USA > Virginia > Washington County > Washington County > History of southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870 > Part 2
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And the Queen of Spain was but one of many emissaries of the church, who, in their zeal, were ready to brave the unknown seas and to make any sacrifices to serve their master. With Columbus came a number of priests, and with every ship that sailed from the coast of Spain, France, Portugal and Italy, the missionaries of the cross were to be numbered among the passengers, bound for Amer- ica, determined to explore the New World, hunt out the inhabitants thereof, and convert them to their master. Thus, within a few years after the discovery of America, priests were to be found in almost every part of the New World, exploring the country and teaching the Indians their blessed religion. The priesthood of Rome in those early days were educated, energetic, observing men, as they have ever been, and it is to this source that we must look for the earliest history of our country and of the Indian inhabitants for many years previous to the coming of the Anglo-Saxon race.
These early visitors to this portion of America preserved a history of their times, and it is to be found in the archives of the govern- ments of France, Spain and Portugal, and of the Church of Rome. This investigation will not permit any inquiry extending beyond the limits of that portion of Southwest Virginia included within the bounds of Washington county.
In the year 1539 Hernando De Soto landed at Tampa, Florida, with orders from the Court of Spain to form a settlement on the seashore and to explore Florida to its westernmost limits.
The Spanish government at that time contended that Florida included all that part of America extending from the Gulf of Mexico on the south to Virginia on the north, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
Pursuant to his authority De Soto, at the head of a thousand men, exploring the country, traveled in a northerly direction to the home of the Appalaches, a tribe of Indians living on the banks of a river in Georgia called by the Indians Witchlacooche; thence, continuing in a northerly direction, they passed near the present site of Columbia, S. C., where they struck the Santee river, thence pass- ing up the Saluda branch of the Santee, they came, for the first time, to a country uninhabited, and found it difficult to obtain food sufficient to sustain themselves, but sending out companies of men to search for Indians, after some time a party of men returned to camp accompanied by a few Indians, who, being questioned, informed De Soto that to the north of them there lived a powerful tribe of Indians on the Hogoheegee river (Tennessee river), to which place they traveled. This tribe of Indians was called, at that time, Cafitachique and was governed by a queen.
The historian of this expedition, Louis Hernandez De Biedma, says : "We remained ten or twelve days in the Queen's village, and then set off to continue our explorations of the country."
De Soto marched thence ten days in a northerly direction through a mountainous country where but little food was to be found until he reached a province called Xuala, which was thinly settled. He then ascended to the source of the Great river,* which he supposed was the St. Esprit. This information was furnished by De Biedma to the King and council of the West Indies in 1544 and is now in existence and fully authenticated.
To any one who will take the time and trouble to investigate this matter it will be evident that De Soto and his followers explored the country from Florida to the Queen's village, which must have been on the Tennessee river near the present site of Knoxville. Tennessee. Thence ascending the same to its sources they were. as early as 1540, beyond question, visitors to the territory now included within the boundaries of Washington county.
The course pursued and the time required, it has been aptly said, confirm this opinion.
But a small part of the account of this trip of exploration has been herein copied, but space will not permit much to be said. The reader must not conclude from what has been said that De Soto and his followers met with no resistance from the inhabitants of
*The Indians always spoke of the Tennessee river as the Great river.
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
the country through which they passed, for this same account de- tails the incidents connected with many desperate battles between the invaders and the invaded, and at no part of the journey did De Soto meet such magnificent specimens of mankind or find greater resistance than upon his arrival at the Queen's village on the Ten- nessee and in his progress thence to the sources of the Great river.
De Biedma tells us that the inhabitants of Xuala were a hardy race, living in log houses daubed with clay and very comfortable in the winter season, but that during the summer months they usually reposed in the open air, spending much of their time in hunting.
According to this same authority they used sharped-edged stones, slings, bows, arrows and clubs in war and peace. Many evidences of the instruments used by the Indians and the places of their manufacture are to be found in Southwest Virginia at this date.
