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 39
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to persevere in harassing the frontiers of this country, and to show, also, that whenever in perilous times the supreme power is not obeyed, nor the whole management of affairs left to it, but is taken into the hands of every individual who thinks him- self wiser than the constitutional functionaries, that severe suf- fering falling upon some portion of the nation is the inevitable consequence. In this instance the forwardness of one man, which ought to have been instantly put down, exposed the whole western people to savage warfare. The Chickasaws, in the for- mer part of the year 1793, had in full council decided upon war against the Creeks, and this by Spanish jealousy was attributed to the procurement of the United States. The agents charged with Spanish affairs, on the 1Sth of June, 1793, in a written communication which teemed with moroseness, and which was conceived in a style uncourtly, uncourteous, and undiplomatic, made known to our government the grounds of their dissatisfac- tion. "The last article of the treaty," they said, "between the United States and the Creeks promises to maintain perpetual peace and friendship between both the contracting parties; and the fourteenth article promises to carry into full execution what is stipulated in the treaty by both parties with good faith and sincerity. Permit us to ask now, does it denote good faith or prove sincerity to incite the Chickasaws to commence war against the Creeks, with the palpable view that they being less numerous than the Creeks may be under the necessity of asking the protection of Gov. Blount and his troops, and to give them a good occasion for asking in recompense from the Chickasaws lands to form an establishment at the Ecores Amarges (bitter), and have a source whence to incommode and intercept the communications between New Orleans and the establishments of Spain at the Illinois and New Madrid, practiced with barks, which by the eddy formed there by the river Mississippi must pass within pistol shot of a point which commands the river at that place. With this object, and proceeding to the said place," said they, "a son of Gen. Robertson passed by New Madrid on the 7th of May, and about that time had already passed several Americans to the same post. Does it argue good faith and sincerity," they said, "toward the Creeks to succor the Chickasaw nation with a portion of corn, that they might with the greater convenience pursue the war, which the son of
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Gen. Robertson carried with him; and, moreover, a piece of ar- tillery, the use of which the Indians never knew and always feared? The Governor of New Madrid," they said, "saw all this with his own eyes, and it was confirmed by many Indians of the Chickasaw nation, who went with the same young man (Mr. Robertson ), who confessed that Congress had ordered this can- non, at present a declaration which intimates that it is contem- plated to furnish them with more." They spake of the Creeks as their allies, and of the impropriety there was that the United States should meddle with them. They foretold a discontin- uance of peace and friendship between the two governments. Upon the matters of this letter, overlooking the agents who wrote it, and preserving as to them a perfect silence, instructions were given to the American ministers at Madrid what answers to give. With respect to the charge of exciting the Chickasaws to war with the Creeks, it was denied; "but if it were true," said the Secretary of State, Mr. Jefferson, "it would not be unjusti- fiable. The Creeks," said he, "have now a second time com- menced against us a wanton and unprovoked war; and the present one in the face of a recent treaty, and of the most friendly and charitable offices on our part. There would be nothing, then, out of the common course of proceedings for us to engage oth- ers, if we needed any, for their punishment; but we neither ยท need nor have sought them. The fact itself is utterly false, and we defy the world to produce a single proof of it. The declara- tion of war by the Chickasaws, as we are informed, was a very sudden thing, produced by the murder of some of their people by a party of Creeks, and produced so instantaneously as to give nobody time to interfere either to promote or to prevent a rupture. The gift of provisions was but an act of friendship to them when in the same distress which had induced us to give five times as much to the less friendly nation of the Creeks. We have given arms to them. It is the practice of every white na- tion to give arms to the neighboring Indians. The agents of Spain have done it abundantly, and this for the purposes of avowed hostility on us. And they have been liberal in promises of further supplies. We have given a few arms to a very friend- ly tribe, not to make war on Spain, but to defend themselves from the atrocities of a vastly more numerous and powerful peo- ple, and one which by a series of unprovoked and even unre-
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pelled attacks on us is obliging us to look toward war as the only means left of curbing their insolence." The design to make an establishment on the Mississippi was denied, and the interference of the Spaniards with the Indian tribes who live within the borders of the United States was treated as extreme- ly unjustifiable and against usage. "And as to the discontinu- ance of peace," it was asked, "are we to understand that if we arm to repel the attack of the Creeks on ourselves it will dis- turb our peace with Spain? that if we will not let them butcher us without resistance Spain will consider it as a cause of war? We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from expe- rience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its disasters and calamities. If we are forced into a contrary order of things, our mind is made up. We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fear- ing it. If we cannot otherwise prevail on the Creeks to discon- tinue their depredations, we will attack them in force. If Spain chooses to consider our self-defense against savage butchery as a cause of war, we must meet her also in war, with regret, but without fear; and we shall be happier to the last moment to re- pair with her to the tribunal of peace and reason. The Pres- ident charges you," said the Secretary of State, "to communicate the contents of this letter to the court of Madrid, with all the temperance and delicacy which the dignity and character of that court render proper, but with all the firmness and self-respect which befit a nation conscious of its rectitude and settled in its purpose."
