cumberland Mountain, not more than ten. The whole would be under the eye of a garrison at the spring, and their marauding gangs would be constantly exposed to the pur- suits and chastisements of the scouting parties from the fort, which at this spot would be at the center of their intercourse and nation, in the way to their hunting-ground, and so near to the body of the nation as would enable the troops at all times to fall suddenly upon them, and to expel them from the country if necessary. In thirty hours from this place by water any of the towns might be attacked, or in forty-eight by land. All nec- essary stores could be exported by water from any part of the District of Washington to this place. These reasons determined the general to make selection of this place. The Governor ap- proved of them. The place was called South-west Point by Gen. Sevier. Block-houses and a stockade fort were built near the spring. The time of the six weeks men being about to ex- pire, they were ordered to be detained till the arrival of the new levies, which were raised to supply their places, and the general received special directions to maintain in all events the position he occupied. About this time the Indians made an attack upon Byron's house. The flames of war began to spring up in all parts of the frontiers to which the savages dared to venture. And Capt. Childress's company of six weeks men applied to the general for their discharge.
Gov. Blount, in the course of his correspondence with the Cherokee chiefs and others, had got into the full possession of one fact: that whenever it was proposed to the Cherokees to join the United States against the Shawnees, they manifested the ut- most indignation at it. They had some intimation, in the spring
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of 1792, of the proposal intended to be made at the treaty, which was to be held at Nashville in the summer, and received it with so much disgust that "The Bloody Fellow," who had lately returned from visiting the President at Philadelphia, and was there made Gen. Eskaqua, was afraid for the future to disclose his wishes on that head. "For," said Gov. Blount in his letter to the Sec- retary of War, "he has consequence as a leader no longer than whilst he follows the wishes of the young warriors, and either indulges, abets, or heads them, in the execution of their wishes, or proposes only what is acceptable to them."
In the month of November, 1792, Gov. Blount explained to the Secretary of War the causes of the unceasing hostilities of the Indian. He remarked that the evils inflicted upon the set- tlers before the Spanish Conferences at Pensacola and Natchez, which he referred to, could not be charged on the Spaniards, as very few of them had happened since Watts returned from Pen- sacola; but may be accounted for from Indian education, that all national honors were acquired amongst them by the shedding of blood. Consequently all who wished for national honor would shed the blood of the white people, as Indians no longer killed Indians, the ancient practice when the principle was established. Another reason for these depredations was the white people- the greatest of all rascals-and the half-breeds, who are numer- ous, living among the Creeks and Cherokees. The greater part of them were traders, and encouraged the Indians to steal horses from the citizens of the United States, to the end that they might purchase them. If they took horses and were pursued, they killed in their own defense. As soon as the Indians re- turned into the Nation with their horses, those who encouraged the stealing of them became the purchasers; and shortly after- ward, knowing the quarter whence they were taken, carried them out of the Nation in a different direction, and sold them with great profit. The want of government, both in the Creeks and Cherokees, was such that all the chiefs in either nation could neither restrain nor punish the most worthless fellow in it for a violation of existing treaties, let the enormity of it be ever so great or evident; nor, if demanded by the United States, dare they deliver him up to be punished. The Indians were divided into clans or families, and it was a law among them that each clan should protect and take satisfaction for all injuries offered to the
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person of each individual of it, whatever had been his offense, except that of killing an Indian of another clan; and then if the injured clan or any of its members took satisfaction it was well, and the matter ended. The better to explain how this clannish law operated, the following facts may be resorted to: The brother of the chief called "The Bloody Fellow" had killed a white man. Cameron, the British Superintendent, demanded him, and upon his being delivered, had him put to death. In a short time aft- erward "The Bloody Fellow" put to death the Indian who deliv- ered or caused his brother to be delivered to Cameron.
The massacres and depredations of the Indians were not chargeable, said Gov. Blount, to encroachments on their hunting- grounds.
