In September of this year occurred another of those sudden acts of
violence which had too frequently marked the history of the Cherokee
people during the preceding fifteen years. Superintendent Drew first
reported[543] to the Indian Office that a mob of one hundred armed men
had murdered two unoffending citizens, Andrew and Washington Adair;
that not less than two hundred men were in armed resistance to the
authorities of the nation, who were unable or disinclined to suppress
the insurrection, and that from sixty to one hundred of the best-known
friends of the Adairs had been threatened with a fate similar to
theirs. The presence and protection of an additional force of United
States troops was therefore asked to preserve order in the Cherokee
country and to allay the fears of the settlers along the border of
Arkansas.
An additional United States force was accordingly dispatched, but
the Cherokee authorities found little difficulty in controlling and
allaying the excitement and disorder without their aid. In truth,
the first report had been in large measure sensational, the facts
as reported by Agent Butler some two months later[544] being that
the murder was occasioned by a purely personal difficulty and had no
connection with any of the bitter political animosities that had cursed
the nation for so many years. It seems that several years previous to
the murder a Cherokee by the name of Proctor and one of the Adairs had
a difficulty. Adair's friends took Proctor a prisoner through false
pretenses and murdered him while in their hands. Proctor's friends in
consequence were much enraged and made violent threats of retaliation.
In fact during the period immediately following Proctor's death several
other persons had been killed in consequence of the existing feud. The
murder of the Adairs was the culmination of their enemies' revenge.
The murderers were arrested, tried, and acquitted by the Cherokee
courts.[545]