USA > Virginia > Tazewell County > Tazewell County > History of Tazewell county and southwest Virginia, 1748-1920 > Part 4
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"The mountaineers of aboriginal America were the Cherokees, who oceupied the upper valley of the Tennesee River as far west as Musele Shoals. and the highlands of Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, the most picturesque and salubrious region east of the Mississippi. Their homes were encireled by blue hills rising beyond hills, of which the lofty peaks would kindle with the early light, and the overshadowing ridges envelop the valleys like a mass of clouds. There the rocky eliffs, rising in naked grandeur, defy the lightning, and moek the loudest peals of the thunder storm; there the gentler slopes are covered with magnolias and flowering forest trees, decorated with roving elimbers, and ring with the perpetual note of the whip-poor-will; there the wholesome water gushes pro-
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History of Tazewell County
fusely from the earth in transparent springs; snow-white cascades glitter on the hillsides; and the rivers, shallow but pleasant to the eye, rush through the narrow vales, which the abundant strawberry crimsons, and copices of rhododendron and flaming azelea adorn. At the fall of the leaf, the fruit of the hickory and chestnut is thickly thrown on the ground. The fertile soil teems with luxuriant herb- age, on which the roebuck fattens; the vivifying breeze is laden with fragrance; and daybreak is ever welcomed by the shrill eries of the night-hawk and the liquid carols of the mocking-bird. Through this lovely region were scattered the villages of the Chero- kees, nearly fifty in number. each consisting of but a few cabins, erected where the bend in the mountain stream offered at once a defence and a strip of aluvial soil for culture."
What a wonderfully beautiful pen-picture is this of the home- land of the Cherokees. so exquisitely drawn by America's word artist historian. But the gifted writer might have added much lustrous beauty to his painting. if he had. with corresponding skill. portrayed the primitive hunting grounds of these Indians. located in our own delightful valleys of the Clinch and the Holston. What a field for brilliant imagery the word-painter could have found here. The wondrous scenic beauty of Southwest Virginia, generally, and of Tazewell County in particular, has spread their fame both far and wide. Here in primitive days the lofty mountains and towering peaks. clothed with living green in summer time, and clad with fleeey snow and icy pendants in winter season, stood as silent sen- tinels above and around the magnificent forests of oak, poplar, wal- nut and sugar maple. that transformed each mountain hollow and valley into a sylvan palace. In these sylvan homes the nightingale, thrilled by the soft moonbeams, warbled its liquid melodies; and the mocking-bird, thrush and oriole, sereened from the scorehing rays of the noonday sun by the refreshing shade of the sugar tree, carolled their richest and sweetest songs. And here Diana and her companion nymphs might have discovered thousands of crystal springs, in whose pellueid depths they could have seen their ravish- ingly beautiful forms reflected as no highly polished hand-made mir- ror could present them. If the fabled gods had once drunk of these sweet, sparkling waters. they would have thrown aside their cups of nectar and declined to quaff again their beverage of distilled honey. Here, too, as natives to the soil, luxuriantly grew the sweetest and most nutritious herbage for animals the wide-world
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has ever known, the wild pea vinc and nature's richest pasturage, the bluegrass. Instinctively, from all regions, east, west, north. and south, came the ponderous buffalo, the heavy antlered elk, and the fleet-footed deer to feed and fatten upon the succulent herbage that was of spontaneous growth in this wonderful country.
Is it strange that every tribe of Indians that ever visited the valleys of the Holston and Clinch on hunting expeditions, or had ever heard of the abundance of game that gathered here, made claim of ownership to this great natural game park? When the white men first came to this section they found not only the Cherokees and Shawnees, but even the Iroquois tribes of New York. asserting ownership of the territory. It was truly a debatable land, to which no one tribe had other than an assumed or fictitious title. This gave to that elass of white men known as "Long Hunters" equal . right with the nomads to enter and enjoy this Hunter's Paradise. And surely it gave to the pioneer settlers, who were eager to make homes for their families upon its fruitful soil, an undisputed natural right to enter and make proper use of "God's Country," which the aborigines had for so many centuries left a wilderness waste.
