USA > Virginia > Tazewell County > Tazewell County > History of Tazewell county and southwest Virginia, 1748-1920 > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62
At last the mountaineer Indians of the Southern Alleghanies were subdued and made to acknowledge the sovereignty of the United States. This was accomplished by a treaty made on the 28th of November, 1785. Under this treaty the Cherokees were given assured unmolested possession of their hunting grounds. "Then began the ever-recurring story of white man's encroachments and red man's resistance. with the ultimate advantage on the side of the intruders." By treaties made in 1791 and 1798 the Cherokees were foreed to surrender large portions of their territory to greedy white men and many of their people emigrated west of the Mississippi.
Just about the beginning of the eighteenth century Moravian missionaries began their work among the Cherokees and the Indians
40
History of Tazewell County
were rapidly becoming civilized and Christianized, but. regardless of the fact that the Cherokees had rendered valuable service to the United States in the war with England in 1812-15, the white men of Georgia demanded the removal of those of the tribe who still remained in that State. Drastic laws against the treaty rights of the red men were enaeted by the Legislature of Georgia; and the Federal Government proclaimed its inability to maintain its treaty obligations. Gold had been discovered within the territory of the Cherokee Nation near the present Dahlonega, Georgia. This dis- covery greatly inereased the clamor of the white men for the removal of the Indians to another section of the country. After a prolonged but hopeless struggle, which was led by John Ross. the great chief of the Nation, they were compelled to submit to the white man's greed and give up their lands and homes.
On the 28th of December, 1835. a treaty was made by which the Cherokees sold the entire territory they still possessed, and they agreed to move to the country set apart for them in the Indian Territory. The removal took place during the winter of 1838-39: . but was not accomplished without much resistance on the part of the unwilling Indians, and the infliction of many cruelties by the white men. They were driven from their homes by military force : and in the progress of their tragic exodus, by estimate, lost in various ways one-fourth of their entire tribe. Upon their arrival in the Indian Territory they reorganized their government, which had first been formed in 1820 and modeled after the government of the United States. At the time the main body of the tribe was removed, several hundred of the unfortunate and persecuted people fled to the wildest mountain seetions of North Carolina, where they remained unmolested until 1812. Then, at the earnest solicitation of a trader named William H. Thomas. the refugees were granted permission to remain in Western North Carolina, and lands were set apart for their occupation and use. A number of their descend- ants are now living in Swain and Jackson counties of that State on what is known as the Qualla Reservation.
Since the Cherokees settled upon their reservation west of the Mississippi they have made marvelous advancement in education and material prosperity. In 1821 a mixed blood. Sequoya by name, invented a Cherokee alphabet. and gave his nation a position in the literary world, as their books and newspapers have since been printed in their own language. Sequoya was the son of a white
41
and Southwest Virginia
man and a Cherokee woman of mixed blood. She was the daughter of a chief. Sequoya was born in the Cherokee town of Taskigi. Tennessee, about the year 1760, and was, therefore, more than three score years old when he made the splendid invention for his people.
---
TEXAS
The above is a portrait of Sequoya, and is made from a photograph of the bronze statue of the great Indian that was placed in Statuary Hall in the National Capitol, and unveiled June 6th, 1917. The statue was placed there to represent Oklahoma. On the left is a marble statue of Daniel Webster, representing Massachusetts, and on the right a marble statue of Stephen Fuller Austin, who was the founder of the State of Texas. Austin was born in Wythe County, Va. The author is indebted to Senator Robt. L. Owen, of Oklahoma, for the photograph from which the above cut was made.
When the Civil War began, a majority of the Cherokees enlisted in the service of the Southern Confederacy. Many of them were slave owners and were. therefore. under Southern influence; and they may have remembered that the United States Government had
42
History of Tazewell County
repeatedly violated its treaty obligations, and had finally driven them from their cherished homes in the Southern Alleghanies. Some of the tribe adhered to the National Government. Their territory was overrun by both Confederate and Federal military forces, and, as a consequence, they were in a very prostrate condition at the close of the war. By a treaty made in 1867 the Cherokees were again brought under the protection of the Federal Government.