Their deputies, when they visited the President, made no com- plaint respecting the line as established by the treaty of the Hol- ston, except that they wished the ridge between the Tennessee and the Little River to be the line, in preference to a straight line from the place where the ridge struck the Holston. The set- tlers south of the ridge did not suffer by the Indians after the treaty of Holston, except Mr. Gillespy, who on the 12th of Sep- tember had been killed, and another made prisoner by the Creeks, who never claimed a foot of land on the north side of the Ten- nessee. The depredations before the declaration of war, and the attack after, were on the people of Mero District. The con- duet of the Creeks must have been occasioned by other motives than those resulting from a claim of boundary. If the Cherokees ever had a claim, it was extinguished by two treaties-those of Hopewell and of the Holston-at the last of which a valuable consideration was paid in hand; and since that time the first an- . nual payment has been made and principally received by the inhabitants of the five lower towns who have declared war against the United States. The claims of the Cherokees to the lands lying on the Cumberland was recent. Richard Henderson and company purchased from them their claim to these lands, as well as nearly all those included within the present limits of Kentucky; and they told Henderson positively that they did not sell him any right, for they had none; but only their claim. At the Conference with the Choctaws and Chickasaws at Nashville, in August, 1792, the latter claimed in strong terms all the lands north of the Tennessee, and below the Old Field, where a part of
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their nation formerly lived, and eastwardly as far as the head wa- ters of the Duck and Elk, and to the ridge that divides the Cum- berland and Duck. And James Carey, the interpreter, said that upon the return of the Cherokees, who were at that Conference and who had a literal copy of the minutes, they caused it to be read and explained to the chiefs at Estanaula, and they con- fessed that the Chickasaw claim was just. The Chickasaws averred that they, and not the Cherokees, ceded to the United States the lands lying south of the ridge which divides the wa- ters of the Cumberland and Duck Rivers-that is, the lands lying on the waters of the Cumberland River-and so they did by a treaty held at Nashville, in the year 1783, by Cols. Donalson and Martin, commissioners from the State of Virginia, two years prior to the treaty of Hopewell, by which the Cherokees ceded them. This treaty was probably never reported to Congress. If the Cherokees ever had any well-founded claims to the lands on the Cumberland, they did by two treaties cede them to the United States; and had been once paid for them by an individ- ual (Col. Henderson), by whom if he could not acquire title to his own use, the right of the Cherokees was nevertheless divested for the use of the public. The first settlers on the Cumberland River came thither under Henderson's purchase, by virtue of the Cherokee deeds made to him and his associates.
The numerous depredations committed in this year, he thought, showed clearly that more Indians than the lower Cher- okee towns were engaged in them, and the necessity of building fortifications on the frontiers. He informed the Secretary of War that the Indians had failed to send their commissioners, in October, 1792, to run the boundary line agreed on by the treaty of Holston. The commissioners of the United States ran the line from the Clinch to the Chilhowee, which left out eight or nine plantations on Nine Mile Creek, unless made to strike near the mouth of the Clinch. These settlements were made before the treaty of Holston, which, however, he said, was now dissolved by the war which they had declared. He proposed to the Sec- retary to send Carey into the Creek Nation, in the disguise of a friend, to discover what they intended. It is not improper here to adduce a fact respecting the claims of the Cherokees, which probably Gov. Blount had not acquired the knowledge of at the time that he made this communication to the Secretary of War.