The Spanish court might have readily perceived, if it would, from this message that if ever their monarchy had been formi- dable to the United States, present circumstances had greatly impaired the principles of that situation. Incredible, however, as it may seem at first view, yet it is a fact that these same ne- gotiators who clamored so freely and vehemently in June were obliged by indisputable evidence to acknowledge in December that on the 12th of September orders were transmitted to Mr. White, the Governor of Pensacola, by directions of the Baron de Carondalet, to furnish powder and lead to the Cherokees then embodied to make a descent on Knoxville, who, waiting till they received these supplies, marched immediately as far as Cavet's Station, from which on the 25th they retreated toward their own
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nation, after they had committed there the most shocking atroc- ities. But they justified the baron on the ground of their treaty with the Talapuches in 1784, which required it, though they did not pretend to allege that the Cherokees were a part of the Tal- apuches, and deemed it a favor to the United States that he had not supplied them more abundantly.
They went, it is presumed, upon the same principles that the fox did when, instead of paying the stork for taking the bone from his throat, he supposed he had done him a great favor in not biting off his head. To be involved in the course of diplo- matic discussion in numerous inextricable inconsistencies and unsupportable conclusions evinces a bad cause, as well as a want of sagacity. As argument is intended for conviction, the person to be affected is never well pleased unless it has at least the merit of being ingenious, it being an implied imputation upon his own understanding that he is to be subdued by a flimsy ar- gument.
The affairs of the United States with Spain not long after- ward began to wear a more promising aspect, and finally were conducted to a successful termination. But the complete sub- sidence of her ebullitions had not at this time taken place; still she was pressed with difficulties and implicated in an immensity of danger by her war with France. It was thought in Spain that the English had overreached that nation, and were impos- ing upon it; and it began to be tired of the English alliance, and was not unwilling that a good understanding with France should be again re-established. As these propensities gained strength it was observable that the dislike of Spain for Ameri- cans decreased.
By the 18th of December, 1793, the Spanish court had so far relinquished its prejudices as to make a categorical admission that their treaties with the Indians should be considered to ex- tend only to such of them as resided upon their own territories, and that Spain would not take a decided part in favor of the In- dians, except when justice and equity called for it.
Some time in the month of March of this year (1793) Gov. Blount, by an ordinance made for the purpose, erected the Dis- trict of Hamilton, and established a Superior Court therein.
On the night of the 1st of January, 1794, John Drake and three others were fired on at their hunting-camp. On the 3d of 26
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January Deliverance Gray was wounded within four miles of Nashville. On the 7th of February, 1794, a man of the name of Helen was killed by the Indians at the plantation of Gen. Rob- ertson. On the 20th of February, 1794, numerous small divis- ions of Indians appeared in all parts of the frontiers of Mero District, marking every path and plantation with the fatal signs of their visitation. They stole nearly all the horses that be- longed to the district, and butchered a number of-the citizens. In many instances they left the divided limbs of the slain scat- tered over the ground. Jonathan Robertson, from whom upon all occasions the Indians had received as good as they sent, was about this time, with three lads of the name of Cowan, fired upon by five Indians. One of the lads was slightly wounded, and a ball passed through Robertson's hat. He and the lads re- turned the fire and drove off the Indians, having wounded two of them mortally, as was supposed. On the death of Helen, Capt. Murray followed the Indians, and at the distance of one hundred and twenty miles came up with them on the banks of the Tennessee, and destroyed the whole party to the number of eleven. Two women of the party were captured and treated with humanity. These two women pretended that they were Cherokees, endeavoring to conceal the nation to which they be- longed, but were found not to understand the Cherokee lan- guage. In a few days they owned themselves to be Creeks, res- idents of the Eusawties. Within a few days previous to the 27th of February, 1794, a great number of persons were killed, some of whom were: Benjamin Lindsey, Daniel Read, Ezekiel Ca- ruthers, Jacob Evans, Frederick Stull, Jacob Morris, and James Davis.