În 1867 the Delawares, and in 1870 the Shawnees, who had been living in Kansas, moved to the Indian Territory. Combined, the two tribes numbered 1,750 souls, and they incorporated with the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Commission was created in 1889 for abolishing the tribal governments and opening the Territory to white settlers. Negotiations to that end were carried on for fifteen years before a final arrangement was made by which the government of the Cherokee Nation was abolished on the 3rd of March. 1906. Following this. the Indian lands were divided, and the Cherokees, both native and adopted, were made citizens of the United States. The Cherokee Nation now numbers 41,824 persons, and is composed as follows: By blood, 36.432 : by intermarriage, 286; Delawares. 187: Freedmen, 4,919. Of these 8,703 are full blood, 4,778 one-half or more, and 23,427 less than half blood.
THE SHAWNEES.
A concise narrative of the origin and performances of the Shaw- nee tribe of Indians should be of special interest to the people of the Clinch Valley, and to all persons who have been connected in any manner with this historic section of Virginia. Though the Cherokees asserted superior title or right to this region, and may. possibly, have occupied it for a considerable period to the exclusion of all other tribes of the aborigines, the Shawnees included, there is no satisfactory evidence, visible or tangible, which proves that the Cherokees ever used it for any other purpose than a hunting ground. It is also an undisputed fact that the Shawnees never visited the Clinch Valley with the intention of making their homes there.
The Shawnees were for a long while a difficult problem to inves- tigators of the different families and tribes of the North American Indians. Many theories have been advanced as to their origin, their earliest location, and their relationship and associations with other tribes of their race. But on account of the indefinite character of their name, their innate disposition to wander and to confine their
43
and Southwest Virginia
wanderings to the unexplored interior, none of the theories of the investigators have been accepted with perfect confidence. Philol- ogists have agreed that linguistically the Shawnee belongs to the Central Algonquian dialect; and all investigators have confidently announced that the tribe is a branch of the great Algonquian family which at one time occupied the larger portion of the present terri- tory of the United States lying east of the Mississippi River and south of Canada. The Shawnees have been called "The Southern advance guard of the Algonquian stock." Beyond this it has been found useless to try to trace the origin of the tribe or to place them in a location other than that they occupied when they first became known to men of the white racc, or in which their indefinite tradi- tions may locate them. Their known history has been traced back pretty clearly to 1660-70. They were then divided into two distinct colonies or bands. One of these was located in the Cumberland Basin in Tennessee, and the other on the Middle Savannah in South Carolina. These two divisions remained separate until nearly a century later, when they got together as one band in Ohio, prior to Dunmore's War in 1774. This peculiar separation of an Indian tribe into two divisions, living so widely apart, has puzzled and confused most of the students of the Indian race. The only reason- able explanation offered for this anomalous condition is that the country situated between the two colonies of the Shawnees was inhabited by the Cherokees. At that time the two nations were enjoying the friendliest relations as neighbors and kinsmen. It is also known that the Cherokees had in the past exercised dominion over the territory in Tennessee and in South Carolina on which the two divisions of the Shawnees were living, and had invited the nomads of their race to cease their wanderings and make settlements on these lands. This view of the matter is strengthened by knowl- edge of the fact that there is substantial evidence that the two nations intermingled freely and intimately for many years, both in South Carolina and Tennessee. It is further sustained by the fact that the Cherokees resumed possession, under claim of former owner- ship, of the country in South Carolina and in Tennessee vacated by the Shawnees when they were forced to again become homeless wanderers and traveled toward the North.
