Passing over several unsatisfactory and generally abortive negotiations
conducted by the various state governments in 1783-84, including the
treaty of Augusta already noted, [143] we come to the turning point in
the history of the Cherokee, their first treaty with the new government
of the United States for peace and boundary delimitation, concluded
at Hopewell (25) in South Carolina on November 28, 1785. Nearly one
thousand Cherokee attended, the commissioners for the United States
being Colonel Benjamin Hawkins (26), of North Carolina; General Andrew
Pickens, of South Carolina; Cherokee Agent Joseph Martin, of Tennessee,
and Colonel Lachlan McIntosh, of Georgia. The instrument was signed
by thirty-seven chiefs and principal men, representing nearly as
many different towns. The negotiations occupied ten days, being
complicated by a protest on the part of North Carolina and Georgia
against the action of the government commissioners in confirming to
the Indians some lands which had already been appropriated as bounty
lands for state troops without the consent of the Cherokee. On the
other hand the Cherokee complained that 3,000 white settlers were at
that moment in occupancy of unceded land between the Holston and the
French Broad. In spite of their protest these intruders were allowed
to remain, although the territory was not acquired by treaty until
some years later. As finally arranged the treaty left the Middle and
Upper towns, and those in the vicinity of Coosa river, undisturbed,
while the whole country east of the Blue ridge, with the Watauga and
Cumberland settlements, was given over to the whites. The general
boundary followed the dividing ridge between Cumberland river and
the more southern waters of the Tennessee eastward to the junction
of the two forks of Holston, near the present Kingsport, Tennessee,
thence southward to the Blue ridge and southwestward to a point not
far from the present Atlanta, Georgia, thence westward to the Coosa
river and northwestward to a creek running into Tennessee river at the
western line of Alabama, thence northward with the Tennessee river to
the beginning. The lands south and west of these lines were recognized
as belonging to the Creeks and Chickasaw. Hostilities were to cease and
the Cherokee were taken under the protection of the United States. The
proceedings ended with the distribution of a few presents. [144]
While the Hopewell treaty defined the relations of the Cherokee to the
general government and furnished a safe basis for future negotiation,
it yet failed to bring complete peace and security. Thousands of
intruders were still settled on Indian lands, and minor aggressions
and reprisals were continually occurring. The Creeks and the northern
tribes were still hostile and remained so for some years later, and
their warriors, cooperating with those of the implacable Chickamauga
towns, continued to annoy the exposed settlements, particularly on the
Cumberland. The British had withdrawn from the South, but the Spaniards
and French, who claimed the lower Mississippi and the Gulf region
and had their trading posts in west Tennessee, took every opportunity
to encourage the spirit of hostility to the Americans. [145] But the
spirit of the Cherokee nation was broken and the Holston settlements
were now too surely established to be destroyed.
The Cumberland settlements founded by Robertson and Donelson in the
winter of 1779-80 had had but short respite. Early in spring the
Indians--Cherokee, Creeks, Chickasaw, and northern Indians--had begun
a series of attacks with the design of driving these intruders from
their lands, and thenceforth for years no man's life was safe outside
the stockade. The long list of settlers shot down at work or while
hunting in the woods, of stock stolen and property destroyed, while
of sorrowful interest to those most nearly concerned, is too tedious
for recital here, and only leading events need be chronicled. Detailed
notice may be found in the works of local historians.
