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 34
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about two miles from that place, Thomas Thompson was fired at, but received no injury. On Monday, the Sth of October, William Stewart was killed, about six miles from Nashville, on the north side of the Cumberland. On the night of the same day the Indians burned Stump's distillery, on White's Creek, on the north side of the Cumberland. On the 9th of October a party of Indians went to Sycamore Creek, eighteen miles from Nashville, and burned the houses of James Frazier, Mr. Riley, and Maj. Coffield, a large quantity of corn, and shot down- a number of hogs. They then proceeded to Bushy Creek, of Red River, where they burned the house of Obadiah Roberts, and took a number of horses. They were followed by a party of whites, who killed one of the Indians and regained the horses. On Friday, the 11th of October, the Indians fired on Mr. Sugg, on White's Creek, on the north side of the Cumberland, and took from him ten horses. On Sunday, the 14th of October, the Indians shot at John Cotton, on Station Camp. Seven balls passed through his clothes, none of which touched his skin. On the same day they fired at Francis Armstrong, on his plantation, four miles south of Nashville. During the time of these vio- lences there were stationed in the District of Mero, for its pro- tection, not only the troops raised there, but also three compa- nies from Washington District: Hugh Beard's, of mounted infantry, and the companies of Capts. Brown and Lusk. They were by no means chargeable with a lack of vigilance. The frontiers of these settlements were peculiarly vulnerable. They were accessible on all sides, and covered with thick canebrakes, which precluded the pursuit of the Indians, and through the whole extent of the frontier sheltered them from discovery, while they were concerting mischief and waiting for opportuni- ties to perpetrate it. Lamentable as is this tale of woe, it is not yet ended.
On the 23d and 24th of October James Mayberry and John White were killed and scalped on the Cumberland Mountain. They had been engaged to go express from Knoxville to the of- fice of the Surveyor-general at Nashville, for the purpose of carry- ing from thence to the office of the Secretary of State of North Carolina a number of military warrants and the Surveyor's re- turns, that grants might issue upon them within the time lim- ited by law. The Assembly of North Carolina, at their session
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commencing on the 2d of November, 1789, and ending on the 22d of December, gave further time for surveying lands entered in John Armstrong's office on military warrants and on pre- emption rights. They allowed three years, which expired on the 2d of November, 1792, but were understood by the people of Cumberland to expire on the 22d of December, 1792. It is easy to perceive from the view we have just taken of the state of affairs in all these three years that actual surveys could not be made at any considerable distance from Nashville but at the most imminent hazard of those who made them. And not be- ing able to make and return actual surveys, the surveyors took the warrants and entries made upon military warrants, and made out plats without ever seeing the lands, and returned them to the Secretary's office in great numbers, and grants issued upon them. For this reason it is that the Judges of Tennessee, with respect to these grants at least, will not receive the plats and water-courses laid down in it as locative evidence in controver- sies concerning boundary. Frequently of late new entries and surveys have been made of the same lands, in the present and late land offices, and the surveyors have been summoned to de- clare on oath where are the boundaries which they actually made; but the courts have excused them from answering such questions, as tending to implicate them either in a breach of duty or of the promissory oaths of office, taken previously to its exercise. The courts, very laudably, have been ingenious in support of these grants, and have by a series of judicial decis- ions sanctioned actual surveys made after opening the new of- fices, with demarkation of lines, so as to give notice in time to subsequent enterers of the real locality of the lands claimed un- der these grants, provided the survey be such as might have been made by the original surveyor in point of form and loca- tion. Many legal controversies have been raised upon the foundation of a supposed defect in those grants; but hitherto they have maintained their ground, and the honest purchasers have not yet been obliged to lose them for want of actual sur- veys, if surveys have been since made and have identified the lands. The Assembly of North Carolina, by virtue of the pow- ers reserved in the cession act, which enabled the Governor to complete titles not yet perfected upon entries and rights of pre- emption, and upon all entries in John Armstrong's office on
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which grants were not perfected, and upon all other rights granted by law, continued to legislate upon the subject of va- cant lands within the ceded territory, and upon the mode of sat- isfying claims to lands under North Carolina in the same man- ner as if the cession act had never passed; and all the laws of North Carolina upon this subject were conformed to and con- firmed by the western people. But let us return to the melan- choly story which we left.
