The Winning of the West, Volume Four
by
Theodore Roosevelt
Part 2 out of 6
1st of October that he was given permission to begin the campaign. Even
when he was allowed to move his army forward he was fettered by
injunctions not to run any risks--and of course a really good fighting
general ought to be prepared to run risks. The Secretary of War wrote
him that above all things he was to remember to hazard nothing, for a
defeat would be fraught with ruinous consequences to the country. Wayne
knew very well that if such was the temper of the country and the
Government, it behooved him to be cautious, and he answered that, though
he would at once advance towards the Indian towns, to threaten the
tribes, he would not run the least unnecessary risk. Accordingly he
shifted his army to a place some eighty miles north of Cincinnati,
where he encamped for the winter, building a place of strength which he
named Greeneville in honor of his old comrade in arms, General Greene.
He sent forward a strong detachment of his troops to the site of St.
Clair's defeat, where they built a post which was named Fort Recovery.
The discipline of the army steadily improved, though now and then a
soldier deserted, usually fleeing to Kentucky, but in one or two cases
striking through the woods to Detroit. The bands of auxiliary militia
that served now and then for short periods with the regulars, were of
course much less well trained and less dependable.
Indians Attack the Convoys.
The Indians were always lurking about the forts, and threatening the
convoys of provisions and munitions as they marched slowly from one to
the other. Any party that left a fort was in imminent danger. On one
occasion the commander of Fort Jefferson and his orderly were killed and
scalped but three hundred yards from the fort. A previous commander of
this fort while hunting in this neighborhood had been attacked in
similar fashion, and though he escaped, his son and a soldier were
slain. On another occasion a dozen men, near the same fort, were
surprised while haying; four were killed and the other eight captured,
four of whom were burned at the stake. [Footnote: Bradley MSS., Journal,
entries of Feb. 11, Feb. 24, June 24, July 12, 1792.]
Before Wayne moved down the Ohio a band of Kentucky mounted riflemen,
under major John Adair, were attacked under the walls of one of the log
forts--Fort St. Clair--as they were convoying a large number of
packhorses. The riflemen were in camp at the time, the Indians making
the assault at dawn. Most of the horses were driven off or killed, and
the men fled to the fort, which, Adair dryly remarked, proved "a place
of safety for the bashful"; but he rallied fifty, who drove off the
Indians, killing two and wounding others. Of his own men six were killed
and five wounded. [Footnote: Am. State Papers, IV., 335. Adair to
Wilkinson, Nov. 6, 1792.]
Defeat of a Detachment.
Wayne's own detachments occasionally fared as badly. In the fall of
1793, just after he had advanced to Greeneville, a party of ninety
regulars, who were escorting twenty heavily laden wagons, were surprised
and scattered, a few miles from the scene of Adair's misadventure.
[Footnote: Bradley MSS., Journal, entry of October 17, 1793.] The
lieutenant and ensign who were in command and five or six of their men
were slain, fighting bravely; half a dozen were captured; the rest were
panic struck and fled without resistance. The Indians took off about
seventy horses, leaving the wagons standing in the middle of the road,
with their contents uninjured; and a rescue party brought them safely to
Wayne. The victors were a party of Wyandots and Ottawas under the chief
Little Otter. On October 24th the British agent at the Miami towns met
in solemn council with these Indians and with another successful war
party. The Indians had with them ten scalps and two prisoners. Seven of
the scalps they sent off, by an Indian runner, a special ally friend of
the British agent, to be distributed among the different Lake Indians,
to rouse them to war. One of their prisoners, an Irishman, they refused
to surrender; but the other they gave to the agent. He proved to be a
German, a mercenary who had originally been in Burgoyne's army.
[Footnote: Canadian Archives, Duggan to Chew, February 3, 1794.
inclosing his journal for the fall of 1793. American State Papers, IV.,
361, Wayne to Knox, October 23, 1793. The Americans lost 13 men; the
Indian reports of course exaggerated this.] Later one of the remaining
captives made his escape, killing his two Indian owners, a man and a
woman, both of whom had been leaders of war parties.
Another Detachment Defeats a Body of Indians.
In the spring of 1794, as soon as the ground was dry, Wayne prepared to
advance towards the hostile towns and force a decisive battle. He was
delayed for a long time by lack of provisions, the soldiers being on
such short rations that they could not move. The mounted riflemen of
Kentucky, who had been sent home at the beginning of winter, again
joined him. Among the regulars, in the rifle company, was a young
Kentuckian, Captain William Clark, brother of George Rogers Clark, and
afterwards one of the two famous explorers who first crossed the
continent to the Pacific. In his letters home Clark dwelt much on the
laborious nature of his duties, and mentioned that he was "like to have
starved," and had to depend on his rifle for subsistence. [Footnote:
Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, May 25, 1794] In May he
was sent from Fort Washington with twenty dragoons and sixty infantry to
escort 700 packhorses to Greeneville. When eighteen miles from Fort
Washington Indians attacked his van, driving off a few packhorses; but
Clark brought up his men from the rear and after a smart skirmish put
the savages to flight. They left behind one of their number dead, two
wounded, and seven rifles; Clark lost two men killed and two wounded.
[Footnote: _Do_. Also Canadian Archives, Duggan to Chew, May 30, 1794.
As an instance of the utter untrustworthiness of these Indian or British
accounts of the American losses, it may be mentioned that Duggan says
the Indians brought off forty scalps, and killed an unknown number of
Americans in addition; whereas in reality only two were slain. Even
Duggan admits that the Indians were beaten off.]
A Large War Party Attacks Fort Recovery.
On the last day of June a determined assault was made by the Indians on
Fort Recovery, which was garrisoned by about two hundred men. Thanks to
the efforts of the British agents, and of the runners from the allied
tribes of the Lower Lakes, the Chippewas and all the tribes of the Upper
Lakes had taken the tomahawk, and in June they gathered at the Miami.
Over two thousand warriors, all told, [Footnote: Canadian Archives,
McKee to Chew, July 7, 1794.] assembled; a larger body than had ever
before marched against the Americans. [Footnote: Am. State Papers, IV.,
488, Wayne to the Secretary of War, 1794. He says they probably numbered
from 1500 to 2000 men, which was apparently about the truth. Throughout
this campaign the estimate of the Americans as to the Indian forces and
losses were usually close to the facts, and were often under rather than
over statements.] They were eager for war, and wished to make a stroke
of note against their foes; and they resolved to try to carry Fort
Recovery, built on the scene of their victory over St. Clair. They
streamed down through the woods in long columns, and silently neared the
fort. With them went a number of English and French rangers, most of
whom were painted and dressed like the Indians.
Repulse of the Savages.