Gov. Blount had endeavored, early in January, to arrest the progress of the Cherokees. He had proposed them an exchange of prisoners, had urged them to be at peace, and had warned them of the danger to which they stood exposed. He declared to them, through the medium of Thompson, the interpreter. that at the firing of the ordnance a thousand cavalry, completely equipped, could immediately assemble and follow any trail to the town to which it might lead; and that such would be hi- conduct on the next provocation that should be given. If there were peace, he declared that it must be general; and not for some of the chiefs to be at peace, and the other parts of the na-
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tion at war; and toward the last of January, by the consent of "The Hanging Maw," he had caused a block-house to be erected nearly opposite the mouth of the Tellico, the real object of which was to keep the Indians in check by its contiguity; and he placed an agent there whose ostensible business it was to re- ceive prisoners, horses, deserters, negroes, and other articles that the Indians would bring. A small garrison of Federal troops was stationed there likewise. These provisions, however, were not attended with the full success which was hoped from them. The Governor had also so far succeeded with the gen- eral government as to induce it at last to believe that the people of Cumberland were exposed to some danger which they had not drawn upon themselves by any misconduct of theirs. The Governor was permitted to raise troops for the defense of Mero District, and to continue them in service till the first day of De- cember, and longer if necessary-one subaltern, two corporals, and twenty-six privates to be stationed at the crossing at the Cumberland; one subaltern, two corporals, and twenty-one pri- vates for the defense of Tennessee County and the inhabitants of Red River, running into the Cumberland; one subaltern, two corporals, and twenty-six privates for Davidson, the chief part to be in front of Nashville; for Sumner County one subaltern, one sergeant, two corporals, and seventeen privates; and, be- sides these, two subalterns and thirty mounted militia to be al- lowed the district. These were to be raised from the militia, there being no regular troops on which the Governor could call. The government also ordered from Philadelphia, by way of Pitts- burg, six three and one-half inch iron howitzers, with ammu- nition for one hundred rounds complete for each piece, includ- ing twenty-five grape or case shot. Orders for the effectuation of these purposes were issued from the War Office on the 14th of January, 1794, and there was no delay on the part of Gov. Blount in carrying them into execution. These preventatives had very considerable effect, but not all the effect that was de- sired.
Four men were killed and many horses were stolen after the 27th of February and before the 27th of March. On the 18th of March, 1794, the house of Thomas Harris, in Tennessee County, was set on fire by Indians, but the flames were extinguished without much damage. On the 20th of March, 1794, James
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Bryan was fired upon by the Indians from an ambuscade near a path, within four miles of Nashville; and on the same day Charles Bratton was killed and scalped near. the house of Maj. White, in Sumner County.
On the 21st of April, 1794, Anthony Bledsoe, son of Col. An- thony Bledsoe, and Anthony Bledsoe, son of Col. Isaac Bledsoe, were killed and scalped by Indians near a stone quarry, near the house of Searcy Smith, in Sumner County. At the same time two horses and a negro fellow were taken from Mr. Smith's wagon. Shortly before the 2d of May, 1794, Col. Samuel T. Chew had left New Madrid, with intent to become an inhabitant of the south-western territory. He left Fort Massac in the morning, and in the evening intelligence was brought by a boat from Post Vincennes that a pirogue was on shore with a num- ber of bark canoes around it. A command was ordered to the spot, and they brought to the fort the body of Col. Chew, with all the property they could find. One white man and several of his negroes were found dead near the place. The body of Col. Chew was barbarously mangled. He passed Massac with eleven negroes and four white men. This boat was taken upon the Ohio, just below the mouth of the Cumberland. The Indian claim to the lands on the north of the Ohio was ceded to the mouth of that river, and on the south side to the dividing ridge between the waters of the Cumberland and Tennessee. This murder was committed by the Creeks, as was believed, upon the lands ceded to the United States. The people exclaimed every- where that the present, as well as all former Congresses were deaf to their cries, and that the President received the accounts of their sufferings with as much apathy as Congress itself. There was a general sentiment at this time through the whole of the Cherokee nation in favor of peace; but the Cherokees said that should the frontiers enjoy peace it ought to be placed to the account of the Chickasaws, who had done more in a few months than the United States in twenty years-taught the Creeks the value of peace by showing them the evils of war. On the 25th of May the Indians stole Maj. Wilson's horses in Sumner County, and those of sundry other persons there. On the 26th they wounded one of the spies on Bledsoe's Creek, and on the same day they killed the son of Mr. Strawder and wounded his wife, on Station Camp Creek.