The Shawnees who lived in South Carolina were there in 1670, and were there when the first settlement was made by the whites in that province. They were known to the colonists as the Savan-
44
History of Tazewell County
nahs, and for a long period were the friends of the white settlers. In 1695 Governor Archdale spoke of them as "Good friends and useful neighbors of the English." Their principal village was situated on the Savannah River, and was ealled Savannah Town. They gradually moved away from South Carolina on account of the unjust treatment they were receiving from the white men. Adair, in his history, says that the Shawnees lived on the Savannah River "l'ill by our foolish measures they were forced to withdraw North- ward in defense of their freedom." And further says: "By our own misconduet we twiee lost the Shawnee Indians, who have since proved very hurtful to our colonists in general." In 1690 they began to move from South Carolina. Some of them settled in the Valley of Virginia about where Winchester is located, and others journeyed on to the Cumberland Valley in Maryland. Subsequent to their arrival at these places, they each built villages, one on the present site of Winchester and the other at Oldtown, near Cumber- land, Maryland. A part of the tribe that migrated from South Carolina joined the Mohicans, and became identified with them. Others. who had settled on the Delaware, removed to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. A short time thereafter they were joined by a small band who had located at a point on the Susquehanna River in the present county of Lancaster. Pennsylvania. In 1740 the Quakers began missionary work among the Shawnees at Wyom- ing; and in 1742 Zinzindorf, the zealous Moravian missionary. joined the Quakers in their effort to convert and civilize these restless aborigines. Under the gracious influence of these excellent Christian workers the savage impulses of the Shawnee warriors in Pennsyl- vania were suppressed; and for a long time they remained neutral in the French and Indian War, which began in 1754, though their kindred in Ohio were actively engaged as allies of the French against the English.
Owing to the fact that the Western Shawnees were inhabiting the Cumberland Basin, a region that was isolated and not in the usual course traveled by the European explorers, this branch of the tribe was but little known to white men until after the year 1714. In that year a French trader by the name of Charleville went among them at one of their villages located near the present Nash- ville, Tennessee. They were then being gradually driven from the Cumberland region by the Cherokees and the Chickasaws, with whom, for some unknown eause, they had become involved in war.
45
and Southwest Virginia
Soon after Charleville arrived among them in his capacity of trader, they abandoned the Cumberland Valley, and again became wan- derers. They roamed around in Kentucky for about fifteen years. That country, being unoccupied by any other tribe, was an ideal hunting ground. It was peculiarly suited to the Shawnees, who were passionately fond of hunting and greatly averse to agriculture. Blackhoof, one of their most noted chiefs, was born while they were living at a village near where Winchester, Kentucky, is now located. About 1730 they began to cross over into Ohio and to make settlements on the Ohio River. in Ohio and Pennsylvania, their settlements extending from the Alleghany down to the Scioto. They built a number of villages along the river, among them being Saweunk, Logstown, and Lowertown. In 1748 the Shawnees on the Ohio. by estimate. had 162 warriors or about six hundred persons in that division. A few years later their kindred left the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania and joined them in the Ohio Valley. The two divisions, one formerly located on the Savannah River, and the other in the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee, were united into one tribe for the first time after they became known in history.
Following their reunion on the Ohio River. the history of the Shawnee tribe became a part of the eventful history of that portion of Virginia lying west of the Blue Ridge Mountains and south of the Ohio River: and also of the splendid Northwestern domain, extend- ing north to the Lakes and westward to the Mississippi, which was presented to the United States by Virginia in 1783.
From the middle of the eighteenth century until the treaty of Greenville. made in 1795, the Shawnees were almost constantly hos- tile to either the English or the Americans. In 1754 what has always been called the French and Indian War by historians was begun. The Shawnees in that war were most efficient allies of the French, who were engaged in a mighty struggle with the English for supremacy in North America. They were the most vital force of the French army that gave such a humiliating defeat to the British army, commanded by General Braddoek, in a battle fought near Fort Du Quesne on June 19th. 1755. George Washington par- ticipated in the battle as aide-de-camp to General Braddock; and he was singled out by a Shawnee chief and his band of warriors as a special target for their rifles. They fired a number of volleys at the intrepid young Virginian. killed iwo horses under him and put four bullets through his coat, but Washington made a marvelous
46
History of Tazewell County
escape from death to afterwards become the beloved "Father of his Country."