When they reached the fort they found camped close to the walls a party
of fifty dragoons and ninety riflemen. These dragoons and riflemen had
escorted a brigade of packhorses from Greeneville the day before, and
having left the supplies in the fort were about to return with the
unladen packhorses. But soon after daybreak the Indians rushed their
camp. Against such overwhelming numbers no effective resistance could be
made. After a few moments' fight the men broke and ran to the fort. The
officers, as usual, showed no fear, and were the last to retreat, half
of them being killed or wounded,--one of the honorably noteworthy
features of all these Indian fights was the large relative loss among
the officers. Most of the dragoons and riflemen reached the fort,
including nineteen who were wounded; nineteen officers and privates were
killed, and two of the packhorsemen were killed and three captured. Two
hundred packhorses were captured. The Indians, flushed with success and
rendered over-confident by their immense superiority in numbers, made a
rush at the fort, hoping to carry it by storm. They were beaten back at
once with severe loss; for in such work they were no match for their
foes. They then surrounded the fort, kept up a harmless fire all day,
and renewed it the following morning. In the night they bore off their
dead, finding them with the help of torches; eight or ten of those
nearest the fort they could not get. They then drew off and marched back
to the Miami towns. At least twenty-five [Footnote: Canadian Archives,
G. La Mothe to Joseph Chew, Michilimackinac, July 19, 1794. McKee says,
"17 men killed"; evidently he either wilfully understated the truth, or
else referred only to the particular tribes with which he was
associated. La Mothe says, "they have lost twenty-five people amongst
different nations," but as he was only speaking of the Upper Lake
Indians, it may be that the total Indian loss was 25 plus 17, or 42.
McKee always understates the British force and loss, and greatly
overstates the loss and force of the Americans. In this letter he says
that the Americans had 50 men killed, instead of 22; and that 60
"drivers" (packhorsemen) were taken and killed; whereas in reality 3
were taken and 2 killed.] of them had been killed, and a great number
wounded; whereas they had only succeeded in killing one and wounding
eleven of the garrison. They were much disheartened at the check, and
the Upper Lake Indians began to go home. The savages were as fickle as
they were ferocious: and though terrible antagonists when fighting on
their own ground and in their own manner, they lacked the stability
necessary for undertaking a formidable offensive movement in mass. This
army of two thousand warriors, the largest they had ever assembled, was
repulsed with loss in an attack on a wooden fort with a garrison not one
sixth their strength, and then dissolved without accomplishing anything
at all.
Wayne Starts on his March.
Severity of Wayne's Discipline.
Three weeks after the successful defence of Fort Recovery, Wayne was
joined by a large force of mounted volunteers from Kentucky, under
General Scott; and on July 27th he set out towards the Miami towns. The
Indians who watched his march brought word to the British that his army
went twice as far in a day as St. Clair's, that he kept his scouts well
out and his troops always in open order and ready for battle; that he
exercised the greatest precaution to avoid an ambush or surprise, and
that every night the camps of the different regiments were surrounded by
breastworks of fallen trees so as to render a sudden assault hopeless.
Wayne was determined to avoid the fates of Braddock and St. Clair. His
"legion" of regular troops, was over two thousand strong. His discipline
was very severe, yet he kept the loyal affection of his men. He had made
the officers devote much of their time to training the infantry in
marksmanship and the use of the bayonet and the cavalry in the use of
the sabre. He impressed upon the cavalry and infantry alike that their
safety lay in charging home with the utmost resolution. By steady drill
he had turned his force, which was originally not of a promising
character, into as fine an army, for its size, as a general could wish
to command.
Excellence of his Troops.
The perfection of fighting capacity to which he had brought his forces
caused much talk among the frontiersmen themselves. One of the
contingent of Tennessee militia wrote home in the highest praise of the
horsemanship and swordsmanship of the cavalry, who galloped their horses
at speed over any ground, and leaped them over formidable obstacles, and
of the bayonet practice, and especially of the marksmanship, of the
infantry. He remarked that hunters were apt to undervalue the soldiers
as marksmen, but that Wayne's riflemen were as good shots as any hunters
he had ever seen at any of the many matches he had attended in the
backwoods. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, August 27, 1793.]
Wayne's Scouts.
Wayne showed his capacity as a commander by the use he made of his spies
or scouts. A few of these were Chickasaw or Choctaw Indians; the rest,
twenty or thirty in number, were drawn from the ranks of the wild white
Indian-fighters, the men who plied their trade of warfare and the chase
right on the hunting grounds of the hostile tribes. They were far more
dangerous to the Indians, and far more useful to the army, than the like
number of regular soldiers or ordinary rangers.
Efficiency of the Scouts.
It was on these fierce backwoods riflemen that Wayne chiefly relied for
news of the Indians, and they served him well. In small parties, or
singly, they threaded the forest scores of miles in advance or to one
side of the marching army, and kept close watch on the Indians'
movements. As skilful and hardy as the red warriors, much better
marksmen, and even more daring, they took many scalps, harrying the
hunting parties, and hanging on the outskirts of the big wigwam
villages. They captured and brought in Indian after Indian; from whom
Wayne got valuable information. The use of scouts, and the consequent
knowledge gained by the examination of Indian prisoners, emphasized the
difference between St. Clair and Wayne. Wayne's reports are accompanied
by many examinations of Indian captives. [Footnote: American State
Papers, IV., 489, 94. Examination of two Pottawatamies captured on the
5th of June; of two Shawnees captured on the 22d of June; of a Shawnee
captured on Aug. 11th, etc., etc.]
Among these wilderness warriors who served under Wayne were some who
became known far and wide along the border for their feats of reckless
personal prowess and their strange adventures. They were of course all
men of remarkable bodily strength and agility, with almost unlimited
power of endurance, and the keenest eyesight; and they were masters in
the use of their weapons. Several had been captured by the Indians when
children, and had lived for years with them before rejoining the whites;
so that they knew well the speech and customs of the different tribes.
Feats of the Scouts.
One of these men was the captain of the spies, William Wells. When a boy
of twelve he had been captured by the Miamis, and had grown to manhood
among them, living like any other young warrior; his Indian name was
Black Snake, and he married a sister of the great war-chief, Little
Turtle. He fought with the rest of the Miamis, and by the side of Little
Turtle, in the victories the Northwestern Indians gained over Harmar and
St. Clair, and during the last battle he killed several soldiers with
his own hand. Afterwards, by some wayward freak of mind, he became
harassed by the thought that perhaps he had slain some of his own
kinsmen; dim memories of his childhood came back to him; and he resolved
to leave his Indian wife and half-breed children and rejoin the people
of his own color. Tradition relates that on the eve of his departure he
made his purpose known to Little Turtle, and added, "We have long been
friends; we are friends yet, until the sun stands so high [indicating
the place] in the heavens; from that time we are enemies and may kill
one another." Be this as it may, he came to Wayne, was taken into high
favor, and made chief of scouts, and served loyally and with signal
success until the end of the campaign. After the campaign he was joined
by his Indian wife and his children; the latter grew up and married well
in the community, so that their blood now flows in the veins of many of
the descendants of the old pioneers. Wells himself was slain by the
Indians long afterwards, in 1812, at the Chicago massacre.
Surprise of an Indian Party.