On the 7th of December, 1792, a party of cavalry in service for the protection of the District of Mero, about eight miles from Nashville, were fired upon by about twenty Indians, who put them to flight and killed John Hankins, who was scalped and his body much mangled. The Indians stole horses in this dis- trict without intermission through all the month of Decem- ber, 1792.
On the 29th of December John Haggard was killed and scalped about six miles from Nashville. Twelve balls were shot into him. His wife was killed by the Indians in the summer, and he left five small children in poverty and wretchedness.
Gov. Blount, not unmindful of the instructions he had re- ceived from the President to engage the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws to co-operate with the United States in their war against the Northwards, as they were then called, and hav- ing so far felt the pulse of the Cherokees as to discover that the application to them would not be successful, dropped the sub- ject with them entirely. But in the spring of 1792 he wrote to the Choctaws and Chickasaws to meet him at Nashville on the 15th of June, that he might deliver the presents he had for them and that they and himself might shake hands and drink and smoke together. "Because these things," said he, "serve to make people and nations love each other." And he desired not only that the principal chiefs might attend, but also the young warriors, for he wished to become acquainted with them. Mr. James A. Robertson and Mr. Anthony Foster were sent with his letters to these nations. They were made acquainted with the objects of the intended meeting, but were instructed care- fully to avoid mentioning what they were, and to talk in such way as to induce in the young warriors a wish to join the United States, and, should the proposal be made by them, to encourage it. The Governor, on the 27th of April, had written to Piomin-
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go, great chief of the Chickasaws, in very friendly terms. He had, for the sake of Piomingo, he said, and of his Nation, lately received and treated with attention four of the Chickasaws; and when Piomingo should be on his way to visit the President, the Governor invited him to call at Knoxville to rest himself and to accept of the necessary supplies for himself and his friends. He was pained to hear that Gov. St. Clair had not treated the chief as well as had been expected; but he hoped, notwithstanding, that Piomingo and his people would again join the United States, in which case they would now receive very different treatment. From the representations of Gen. Robertson he (the Governor) entertained a high sense of the great worth of the chief and of his people. Whatever Mr. Foster and Mr. Robert- son might say respecting the personal regard of the Governor for him and his people he desired the chief to believe. In his public address to them he stated that he loved them and would be happy to give proofs of his friendship. And further, he stated toward the end of his address, both to the Choctaws and Chickasaws, that if any of their young warriors thirsted for military fame, he begged they might be indulged in joining the troops of the United States at Fort Washington. Such, he added, would be well fed and well paid. Mr. Foster, on his re- turn, attributed to Spanish interference the failure of some of the Choctaw chiefs to attend the conferences at Nashville.
