Volume IV Part 8 (2/2)

Doublefaced Conduct of the Creeks and Cherokees.

The difficulties of Blount and the Tennessee frontiersmen were increased by the very fact that the Cherokees and Creeks still nominally remained at peace. The Indian towns nearest the frontier knew that they were jeopardized by the acts of their wilder brethren, and generally strove to avoid committing any offense themselves. The war parties from the remote towns were the chief offenders. Band after band came up from among the Creeks or from among the lower Cherokees, and, pa.s.sing through the peaceful villages of the upper Cherokees, fell on the frontier, stole horses, ambushed men, killed or captured women and children, and returned whence they had come. In most cases it was quite impossible to determine even the tribe of the offenders with any certainty; and all that the frontiersmen knew was that their b.l.o.o.d.y trails led back towards the very villages where the Indians loudly professed that they were at peace. They soon grew to regard all the Indians with equal suspicion, and they were so goaded by the blows which they could not return that they were ready to take vengeance upon any one with a red skin, or at least to condone such vengeance when taken. The peaceful Cherokees, though they regretted these actions and were alarmed and disquieted at the probable consequences, were unwilling or unable to punish the aggressors.

Blount Warns the Federal Government.

Blount was soon at his wits' ends to prevent the outbreak of a general war. In November, 1792, he furnished the War Department with a list of scores of people--men, women, and children--who had been killed in Tennessee, chiefly in the c.u.mberland district, since the signing of the treaty of Holston. Many others had been carried off, and were kept in slavery. Among the wounded were General Robertson and one of his sons, who were shot, although not fatally, in May, 1792, while working on their farm. Both Creeks and Cherokees took part in the outrages, and the Chickamauga towns on the Tennessee, at Running Water, Nickajack, and in the neighborhood, ultimately supplied the most persistent wrongdoers. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of War, Nov. 8, 1792; also page 330, etc. Many of these facts will be found recited, not only in the correspondence of Blount, but in the Robertson MSS., in the _Knoxville Gazette_, and in Haywood, Ramsey, and Putman.]

Effect of the Defeat of Harmar and St. Clair.

Growth of the War Spirit.

As Sevier remarked, the Southern, no less than the Northern Indians were much excited and encouraged by the defeat of St. Clair, coming as it did so close upon the defeat of Harmar. The double disaster to the American arms made the young braves very bold, and it became impossible for the elder men to restrain them. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., pp.

263, 439, etc.] The Creeks hara.s.sed the frontiers of Georgia somewhat, but devoted their main attention to the Tennesseeans, and especially to the isolated settlements on the c.u.mberland. The Chickamauga towns were right at the crossing place both for the Northern Indians when they came south and for the Creeks when they went north. Bands of Shawnees, who were at this time the most inveterate of the enemies of the frontiersmen, pa.s.sed much time among them; and the Creek war parties, when they journeyed north to steal horses and get scalps, invariably stopped among them, and on their return stopped again to exhibit their trophies and hold scalp dances. The natural effect was that the Chickamaugas, who were mainly Lower Town Cherokees, seeing the impunity with which the ravages were committed, and appreciating the fact that under the orders of the Government they could not be molested in their own homes by the whites, began to join in the raids; and their nearness to the settlements soon made them the worst offenders. One of their leading chiefs was John Watts, who was of mixed blood. Among all these Southern Indians, half-breeds were far more numerous than among the Northerners, and when the half-breeds lived with their mothers' people they usually became the deadliest enemies of their fathers' race. Yet, they generally preserved the father's name. In consequence, among the extraordinary Indian t.i.tles borne by the chiefs of the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws--the b.l.o.o.d.y Fellow, the Middle Striker, the Mad Dog, the Gla.s.s, the Breath--there were also many names like John Watts, Alexander Cornell, and James Colbert, which were common among the frontiersmen themselves.

Fruitless Peace Negotiations.

These Chickamaugas, and Lower Cherokees, had solemnly entered into treaties of peace, and Blount had been taken in by their professions of friends.h.i.+p, and for some time was loath to believe that their warriors were among war parties who ravaged the settlements. By the spring of 1792, however, the fact of their hostility could no longer be concealed.

Nevertheless, in May of that year the chiefs of the Lower Cherokee Towns, joined with those of the Upper Towns in pressing Governor Blount to come to a council at Coyatee, where he was met by two thousand Cherokees, including all their princ.i.p.al chiefs and warriors. [Footnote: Robertson's MSS., Blount to Robertson, May 20, 1792.] The head men, not only from the Upper Towns, but from Nickajack and Running Water, including John Watts, solemnly a.s.sured Blount of their peaceful intentions, and expressed their regret at the outrages which they admitted had been committed by their young men. Blount told them plainly that he had the utmost difficulty in restraining the whites from taking vengeance for the numerous murders committed on the settlers, and warned them that if they wished to avert a war which would fall upon both the innocent and the guilty they must themselves keep the peace. The chiefs answered, with seeming earnestness, that they were most desirous of being at peace, and would certainly restrain their men; and they begged for the treaty goods which Blount had in his possession. So sincere did they seem that he gave them the goods. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, March 24,1792; American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of War, June 2, 1792, with minutes of conference at Coyatee.]