On the night of January 15, 1781, a band of Indians stealthily
approached Freeland's station and had even succeeded in unfastening
the strongly barred gate when Robertson, being awake inside, heard
the noise and sprang up just in time to rouse the garrison and beat
off the assailants, who continued to fire through the loopholes after
they had been driven out of the fort. Only two Americans were killed,
although the escape was a narrow one. [146]
About three months later, on April 2, a large body of Cherokee
approached the fort at Nashville (then called Nashborough, or simply
"the Bluff"), and by sending a decoy ahead succeeded in drawing a large
part of the garrison into an ambush. It seemed that they would be cut
off, as the Indians were between them and the fort, when those inside
loosed the dogs, which rushed so furiously upon the Indians that the
latter found, work enough to defend themselves, and were finally forced
to retire, carrying with them, however, five American scalps. [147]
The attacks continued throughout this and the next year to such an
extent that it seemed at one time as if the Cumberland settlements
must be abandoned, but in June, 1783, commissioners from Virginia
and North Carolina arranged a treaty near Nashville (Nashborough)
with chiefs of the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creeks. This treaty,
although it did not completely stop the Indian inroads, at least
greatly diminished them. Thereafter the Chickasaw remained friendly,
and only the Cherokee and Creeks continued to make trouble. [148]
The valley towns on Hiwassee, as well as those of Chickamauga, seem
to have continued hostile. In 1786 a large body of their warriors,
led by the mixed-blood chief, John Watts, raided the new settlements
in the vicinity of the present Knoxville, Tennessee. In retaliation
Sevier again marched his volunteers across the mountain to the valley
towns and destroyed three of them, killing a number of warriors;
but he retired on learning that the Indians were gathering to give
him battle. [149] In the spring of this year Agent Martin, stationed
at Echota, had made a tour of inspection of the Cherokee towns and
reported that they were generally friendly and anxious for peace,
with the exception of the Chickamauga band, under Dragging-canoe,
who, acting with the hostile Creeks and encouraged by the French
and Spaniards, were making preparations to destroy the Cumberland
settlements. Notwithstanding the friendly professions of the others,
a party sent out to obtain satisfaction for the murder of four Cherokee
by the Tennesseeans had come back with fifteen white scalps, and sent
word to Sevier that they wanted peace, but if the whites wanted war
they would get it. [150] With lawless men on both sides it is evident
that peace was in jeopardy. In August, in consequence of further
killing and reprisals, commissioners of the new "state of Franklin,"
as Tennessee was now called, concluded a negotiation, locally known
as the "treaty of Coyatee," with the chiefs of the Overhill towns. In
spite of references to peace, love, and brotherly friendship, it
is very doubtful if the era of good will was in any wise hastened
by the so-called treaty, as the Tennesseeans, who had just burned
another Indian town in reprisal for the killing of a white man,
announced, without mincing words, that they had been given by North
Carolina--against which state, by the way, they were then in organized
rebellion--the whole country north of the Tennessee river as far west
as the Cumberland mountain, and that they intended to take it "by the
sword, which is the best right to all countries." As the whole of this
country was within the limits of the territory solemnly guaranteed to
the Cherokee by the Hopewell treaty only the year before, the chiefs
simply replied that Congress had said nothing to them on the subject,
and so the matter rested. [151] The theory of state's rights was too
complicated for the Indian understanding.
While this conflict between state and federal authority continued, with
the Cherokee lands as the prize, there could be no peace. In March,
1787, a letter from Echota, apparently written by Agent Martin, speaks
of a recent expedition against the Cherokee towns, and the confusion
and alarm among them in consequence of the daily encroachments of
the "Franklinites" or Tennesseeans, who had proceeded to make good
their promise by opening a land office for the sale of all the lands
southward to Tennessee river, including even a part of the beloved town
of Echota. At the same time messengers were coming to the Cherokee from
traders in the foreign interest, telling them that England, France,
and Spain had combined against the Americans and urging them with
promises of guns and ammunition to join in the war. [152] As a result
each further advance of the Tennessee settlements, in defiance as it
was of any recognized treaty, was stubbornly contested by the Indian
owners of the land. The record of these encounters, extending over a
period of several years, is too tedious for recital. "Could a diagram
be drawn, accurately designating every spot signalized by an Indian
massacre, surprise, or depredation, or courageous attack, defense,
pursuit, or victory by the whites, or station or fort or battlefield,
or personal encounter, the whole of that section of country would
be studded over with delineations of such incidents. Every spring,
every ford, every path, every farm, every trail, every house nearly,
in its first settlement, was once the scene of danger, exposure,
attack, exploit, achievement, death." [153] The end was the winning
of Tennessee.