The conferences with the Choctaws and Chickasaws at Nash- ville began on the 7th and ended on the 10th of August, 1792. Gov. Blount and Gen. Pickens attended. There were present some chiefs of the Choctaws and two or three from the Chero- kees, with about twenty other Cherokees. The valuable goods sent to them Gov. Blount represented as proofs of the friend- ship of the United States toward them. One other object of the treaty, he said, was to present thanks to Piomingo and the Col- berts and their followers, who had joined the army of the United States last summer against their enemies. He accordingly did present them hearty and sincere thanks for their services; also to each of them a rifle. "The United States," he continued, "do not want your lands; they do not want the lands of any red peo- ple; they have lands enough. Gen. Washington, the greatest of all men, will soon afford you a trade from the mouth of Bear Creek. The United States had not been able hitherto to attend
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to that business, but would soon be at leisure to do so. He next represented to them that Doublehead, a Cherokee, with forty other Indians of different tribes, had lately settled on the south side of the Tennessee, near the month, on the lands of the Chickasaws, and had there killed citizens of the United States. He must be driven off, or the Chickasaws must give leave to the United States to drive him away. He desired that the lands and divisional lines of the red people might be designated, that it may be known to what nation any party of Indians belonged who may kill or plunder the citizens of the United States. The first chief who replied expressed great satisfaction that no trans- fer of lands had been mentioned. Piomingo described the Chickasaw boundaries: "Beginning on the Ohio where is the ridge which divides the waters of the Tennessee and Cumber- land, and with that ridge eastwardly as far as the most eastern waters of Elk River; thence to the Tennessee at an Indian old field, where a part of the Chickasaw nation formerly lived, this line to be run so as to include all the waters of Elk River; thence across the Tennessee and a neck of land to Tenehucunda Creek, a southern branch of the Tennessee, and up the creek to its source; thence to the waters of the Tombigbee; thence to the west fork of Longleaf Pine Creek, and down it to the line of the Choctaws and Chickasaws." He wished to know whether the Cherokees at the treaty of Holston had claimed the whole of Duck River. He stated his boundaries, he said, to the end that the whites might not take the territory within them from the Chickasaws, supposing them to belong to the Cherokees, who are often killing and plundering them; for which, at some time or other, the whites will take away their lands. "It is desired," said Gov. Blount, "that the United States may know to whom
to apply for redress of injuries." Gen. Pickens said to the Chickasaws: "We shall look upon it that your enemies are ours and ours yours; as you are now obliged to travel to Nashville to trade, and the path is long and oftentimes stained with blood, we wish for your accommodation and safety that a trading post be established at the mouth of Bear Creek, as agreed on by the treaty of Hopewell." They did not relish this proposal. One of them said the white people wore hard shoes, and might tread upon their toes. Gov. Blount then told them that the President would not proceed for some time to establish the post at the
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mouth of Bear Creek. The Cherokees, he said, claimed the mouth of Bear Creek, and were unwilling that a post should be estab- lished there. The Chickasaws averred that those lands did not belong to the Cherokees, and claimed the lands between Duck River and the Tennessee. The contemplated proposal to join the standard of the United States was not publicly made, no letter upon that subject having been received from Gen. Wayne, by whose instructions upon this article the commissioners were to be governed; but Gen. Pickens ascertained in private confer- ences that the aid of these nations was attainable.
All this time the Spanish officers affected the most perfect friendship for the people of Cumberland: Gen. Robertson had for some time kept up a correspondence with Mr. Portell, the commandant at New Madrid; and on the 7th of May, 1792, re- ceived from him assurances that he neither had been nor would be concerned in encouraging the Indians to commit depreda- tions and murders on the people of Cumberland. On the con- trary, his feelings revolted at them, and he considered himself bound by the principles of humanity, and by the duty he owed to mankind in general, to discountenance and repress such atrocity by all the means in his power. We shall presently see the course they were taking at this very time with the Creeks, and the means they employed to make the Cherokees dissatis- fied, and to hope from them a redress of the wrongs which they pretended to have suffered. Certain chiefs of the Cherokee nation, in the name of the whole nation, transmitted a written remonstrance to the Baron de Carondalet, which purports to be an answer to the message by the persons whom he sent to their nation. It complains of the unjust occupation of their lands by the Americans; that the treaty of Hopewell was not by their free consent, for these lands were settled before their consent was asked; and because of the fraudulent means used by them in the usurpation of their lands the nation insisted upon their ancient limits as agreed on with the British Government. They prayed of the baron to use his best efforts with the King of Spain for the accomplishment of these ends, and at all events for the removal of the settlements at Cumberland, without which the Cherokees and Talapuches would never be satisfied. Cumberland, they said, was settled by a certain Robertson, who, with his companions coming thither secretly, had taken posses-