This meeting began on the 17th of May, yet on the 16th, within twelve miles of Knoxville, two boys were killed and scalped while picking strawberries, and on the 13th a girl had been scalped within four miles of Nashville; and on the 17th itself, while Judge Campbell of the Territorial Court was returning from the c.u.mberland Circuit his party was attacked, and one killed. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 2, 1792.]

Chickamaugas Make Open War.

Try to Deceive Blount.

When such outrages were committed at the very time the treaty was being held, it was hopeless to expect peace. In September the Chickamaugas threw off the mask and made open war. When the news was received Blount called out the militia and sent word to Robertson that some friendly Cherokees had given warning that a big war party was about to fall on the settlements round Nashville. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of War, Sept. 11, 1792.] Finding that the warning had been given, the Chickamauga chiefs sought to lull their foes into security by a rather adroit peace of treachery. Two of their chiefs, The Gla.s.s and The b.l.o.o.d.y Fellow, wrote to Blount complaining that they had a.s.sembled their warriors because they were alarmed over rumors of a desire on the part of the whites to maltreat them; and on the receipt of a.s.surances from Blount that they were mistaken, they announced their pleasure and stated that no hostilities would be undertaken. Blount was much relieved at this, and thought that the danger of an outbreak was past. Accordingly he wrote to Robertson telling him that he could disband his troops, as there was no longer need of them. Robertson, however, knew the Indian character as few men did know it, and, moreover, he had received confidential information about the impending raid from a half-breed and a Frenchman who were among the Indians. He did not disband his troops, and wrote to Blount that The Gla.s.s and The b.l.o.o.d.y Fellow had undoubtedly written as they did simply to deceive him and to secure their villages from a counter-attack while they were off on their raid against the c.u.mberland people. Accordingly three hundred militia were put under arms. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Sept. 6, 1792; Blount to The b.l.o.o.d.y Fellow, Sept. 10, 1792; to Robertson, Sept. 12; to The Gla.s.s, Sept. 13; to The b.l.o.o.d.y Fellow, Sept. 13; to Robertson, Sept. 14; Robertson to Blount, Sept. 26, 1792.]

Attack Buchanan's Station.

Failure of the Attack.

It was well that the whites were on their guard. Towards the end of September a big war party, under the command of John Watts and including some two hundred Cherokees, eighty Creeks, and some Shawnees, left the Chickamauga Towns and marched swiftly and silently to the c.u.mberland district. They attempted to surprise one of the more considerable of the lonely little forted towns. It was known as Buchanan's Station, and in it there were several families, including fifteen ”gun-men.” Two spies went out from it to scour the country and give warning of any Indian advance; but with the Cherokees were two very white half-breeds, whose Indian blood was scarcely noticeable, and these two men met the spies and decoyed them to their death. The Indians then, soon after midnight on the 30th of September, sought to rush the station by surprise. The alarm was given by the running of the frightened cattle, and when the sentinel fired at the a.s.sailants they were not ten yards from the gate of the blockhouse. The barred door withstood the shock and the flame-flashes lit up the night as the gun-men fired through the loop-holes. The Indians tried to burn the fort, one of the chiefs, a half-breed, leaping on the roof; he was shot through the thigh and rolled off; but he stayed close to the logs trying to light them with his torch, alternately blowing it into a blaze and halloing to the Indians to keep on with the attack. However, he was slain, as was the Shawnee head chief, and several warriors, while John Watts, leader of the expedition, was shot through both thighs. The log walls of the grim little blockhouse stood out black in the fitful glare of the cane torches; and tongues of red fire streamed into the night as the rifles rang. The attack had failed, and the throng of dark, flitting forms faded into the gloom as the baffled Indians retreated. So disheartened were they by the check, and by the loss they had suffered, that they did not further molest the settlements, but fell back to their strongholds across the Tennessee. Among the Cherokee chiefs who led the raid were two signers of the treaty of Holston. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Oct. 17, 1792; _Knoxville Gazette_, Oct. 10, and Oct. 20, 1792; Brown's Narrative, in _Southwestern Monthly_.]

Monotony of the Indian Outrages.