One of Wells' fellow spies was William Miller. Miller, like Wells, had
been captured by the Indians when a boy, together with his brother
Christopher. When he grew to manhood he longed to rejoin his own people,
and finally did so, but he could not persuade his brother to come with
him, for Christopher had become an Indian at heart. In June, 1794,
Wells, Miller, and a third spy, Robert McClellan, were sent out by Wayne
with special instructions to bring in a live Indian. McClellan, who a
number of years afterwards became a famous plainsman and Rocky Mountain
man, was remarkably swift of foot. Near the Glaize River they found
three Indians roasting venison by a fire, on a high open piece of
ground, clear of brushwood. By taking advantage of the cover yielded by
a fallen treetop the three scouts crawled within seventy yards of the
camp fire; and Wells and Miller agreed to fire at the two outermost
Indians, while McClellan, as soon as they had fired, was to dash in and
run down the third. As the rifles cracked the two doomed warriors fell
dead in their tracks; while McClellan bounded forward at full speed,
tomahawk in hand. The Indian had no time to pick up his gun; fleeing for
his life he reached the bank of the river, where the bluffs were twenty
feet high, and sprang over into the stream-bed. He struck a miry place,
and while he was floundering McClellan came to the top of the bluff and
instantly sprang down full on him, and overpowered him. The others came
up and secured the prisoner, whom they found to be a white man; and to
Miller's astonishment it proved to be his brother Christopher. The
scouts brought their prisoner, and the scalps of the two slain warriors,
back to Wayne. At first Christopher was sulky and refused to join the
whites; so at Greeneville he was put in the guard house. After a few
days he grew more cheerful, and said he had changed his mind. Wayne set
him at liberty, and he not only served valiantly as a scout through the
campaign, but acted as Wayne's interpreter. Early in July he showed his
good faith by assisting McClellan in the capture of a Pottawatamie
chief.
An Unexpected Act of Mercy.
On one of Wells' scouts he and his companions came across a family of
Indians in a canoe by the river bank. The white wood rangers were as
ruthless as their red foes, sparing neither sex nor age; and the scouts
were cocking rifles when Wells recognized the Indians as being the
family into which he had been adopted, and by which he had been treated
as a son and brother. Springing forward he swore immediate death to the
first man who fired; and then told his companions who the Indians were.
The scouts at once dropped their weapons, shook hands with the Miamis,
and sent them off unharmed.
Last Scouting Trip before the Battle.
Wells' last scouting trip was made just before the final battle of the
campaign. As it was the eve of the decisive struggle, Wayne was anxious
to get a prisoner. Wells went off with three companions--McClellan, a
man named Mahaffy, and a man named May. May, like Wells and Miller, had
lived long with the Indians, first as a prisoner, and afterwards as an
adopted member of their tribe, but had finally made his escape. The four
scouts succeeded in capturing an Indian man and woman, whom they bound
securely. Instead of returning at once with their captives, the
champions, in sheer dare-devil, ferocious love of adventure, determined,
as it was already nightfall, to leave the two bound Indians where they
could find them again, and go into one of the Indian camps to do some
killing. The camp they selected was but a couple of miles from the
British fort. They were dressed and painted like Indians, and spoke the
Indian tongues; so, riding boldly forward, they came right among the
warriors who stood grouped around the camp fires. They were at
arm's-length before their disguise was discovered. Immediately each of
them, choosing his man, fired into an Indian, and then they fled,
pursued by a hail of bullets. May's horse slipped and fell in the bed of
a stream, and he was captured. The other three, spurring hard and
leaning forward in their saddles to avoid the bullets, escaped, though
both Wells and McClellan were wounded; and they brought their Indian
prisoners into Wayne's camp that night. May was recognized by the
Indians as their former prisoner; and next day they tied him up, made a
mark on his breast for a target, and shot him to death. [Footnote:
McBride collects or reprints a number of narratives dealing with these
border heroes; some of them are by contemporaries who took part in their
deeds. Brickell's narrative corroborates these stories; the differences
are such as would naturally be explained by the fact that different
observers were writing of the same facts from memory after a lapse of
several years. In their essentials the narratives are undoubtedly
trustworthy. In the Draper collection there are scores of MS. narratives
of similar kind, written down from what the pioneers said in their old
age; unfortunately it is difficult to sift out the true from the false,
unless the stories are corroborated from outside sources; and most of
the tales in the Draper MSS. are evidently hopelessly distorted. Wells'
daring attack on the Indian camp is alluded to in the Bradley MSS.; the
journal, under date of August 12th, recites how four white spies went
down almost to Lake Erie, captured two Indians, and then attacked the
Indians in their tents, three of the spies being wounded.]
Wayne Reaches the Maumee and Builds Fort Defiance.
With his advance effectually covered by his scouts, and his army guarded
by his own ceaseless vigilance, Wayne marched without opposition to the
confluence of the Glaize and the Maumee, where the hostile Indian
villages began, and whence they stretched to below the British fort. The
savages were taken by surprise and fled without offering opposition;
while Wayne halted, on August 8th, and spent a week in building a strong
log stockade, with four good blockhouses as bastions; he christened the
work Fort Defiance. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 490, Wayne to
Secretary of War, Aug. 14, 1794.] The Indians had cleared and tilled
immense fields, and the troops revelled in the fresh vegetables and ears
of roasted corn, and enjoyed the rest; [Footnote: Bradley MSS. Letter of
Captain Daniel Bradley to Ebenezer Banks, Grand Glaize, August 28,
1794.] for during the march the labor of cutting a road through the
thick forest had been very severe, while the water was bad and the
mosquitoes were exceedingly troublesome. At one place a tree fell on
Wayne and nearly killed him; but though somewhat crippled he continued
as active and vigilant as ever. [Footnote: American Pioneer, I., 317,
Daily Journal of Wayne's Campaign. By Lieutenant Boyer. Reprinted
separately in Cincinnati in 1866.]
The Indians Decline to Make Peace.
From Fort Defiance Wayne sent a final offer of peace to the Indians,
summoning them at once to send deputies to meet him. The letter was
carried by Christopher Miller, and a Shawnee prisoner; and in it Wayne
explained that Miller was a Shawnee by adoption, whom his soldiers had
captured "six month since," while the Shawnee warrior had been taken but
a couple of days before; and he warned the Indians that he had seven
Indian prisoners, who had been well treated, but who would be put to
death if Miller were harmed. The Indians did not molest Miller, but
sought to obtain delay, and would give no definite answer; whereupon
Wayne advanced against them, having laid waste and destroyed all their
villages and fields.
Wayne Marches Forward.
His army marched on the 15th, and on the 18th reached Roche du Bout, by
the Maumee Rapids, only a few miles from the British fort. Next day was
spent in building rough breastwork to protect the stores and baggage,
and in reconnoitring the Indian position. [Footnote: American State
Papers, 491, Wayne's Report to Secretary of War, August 28, 1794.]
The Indians--Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis,
Pottawatamies, Chippewas, and Iroquois--were camped closed to the
British. There were between fifteen hundred and two thousand warriors;
and in addition there were seventy rangers from Detroit, French,
English, and refugee Americans, under Captain Caldwell, who fought with
them in the battle. The British agent McKee was with them; and so was
Simon Girty, the "white renegade," and another partisan leader, Elliott.
But McKee, Girty, and Elliott did not actually fight in the battle.
[Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to Chew, August 27, 1794. McKee says
there were 1300 Indians, and omits all allusion to Caldwell's rangers.
He always underestimates the Indian numbers and loss. In the battle one
of Caldwell's rangers, Antoine Lasselle, was captured. He gave in detail
the numbers of the Indians engaged; they footed up to over 1500. A
deserter from the fort, a British drummer of the 24th Regiment, named
John Bevin, testified that he had heard both McKee and Elliott report
the number of Indians as 2000, in talking to Major Campbell, the
commandant of the fort, after the battle. He and Lasselle agree as to
Caldwell's rangers. See their depositions, American State Papers, IV.,
494.]
The Indians' Stand at the Fallen Timbers.
On August 20, 1794, Wayne marched to battle against the Indians.
[Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, August 28,
1794. McBride, II., 129; "Life of Paxton." Many of the regulars and
volunteers were left in Fort Defiance and the breastworks on the Maumee
as garrisons.] They lay about six miles down the river, near the British
fort, in a place known as the Fallen Timbers, because there the thick
forest had been overturned by a whirlwind, and the dead trees lay piled
across one another in rows. All the baggage was left behind in the
breastwork, with a sufficient guard. The army numbered about three
thousand men; two thousand were regulars, and there were a thousand
mounted volunteers from Kentucky under General Scott.
March of the Army.
The army marched down the left or north branch of the Maumee. A small
force of mounted volunteers--Kentucky militia--were in front. On the
right flank the squadron of dragoons, the regular cavalry, marched next
to the river. The infantry, armed with musket and bayonet, were formed
in two long lines, the second some little distance behind the first; the
left of the first line being continued by the companies of regular
riflemen and light troops. Scott, with the body of the mounted
volunteers, was thrown out on the left with instructions to turn the
flank of the Indians, thus effectually preventing them from performing a
similar feat at the expense of the Americans. There could be no greater
contrast than that between Wayne's carefully trained troops, marching in
open order to the attack, and St. Clair's huddled mass of raw soldiers
receiving an assault they were powerless to repel.
Heavy Skirmishing,
The Indians stretched in a line nearly two miles long at right angles to
the river, and began the battle confidently enough. They attacked and
drove in the volunteers who were in advance and the firing then began
along the entire front. But their success was momentary. Wayne ordered
the first line of the infantry to advance with trailed arms, so as to
rouse the savages from their cover, then to fire into their backs at
close range, and to follow them hard with the bayonet, so as to give
them no time to load. The regular cavalry were directed to charge the
left flank of the enemy; for Wayne had determined "to put the horse hoof
on the moccasin." Both orders were executed with spirit and vigor.
Charge of the Dragoons.
It would have been difficult to find more unfavorable ground for
cavalry; nevertheless the dragoons rode against their foes at a gallop,
with broad-swords swinging, the horses dodging in and out among the
trees and jumping the fallen logs. They received a fire at close
quarters which emptied a dozen saddles, both captains being shot down.
One, the commander of the squadron, Captain Mis Campbell [Footnote: A
curious name, but so given in all the reports.], was killed; the other,
Captain Van Rensselaer, a representative of one of the old Knickerbocker
families of New York, who had joined the army from pure love of
adventure, was wounded. The command devolved on Lieutenant Covington,
who led forward the troopers, with Lieutenant Webb alongside him; and
the dragoons burst among the savages at full speed, and routed them in a
moment. Covington cut down two of the Indians with his own hand, and
Webb one.
Successful Bayonet Charge.
At the same time the first line of the infantry charged with equal
impetuosity and success. The Indians delivered one volley and were then
roused from their hiding places with the bayonet; as they fled they were
shot down, and if they attempted to halt they were at once assailed and
again driven with the bayonet. They could make no stand at all, and the
battle was won with ease. So complete was the success that only the
first line of regulars was able to take part in the fighting; the second
line, and Scott's horse-riflemen, on the left, in spite of their
exertions were unable to reach the battle-field until the Indians were
driven from it; "there not being a sufficiency of the enemy for the
Legion to play on," wrote Clark. The entire action lasted under forty
minutes. [Footnote: Bradley MSS., entry in the journal for August 20th.]
Less than a thousand of the Americans were actually engaged. They
pursued the beaten and fleeing Indians for two miles, the cavalry
halting only when under the walls of the British fort.
A Complete and Easy Victory.
Thirty-three of the Americans were killed and one hundred wounded.
[Footnote: Wayne's report; of the wounded 11 afterwards died. He gives
an itemized statement. Clark in his letter makes the dead 34 (including
8 militia instead of 7) and the wounded only 70. Wayne reports the
Indian loss as twice as great as that of the whites; and says the woods
were strewn with their dead bodies and those of their white auxiliaries.
Clark says 100 Indians were killed. The Englishman, Thomas Duggan,
writing from Detroit to Joseph Chew, Secretary of the Indian Office,
says officially that "great numbers" of the Indians were slain. The
journal of Wayne's campaign says 40 dead were left on the field, and
that there was considerable additional, but unascertained, loss in the
rapid two miles pursuit. The member of Caldwell's company who was
captured was a French Canadian; his deposition is given by Wayne. McKee
says the Indians lost but 19 men, and that but 400 were engaged,
specifying the Wyandots and Ottawas as being those who did the fighting
and suffered the loss; and he puts the loss of the Americans, although
he admits that they won, at between 300 and 400. He was furious at the
defeat, and was endeavoring to minimize it in every way. He does not
mention the presence of Caldwell's white company; he makes the mistake
of putting the American cavalry on the wrong wing, in trying to show
that only the Ottawas and Wyandots were engaged; and if his figures, 19
dead, have any value at all, they refer only to those two tribes; above
I have repeatedly shown that he invariably underestimated the Indian
losses, usually giving the losses suffered by the band he was with as
being the entire loss. In this case he speaks of the fighting and loss
as being confined to the Ottawas and Wyandots; but Brickell, who was
with the Delawares, states that "many of the Delawares were killed and
wounded." All the Indians were engaged; and doubtless all the tribes
suffered proportionately; and much more than the Americans. Captain
Daniel Bradley in his above quoted letter of Aug. 28th to Ebenezer Banks
(Bradley MSS.) says that between 50 and 100 Indians were killed.] It was
an easy victory. The Indians suffered much more heavily than the
Americans; in killed they probably lost two or three times as many.
Among the dead were white men from Caldwell's company; and one white
ranger was captured. It was the most complete and important victory ever
gained over the Northwestern Indians, during the forty years' warfare to
which, it put an end; and it was the only considerable pitched battle in
which they lost more than their foes. They suffered heavily among their
leaders; no less than eight Wyandot chiefs were slain.
The British in the Fort.