In the meantime the inroads of the Creeks and their Chickamauga
allies upon the Georgia frontier and the Cumberland settlements
around Nashville became so threatening that measures were taken for
a joint campaign by the combined forces of Georgia and Tennessee
("Franklin"). The enterprise came to naught through the interference
of the federal authorities. [154] All through the year 1788 we hear
of attacks and reprisals along the Tennessee border, although the
agent for the Cherokee declared in his official report that, with
the exception of the Chickamauga band, the Indians wished to be at
peace if the whites would let them. In March two expeditions under
Sevier and Kennedy set out against the towns in the direction of
the French Broad. In May several persons of a family named Kirk were
murdered a few miles south of Knoxville. In retaliation Sevier raised
a large party and marching against a town on Hiwassee river--one of
those which had been destroyed some years before and rebuilt--and
burned it, killing a number of the inhabitants in the river while
they were trying to escape. He then turned, and proceeding to the
towns on Little Tennessee burned several of them also, killing a
number of Indians. Here a small party of Indians, including Abraham
and Tassel, two well-known friendly chiefs, was brutally massacred
by one of the Kirks, no one interfering, after they had voluntarily
come in on request of one of the officers. This occurred during the
temporary absence of Sevier. Another expedition under Captain Fayne
was drawn into an ambuscade at Citico town and lost several in killed
and wounded. The Indians pursued the survivors almost to Knoxville,
attacking a small station near the present Maryville by the way. They
were driven off by Sevier and others, who in turn invaded the Indian
settlements, crossing the mountains and penetrating as far as the
valley towns on Hiwassee, hastily retiring as they found the Indians
gathering in their front. [155] In the same summer another expedition
was organized against the Chickamauga towns. The chief command was
given to General Martin, who left White's fort, now Knoxville, with
four hundred and fifty men and made a rapid march to the neighborhood
of the present Chattanooga, where the main force encamped on the site
of an old Indian settlement. A detachment sent ahead to surprise a town
a few miles farther down the river was fired upon and driven back,
and a general engagement took place in the narrow pass between the
bluff and the river, with such disastrous results that three captains
were killed and the men so badly demoralized that they refused to
advance. Martin was compelled to turn back, after burying the dead
officers in a large townhouse, which was then burned down to conceal
the grave. [156]
In October a large party of Cherokee and Creeks attacked Gillespie's
station, south of the present Knoxville. The small garrison was
overpowered after a short resistance, and twenty-eight persons,
including several women and children, were killed. The Indians
left behind a letter signed by four chiefs, including John Watts,
expressing regret for what they called the accidental killing of the
women and children, reminding the whites of their own treachery in
killing Abraham and the Tassel, and defiantly concluding, "When you
move off the land, then we will make peace." Other exposed stations
were attacked, until at last Sevier again mustered a force, cleared
the enemy from the frontier, and pursued the Indians as far as their
towns on the head waters of Coosa river, in such vigorous fashion
that they were compelled to ask for terms of peace and agree to a
surrender of prisoners, which was accomplished at Coosawatee town,
in upper Georgia, in the following April. [157]
Among the captives thus restored to their friends were Joseph Brown, a
boy of sixteen, with his two younger sisters, who, with several others,
had been taken at Nickajack town while descending the Tennessee in
a flatboat nearly a year before. His father and the other men of the
party, about ten in all, had been killed at the time, while the mother
and several other children were carried to various Indian towns,
some of them going to the Creeks, who had aided the Cherokee in the
capture. Young Brown, whose short and simple narrative is of vivid
interest, was at first condemned to death, but was rescued by a white
man living in the town and was afterward adopted into the family of
the chief, in spite of the warning of an old Indian woman that if
allowed to live he would one day guide an army to destroy them. The
warning was strangely prophetic, for it was Brown himself who guided
the expedition that finally rooted out the Chickamauga towns a few
years later. When rescued at Coosawatee he was in Indian costume,
with shirt, breechcloth, scalp lock, and holes bored in his ears. His
little sister, five years old, had become so attached to the Indian
woman who had adopted her, that she refused to go to her own mother and
had to be pulled along by force. [158] The mother and another of the
daughters, who had been taken by the Creeks, were afterwards ransomed
by McGillivray, head chief of the Creek Nation, who restored them to
their friends, generously refusing any compensation for his kindness.