After this the war was open, so far as the Indians of the Lower Cherokee Towns and of many of the Creek Towns were concerned; but the whites were still restrained by strict orders from the United States authorities, who refused to allow them to retaliate. Outrage followed outrage in monotonously b.l.o.o.d.y succession. The Creeks were the worst offenders in point of numbers, but the Lower Cherokees from the Chickamauga towns did most harm according to their power. Sometimes the bands that entered the settlements were several hundred strong; but their chief object was plunder, and they rarely attacked the strong places of the white frontiersmen, though they forced them to keep huddled in the stockaded stations; nor did they often fight a pitched battle with the larger bodies of militia. There is no reason for reciting in full the countless deeds of rapine and murder. The incidents, though with infinite variety of detail, were in substance the same as in all the Indian wars of the backwoods. Men, women, and children were killed or captured; outlying cabins were attacked and burned; the husbandman was shot as he worked in the field, and the housewife as she went for water. The victim was now a militiaman on his way to join his company, now one of a party of immigrants, now a settler on his lonely farm, and now a justice of the peace going to Court, or a Baptist preacher striving to reach the c.u.mberland country that he might preach the word of G.o.d to the people who had among them no religious instructor. The express messengers and post riders, who went through the wilderness from one commander to the other, always rode at hazard of their lives. In one of Blount's letters to Robertson he remarks: ”Your letter of the 6th of February sent express by James Russell was handed to me, much stained with his blood, by Mr. Shannon, who accompanied him.” Russell had been wounded in an ambuscade, and his fifty dollars were dearly earned. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, March 8, 1794. The files of the _Knoxville Gazette_ are full of details of these outrages, and so are the letters of Blount to the Secretary of War given in the American State Papers, as well as the letters of Blount and Robertson in the two bound volumes of Robertson MSS. Many of them are quoted in more accessible form in Haywood.]

Horse-stealing.

Brutal White Ruffians.

The Indians were even more fond of horse-stealing than of murder, and they found a ready market for their horses not only in their own nations and among the Spaniards, but among the American frontiersmen themselves.

Many of the unscrupulous white scoundrels who lived on the borders of the Indian country made a regular practice of receiving the stolen horses. As soon as a horse was driven from the Tennessee or c.u.mberland it was hurried through the Indian country to the Carolina or Georgia frontiers, where the red thieves delivered it to the foul white receivers, who took it to some town on the seaboard, so as effectually to prevent a recovery. At Swannanoa in North Carolina, among the lawless settlements at the foot of the Oconee Mountain in South Carolina, and at Tugaloo in Georgia, there were regular markets for these stolen horses.

[Footnote: Blount to the Secretary of War, May 5, 1792, and Nov. 10, 1794. As before, I use the word ”Tennessee” instead of ”Southwestern Territory” for convenience; it was not regularly employed until 1796.]

There were then, and continued to exist as long as the frontier lasted, plenty of white men who, though ready enough to wrong the Indians, were equally ready to profit by the wrongs they inflicted on the white settlers, and to encourage their misdeeds if profit was thereby to be made. Very little evildoing of this kind took place Tennessee, for Blount, backed by Sevier and Robertson, was vigilant to put it down; but as yet the Federal Government was not firm in its seat, and its arm was not long enough to reach into the remote frontier districts, where lawlessness of every kind throve, and the whites wronged one another as recklessly as they wronged the Indians.

Sufferings of the Honest Settlers.

Blount's Efforts to Prevent Brutality.

The white scoundrels throve in the confusion of a nominal peace which the savages broke at will; but the honest frontiersmen really suffered more than if there had been open war, as the Federal Government refused to allow raids to be carried into the Indian territory, and in consequence the marauding Indians could at any time reach a place of safety. The blockhouses were of little consequence in putting a stop to Indian attacks. The most efficient means of defence was the employment of the hardiest and best hunters as scouts or spies, for they travelled hither and thither through the woods and continually harried the war parties. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., p. 364; letter of Secretary of War, May 30, 1793.] The militia bands also travelled to and fro, marching to the rescue of some threatened settlement, or seeking to intercept the attacking bands or to overtake those who had delivered their stroke and were returning to the Indian country. Generally they failed in the pursuit. Occasionally they were themselves ambushed, attacked, and dispersed; sometimes they overtook and scattered their foes. In such a case they were as little apt to show mercy to the defeated as were the Indians themselves. Blount issued strict orders that squaws and children were not to be slain, and the frontiersmen did generally refuse to copy their antagonists in butchering the women and children in cold blood. When an attack was made on a camp, however, it was no uncommon thing to have the squaws killed while the fight was hot. Blount, in one of his letters to Robertson, after the c.u.mberland militia had attacked and destroyed a Creek war party which had murdered a settler, expressed his pleasure at the perseverance with which the militia captain had followed the Indians to the banks of the Tennessee, where he had been lucky enough to overtake them in a position where not one was able to escape. Blount especially complimented him upon having spared the two squaws, ”as all civilized people should”; and he added that in so doing the captain's conduct offered a most agreeable contrast to the behavior of some of his fellow citizens under like circ.u.mstances.

[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount's letter, March 8, 1794.]

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