From the fort the British had seen, with shame and anger, the rout of
their Indian allies. Their commander wrote to Wayne to demand his
intentions; Wayne responded that he thought they were made sufficiently
evident by his successful battle with the savages. The Englishman wrote
in resentment of this curt reply, complaining that Wayne's soldiers had
approached within pistol shot of the fort, and threatening to fire upon
them if the offence was repeated. Wayne responded by summoning him to
abandon the fort; a summons which he of course refused to heed. Wayne
then gave orders to destroy everything up to the very walls of the fort,
and his commands were carried out to the letter; not only were the
Indian villages burned and their crops cut down, but all the houses and
buildings of the British agents and traders, including McKee's, were
levelled to the ground. The British commander did not dare to interfere
or make good his threats: nor, on the other hand, did Wayne dare to
storm the fort, which was well built and heavily armed.
The Army Marches Back.
After completing his work of destruction Wayne marched his army back to
Fort Defiance. Here he was obliged to halt for over a fortnight while he
sent back to Fort Recovery for provisions. He employed the time in work
on the fort, which he strengthened so that it would stand an attack by a
regular army. The mounted volunteers were turned to account in a new
manner, being employed not only to escort the pack-animals but
themselves to transport the flour on their horses. There was much
sickness among the soldiers, especially from fever and ague, and but for
the corn and vegetables they obtained from the Indian towns which were
scattered thickly along the Maumee they would have suffered from hunger.
They were especially disturbed because all the whiskey was used
up. [Footnote: Daily Journal of Wayne's Campaign, "American Pioneer," I.,
351]
On September 14th the legion started westward towards the Miami Towns at
the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers, the scene of
Harmar's disaster. In four days the towns were reached, the Indians
being too cowed to offer resistance. Here the army spent six weeks,
burned the towns and destroyed the fields and stores of the hostile
tribes, and built a fort which was christened Fort Wayne. British
deserters came in from time to time; some of the Canadian traders made
overtures to the army and agreed to furnish provisions at a moderate
price; and of the savages only straggling parties were seen. The mounted
volunteers grew mutinous, but were kept in order by their commander
Scott, a rough, capable backwoods soldier. Their term of service at
length expired and they were sent home; and the regulars of the Legion,
leaving a garrison at Fort Wayne, marched back to Greeneville, and
reached it on November 2d, just three months and six days after they
started from it on their memorable and successful expedition. Wayne had
shown himself the best general ever sent to war with the Northwestern
Indians; and his victorious campaign was the most noteworthy ever
carried on against them, for it brought about the first lasting peace on
the border, and put an end to the bloody turmoil of forty years'
fighting. It was one of the most striking and weighty feats in the
winning of the West.
Winter Quarters at Greeneville.
The army went into winter quarters at Greeneville. There was sickness
among the troops, and there were occasional desertions; the discipline
was severe, and the work so hard and dangerous that the men generally
refused to re-enlist. [Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan
Clark, November 23, 1794.] The officers were uneasy lest there should be
need of a further campaign. But their fears were groundless. Before
winter set in heralds arrived from the hostile tribes to say that they
wished peace.
The Indians Utterly Downcast.
The Indians were utterly downcast over their defeat. [Footnote: Canadian
Archives, William Johnson Chew to Joseph Chew, December 7. 1794.] The
destruction of their crops, homes, and stores of provisions was
complete, and they were put to sore shifts to live through the winter.
Their few cattle, and many even of their dogs, died; they could not get
much food from the British; and as winter wore on they sent envoy after
envoy to the Americans, exchanged prisoners, and agreed to make a
permanent peace in the spring. They were exasperated with the British,
who, they said, had not fulfilled a single promise they had
made. [Footnote: Brickell's Narrative.]
Their Anger with the British.
The anger of the Indians against the British was as just as it was
general. They had been lured and goaded into war by direct material aid,
and by indirect promises of armed assistance; and they were abandoned as
soon as the fortune of war went against them. Brant, the Iroquois chief,
was sorely angered by the action of the British in deserting the Indians
whom they had encouraged by such delusive hopes; and in his letter to
the British officials [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Joseph Brant to
Joseph Chew, Oct. 22, 1794; William J. Chew to J. Chew, Oct. 24, 1794.]
he reminded them of the fact that but for their interference the Indians
would have concluded "an equitable and honorable peace in June
1793"--thus offering conclusive proof that the American commissioners,
in their efforts to make peace with the Indians in that year, had been
foiled by the secret machinations of the British agents, as Wayne had
always thought. Brant blamed the British agent McKee for ever having
interfered in the Indian councils, and misled the tribes to their hurt;
and in writing to the Secretary of the Indian Office for Canada he
reminded him in plain terms of the treachery with which the British had
behaved to the Indians at the close of the Revolutionary War, and
expressed the hope that it would not be repeated; saying:[Footnote:
Canadian Archives, Brant to Joseph Chew, Feb. 24, and March 17, 1795.]
"If there is a treaty between Great Britain and the Yankees I hope our
Father the King will not forget the Indians as he did in the year '83."
When his forebodings came true and the British, in assenting to Jay's
treaty, abandoned their Indian allies, Brant again wrote to the
Secretary of the Indian Office, in repressed but bitter anger at the
conduct of the King's agents in preventing the Indians from making peace
with the Americans while they could have made it on advantageous terms,
and then in deserting them. He wrote: "This is the second time the poor
Indians have been left in the lurch & I cannot avoid lamenting that they
were prevented at a time when they had it in their power to make an
Honorable and Advantageous Peace." [Footnote: _Do_., Brant to Chew, Jan.
19, 1796.]
Wrath of the British Indian Agents.
McKee, the British Indian agent, was nearly as frank as Brant in
expressing his views of the conduct of the British towards their allies;
he doubtless felt peculiar bitterness as he had been made the active
instrument in carrying out the policy of his chiefs, and had then seen
that policy abandoned and even disavowed. In fact he suffered the usual
fate of those who are chosen to do some piece of work which unscrupulous
men in power wish to have done, but wish also to avoid the
responsibility of doing. He foretold evil results from the policy
adopted, a policy under which, as he put it, "the distressed situation
of the poor Indians who have long fought for us and bled farely for us
[is] no bar to a Peaceable accommodation with America and ... they [are]
left to shift for themselves." [Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to
Chew, March 27, 1795.] That a sentence of this kind could be truthfully
written by one British official to another was a sufficiently biting
comment on the conduct of the British Government.
The Indians Resolve to Treat.
The battle of the Fallen Timbers opened the eyes of the Indians to more
facts than one. They saw that they could not stand against the Americans
unassisted. Furthermore, they saw that though the British would urge
them to fight, and would secretly aid them, yet that in the last resort
the King's troops would not come to their help by proceeding to actual
war. All their leaders recognized that it was time to make peace. The
Americans found an active ally in the French Canadian, Antoine Lasselle,
whom they had captured in the battle. He worked hard to bring about a
peace, inducing the Canadian traders to come over to the American side,
and making every effort to get the Indians to agree to terms. Being a
thrifty soul, he drove a good trade with the savages at the councils,
selling them quantities of liquor.
They Send Ambassadors to Wayne.
In November the Wyandots from Sandusky sent ambassadors to Wayne at
Greeneville. Wayne spoke to them with his usual force and frankness. He
told them he pitied them for their folly in listening to the British,
who were very glad to urge them to fight and to give them ammunition,
but who had neither the power nor the inclination to help them when the
time of trial came; that hitherto the Indians had felt only the weight
of his little finger, but that he would surely destroy all the tribes in
the near future if they did not make peace. [Footnote: Canadian
Archives, Geo. Ironside to McKee, Dec. 13, 1794.]