An arrangement had been made with the Chickasaw, in 1783, by which
they surrendered to the Cumberland settlement their own claim to the
lands from the Cumberland river south to the dividing ridge of Duck
river. [159] It was not, however, until the treaty of Hopewell, two
years later, that the Cherokee surrendered their claim to the same
region, and even then the Chickamauga warriors, with their allies,
the hostile Creeks and Shawano, refused to acknowledge the cession
and continued their attacks, with the avowed purpose of destroying
the new settlements. Until the final running of the boundary line, in
1797, Spain claimed all the territory west of the mountains and south
of Cumberland river, and her agents were accused of stirring up the
Indians against the Americans, even to the extent of offering rewards
for American scalps. [160] One of these raiding parties, which had
killed the brother of Captain Robertson, was tracked to Coldwater, a
small mixed town of Cherokee and Creeks, on the south side of Tennessee
river, about the present Tuscumbia, Alabama. Robertson determined
to destroy it, and taking a force of volunteers, with a couple of
Chickasaw guides, crossed the Tennessee without being discovered and
surprised and burnt the town. The Indians, who numbered less than
fifty men, attempted to escape to the river, but were surrounded
and over twenty of them killed, with a loss of but one man to the
Tennesseeans. In the town were found also several French traders. Three
of these, who refused to surrender, were killed, together with a white
woman who was accidentally shot in one of the boats. The others were
afterward released, their large stock of trading goods having been
taken and sold for the benefit of the troops. The affair took place
about the end of June, 1787. Through this action, and an effort made
by Robertson about the same time to come to an understanding with the
Chickamauga band, there was a temporary cessation of hostile inroads
upon the Cumberland, but long before the end of the year the attacks
were renewed to such an extent that it was found necessary to keep
out a force of rangers with orders to scour the country and kill
every Indian found east of the Chickasaw boundary. [161]
The Creeks seeming now to be nearly as much concerned in these raids
as the Cherokee, a remonstrance was addressed to McGillivray, their
principal chief, who replied that, although the Creeks, like the
other southern tribes, had adhered to the British interest during
the Revolution, they had accepted proposals of friendship, but while
negotiations were pending six of their people had been killed in the
affair at Coldwater, which had led to a renewal of hostile feeling. He
promised, however, to use his best efforts to bring about peace, and
seems to have kept his word, although the raids continued through this
and the next year, with the usual sequel of pursuit and reprisal. In
one of these skirmishes a company under Captain Murray followed some
Indian raiders from near Nashville to their camp on Tennessee river
and succeeded in killing the whole party of eleven warriors. [162]
A treaty of peace was signed with the Creeks in 1790, but, owing
to the intrigues of the Spaniards, it had little practical effect,
[163] and not until Wayne's decisive victory over the confederated
northern tribes in 1794 and the final destruction of the Nickajack
towns in the same year did real peace came to the frontier.
By deed of cession of February 25, 1790, Tennessee ceased to be a
part of North Carolina and was organized under federal laws as "The
Territory of the United States south of the Ohio river," preliminary
to taking full rank as a state six years later. William Blount (27)
was appointed first territorial governor and also superintendent for
the southern Indians, with a deputy resident with each of the four
principal tribes. [164] Pensacola, Mobile, St. Louis, and other
southern posts were still held by the Spaniards, who claimed the
whole country south of the Cumberland, while the British garrisons
had not yet been withdrawn from the north. The resentment of the
Indians at the occupancy of their reserved and guaranteed lands by
the whites was sedulously encouraged from both quarters, and raids
along the Tennessee frontier were of common occurrence. At this time,
according to the official report of President Washington, over five
hundred families of intruders were settled upon lands belonging rightly
to the Cherokee, in addition to those between the French Broad and
the Holston. [165] More than a year before the Secretary of War had
stated that "the disgraceful violation of the treaty of Hopewell with
the Cherokee requires the serious consideration of Congress. If so
direct and manifest contempt of the authority of the United States
be suffered with impunity, it will be in vain to attempt to extend
the arm of government to the frontiers. The Indian tribes can have
no faith in such imbecile promises, and the lawless whites will
ridicule a government which shall on paper only make Indian treaties
and regulate Indian boundaries." [166] To prevent any increase of
the dissatisfaction, the general government issued a proclamation
forbidding any further encroachment upon the Indian lands on Tennessee
river; notwithstanding which, early in 1791, a party of men descended
the river in boats, and, landing on an island at the Muscle shoals,
near the present Tuscumbia, Alabama, erected a blockhouse and other
defensive works. Immediately afterward the Cherokee chief, Glass,
with about sixty warriors, appeared and quietly informed them that if
they did not at once withdraw he would kill them. After some parley
the intruders retired to their boats, when the Indians set fire to
the buildings and reduced them to ashes. [167]
To forestall more serious difficulty it was necessary to
negotiate a new treaty with a view to purchasing the disputed
territory. Accordingly, through the efforts of Governor Blount,
a convention was held with the principal men of the Cherokee at
White's fort, now Knoxville, Tennessee, in the summer of 1791. With
much difficulty the Cherokee were finally brought to consent to
a cession of a triangular section in Tennessee and North Carolina
extending from Clinch river almost to the Blue ridge, and including
nearly the whole of the French Broad and the lower Holston, with the
sites of the present Knoxville, Greenville, and Asheville. The whole
of this area, with a considerable territory adjacent, was already
fully occupied by the whites. Permission was also given for a road
from the eastern settlements to those on the Cumberland, with the
free navigation of Tennessee river. Prisoners on both sides were to
be restored and perpetual peace was guaranteed. In consideration of
the lands surrendered the Cherokee were to receive an annuity of one
thousand dollars with some extra goods and some assistance on the road
to civilization. A treaty was signed by forty-one principal men of the
tribe and was concluded July 2, 1791. It is officially described as
being held "on the bank of the Holston, near the mouth of the French
Broad," and is commonly spoken of as the "treaty of Holston."