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Col. Croghan, in October, 17S1, had resided among the Indians in the character of Deputy Superintendent, and seems to have possessed more general knowledge of the state of their claims and the history of their wars than any other who has been drawn into public observation. In this year (1781) it became impor- tant to ascertain the true boundaries of the Six Nations, and Col. Croghan was applied to as being the person best qualified to give the necessary information. He made a deposition, by which it appears that the Six Nations claimed all the land on the south-east side of the Ohio, down to the Cherokee River, which they ceded at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, held by commis- sioners on the part of his Britannic Majesty with them, in 1768. An incident which took place at the treaty affords concurring evidence of the sense entertained by the Cherokees of that claim, which the Six Nations were then about to surrender. Some vis- iting Cherokees to that treaty had on their road killed game for their support; and on their arrival at Fort Stanwix they imme- diately tendered the skins to the Indians of the Six Nations, saying: "They are yours; we killed them after we passed the Big River." The Cherokees have always designated the Ten- nessee by this name. The treaty of Fort Stanwix passed away from the Six Nations, the sole sovereigns of the soil, all their rights south-east of the Ohio and down to the Cherokee River, which they say in the treaty is their just right, and vested the soil and sovereignty in the British king. This title was relin- quished to the United States by the treaty of 1783, and indeed became vested in the respective States where it lay by the dec- laration of independence on the 4th of July, 1776; for that act, having been eventually supported, is a valid one, and was effect- ual from the day of its transaction. The claim of the Six Na- tions is founded, as their traditional history says, upon the con- quest of the country from the first possessors, or sovereigns of the soil.
As if Gov. Blount was lying on a bed of roses, and had more leisure on his hands than could be employed in recreation, the Governor of Virginia began to make him uneasy. Gov. Blount had directed the officers of the Territory to exercise jurisdiction as far as Henderson's line. The Governor of Virginia issued a proclamation in opposition to the fact which the instructions maintained. The act of Virginia for extending her jurisdiction,
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meaning no doubt the act of the 7th of December, 1791, was founded, as Gov. Blount alleged, on a resolution of the Assem- bly of North Carolina, passed long after the acceptance of the cession by Congress, and many months after the organization of the territorial government; and could only have meant to estab- lish Walker's line as far west as the claim of North Carolina ex- tended at the time of passing the resolution. For the informa- tion of the people, and in support of the arguments he urged, Gov. Blount procured and published a copy of these proceed- ings of the North Carolina Legislature. His opponents were not convinced, and this dispute remained one cause of the many cares which kept his mind disturbed during the whole time of his gubernatorial office.
On the 22d of November, 1792, Gov. Blount wrote to Gov. Lee, of Virginia, on the subject on the jurisdictional line. He stated that there could be no doubt but that the act of Virginia and the resolution of North Carolina had fixed the boundary line between those two States; but that North Carolina, after the ac- ceptance of the cession act by Congress, had no power to fix the line between Tennessee and Virginia, and that the resolution was several months after that period. North Carolina, he al- leged, had exercised jurisdiction without any objection on the part of Virginia to the date of the cession act, and the Federal Government since-a space of ten years. He considered it his duty to extend the territorial jurisdiction to that line, the law of Virginia and the proclamation of his Excellency notwithstand- ing, and should continue to exercise it until he should receive instructions from the Federal Government.
It may not be improper to remark that the resolution of North Carolina was made at the same cession in which was passed the act for ceding the Territory to Congress, which session com- menced on the 2d of November, 1792, and ended on the 22d of December, 1792. At that time, and long afterward in North Carolina, and until an alteration was made by an act of the Legislature, all the acts of the Legislature related, as in En- gland, to the first day of the session; and consequently the first resolution preceded the deed made to Congress on the 20th of February, 1790. Both of these resolutions intended the com- pletion of their object by a statute to be passed by the Legisla- ture. Whether either of them could be legally considered as
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an agreement obligatory upon North Carolina, when afterward accorded to by Virginia, is a point to be discussed in the first place before it can be assented to. The objection is not so prop- erly for want of power in the Legislature at the date of the first resolution, as it is for want of the statute which the resolution of 1789 recommended. The State of Virginia soon after, when she agreed to a divisional line half-way between Walker's and Henderson's line, undoubtedly considered that the North Car- olina resolution was incompetent to the purpose.