The Hurons went away much surprised, and resolved on peace; and the
other tribes followed their example. In January, 1795, the Miamis,
Chippewas, Sacs, Delawares, Pottawatomies, and Ottawas sent ambassadors
to Greeneville and agreed to treat. [Footnote: _Do_., Antoine Lasselle
to Jacques Lasselle, Jan. 31, 1795.] The Shawnees were bent on
continuing the war; but when their allies deserted them they too sent to
Greeneville and asked to be included in the peace. [Footnote: _Do_.,
Letter of Lt.-Col. England, Jan. 30, 1795; also copy of treaty of peace
of Feb. 11th.] On February 11th the Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis
formally entered into a preliminary treaty.
Treaty of Greeneville.
This was followed in the summer of 1795 by the formal Treaty of
Greeneville, at which Wayne, on behalf of the United States, made a
definite peace with all the Northwestern tribes. The sachems, war
chiefs, and warriors of the different tribes began to gather early in
June; and formal proceedings for a treaty were opened on June 17th. But
many of the tribes were slow in coming to the treaty ground, others
vacillated in their course, and unforeseen delays arose; so that it was
not until August 7th that it was possible to come to a unanimous
agreement and ratify the treaty. No less than eleven hundred and thirty
Indians were present at the treaty grounds, including a full delegation
from every hostile tribe. All solemnly covenanted to keep the peace; and
they agreed to surrender to the whites all of what is now southern Ohio
and south eastern Indiana, and various reservations elsewhere, as at
Fort Wayne, Fort Defiance, Detroit, and Michilimackinac, the lands
around the French towns, and the hundred and fifty thousand acres near
the Falls of the Ohio which had been allotted to Clark and his soldiers.
The Government, in its turn, acknowledged the Indian title to the
remaining territory, and agreed to pay the tribes annuities aggregating
nine thousand five hundred dollars. All prisoners on both sides were
restored. There were interminable harangues and councils while the
treaty was pending, the Indians invariably addressing Wayne as Elder
Brother, and Wayne in response styling them Younger Brothers. In one
speech a Chippewa chief put into terse form the reasons for making the
treaty, and for giving the Americans title to the land, saying, "Elder
Brother, you asked who were the true owners of the land now ceded to the
United States. In answer I tell you, if any nations should call
themselves the owners of it they would be guilty of falsehood; our claim
to it is equal; our Elder Brother has conquered it." [Footnote: American
State Papers, IV., 562-583.]
Wayne's Great Achievement.
Wayne had brought peace by the sword. It was the first time the border
had been quiet for over a generation; and for fifteen years the quiet
lasted unbroken. The credit belongs to Wayne and his army, and to the
Government which stood behind both. Because it thus finally stood behind
them we can forgive its manifold shortcomings and vacillations, its
futile efforts to beg a peace, and its reluctance to go to war. We can
forgive all this; but we should not forget it. Americans need to keep in
mind the fact that as a nation they have erred far more often in not
being willing enough to fight than in being too willing. Once roused,
they have always been dangerous and hard-fighting foes; but they have
been over-difficult to rouse. Their educated classes, in particular,
need to be perpetually reminded that, though it is an evil thing to
brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bluster, it is an even
worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate
provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, helpless
to avenge an injury.
The Misconduct of the British.
The conduct of the Americans in the years which closed with Wayne's
treaty did not shine very brightly; but the conduct of the British was
black, indeed. On the Northwestern frontier they behaved in a way which
can scarcely be too harshly stigmatized. This does not apply to the
British civil and military officers at the Lake Posts; for they were
merely doing their duty as they saw it, and were fronting their foes
bravely, while with loyal zeal they strove to carry out what they
understood to be the policy of their superiors. The ultimate
responsibility rested with these superiors, the Crown's high advisers,
and the King and Parliament they represented. Their treatment both of
the Indians, whom they professed to protect, and of the Americans, with
whom they professed to be friendly, forms one of the darkest pages in
the annals of the British in America. Yet they have been much less
severely blamed for their behaviour in this matter, than for far more
excusable offences. American historians, for example, usually condemn
them without stint because in 1814 the army of Ross and Cockburn burned
and looted the public buildings of Washington; but by rights they should
keep all their condemnation for their own country, so far as the taking
of Washington is concerned; for the sin of burning a few public
buildings is as nothing compared with the cowardly infamy of which the
politicians of the stripe of Jefferson and Madison, and the people whom
they represented, were guilty in not making ready, by sea and land, to
protect their Capital and in not exacting full revenge for its
destruction. These facts may with advantage be pondered by those men of
the present day who are either so ignorant or of such lukewarm
patriotism that they do not wish to see the United States keep prepared
for war and show herself willing and able to adopt a vigorous foreign
policy whenever there is need of furthering American interests or
upholding the honor of the American flag. America is bound scrupulously
to respect the rights of the weak; but she is no less bound to make
stalwart insistance on her own rights as against the strong.
Their Treachery towards Both the Indians and the Americans.
The count against the British on the Northwestern frontier is, not that
they insisted on their rights, but that they were guilty of treachery to
both friend and foe. The success of the British was incompatible with
the good of mankind in general, and of the English-speaking races in
particular; for they strove to prop up savagery, and to bar the westward
march of the settler-folk whose destiny it was to make ready the
continent for civilization. But the British cannot be seriously blamed
because they failed to see this. Their fault lay in their aiding and
encouraging savages in a warfare which was necessarily horrible; and
still more in their repeated breaches of faith. The horror and the
treachery were the inevitable outcome of the policy on which they had
embarked; it can never be otherwise when a civilized government
endeavors to use, as allies in war, savages whose acts it cannot control
and for whose welfare it has no real concern.
Doubtless the statesmen who shaped the policy of Great Britain never
deliberately intended to break faith, and never fully realized the awful
nature of the Indian warfare for which they were in part responsible;
they thought very little of the matter at all in the years which saw the
beginning of their stupendous struggle with France. But the acts of
their obscure agents on the far interior frontier were rendered
necessary and inevitable by their policy. To encourage the Indians to
hold their own against the Americans, and to keep back the settlers,
meant to encourage a war of savagery against the border vanguard of
white civilization; and such a war was sure to teem with fearful deeds.
Moreover, where the interests of the British Crown were so manifold it
was idle to expect that the Crown's advisers would treat as of much
weight the welfare of the scarcely-known tribes whom their agents had
urged to enter a contest which was hopeless except for British
assistance. The British statesmen were engaged in gigantic schemes of
warfare and diplomacy; and to them the Indians and the frontiersmen
alike were pawns on a great chessboard, to be sacrificed whenever
necessary. When the British authorities deemed it likely that there
would be war with America, the tribes were incited to take up the
hatchet; when there seemed a chance of peace with America the deeds of
the tribes were disowned; and peace was finally assured by a cynical
abandonment of their red allies. In short, the British, while professing
peace with the Americans, treacherously incited the Indians to war
against them; and, when it suited their own interests, they
treacherously abandoned their Indian allies to the impending ruin.