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sion; and as to the trades they had with the Americans, in which any lands were ceded, they declared that the same were not cor- rectly explained to them. Robertson, they said, and his asso- ciates were the cause of all the blood which had been spilled; this settlement, if taken away, would leave the Cherokees rec- onciled; and they declare that the solicitude they feel is not the effect of pique or caprice. They promise to attend to his friend- ly counsels, and to be at peace if possible; but if not, he must excuse them because of their oppression. For hearing such complaints from people residing confessedly on the territories of the United States, it was not possible for the Spaniard to of- fer an excuse; it was a gross violation of the rights of the United States, and an act of the most unfriendly complexion. The con- ferences at Nashville were nothing to them, yet they took care immediately to have a report made of what passed there in a · style suitable to the temper of the reporter and to their own dispositions. It was made by Ugulayacabe, a Cherokee who had been to Orleans, and came from thence by way of his own home in the Cherokee Nation to the conference at Nashville. He was teased, he said, by two Americans to do so, and with it wished to see whether Piomingo had ceded lands to the Amer- icans. Gov. Blount caressed him, and wished to establish a post at Bear Creek, to which he refused to consent. He stated that he said to the Governor that the Spaniards were his friends; that they supplied him with what goods he wanted, of which the Governor might be satisfied by the clothes which he (the In- dian) was then dressed in, upon which the Governor grew peev- ish, but after some time asked him if he would assist the Amer- icans in case they should have war with the whites, to which he answered that he would preserve a state of neutrality, but would never suffer the American settlements to be advanced further than they now were. He said that the Governor gave him a great coat and a hat which was too small for his head, and so he gave it to his son who was going to get married. The Americans, he said, gave about a dozen cart-loads of goods to the Indians, of the value, as they told him, of five thousand dol- lars; that the Governor had little ammunition, no axes, mattocks, nor hatchets; some guns, much whisky, victuals in abundance, meat at pleasure. There is a vein of satire in all this which would not have been spoken of a friend to his friend, nor would
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the latter have relished or received it. The Indian, having been at Orleans, knew what was acceptable there, and framed his re- port accordingly. Early in this year the Spanish nation began to foresee that ere long it would be confederated with the En- glish and other European powers in their war against France. The people of the United States had on every occasion made demonstrations of joy through all parts of the Union on the news received of French successes. Many of the Americans were so imprudent as to urge the policy, and also the obligation of duty we were under, to unite our arms with those of the French for the support of their liberties, as they had done for ours in the late war of the revolution. It began to be taken al- most for granted by the belligerents of Europe, and by those who were on the eve of becoming so, that the United States would be ranged on the side of the French. The Spaniards therefore lost no time in following the dictates of their favorite policy toward us in making the people of the south-western ter- ritory feel and appreciate the evils of war.
The war of the northern Indians was now at its height. They were backed and supported by the English, and had lately given to our army a signal defeat. John Watts, after being present at Coyatee in May, with a great many other Indians, to confer with Gov. Blount, whom they treated with the highest distinc- tion, and to whom they made professions of the most profound friendship, left that place on the 25th of May, and proceeded with other Indians to Toquo, distant fifteen miles from Coyatee. There a letter was handed to Watts, written by a Mr. Panton, a merchant of great business, then in the Cherokee Nation, and addressed to both Watts and "The Bloody Fellow." It was written from the house of Mr. McDonald, a Scotchman, and an old resident in the Cherokee Nation, and in the late war a dep- uty under Col. Brown, who succeeded Col. Stewart in the super- intendency of the nation. This letter Mr. McDonald forwarded to Watts by an Indian runner. In it he, in the name of Gov. Oneil, invited Watts and "The Bloody Fellow" to come to Pen- sacola with ten pack-horses, stating that there they should have from Gov. Oneil arms and ammunition as many and as much as they wanted; and that Panton himself would supply their nation with goods in abundance. Panton, from the house of McDonald, visited "The Little Turkey," and staid with him several days, Mc-