The inhabitants of Xuala lived, as did all the Indian inhabitants south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers, in towns, but the towns of the inhabitants of Xuala differed from those of most other tribes of Indians in this, that their towns generally were so built as to combine the requisites of a town and a fort.
These forts were circular and varied in size from three hun- dred to six hundred and a thousand feet in diameter.
They were sometimes built of stone, and in other instances of earth. The embankments were from six to ten feet high and in many cases surrounded by ditches of requisite width and depth.
They were used as towns as well as forts. Many fragments of carved stone and earthenware are to be found near those old forts.
The remnants of these forts or towns can be found in Southwest Virginia at this time.
In Castle's Woods, Russell county, as well as on the farm of T. P. Hendricks and at other places in this county, the evidences of former Indian towns are clearly perceptible.
A stone fort of great size formerly stood in Abb's Valley, Taze- well county, and what is spoken of as a remarkable fort is to be found on the farm formerly owned by a Mr. Crockett near Tazewell C. H., having evident traces of trenches and something like a draw- bridge.
An Indian town stood upon the Byars farm in the upper end of this county, and the Indian name thereof is preserved : "Kilmack- ronan."
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
These forts and other evidences of Indian occupancy must be attributed to the men occupying Xuala at the time of the visit of De Soto in 1540, for they cannot be the product of the Cherokees. since an examination of the age of trees found growing on these forts is sufficient to show that they were there before the coming of the Cherokees, and, for this better reason, these forts were not built after the manner of the Cherokees.
From a perusal of the preceding pages it is evident that the land of the Xualas of three hundred and sixty years ago was none other than Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, and that it was peopled by a hardy, ingenious, war-like race.
It is proper to state here that many historians repudiate the idea that De Soto visited Southwest Virginia in 1540, but it is the opinion of this writer that he did visit this section at that time, and this opinion is given after a careful perusal of all available authorities.
We know nothing further of the people who inhabited Xuala, or Southwest Virginia in 1540. A tradition existed among the Chero- kees that these people were driven from Southwest Virginia by the Cherokees some time in the ages preceding the coming of the white man, but no authentic information exists by which their exit can be noted.
Captain Henry Batte with a company of rangers, by direction of Governor Berkley, crossed the Blue Ridge mountains at Wood's Gap now in Floyd county, in 1671 and came near to the habitations of a tribe of Indians living on a river flowing westward, said by the Indian guides to be the makers and venders of salt to the other Indian tribes, and resembling, in many particulars, the inhabitants of Xuala as described by De Biedma, and it is more than prob- able that the early inhabitants of Southwest Virginia were not driven from their homes until after 1671.
As far as I can ascertain, the Indian inhabitants of Southwest Virginia have been Xualans, Cherokees and Shawnesc.
Some time between the years 1671 and 1685 the Xualans were driven from Southwest Virginia by the Cherokee tribe of Indians, and this tribe is closely identified with the settlement of Southwest Virginia.
Adair, an early writer, says that this tribe of Indians derive their name from Chee-ra "fire," which is their reputed lower heaven.
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
The origin of this tribe is not known, but a tradition existed among them that when they crossed the Alleghanies they found a part of the Creek Nation inhabitating this country, and it may be that the Creek Indians were the inhabitants of ancient Xuala.
The Cherokees were the mountaineers of aboriginal America ; they loved their homes, were brave to a fault, and were never happy except when engaged in war.
This nation and many of their villages will be frequently men- tioned in connection with the early exploration and settlement of Southwest Virginia, for many times did our ancestors suffer from their vigor and enterprise.
This tribe of Indians gave names to most of the rivers in South- west Virginia, and it may be proper to here detail the aboriginal names of the rivers of Southwest Virginia.
The Holston river from its source to the junction of the French Broad, was called the Hogoheegee, and from thence to the mouth of the Little Tennessee river it was known as the Cootcla.