Philologists have decided that the tribal namc, Cherokce, is a corruption of Tslagi or Tsaragi, and is said to be derived from the Choctaw, chiluk-ki, "cave-people." This name alludes to the many caves that are found in the mountain country where the Cherokees then lived. The Iroquois, their Northern kindred, called them Oyatage ronon, which means inhabitants of the cave country. From traditions of the tribe and the character of their language, and from the findings of archaelogists, it has been decided that the Cherokees were originally from the North; but it has been impossible to fix definitely the locality from which they migrated or to determine why they moved to the South.
From investigations made by students of the Indian race, it has been ascertained that the Cherokees were anciently divided into fourteen clans, and that eight of these have become extinct by absorption or from other causes. The names of the seven existing clans are as follows: Ani-waya (Wolf), Ani-Kawi (Deer), Ani- Tsiskwa (Bird), Ani-Wadi (Paint), Ani-Sahani, Ani-Ga'tagewi. Ani-Gilahi. Philologists have not been able to find with certainty translations for the names of the last three clans. The Wolf clan is first in importance and the number of its people; and all the clans are recognized in the printed laws and ritual prayers of the nation.
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History of Tazewell County
About one hundred and fifty years after De Soto's disastrous expedition relations between the Cherokees and the English colon- ists of the Carolinas began; and for a period of nearly fifty years thereafter these red men adhered faithfully to their white friends. In 1729 the two Carolina provinces were separated and named, respectively, North Carolina and South Carolina. The proprietary government, that had been condueting the affairs of both since the colony was founded, was superseded by the appointment of a royal governor for each of the provinces.
As soon as the royal government was established in the Carolina provinces, Sir Alexander Cumming was sent as a special envoy to the Cherokee Nation for the purpose of negotiating a treaty which would make them allies, or rather subjects of Great Britain. The chiefs of the tribe were summoned, and assembled at Nequassee, in the Tennessee Valley, where they were met by the English envoy in April, 1730. They formally acknowledged the King of England as their sovereign, and in token thereof presented the English envoy a chaplet made with four scalps of their enemies and five eagle tails. The Cherokees were then induced to send seven of their chiefs as deputies to England, where they were persuaded to sign a treaty adroitly drawn, which the Indians thought was merely a treaty of alliance-offensive and defensive. One of the provisions of the treaty was that no white men, except the English, should be permitted to build cabins or cultivate the soil in the territory of the Cherokees. The seven chiefs were then presented to King George and his court; and were coolly informed that, by the treaty; their nation had become subjects of England; and that their lands were the property of the British Crown. This was the beginning of a series of deceptions practiced by the white men upon the Chero- kees that ultimately deprived them of their cherished homes in the Southern Alleghanies. The Indians, however, for a quarter of a century stood faithfully to their treaty pledges.
In 1755 the Cherokees ceded territory to the British Government and permitted the erection of English forts thereon. About this time the whites began to make serious encroachments upon the tribe; and the wrongs inflicted became so galling to the natives that in 1759, under the leadership of Chief Oconostota, they started a war against the Carolinians. In 1760, Governor Lyttleton of South Carolina sent an invitation to some of the chiefs to meet him in con-
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ference for the purpose, if possible, of so adjusting their differences as to prevent a continuance of hostilities between the colonies and the Indians. During the conference misunderstandings arose among the conferees over some matters in dispute; and Governor Lyttleton, unwisely and treacherously, seized the chiefs and put them in prison. This conduct of the governor of South Carolina was very justly resented by the Indians as an act of bad faith. Upon their release the chiefs returned to their country, and their people were so pro- voked by the indignity that war against the whites was urged and was begun. The South Carolinians were so hard pressed by the Indians that they had to call for assistance from other colonies. Colonel Thomas Montgomery was sent from New York with two thousand men to aid the Carolinians. In a short time after his arrival in Carolina, the militia of the colony, under the command of Moultrie and Marion, joined his army, and he began immediate operations against the Cherokees. He invaded their country, burned a number of their towns and villages, destroyed their growing crops, and had a number of small engagements with the hostiles. In the last battle twenty of the whites were killed and seventy were wounded. The condition and size of Montgomery's army were of such a character as to render it hazardous to advance further into the Indian country, and orders were sent him to retreat. This was done, and Colonel Montgomery returned to New York with his forces, except four companies that were left as part of a guard on the frontier to prevent an invasion of the colonies by the Indians.