The French and Indian War was not finally concluded on land until 1760; and the Shawnees were hostile to the English all through the protracted conflict. After France, in 1763, ceded her entire possessions in North America east of the Mississippi, save New Orleans, to the English, the Indian tribes of the North, including the Shawnees, ceased for a brief period making attacks upon the English colonies. But the acquisition of New France by Great Britain gave only temporary rest to the western frontiers of Vir- ginia. Reckless frontiersmen, both from Virginia and Pennsylvania. persisted in committing outrageous depredations upon the Indians who lived in the Ohio Valley; and the pioneer settlers continued to invade and appropriate the hunting grounds of the natives. The treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1768, and that of Loehaber, in 1770, had aceorded the red men lawful possession of all the lands in Virginia beyond the Cumberland Mountains and north of the Ohio River. Encroachments by the white men and reprisals on the part of the exasperated red men finally brought on the war called D'unmore's War. It was almost exclusively a war between the Shawnees and the Virginians who lived west of the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains, and was of short duration. There was but one battle and it was fought at Point Pleasant, where the Ohio_and the Kanawha rivers come together. The Virginians were commanded by Colonel Andrew Lewis, and one company was composed of pioneer settlers from the Clinch Valley, who were'under the com- mand of Captain William Russell.
A little less than two years after the battle at Point Pleasant the momentous struggle between the American colonists and the mother country began, and the British Government experienced very little difficulty in enlisting the support of the Shawnees against the colonies. During the Revolutionary period. and for some years thereafter, these Indians were the implacable foes of the Virginians ; and wrought bloody havoc upon the settlers in the Clinch Valley and in Kentucky. Nearly all the expeditions sent by the Americans across the Ohio while the Revolution was in progress were direeted against the Shawnees. With British guidance and support they made stubborn resistance to the Americans, but finally were driven from the Seioto Valley and retired to the head of the Miami River, from which region the Miami tribe had withdrawn a few years .
47
and Southwest Virginia
previous. After the Revolution was over, having lost the support of the British, a large band of the Shawnees joined the Cherokees and Creeks in the South, these two tribes then being very hostile to the Americans. Another small band united with a part of the Delawares and accepted an invitation from the Spaniards to settle at a point near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, between the Mississippi and Whitewater rivers. Those who remained in Ohio continued to give the American Government much trouble through the years 1791-92-93. In 1791 General Arthur St. Clair. then governor of the Northwestern Territory, found it necessary to undertake an expedition with the intention of destroying the Indian villages on the Miami. On the 4th of November, 1791, he came in contact with the hostiles at a point about fifteen miles from their villages. The Indians had a large force and gave General St. Clair a crushing and humiliating defeat. The American loss in the engagement was thirty-eight offieers and five hundred and ninety-three men killed, and twenty-one officers and two hundred and forty-two men wounded. This frightful reverse was a severe shoek to both the Government and the American people. General St. Clair, who had made a bril- liant record in the Revolution, was so humiliated by his terrible defeat that he resigned as governor of the Territory. General Anthony Wayne was appointed to the vacancy eaused by the resig- nation of St. Clair. In August, 1794, "Mad Anthony," at the head of three thousand men, marched against the Indians on the Miami. On the 14th of the month he arrived with his army at the Rapids, and made an ineffectual effort to negotiate a peace with the Indians. They were so inflated with their success over General St. Clair that they rejected General Wayne's proposition with contempt. On the morning of the 20th the Americans made a rapid advance upon the Indians and soon routed and put them to flight. For three days General Wayne kept his men busily engaged destroying the houses and corn fields of the enemy in that vicinity, and a few days later he proceeded to lay waste their entire territory. Wayne's signal victory so thoroughly cowed the Indians that he had no difficulty in making a satisfactory treaty with them in 1795, by which they were forced to surrender their lands on the Miami and retire to the headwaters of Anglaize River, still further to the northwest. The more hostile part of the tribe left Ohio, crossed the Mississippi and joined their kindred who had settled at Cape Girardeu, in Missouri.
48
History of Tazewell County
The Shawnees still held the position of leading tribe of the American aborigines inhabiting the country between the Ohio and the Wabash. Tecumseh was their chief, and he was, beyond a doubt, the greatest leader the tribe had ever produced. He had a brother, Tenskawatawa, who was called the Prophet, and who pretended to be in communication with the spirit-world and to receive reve- lations therefrom. The Prophet secured the confidence of the superstitious members of his own and of neighboring tribes, and gathered a large number of followers in his village at the mouth of the Tippecanoe River. Tecumseh and his brother had originated a plan for uniting all the tribes of the Northwestern Territory in a desperate effort to throw back the invading white settlers, and pre- vent further encroachments upon the territory of the Indians.