The early maps of this section of America made by the French explorers gave to the Holston river the name of the Cherokee river ; to the Clinch they gave the name of Shawanon, and to the same river the English gave the name of Shawanoa, and the Indian name for the Clinch river was Pellissippi.
The Cherokees were not long permitted to enjoy the fruits of their conquest, for as early as 1672 the confederacy of the Six Nations conquered the Illinois and Shawnese Indians, the latter tribe being a part of the Six Nations.
In 1685 they added to their conquests the Miamis and carried their victorious arms to the Mississippi and south as far as Georgia, a vast territory twelve hundred miles in length and six hundred miles in breadth, and, in doing so, destroyed whole nations of In- dians of whom no record was found by the English.
The Cherokees were driven south of the Tennessee, and settled upon the Savannah and in the territory south of the Tennessee, and there made their homes until moved by the Anglo-Saxon settlers about one hundred years thereafter.
Thus the vast extent of territory lying south and east of the Ohio river and including Southwest Virginia was conquered, but not occupied, by the confederacy of the Six Nations, and its inhabitants were driven into other countries. It thus became a vast wilderness,
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
never thereafter to be occupied until the coming of the white man, except by roving bands of Indians while hunting, or in passing from their habitations in the south to the Indian towns and villages in Ohio.
This vast park was filled with the finest game in great quantities, and, for more than one hundred years previous to its settlement by the Anglo-Saxon, it was jointly used, as if by common consent, as a hunting ground by the Cherokees, Shawnese and Six Nations, but the Cherokees were compelled to admit the superior title of the Six Nations to the sovereignty of the soil, which they did by frequent gifts of game killed within the territory.
Some writers, in explanation of the absence of the Indians from this section of America at the time of the carly explorations of the white man, give the following as a tradition of the Cherokees and Shawnese: "that in so favored a land, where man's natural wants are so fully satisfied, there could be no community of peace and happiness, that with such ease to the body and disquiet to the soul the councils of man must always overflow with the vanities of argument and the pride of innate egotism ; so the tradition was, that once of old there was a delegated assemblage of the chiefs of the Indian tribes for a conference with the Great Spirit, at which conference the Great Spirit detailed certain great calamities that had befallen them in the paradise of Hogoheegee, which were trace- able to the causes named above, and thereupon the Great Spirit ordered all their nations to remove beyond certain boundaries, out of this Eden, which the Great Spirit informed them was too easy of life for their content and happiness and their future security."
Thereupon this vast empire was consigned to the peaceful domin- ion of nature, and all the lands upon the waters from the Holston to the headwaters of the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers were with- out permanent inhabitants.
The first cause above assigned was the true cause of the uninhab- ited condition of Southwest Virginia, the enmity between the Chero- kees and Shawnese. This enmity was such as to deter both tribes from any considerable aggressions on this territory, the middle ground between the nations. Many battles were fought between these two nations, and, even so late as the summer of 1768, a des-
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
perate battle was fought between the Cherokees and Shawnese near Rich Mountain,* in Tazewell county, Virginia.
Early in the summer of 1768 about two hundred Cherokee In- dians camped near a lick in that part of Southwest Virginia to spend the summer in hunting.
They were soon disturbed by the appearance of several hundred Shawnese Indians, their deadly enemies.
The Shawnese chief immediately sent orders to the Cherokees to leave the lick and the hunting grounds, but his messenger was sent back with a defiant answer by the Cherokees and both parties began to prepare for battle. The Cherokees retired to the top of Rich Montain and there threw up, before night, a breastwork consisting of an embankment running along the top of the mountain about eighty yards and then turning off down the mountain side, the em- bankment being three or four feet high and running east and west.
The battle was opened the evening of the first day, but after some fighting the Shawnese withdrew and made preparations to begin the attack the following morning. It is said that long before day the fiendish yells of the warriors might be heard echoing over the rugged cliffs and deep valleys of the surrounding country. Day came, and for the space of half an hour, a deathlike stillness reigned on the mountain top and side. With the first rays of the rising sun a shout ascended the skies as if all the wild animals in the woods had broken forth in all their most terrifying notes.