The Cherokee, however, were dissatisfied with the arrangement,
and before the end of the year a delegation of six principal chiefs
appeared at Philadelphia, then the seat of government, without any
previous announcement of their coming, declaring that when they
had been summoned by Governor Blount to a conference they were not
aware that it was to persuade them to sell lands; that they had
resisted the proposition for days, and only yielded when compelled
by the persistent and threatening demands of the governor; that the
consideration was entirely too small; and that they had no faith
that the whites would respect the new boundary, as they were in fact
already settling beyond it. Finally, as the treaty had been signed,
they asked that these intruders be removed. As their presentation of
the case seemed a just one and it was desirable that they should carry
home with them a favorable impression of the government's attitude
toward them, a supplementary article was added, increasing the annuity
to eight thousand five hundred dollars. On account of renewed Indian
hostilities in Ohio valley and the desire of the government to keep
the good will of the Cherokee long enough to obtain their help against
the northern tribes, the new line was not surveyed until 1797. [168]
As illustrating Indian custom it may be noted that one of the principal
signers of the original treaty was among the protesting delegates,
but having in the meantime changed his name, it appears on the
supplementary paragraph as "Iskagua, or Clear Sky, formerly Nenetooyah,
or Bloody Fellow." [169] As he had been one of the principal raiders
on the Tennessee frontier, the new name may have been symbolic of
his change of heart at the prospect of a return of peace.
The treaty seems to have had little effect in preventing Indian
hostilities, probably because the intruders still remained upon the
Indian lands, and raiding still continued. The Creeks were known to
be responsible for some of the mischief, and the hostile Chickamaugas
were supposed to be the chief authors of the rest. [170] Even while the
Cherokee delegates were negotiating the treaty in Philadelphia a boat
which had accidentally run aground on the Muscle shoals was attacked
by a party of Indians under the pretense of offering assistance,
one man being killed and another severely wounded with a hatchet. [171]
While these negotiations had been pending at Philadelphia a young man
named Leonard D. Shaw, a student at Princeton college, had expressed
to the Secretary of War an earnest desire for a commission which would
enable him to accompany the returning Cherokee delegates to their
southern home, there to study Indian life and characteristics. As the
purpose seemed a useful one, and he appeared well qualified for such
a work, he was accordingly commissioned as deputy agent to reside
among the Cherokee to observe and report upon their movements, to
aid in the annuity distributions, and to render other assistance
to Governor Blount, superintendent for the southern tribes, to
study their language and home life, and to collect materials for
an Indian history. An extract from the official instructions under
which this first United States ethnologist began his work will be of
interest. After defining his executive duties in connection with the
annuity distributions, the keeping of accounts and the compiling of
official reports, Secretary Knox continues--
A due performance of your duty will probably require the exercise
of all your patience and fortitude and all your knowledge of the
human character. The school will be a severe but interesting
one. If you should succeed in acquiring the affections and a
knowledge of the characters of the southern Indians, you may be
at once useful to the United States and advance your own interest.
You will endeavor to learn their languages; this is essential to
your communications. You will collect materials for a history of
all the southern tribes and all things thereunto belonging. You
will endeavor to ascertain their respective limits, make a
vocabulary of their respective languages, teach them agriculture
and such useful arts as you may know or can acquire. You will
correspond regularly with Governor Blount, who is superintendent
for Indian affairs, and inform him of all occurrences. You
will also cultivate a correspondence with Brigadier-General
McGillivray [the Creek chief], and you will also keep a journal
of your proceedings and transmit them to the War Office.... You
are to exhibit to Governor Blount the Cherokee book and all the
writings therein, the messages to the several tribes of Indians,
and these instructions.