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On the 29th of May, 1794, in the absence of Gen. Robertson, Col, Winchester was ordered to keep up the allowed number of troops on the frontier. On the 11th of June the Indians killed Mrs. Gear, within four miles of Nashville. Capt. Gordon fol- lowed them on their retreat upward of ninety miles, killed one of them, and lost one of his party-Robert McRory. He overtook them at the foot of the Cumberland Mountain, near the place where Caldwell's bridge now is. Capt. Gordon was a brave and active officer, distinguished through life for a never- failing presence of mind, as well as for the purest integrity and independence of principle. He had much energy, both of mind and body, and was in all or nearly all the expeditions from Ten- nessee which were carried on against the Indians or other ene- mies of the country, and in all of them was conspicuous for these qualities. He now sleeps with the men of other times, but his repose is guarded by the affectionate recollections of all who knew him. Some of the horses were retaken by another party.
On the 6th of July, 1794, Isaac Mayfield was killed by Indians within five miles of Nashville. He was standing sentinel for his son-in-law while he hoed his corn, and got the first fire at the Indians, but there being from twelve to fifteen of them, and they very near him, he could not escape. Eight balls penetrated his body. He was scalped, a new English bayonet was thrust through his face, and two bloody tomahawks left near his man- gled body. He was the sixth person of his name who had been killed or captured by the Creeks or Cherokees. His wife was made a widow by their sanguinary cruelties. The Indians con- tinued daily to steal the horses of the inhabitants, notwithstand- ing all the defensive protection that could be given to them. Gen. Robertson in the month of July sent an express to the Governor, and on Flinn's Creek the Indians stole his horse and compelled him to perform the journey on foot. On Wednesday, the 9th of August, about 9 o'clock in the morning, Maj. George Winchester was killed and scalped by the Indians, near Maj. Wilson's, in the District of Mero, on the public road leading from his own house to Sumner Court-house. He was a justice of the peace, and was on his way to court. He was a valuable citizen and a good civil and military officer.
On the 20th of August, 1794, Allen Nolan, a lad of twelve years of age, was killed by Indians four miles from Nashville, on
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the plantation where his father had been killed about six years before. Robert Brigance was killed by the Indians on a public road, near Sumner Court-house. His horse was also shot dead. In this month numerous large parties of Creeks had passed the Tennessee on their way to Cumberland, and about the middle of the month the Chickasaws notified the people of Cumberland that two hundred Creeks might shortly be expected on their frontiers.
On the 6th of September, 1794, a negro woman, the property of Peter Turney, was taken off by the Indians, near Sumner Court-house.