The sharp crack of rifles and the ringing of tomahawks against each other, the screams of women and children and the groans of the dying now filled the air around.
Both parties were well armed and the contest was nearly equal, the Shawnese having most men, while the Cherokees had the advan- tage of their breastworks. Through the entire day the battle raged, and when night closed in, both parties built fires and camped on the ground.
During the night the Cherokees sent to two white men then in the vicinity for powder and lead, which they furnished.
When the sun rose the next morning the battle was renewed with the same spirit in which it had been fought on the previous day. In a few hours, however, the Shawnese were compelled to retire. The loss on both sides was great. A large pit was dug and a common
*Bickley's History of Tazewell County.
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
grave received those who had fallen in this the last battle fought between the red men in this section of America. The battle-ground, breastwork and great grave are still to be seen.
At the time of the earlier explorations of Southwest Virginia the nearest permanent Indian settlements were to be found south of the Tennessee river.
Many vestiges of an earlier and numerous population were found in Southwest Virginia and, in many instances, are still to be seen, indicating a state of civilization far in advance of that found among the Indians of that day.
The first hunters and explorers in their many expeditions throughout all this vast territory never found a single wigwam cr Indian village. It was nothing more than the common hunting ground of the Cherokees and Shawnese.
Along the valley of what is known as Southwest Virginia lay the usual route of travel between the Southern and Northern Indians. whether engaged in peaceful intercourse or warlike expeditions, and by this same path they traveled when on the chase or their migra- tions.
Several considerations prompted the Indians to adopt this course in their travelings, viz. : such as the ease with which the mountains could be crossed, the abundance of game, the absence of swamps and large streams of impassable water and the absence of hostile inhabi- tants, and these same considerations led to the early settlement of this section and the adoption of this route of travel by the carly Scotch, Irish and English settlers of Kentucky and Tennessee.
One of these routes or Indian trails was nearly on the present McAdam road passing Roanoke, Va., thence to New River near Inglis' Ferry, thence, following the same McAdam road, to Seven Mile Ford, thence to the left of the present main road and following near to the present location of the same by Abingdon until it strikes the North Fork of Holston river a few miles above the Long Island of Holston river, crossing the same at the old ford of the North Fork and on into Tennessee until it connected with the great warpath of the Creeks. Near Wolf Hills, now Abingdon, another route or trail came in from the northwest. This trail from the northwest pursued nearly the route traveled by the carly settlers to Kentucky, crossing the mountains at Cumberland Gap. A more
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
minute description of this trail will be given in another and more appropriate place in this book.
This trail crossed the first above described Indian trail at a point on West Main street where the Russell road leaves Main street. The statement has been often made that an Indian trail followed the northwest bank of the North Fork of Holston river through this county, but I am not satisfied that such was a fact.
Bickley, in his history of Tazewell county, says the principal Indian trails through Tazewell county led through the Clinch Val- ley, but after the whites began to settle, these Indian trails all led from the Ohio river. One of these trails led up the Indian Ridge (now on the boundary between Virginia and West Virginia) till opposite the Trace Fork of Tug river; it then crossed over to that branch and, keeping into the lowest gap of the hills, led into Abb's Valley.
Another trail, afterwards much used by the whites, left the Indian Ridge and struck Tug river at the mouth of Clear Fork creek, thence up that creek till it fell over on a branch emptying into the Dry Fork of Tug river. It then followed that stream to its head and passed through Roark's Gap, near Maxwell's, in Taze- well county.
Another trail came up the Louisa Fork of Sandy river, leading into the settlements on Clinch river, now in Russell and Tazewell counties. It is worthy of notice that these trails always crossed the mountains and ridges at the lowest gaps to be found, and frequently, built in these gaps, are to be found monuments of rock piled up oftentimes to considerable height. Several of these monuments may be seen in this county, in Little Moccasin Gap, on the Byars farm on Middle Fork, on the Mahaffey farm on South Fork, and another in Roark's Gap, in Tazewell county.