In 1756 Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, made a treaty with the Cherokees in which it was agreed to build them a fort and place a garrison there to protect them against their aboriginal enemies, with the understanding that the Indians would send a number of their warriors to assist the English in their war against the French and the Northern Indians. Governor Dinwiddie gave orders to Major Andrew Lewis, of Augusta County, to raise a company of sixty men and go with them to the Cherokee country and build a fort. Major Lewis promptly executed the orders of the governor, by building a fort on the Tennessee River at a point about thirty miles from where the splendid city of Knoxville is now located, and it was named Fort Loudon. During the progress of the war between the Indians and the Carolina colonies, in 1760, the Cherokees invested Fort Loudon with a large force and continued to besiege it until the garrison, from a lack of provisions and ammunition, T.H .- 3
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History of Tazewell County
was forced to surrender. It was agreed that the soldiers should return to the settlements armed and unmolested; but, while on their homeward march, they were suddenly and violently attacked by a band of Cherokees and about twenty of the whites were killed. The remainder, about two hundred, were again made captives and were held until they were ransomed. The following year, 1761, Colonel Grant, with the four New York companies and a large force of militia from the Carolina provinces, invaded the Cherokee country and made ruthless war against its inhabitants. He gave them a crushing defeat in battle, laid waste their villages, and destroyed their crops. The natives who escaped death were driven into the mountains and were compelled to make an ignominious peace. Francis Marion, who had accompanied Colonel Montgomery on his expedition the year previous, was also with Colonel Grant; and the gallant South Carolinian afterwards wrote a very pathetic account of the horrors of the Grant invasion. From that time until after the Revolution the relations between the English colonies and the Cherokees continued very strained.
Friendly intercourse with the Cherokee Indians had been culti- vated and maintained by the Virginia Colonial Government previous to the time that the pioneer settlers began to press across New River and locate in Southwest Virginia. Before that period the Indian traders and parties of hunters from Southside and Tidewater Virginia had journeyed through or hunted over this section; and had traveled in many instances on to the Cherokee settlements in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina, where they were hospitably received by the Indians.
The Loyal Company, which had obtained a grant for 800,000 acres of land, to be located west of the Alleghanies and north of the North Carolina line, had sent its explorers and surveyors into. Southwest Virginia. Dr. Thos. Walker, who was chief surveyor and agent for the Loyal Company, had made repeated expeditions to the Holston and Clinch valleys, and had surveyed more than two hundred thousand acres of the most desirable lands of this section, located at many different points. Many boundaries had been sold by the company, and the purchasers were rapidly settling upon them. The Cherokees grew very jealous of this movement to deprive them of their great hunting grounds and began to mani- fest a hostile disposition toward the settlers in the Holston Valley.
The Six Nations (Iroquois) of New York also claimed these
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hunting grounds, and in fact asserted ownership to all the Virginia territory west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, including the great Valley of Virginia. It was determined by the British Government to secure by treaties a cession of the territory in dispute, claimed by both the Iroquois and the Cherokees. In accordance with this plan, a treaty was made at Fort Stanwix on the 5th day of November, 1768, with the Confederacy of the Six Nations, whereby they ceded to the King of England a vast territory, including the disputed lands in Virginia. The treaty was negotiated by Sir Wil- liam Johnson, who was Agent and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Department of America. Dr. Thos. Walker, Agent of the Loyal Company, was, by appointment, Commissioner to represent Virginia, and as such signed the treaty. As before stated the Loyal Company had sold a number of boundaries of land to settlers in the disputed territory west of New River, and was anxious to have both the Iroquois and the Cherokees renounce all claim to the territory. A number of boundaries in Tazewell County had been sold to different persons, among the purchasers being William Ingles, who had bought lands in Burke's Garden, Abbs Valley, and several boundaries on the headwaters of Clinch River from the Loyal Company. The Iroquois claimed title to the ceded territory by right of conquest. Nearly a hundred years previous to the making of the Fort Stanwix treaty they had invaded the country of the Southern Indians, and had conquered all the Southern tribes, from the Ohio River down as far as Georgia and east of the Mississippi. This included the Cherokees; and that was the reason why the Shawnee's, who were a detached tribe of the Iroquois, dis- puted the right of the Cherokees to hunt in the Clinch Valley about the time the pioneer settlers began to arrive there.