[Footnote: The ordinary American histories, often so absurdly unjust to
England, are right in their treatment of the British actions on the
frontier in 1793-94. The ordinary British historians simply ignore the
whole affair. As a type of their class, Mr. Percy Gregg may be
instanced. His "History of the United States" is a silly book; he is
often intentionally untruthful, but his chief fault is his complete
ignorance of the facts about which he is writing. It is, of course,
needless to criticise such writers as Mr. Gregg and his fellows. But it
is worth while calling attention to Mr. Goldwin Smith's "The United
States," for Mr. Goldwin Smith is a student, and must be taken
seriously. He says: "That the British government or anybody by its
authority was intriguing with the Indians against the Americans is an
assertion of which there seems to be no proof." If he will examine the
Canadian Archives, from which I have quoted, and the authorities which I
cite, he will find the proof ready to hand. Prof. A. C. McLaughlin has
made a capital study of this question in his pamphlet on "The Western
Posts and the British Debts." What he says cannot well be controverted.]
CHAPTER III.
TENNESSEE BECOMES A STATE, 1791-1796.
The Southwestern Territory.
"The Territory of the United States of America South of the River Ohio"
was the official title of the tract of land which had been ceded by
North Carolina to the United States, and which a few years later became
the State of Tennessee. William Blount, the newly appointed Governor,
took charge late in 1790. He made a tour of the various counties, as
laid out under authority of the State of North Carolina, rechristening
them as counties of the Territory, and summoning before him the persons
in each county holding commissions from North Carolina, at the
respective court-houses, where he formally notified them of the change.
He read to them the act of Congress accepting the cessions of the claims
of North Carolina; then he read his own commission from President
Washington; and informed them of the provision by North Carolina that
Congress should assume and execute the government of the new Territory
"in a manner similar to that which they support northwest of the River
Ohio." Following this he formally read the ordinance for the government
of the Northwestern Territory. He commented upon and explained this
proclamation, stating that under it the President had appointed the
Governor, the Judges, and the Secretary of the new Territory, and that
he himself, as Governor, would now appoint the necessary county
officers.
Blount Inaugurated as Governor.
Slavery in the New Territory.
The remarkable feature of this address was that he read to the assembled
officers in each county, as part of the law apparently binding upon
them, Article 6 of the Ordinance of 1787, which provided that there
should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the Northwestern
Territory. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Journal of Proceedings of William
Blount, Esq., Governor in and over the Territory of the United States of
America South of the River Ohio, in his executive department, October
23, 1790.] It had been expressly stipulated that this particular
provision as regards slavery should not apply to the Southwestern
Territory, and of course Blount's omission to mention this fact did not
in any way alter the case; but it is a singular thing that he should
without comment have read, and his listeners without comment have heard,
a recital that slavery was abolished in their territory. It emphasizes
the fact that at this time there was throughout the West no very strong
feeling on the subject of slavery, and what feeling there was, was if
anything hostile. The adventurous backwoods farmers who composed the
great mass of the population in Tennessee, as elsewhere among and west
of the Alleghanies, were not a slave-owning people, in the sense that
the planters of the seaboard were. They were preeminently folk who did
their work with their own hands. Master and man chopped and ploughed and
reaped and builded side by side, and even the leaders of the community,
the militia generals, the legislators, and the judges, often did their
share of farm work, and prided themselves upon their capacity to do it
well. They had none of that feeling which makes slave-owners look upon
manual labor as a badge of servitude. They were often lazy and
shiftless, but they never deified laziness and shiftlessness or made
them into a cult. The one thing they prized beyond all others was their
personal freedom, the right of the individual to do whatsoever he saw
fit. Indeed they often carried this feeling so far as to make them
condone gross excesses, rather than insist upon the exercise of even
needful authority. They were by no means entirely logical, but they did
see and feel that slavery was abhorrent, and that it was utterly
inconsistent with the theories of their own social and governmental
life. As yet there was no thought of treating slavery as a sacred
institution, the righteousness of which must not be questioned. At the
Fourth of July celebrations toasts such as "The total abolition of
slavery" were not uncommon. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, July 17,
1795, etc. See also issue Jan. 28, 1792.] It was this feeling which
prevented any manifestation of surprise at Blount's apparent
acquiescence in a section of the ordinance for the government of the
Territory which prohibited slavery.
Dulness of the Public Conscience about Slavery.
Nevertheless, though slaves were not numerous, they were far from
uncommon, and the moral conscience of the community was not really
roused upon the subject. It was hardly possible that it should be
roused, for no civilized people who owned African slaves had as yet
abolished slavery, and it was too much to hope that the path toward
abolition would be pointed out by poor frontiersmen engaged in a life
and death struggle with hostile savages. The slaveholders were not
interfered with until they gradually grew numerous enough and powerful
enough to set the tone of thought, and make it impossible to root out
slavery save by outside action.
Blount's First Appointments.
Blount recommended the appointment of Sevier and Robertson as
brigadier-generals of militia of the Eastern and Western districts of
the Territory, and issued a large number of commissions to the justices
of the peace, militia officers, sheriffs, and clerks of the county
courts in the different counties. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Journal of the
Proceedings, etc.] In his appointments he shrewdly and properly
identified himself with the natural leaders of the frontiersmen. He made
Sevier and Robertson his right-hand men, and strove always to act in
harmony with them, while for the minor military and civil officers he
chose the persons whom the frontiersmen themselves desired. In
consequence he speedily became a man of great influence for good. The
Secretary of the Territory reported to the Federal Government that the
effect of Blount's character on the frontiersmen was far greater than
was the case with any other man, and that he was able to get them to
adhere to the principles of order and to support the laws by his
influence in a way which it was hopeless to expect from their own
respect for governmental authority. Blount was felt by the frontiersmen
to be thoroughly in sympathy with them, to understand and appreciate
them, and to be heartily anxious for their welfare; and yet at the same
time his influence could be counted upon on the side of order, while the
majority of the frontier officials in any time of commotion were apt to
remain silent and inactive, or even to express their sympathy with the
disorderly element. [Footnote: American State Papers, iv.; Daniel Smith
to the Secretary of War, Knoxville, July 19, 1793.]
Blount's Tact in Dealing with Difficulties.
No one but a man of great tact and firmness could have preserved as much
order among the frontiersmen as Blount preserved. He was always under
fire from both sides. The settlers were continually complaining that
they were deserted by the Federal authorities, who favored the Indians,
and that Blount himself did not take sufficiently active steps to subdue
the savages; while on the other hand the National Administration was
continually upbraiding him for being too active against the Indians, and
for not keeping the frontiersmen sufficiently peaceable. Under much
temptations, and in a situation that would have bewildered any one,
Blount steadfastly followed his course of, on the one hand, striving his
best to protect the people over whom he was placed as governor, and to
repel the savages, while, on the other hand, he suppressed so far as lay
in his power, any outbreak against the authorities, and tried to
inculcate a feeling of loyalty and respect for the National Government.