In September, 1809, General Harrison, then governor of the Indiana Territory, gathered the chiefs of several tribes together and purchased from them three million acres of land. Tecumseh not only refused to sign the treaty, but deelared he would kill any of the chiefs who affixed their names to the paper. He was encouraged in this course of resistance by the British, as England was then involved in a controversy with United States which eventuated in the War of 1812. In 1811 Tecumseh, at the instigation of the British Government, made a visit to the Cherokees and other Southern tribes to enlist their support of his announeed purpose to drive back the white settlers, who seemed determined to keep driving the Indians further and still further west. Demands liad already been made by Tecumseh and the leaders of other tribes for an abrogation of the Fort Wayne treaty and a relinquishment of the lands ceded thereby to the United States. This demand was promptly rejected by Governor Harrison. Every movement of Teeumseh and the Prophet showed that hostilities could not be avoided by the Americans, and the Government ordered General Harrison to take immediate steps for the protection of the frontiers from attaek. He promptly assembled a force of three thousand men, composed of regulars and militia, at Vincennes ; and marched into the Indians' country. On the 6th of November he appeared before the town of the Prophet, and on the following morning, the 7th of November, 1811, the celebrated battle of Tippecanoe was fought and a glorious victory was won by the Americans. After destroying the town of the Prophet, General Harrison marched his
49
and Southwest Virginia
victorious army back to Vincennes. The power of the Prophet was broken, and the Indians submissively sued for peace.
Upon his return from the South, Tecumseh found all his plans had been wreeked by the premature battle of Tippecanoe; and he remained in comparative seclusion until the breaking out of the War of 1812. He then gathered his forces. some two thousand in number, and joined the British army in Canada. There he was received most cordially and was distinctly honored by being made
Above is shown a portrait of Tecumseh (properly Tikamthi or Tecumtha, meaning "Crouching Panther" and "Shooting Star"). He was born in 1768 at the Shawnee village of Piqua, about six miles south- west of the present city of Springfield, Ohio. The portrait is made from a print furnished the author by the Bureau of Ethnology ; and Tecumseh is dressed in his uniform of a British brigadier general. He was killed at the battle of the Thames on October 5th, 1813. The shot that killed Tecumseh was fired by Richard Mentor Johnson, a native Virginian, but then a resident of Kentucky. He was Vice-President of the United States 1837-1841.
a brigadier general in the British army. He proved himself a most valuable ally of the British, and fought gallantly at Frenchtown. The Raisin, Fort Meigs, and Fort Stephenson. After Commodore Perry defeated the British on Lake Erie, Tecumseh covered the retreat of General Proctor very effectively. but insisted when the army arrived at the Thames that the British general should make a stand at that river. This was done, and on the 5th of October, 1813, the battle of the Thames was fought, resulting in the over- whelming defeat of the allied English and Indian forees by the T.H .- 4
50
History of Tazewell County
Americans, who were under the command of General William Henry Harrison.
Tecumseh had a presentiment that he would be killed in the battle. This caused him to discard his general's uniform and to array himself in the deerskin dress of an Indian chief. The presen- timent came true, and Tecumseh, the greatest Indian character in American history, fell in front of his warriors while urging them on to battle with the Americans. The war spirit of the Shawnecs, and other Northwestern tribes who had come under his influence, was completely crushed by the death of Tecumseh; and very soon thereafter most of the tribes accepted the terms of peace offered by General Harrison.
The division of the Shawnee tribe which had settled some twenty years previously in Missouri did not participate in the War of 1812; and in 1825 they sold their lands in Missouri and moved to a reserva- tion in Kansas. In 1831 the small band who had remained in Ohio sold their lands and joined those who had migrated to Kansas. The mixed band of Shawnees and Senecas at Louiston, Ohio, also moved to Kansas about the same time. About the year 1845 the larger part of the tribe left Kansas and settled on the Canadian River in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) where they are known as the "Absentee Shawnees." In 1867 that part of the tribe that was living with the Senecas moved from Kansas to the Indian Territory, and they are now known as the "Eastern Shawnees." The main body of the tribe in 1869, by an intertribal agreement, was incor- porated with the Cherokee Nation, with whom they are now residing in the State of Oklahoma.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.