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Donald acting as the interpreter between them. Panton invited "The Little Turkey" to visit Gov. Oneil, who would give him arms and ammunition at Pensacola. He said that Mr. McDon- ald would accompany him on his journey, and that he ( Panton ) would supply goods to the nation cheaper than they had hereto- fore purchased them; that the Creeks had agreed that the Span- iards might erect a fort at the Alabama fork, a mile below Mr. McGillevray's house, for the protection of the Creeks and Cher- okees, where arms and ammunition would be kept for them both. This Alabama fork is the place where the French once had a fort, to and from which there is water sufficient for large boats to pass up and down from thence to Mobile. Panton was described in a letter from Gov. Blount to the Secretary of War to have been a British subject and a Scotch refugee from Geor- gia in the early part of the American Revolution, and was in the year 1792 and for a long time before and afterward a resi- dent of Pensacola; and was in the time of the Revolutionary War the particular friend and agent of Col. Brown, who suc- ceeded Col. Stewart in the superintendency of the four southern nations of Indians. Through his hands passed the goods, gen- erally, which the superintendents disposed of in presents to these nations. Besides, he supplied the nations generally with such goods as they purchased. He was also agent for the offi- cers of Brown's regiment of Florida Rangers, of whom sev- eral were as high in rank as captain. In other words, from the time Col. Brown was appointed Superintendent to the close of the war, the goods, generally, with which the four southern na- nations were supplied, whether presents from the British crown (which were very liberal) or by purchases, passed to them through him or his connections stationed at convenient places in the Floridas.
Immediately after the peace Panton, with others, of whom McGillevray is said to have been one, and Mr. Clutokey (a Scotch refugee ) another, obtained permission from the Spanish government to import into the Floridas, directly from England. goods sufficient to continue their supplies to these nations. His annual imports were estimated at £40,000 sterling, upon which was paid a duty of 28 per cent. This permission from the Span- ish government enabled him to support his consequence and the influence which he acquired under Brown's superintendency,
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and to use both as they indulged his inclinations or served his interest. . It is not to be supposed that his inclinations would lead him to good offices toward the United States; nor was it his interest that a free trade and uninterrupted intercourse should be kept up between these tribes and the United States; for it was a well-known fact, after the treaties of Hopewell and the Holston with the Creeks and Cherokees, that he had been undersold in every part of the frontiers, where the transporta- tion had been by land from Philadelphia. After these treaties, the Cherokees generally, and a part of the Creeks, have been supplied by the United States; but the greater part of the Creeks and the Chickasaws and Choctaws continued, generally, to be supplied by Panton, and he had an unlimited influence over them.
Shortly after the receipt of the letter before mentioned by Watts at Toquo, he and "The Bloody Fellow " went together to the house of McDonald, and staid there a night aud a day. Mc- Donald wrote a letter to Gov. Oneil, commending in high terms both Watts and his uncle, Talotiskee. He also wrote one in the name of "The Bloody Fellow " to Gov. Oneil, in which it was stated that he had been to see the President, and was well re- ceived, but could not get his lands. He was glad to hear that the Spaniards would supply the Indians with arms and ammu- nition, and would help them to recover their lands. He had been blind, but now saw. He would let go the hands of the United States, and would take fast hold of the Spaniards. He requested that the Governor would not permit Watts to return without plenty of arms and ammunition; and that himself, "The Turkey," and some other chiefs would come down with Mr. Mc- Donald some time hence to visit him.
"The Bloody Fellow " then accompanied Watts to the cross- ing of the Coosa River, encamped with him all night, and re- turned. Watts and his companions went on their way to Pen- sacola, with ten pack-horses.
About the last of June the national council of the Cherokees was about to sit at Estanaula, by appointment made at the con- ference at Coyatee, at the request of "The Bloody Fellow," to receive his report touching the business he had been on to Phil- adelphia, and to hear the big book read which he had brought from the war office. "The Bloody Fellow" did not attend at
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the council, and made several flimsy excuses for his failure. The true cause was the letter he had received from Panton, and his subsequent communications. At Coyatee he was the warm partisan of the United States, as was also his friend Watts.
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