While this treaty was being negotiated, and for some months thereafter,
a portion of the Cherokees were engaged in the bitterest hostilities
against the white settlements, which were only brought to a close, as
has been incidentally remarked in discussing the treaty of 1792, by the
expedition of Major Ore against the Lower Cherokee towns in September,
1794.
_Peace conference._--Following this expedition the hostile Cherokees
sued for peace, and at their request a conference was held with them by
Governor Blount, at Tellico Block House, on the 7th and 8th of November
of that year.[102]
This council was attended by Col. John Watts, of Willstown, principal
leader of the hostiles; Scolacutta, or the Hanging Maw, head chief
of the nation, and four hundred other chiefs and warriors. A general
disposition seemed to be manifested among them to abandon their habits
of depredation and secure for themselves and their families that
peace to which they, as well as their white neighbors, had long been
strangers. Governor Blount met them in a friendly spirit and sought, by
every means in his power, to confirm them in their good disposition.
In reporting the facts of this conference to the Secretary of War he
asserted one of the most fruitful causes of friction between the whites
and Indians to be the stealing and selling of horses by the latter,
for which they could always find a ready and unquestioned market among
unscrupulous whites. As measures of frontier protection he suggested
the continuance of the three military garrisons of Southwest Point at
the mouth of the Clinch, of Fort Granger at the mouth of the Holston,
and of Tellico Block House, opposite the remains of old Fort Loudon,
and also the erection of a military post, if the Cherokees would permit
it, on the north bank of the Tennessee, nearly opposite the mouth of
Lookout Mountain Creek. Subsequently[103] he held a further conference
with the Cherokees and endeavored to foster hostilities between them
and the Creeks by urging the organization of a company of their young
warriors to patrol the frontiers of Mero District for its protection
against incursions of the Creeks. To this the leading Cherokee chiefs
refused assent, not because of any objection to the proposition, but
because they desired time for preparation.