It had become manifest for some time past that more effect- ual measures must be resorted to for putting an end to Indian massacres and devastations than those defensive ones which had been so long relied on, and that recourse must be had to some striking and decisive blow of retaliation for the purpose. Sampson Williams, Esq., sensible of the indispensable necessity for the immediate adoption of some plan of reciprocating to- ward the Indians the calamities they inflicted upon the settlers, applied to Col. Whitley, of Lincoln County, Ky., and prevailed on him to enter into the scheme. It was made known at what time he would be ready to march and when he would be in the Cumberland settlements, when it was expected he would be joined and supported by a respectable force to be raised there. Population had so far extended itself, notwithstanding the dis- couraging circumstances it had struggled with, that the county of Sumner had been laid off in 1786 by North Carolina, and also the county of Tennessee in 178S. The men who were ex- pected to carry on the expedition were to be collected from the different sections of country embraced by the limits of those counties and the county of Davidson. The raising of them, therefore, could not be affected with as much dispatch as if they were all to be convened from one neighborhood. Preparation- . were industriously made to raise them with as much celerity as circumstances would admit of, and to collect munitions and other necessaries for forwarding the contemplated expedition. Col. Ford, between Nashville and Clarksville, levied troops in his part of the country to the amount of a captain's company. commanded by Capt. William Miles, who marched with his men to the appointed rendezvous, at the block-house two miles east
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of Buchanon's. Gen. Robertson raised volunteers in his part of the country, in the neighborhood of Nashville. Col. Mont- gomery, at Clarksville, raised troops also, and marched with them in person to the place of rendezvous. Maj. Ore, from East Tennessee, arrived with a body of men from East Tennes- see, by the orders of government, for the protection of the front- ier of Mero District, and came with them to Nashville, where, hearing of what was in agitation, he concluded to contribute his assistance; and the expedition was afterward called his, to give color to the claim of pay for the troops and the provisions and other articles supplied from the general government, the men under his command having actually been levied by public au- thority. He marched his men to the place of rendezvous. Col. Whitley, with his troops, soon afterward arrived, and by his junc- tion the whole body consisted of five hundred and fifty men. There it was agreed that Whitley should have the chief com- mand of the whole. The officers of the troops raised in the Ter- ritory proceeded to elect a proper person to command them, and the choice fell upon Col. Montgomery. All preparatory matters being arranged, and the whole army being made ready, they took up the line of march. On Sunday, the 7th of September, they marched in one day to "The Black Fox's" camp, and there remained for the night. They then crossed the Barren Fork of Duck River, near the stone fort, where Irwin's store now is; thence to Fennison's Spring; thence to the Tennessee River, about three miles below the mouth of Sequatchee Creek, hav- ing crossed the Cumberland Mountain near the place where Caldwell's bridge now is, at which place they crossed Elk River. On arriving at the Tennessee the troops halted in the night, and crossed early in the morning, some of them before day-some upon bundles of dry cane, some upon chumps, and some with- out any assistance, the river there being fully three-quarters of a mile wide. The whole body was landed on the south bank of the river on Thursday next after they began their march at the block-house. As soon as the troops could be collected and made ready they marched up the mountain, between the point of which and the river stood the Indian town of Nickajack. A mile higher up the river, after passing through a very narrow strait or passage, formed by the river on one side and the mount- ain jutting into and above it on the other, they came to a
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spacious plain of low lands, on which stood another town called Running Water. They penetrated into the heart of the town of Nickajack before they were discovered, and first alarmed the Indians by the report of their guns.
Nickajack was a small town inhabited by two or three hundred men and their families. The army killed in the town a consid- erable number of warriors. They fired upon the Indians, who took to their canoes to make their escape across the river. Men, women, and children, all together, were fired upon by a thick and deadly fire, and many of all descriptions perished in the deathful havoc which it made. Some were killed in the canoes; some jumped into the water and attempted to swim off, but be- fore they could get to a secure distance were killed by the firing of the troops, who followed after them so closely as to be at the river nearly as soon as the Indians themselves. They took prisoners two boys, fifteen girls, and a woman. A great num- ber of the Indians were killed, among whom were fifty-five war- riors, and both towns were reduced to ashes. In the town were found two fresh scalps taken at Cumberland, and several that were hung up in the houses as trophies of war; many articles of property which were known by some one or other of the mi- litia to have been taken when the proprietors were killed by the Indians in the course of the last twelve months, among which were a number of letters taken when the Kentucky mail was robbed and the rider killed. These two towns were the princi- pal crossing-places for the Creeks over the Tennessee for war against the Cumberland settlements and Kentucky, in which they, with the warriors of Lookout Mountain and Will's Town, had heartily co-operated for years past, boasting in their perfect security from their situation, covered by mountains on three sides and the Tennessee to the north, and from the number of warriors which they had. The prisoners gave information that there were sixty warriors, Creeks and Cherokees, then out for war against the United States, who had passed through Nickajack nine days before; that two nights before the destruction of the Running Water a scalp dance was held in it, at which were present "The Bloody Fellow," John Watts, and the other chiefs of the lower towns, where they had determined to continue the war, in conjunction with the Creeks, with more activity than theretofore.
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