On the 13th of October, 1768, about three weeks previous to the treaty made at Fort Stanwix, John Stuart, Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Southern District of North America, had met the chiefs of the Upper and- Lower Cherokee Nations, at Hard Labor. South Carolina, and had concluded a treaty with them, which fixed the boundaries of their territory or hunting grounds in Virginia. By this treaty the Cherokees acquired undisputed ownership of all the region west of New River, from Colonel Chiswell's mine (lead mines in Wythe County) to the confluence of the Great Kanawha with the Ohio River.
This treaty was very unsatisfactory to the Loyal Company and
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History of Tazewell County
its agents, and to a number of persons who had purchased lands from the company and settled with their families thereon. These settlers began to contest the right of the Cherokees to enter this section and assert ownership, claiming that the title of the Six Nations was superior to that of the Cherokees and that it had been transferred by the Northern Indians to the British Government. Steps were taken, however. to make a new treaty with the Chero- kees; and this was accomplished by Stuart at Lochaber, South Carolina, on the 22nd of October. 1770. By the provisions of this treaty the lines fixed by the treaty at Hard Labor were so changed as to cede to Virginia the territory now known as Southwest Vir- ginia. The lines were afterwards run by Colonel Donelson, who was appointed for that purpose by Lord Botetourt, then governor of Virginia; and the Indians accepted the lines as established by the Donelson survey.
From the date of the Loehaber treaty to the beginning of the Revolutionary War the Cherokees remained at peace with the Vir- ginia Colony. While the war, historically known as Dunmore's War, was in progress, in 1774, there was grave apprehension among the settlers in the Holston Valley that the Cherokees would again make war upon the whites. This alarm was occasioned by a small lawless band of white men led by a man named Crabtree. While on a hunting expedition on the Wantauga River in Tennessee, Crabtree, without provocation, killed a friendly Cherokee who had been given the English name Billey. Major Arthur Campbell, who then had his fort at Royal Oak, just east of Marion, the county seat of Smyth County, and who was commander of all the militia of Fincastle County west of New River, reported the incident to Colonel Wil- liam Preston, through a letter written in June, 1774. In part, Major Campbell said:
"Sir-Since the rash action of Killing a Cherokee on Wattaugo, the lower settlement on this, and Clynch Rivers, is greatly alarmed. Some preparing to move off. and indeed from the behavior of the. Squa & Indian fellow. that Was in Company with the one that was Killed; we may expect a reprisal will be made shortly, if there is not some Men sent to cover the inhabitants, until the matter can be made up with the Chiefs. *
* * One Crabtree is generally suspected to be Principal, in the late dispatching of Cherokee Billey. However let the consequence of the affair be what it will, I am
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persuaded it would be easier to find 200 Men to sereen him from the Law, than ten to bring him to Justice; Crabtrees different rob- beries, the Murder of Russell, Boons & Drakes Sons is in every ones mouth."
The intimation made by Major Campbell that Crabtree might be sereened from punishment for his dastardly crimes by a majority of the frontiersmen shows that a very peculiar condition existed on the frontier at that time. Evidently there were either many bad men on the border, or hatred for the red men was so intense with the border men that they would extenuate any offense, no matter how grave and cruel, committed against the savages. The danger apprehended by the settlers in the Holston Valley was happily averted by convincing the Cherokees that the sober-minded men on the Virginia border detested the conduet of Crabtree and his profli- gate associates. Messengers were sent to the Cherokee towns; and when they returned to the Watauga settlement, it was with the assurance that the Indians would remain peaceful if Crabtree and his associates were repressed. This was done, and peace was main- tained with the Cherokees until they were ineited by the British to join them in the War of the Revolution.
As soon as the British Government became convinced that it was the purpose of the American colonies to throw off the English yoke and establish an independent government, it was determined by the Royal Government to solicit and organize the Indians as allies to prosecute war against the colonies. Agents were sent to all the Southern tribes to arouse them against the adjacent colonies ; and in the spring of 1776 the Cherokees and the neighboring tribes had enlisted in the service of the British Government.