Your route will be hence to Reading; thence Harris's ferry
[Harrisburg, Pennsylvania] to Carlisle; to ---- ferry on the
Potomac; to Winchester; to Staunton; to ----, and to Holston. I
should hope that you would travel upwards of twenty miles each day,
and that you would reach Holston in about thirty days. [172]
The journey, which seemed then so long, was to be made by wagons from
Philadelphia to the head of navigation on Holston river, thence by
boats to the Cherokee towns. Shaw seems to have taken up his residence
at Ustanali, which had superseded Echota as the Cherokee capital. We
hear of him as present at a council there in June of the same year,
with no evidence of unfriendliness at his presence. [173] The friendly
feeling was of short continuance, however, for a few months later we
find him writing from Ustanali to Governor Blount that on account
of the aggressive hostility of the Creeks, whose avowed intention
was to kill every white man they met, he was not safe 50 yards from
the house. Soon afterwards the Chickamauga towns again declared war,
on which account, together with renewed threats by the Creeks, he
was advised by the Cherokee to leave Ustanali, which he did early
in September, 1792, proceeding to the home of General Pickens, near
Seneca, South Carolina, escorted by a guard of friendly Cherokee. In
the following winter he was dismissed from the service on serious
charges, and his mission appears to have been a failure. [174]
To prevent an alliance of the Cherokee, Creeks, and other southern
Indians with the confederated hostile northern tribes, the government
had endeavored to persuade the former to furnish a contingent of
warriors to act with the army against the northern Indians, and
special instruction had been given to Shaw to use his efforts for
this result. Nothing, however, came of the attempt. St Clair's defeat
turned the scale against the United States, and in September, 1792,
the Chickamauga towns formally declared war. [175]
In November of this year the governor of Georgia officially reported
that a party of lawless Georgians had gone into the Cherokee Nation,
and had there burned a town and barbarously killed three Indians,
while about the same time two other Cherokee had been killed within the
settlements. Fearing retaliation, he ordered out a patrol of troops to
guard the frontier in that direction, and sent a conciliatory letter
to the chiefs, expressing his regret for what had happened. No answer
was returned to the message, but a few days later an entire family
was found murdered--four women, three children, and a young man--all
scalped and mangled and with arrows sticking in the bodies, while,
according to old Indian war custom, two war clubs were left upon
the ground to show by whom the deed was done. So swift was savage
vengeance. [176]
Early in 1792 a messenger who had been sent on business for
Governor Blount to the Chickamauga towns returned with the report
that a party had just come in with prisoners and some fresh scalps,
over which the chiefs and warriors of two towns were then dancing;
that the Shawano were urging the Cherokee to join them against the
Americans; that a strong body of Creeks was on its way against the
Cumberland settlements, and that the Creek chief, McGillivray, was
trying to form a general confederacy of all the Indian tribes against
the whites. To understand this properly it must be remembered that
at this time all the tribes northwest of the Ohio and as far as the
heads of the Mississippi were banded together in a grand alliance,
headed by the warlike Shawano, for the purpose of holding the Ohio
river as the Indian boundary against the advancing tide of white
settlement. They had just cut to pieces one of the finest armies
ever sent into the West, under the veteran General St Clair (28),
and it seemed for the moment as if the American advance would be
driven back behind the Alleghenies.
In the emergency the Secretary of War directed Governor Blount to
hold a conference with the chiefs of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and
Cherokee at Nashville in June to enlist their warriors, if possible,
in active service against the northern tribes. The conference was
held as proposed, in August, but nothing seems to have come of it,
although the chiefs seemed to be sincere in their assurances of
friendship. Very few of the Choctaw or Cherokee were in attendance. At
the annuity distribution of the Cherokee, shortly before, the chiefs
had also been profuse in declarations of their desire for peace. [177]
Notwithstanding all this the attacks along the Tennessee frontier
continued to such an extent that the blockhouses were again put in
order and garrisoned. Soon afterwards the governor reported to the
Secretary of War that the five lower Cherokee towns on the Tennessee
(the Chickamauga), headed by John Watts, had finally declared war
against the United States, and that from three to six hundred warriors,
including a hundred Creeks, had started against the settlements. The
militia was at once called out, both in eastern Tennessee and on the
Cumberland. On the Cumberland side it was directed that no pursuit
should be continued beyond the Cherokee boundary, the ridge between
the waters of Cumberland and Duck rivers. The order issued by Colonel
White, of Knox county, to each of his captains shows how great was
the alarm:
Knoxville, September 11, 1792.
Sir: You are hereby commanded to repair with your company to
Knoxville, equipped, to protect the frontiers; there is imminent
danger. Bring with you two days' provisions, if possible; but
you are not to delay an hour on that head.