Gen. Sevier endeavored with the greatest anxiety, while sta- tioned at South-west Point, to obviate all just grounds of com- plaint on the part of the friendly Indians. Hearing by a report circulated in camp that a party from it had surprised an Indian camp, killed a fellow and wounded another, and one squaw Indian who was with them, either on the 11th of November or on the morning of the 12th; and hearing by the same report that ensign Inman had the command of the party which committed the out- rage, he ordered Col. Carter to make strict inquiry into the cir- cumstances, and to report them all to him. When about to leave the camp for a short time, on the 18th of November, one part of the orders left with Col. Christian was not to suffer any party in his absence to carry on expeditions against the Indian towns, nor to cross the Tennessee, except a single person or two to reconnoi- ter the country and to make discovery whether or not any party of the enemy was lurking in the neighborhood. He was to send parties of horse at different times to reconnoiter the woods as low down as the Crab Orchard, and on the Cumberland line; and as high up as the Papaw town, on the north side of the Clinch River; and to repel and defeat, if in their power, any hostile par- ties that might appear on the north side of the Tennessee River; and the works which were incomplete were to be carried on with indefatigable assiduity.
The Southern Indians exulted at the misfortunes of the Northern army, and the Spaniards were blamed for their un- friendly disposition toward the United States. The general commended Col. Watts for his returning desire for peace, , thanked him for the attention paid to his prisoner, Capt. Hen- ley, and wished that he might be restored to his connections and countrymen. In his address to the Secretary of War he undisguisedly declared himself an advocate for war against the
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hostile part of the Creeks and Cherokees, and employed some strong arguments to convince the Secretary of the correct- ness of his own opinion. We shall soon see the little effect which these arguments produced, and the fatal consequences of disregarding them. He proved from late events opposed to the communication of Mr. Seagrove that five hundred Creeks and a large body of Cherokees were actually embodied for the purpose of invasion when Mr. Seagrove assured the government of the pacific dispositions of these nations.
On the 27th of November, 1792, the Indians were in such force as to raise the expectation that they would shortly make an attack on Gen. Sevier's army; but on the 20th the Governor was compelled, by the orders of his superiors, to give it in com- mand to the general to march all the troops of his brigade, ex- cept two companies, to Knoxville.
The discharge of the troops from service which were under the command of Gen. Sevier took place about the 8th of Janu- ary, 1793, and we shall soon see the unexpected consequences of that step. In the first week in January, 1793, twenty horses were carried off from the Rolling Fork of Salt River by the Cherokees.
On the 10th of January, 1793, a party of Indians stole thirty horses from a settlement on Russell's Creek, in Kentucky. They were pursued by the inhabitants, who overtook them on the south side of the Cumberland River, and killed one Indian and regained the horses. When the pursuers, in returning, were recrossing the Cumberland River, the last raft was fired on and two men were wounded by a number of Indians who had em- bodied and pursued them. The Indians followed them to the settlements, and after the inhabitants retired to their homes again stole twenty of the same horses.
On the 12th of January, 1793, Capt. Henley returned from captivity. The party which defeated and captured him consist- ed of sixty Creeks. They held a council whether to put him to death or not, and, having determined to save him, they after- ward treated him kindly.
A negro woman and three children were carried into the . lower towns of the Cherokees early in January, 1792. The wench said she was from Kentucky, and that she belonged to Gen. Logan.
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On Tuesday, the 22d of January, 1793, John Pates was killed by the Indians on Crooked Creek, about sixteen miles from Knoxville, and four scalps were taken from him.
On the 29th of January, 1793, three horses were stolen from William Davidson, at Gamble's Station, on Little River, by the Cherokees.
On the 26th of February the Indians stole ten horses from Cosby's Creek, in Jefferson County, the property of William Mc Kossach and Peter Every.
On the 6th of March, 1793, on the road near the Hazel Patch, several men and a woman and a child were fired upon by a party of Indians, supposed to be Cherokees. The child was taken prisoner, and two men were wounded, who got back to the station.
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