Alexander Cameron was then the British agent with the Chero- kee Nation; and it was through his nefarious influence and by his procurement that these Indians became aetive allies of the British Government. The chiefs and warriors were assembled together, and the desires of the British Government disclosed to them; and they were urged to make ruthless war on the white settlers. Cameron promised them many valuable presents and abundant supplies of arms and ammunition, told them they would be at liberty to plunder the whites who had settled on lands that had been taken from the Indians ; and that their hunting grounds should be restored to them. It is not strange that these alluring promises enlisted the support
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History of Tazewell County
of the rude natives, who felt they had been cruelly robbed by the white men.
Three weeks after the adoption and promulgation of the Decla- ration of Independence, on the 22nd of July, 1776, President Rut- ledge of South Carolina notified the Virginia Council, which then had charge of the affairs of the colony, that the Cherokees had begun hostilities against the Georgians, and the Carolinians. On the 26th of July, the Council of Safety of North Carolina sent notice to the Virginians that the Indians were preparing to make an attack on Colonel Chiswell's Lead Mines, in Wythe County, for the purpose of cutting off the Southern colonies from the supply of lead they were receiving from these mines. The Virginia Council determined to act promptly against the Cherokee tribes, and sent orders to Colonel William Preston, county lieutenant for Fincastle County, to erect a fort at the Lead Mines, which was done as promptly as possible. Another step taken by the Virginia Council was the organization of two battalions of militia to send into the Cherokee country. Colonel William Christian was made commander- in-chief of the military expedition as well as commander of the first battalion. Colonel Charles Lewis was placed in command of the second battalion.
In October, 1776, Colonel Christian assembled his small army at Long Island on the Holston River. His entire force numbered but 2,000 men, of whom 400 came from North Carolina. With but little delay the march was commenced toward the Indian towns in the mountains of North Carolina. The expedition was uninterrupted until the army arrived at a crossing of the French Broad River. There a force of about 3,000 Cherokees, with a few Creeks and Tories, were waiting to give battle to Colonel Christian's forces. From fear, or for some other cause, the Indians retreated in the night time and returned to their homes. Colonel Christian followed them to their towns, where he remained for two weeks, and had his men burn the cabins and destroy the corn and other supplies of the Indians. The Cherokees were thoroughly cowed and sued for peace. They proposed to surrender all the prisoners they were holding, to restore the horses and other property they had taken from the white settlers, and to relinquish all claim to the lands the settlers were already occupying. On these terms a truce was effected, and Colonel Christian returned with his forces to Virginia. The fol- lowing spring a treaty of peace was concluded between the Upper
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Cherokee Nation and Virginia and North Carolina at the Great Island of Holston River.
After the making of the treaty at Great Island there were sporadic outbreaks against the settlers that continued at intervals until the Revolutionary War terminated. During this period several bands of the Cherokees moved down the Tennessee River and formed settlements at Chickamauga and at different points on the Ten- nessee-Alabama line. In 1779 the British agents persuaded one of the Chickamauga bands, who were led by Chief Dragging Canoe, to commenee preparations for attacks on the frontier settlements of North Carolina and Virginia. To meet these threatened attaeks the two States jointly organized a foree of volunteers; and Colonel Evan Shelby was put in command of them. He assembled his army at the mouth of Big Creek on the Clinch River, near where Rogers- ville. Tennessee, is now located. There, Shelby was joined by a regiment of men, commanded by Colonel John Montgomery, and who had been enlisted to be used as a reinforcement to General Clark, then operating against the British in the Illinois country. Shelby built eanoes for his small army and traveled in that way down the Tennessee River until he arrived at Chickamauga. The arrival of Shelby and his army was a great surprise to the Indians. A large amount of supplies that had been furnished the Indians by the British, valued at one hundred thousand dollars, was captured, the towns were destroyed, and the horses and eattle of the Indians were driven baek to the settlements. Shelby then destroyed his fleet of canoes and marched his army back to the settlements on foot. This was the last expedition of note made by the Virginia settlers exelusively against the Cherokees.
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