Ramsey, in his Annals of Tennessee, states that the first described Indian trail after leaving Seven Mile Ford bore to the left and fol- lowed the Middle and South Forks of Holston river until it crossed the North Fork of Holston river at the Old Ford above Long Island in Tennessee.
In making this statement the historian may be correct, and some evidences yet remain that might be given to sustain this statement, notably a small Indian mound and the vestiges of an old Indian village (Kilmackronan), on the north and south sides of the Middle
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
Fork of Holston river, where the same passes through the farm formerly owned by Captain James Byars near Glade Spring, and a small Indian mound on the farm formerly owned by J. G. Mahaffey about six miles southeast of Abingdon.
But we cannot admit this statement to be correct, because the route as described is inconsistent with the habits of the Indians, besides, it does not conform to the course pursued by the early set- tlers of this section of Virginia.
The Indian in traveling (almost without a single exception, as far as I can ascertain) followed that course of travel which would, as far as possible, avoid the crossing of water, and of course he followed the highlands near the headwaters of the creeks and rivers. It is evident to every man conversant with the topography of this county that he would have passed through this county near Glade Spring, Meadow View and Abingdon.
It is generally accepted as true that the early hunters and explor- ers in this, as well as other sections of Virginia and the United States, followed, almost without a single deviation, the trails made and used by the Indians. And to this cause may be attributed the fact that many of the public roads of this section when first estab- lished were located over the steepest hills and ridges to be found in our country.
In other words, the Indian made his trail over the hills to avoid the waters; the white man adopted the Indian trail as his road because it was already open, and possibly, to some extent, for the same reason as the Indian, to avoid crossing water.
We know that the early hunters and settlers traveling through and settling in this section, after leaving Seven Mile Ford passed through the Byars farm near Glade Spring, thence near Meadow View and through the location of Abingdon of the present day, and into Tennessee.
Another statement made by Ramsey as to this same Indian trail is frequently challenged, and for very good reason.
Ramsey states that this Indian trail crossed the North Fork of Holston river above Long Island as above stated, while from all present indications this trail crossed the South Fork of Holston river at Long Island.
At least evidences of an Indian trail and ford are to be seen near Long Island at this time, and it is not reasonable to believe
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Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
that the Indians would cross the North Fork of the Holston river and then the Holston river proper to reach his towns and home, when he could cross the South Fork of Holston once and reach his home.
While Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee were unoccupied by the Indians at the time of the early settlements, still it may not be amiss to give briefly a description of the Indian tribes that pre- ceded our forefathers and afterwards gave them so much trouble in their first undertakings.
As to the remote Indian inhabitants of this section of the Ameri- can Continent, nothing authentic is known beyond the evidences of their occupancy to be gathered from tumuli scattered throughout the country and the remains found in close proximity thereto.
These remains indicate the existence, at some distant time, of a dense population, civilized to a great extent, and it is not improb- able that at a time in the past all this section was the seat of a civilization that would have compared favorably with that of Greece and Rome.
The Cherokee Indians knew nothing further of these vestiges than that their forefathers found them here, and they considered them the evidences of a numerous population far advanced in civili- zation.
The modern Indian held in great veneration these evidences of an extinct tribe, and never used them save for religious purposes.
The piles of stones often found scattered throughout the country, generally to be found in the gaps of the mountains and ridges, are believed to be the work of modern Indians. The modern Indian was of an exceedingly superstitious turn, as all barbarians or heathen nations have been.
It has been for all time not uncommon to find, in heathen coun- tries, similar heaps of stone erected by the inhabitants at some particular spot, as an offering to an evil spirit, who, according to their superstitions, would afflict or bless the passer-by.
A pile of stone, such as indicated, may be seen near the main turnpike road as it passes through Little Moccasin Gap.
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