[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793.] He did
much in creating a strong feeling of attachment to the Union among the
rough backwoodsmen with whom he had thrown in his lot.
Treaty of Holston with the Cherokees.
Early in 1791 Blount entered into negotiations with the Cherokees, and
when the weather grew warm, he summoned them to a treaty. They met on
the Holston, all of the noted Cherokee chiefs and hundreds of their
warriors being present, and concluded the treaty of Holston, by which,
in consideration of numerous gifts and of an annuity of a thousand
(afterwards increased to fifteen hundred) dollars, the Cherokees at last
definitely abandoned their disputed claims to the various tracts of land
which the whites claimed under various former treaties. By this treaty
with the Cherokees, and by the treaty with the Creeks entered into at
New York the previous summer, the Indian title to most of the present
State of Tennessee, was fairly and legally extinguished. However the
westernmost part, was still held by the Chickasaws, and certain tracts
in the southeast, by the Cherokees; while the Indian hunting grounds in
the middle of the territory were thrust in between the groups of
settlements on the Cumberland and the Holston.
Knoxville Founded.
The "Knoxville Gazette."
On the ground where the treaty was held Blount proceeded to build a
little town, which he made the capital of the Territory, and christened
Knoxville, in honor of Washington's Secretary of War. At this town there
was started, in 1791, under his own supervision, the first newspaper of
Tennessee, known as the _Knoxville Gazette_. It was four or five years
younger than the only other newspaper of the then far West, the
_Kentucky Gazette_. The paper gives an interesting glimpse of many of
the social and political conditions of the day. In political tone it
showed Blount's influence very strongly, and was markedly in advance of
most of the similar papers of the time, including the _Kentucky
Gazette_; for it took a firm stand in favor of the National Government,
and against every form of disorder, of separatism, or of mob law. As
with all of the American papers of the day, even in the backwoods, there
was much interest taken in European news, and a prominent position was
given to long letters, or extracts from seaboard papers, containing
accounts of the operations of the English fleets and the French armies,
or of the attitude of the European governments. Like most Americans, the
editorial writers of the paper originally sympathized strongly with the
French Revolution; but the news of the beheading of Marie Antoinette,
and the recital of the atrocities committed in Paris, worked a reaction
among those who loved order, and the _Knoxville Gazette_ ranged itself
with them, taking for the time being strong grounds against the French,
and even incidentally alluding to the Indians as being more
blood-thirsty than any man "not a Jacobin." [Footnote: _Knoxville
Gazette_, March 27, 1794.] The people largely shared these sentiments.
In 1793 at the Fourth of July celebration at Jonesborough there was a
public dinner and ball, as there was also at Knoxville; Federal troops
were paraded and toasts were drunk to the President, to the Judges of
the Supreme Court, to Blount, to General Wayne, to the friendly
Chickasaw Indians, to Sevier, to the ladies of the Southwestern
Territory, to the American arms, and, finally, "to the true liberties of
France and a speedy and just punishment of the murderers of Louis XVI."
The word "Jacobin" was used as a term of reproach for some time.
The "Gazette" Sound in its Politics.
The paper was at first decidedly Federalist in sentiment. No sympathy
was expressed with Genet or with the efforts undertaken by the Western
allies of the French Minister to organize a force for the conquest of
Louisiana; and the Tennessee settlers generally took the side of law and
order in the earlier disturbances in which the Federal Government was
concerned. At the Fourth of July celebration in Knoxville, in 1795, one
of the toasts was "The four western counties of Pennsylvania; may they
repent their folly and sin no more"; the Tennesseeans sympathizing as
little with the Pennsylvania whiskey revolutionists as four years later
they sympathized with the Kentuckians and Virginians in their
nullification agitation against the alien and sedition laws.
Its Gradual Change of Tone.
Gradually, however, the tone of the paper changed, as did the tone of
the community, at least to the extent of becoming Democratic and
anti-Federal; for the people felt that the Easterners did not sympathize
with them either in their contests with the Indians or in their desire
to control the Mississippi and the farther West. They grew to regard
with particular vindictiveness the Federalists,--the aristocrats, as
they styled them,--of the Southern seaboard States, notably of Virginia
and South Carolina.
One pathetic feature of the paper was the recurrence of advertisements
by persons whose friends and kinsfolk had been carried off by the
Indians, and who anxiously sought any trace of them.
Queer Use of the "Gazette."
But the _Gazette_ was used for the expression of opinions not only by
the whites, but occasionally even by an Indian. One of the Cherokee
chiefs, the Red Bird, put into the _Gazette_, for two buckskins, a talk
to the Cherokee chief of the Upper Towns, in which he especially warned
him to leave alone one William Cocke, "the white man who lived among the
mulberry trees," for, said Red Bird, "the mulberry man talks very strong
and runs very fast"; this same Cocke being afterwards one of the first
two senators from Tennessee. The Red Bird ended his letter by the
expression of the rather quaint wish, "that all the bad people on both
sides were laid in the ground, for then there would not be so many mush
men trying to make people to believe they were warriors." [Footnote:
_Knoxville Gazette_, November 3, 1792.]
Efforts to Promote Higher Education.
Blount brought his family to Tennessee at once, and took the lead in
trying to build up institutions for higher education. After a good deal
of difficulty an academy was organized under the title of Blount
College, and was opened as soon as a sufficient number of pupils could
be gotten together; there were already two other colleges in the
Territory, Greeneville and Washington, the latter being the academy
founded by Doak. Like almost all other institutions of learning of the
day these three were under clerical control; but Blount College was
chartered as a non-denomination institution, the first of its kind in
the United States. [Footnote: See Edward T. Sanford's "Blount College
and the University of Tennessee," p. 13.] The clergyman and the lawyer,
with the school-master, were still the typical men of letters in all the
frontier communities. The doctor was not yet a prominent feature of life
in the backwoods, though there is in the _Gazette_ an advertisement of
one who announces that he intends to come to practise "with a large
stock of genuine medicines." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 19,
1794.]
Books of the Backwoods.
The ordinary books were still school books, books of law, and sermons or
theological writings. The first books, or pamphlets, published in
Eastern Tennessee were brought out about this time at the _Gazette_
office, and bore such titles as "A Sermon on Psalmody, by Rev. Hezekiah
Balch"; "A Discourse by the Rev. Samuel Carrick"; and a legal essay
called "Western Justice." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Jan. 30 and
May 8, 1794.] There was also a slight effort now and then at literature
of a lighter kind. The little Western papers, like those in the East,
had their poets' corners, often with the heading of "Sacred to the
Muses," the poems ranging from "Lines to Myra" and "An Epitaph on John
Topham" to "The Pernicious Consequences of Smoking Cigars." In one of
the issues of the _Knoxville Gazette_ there is advertised for sale a new
song by "a gentleman of Col. McPherson's Blues, on a late Expedition
against the Pennsylvania Insurgents"; and also, in rather incongruous
juxtaposition, "Toplady's Translation of Zanchi on Predestination."
Settlers Throng into Tennessee.
Settlers were thronging into East Tennessee, and many penetrated even to
the Indian-harassed western district. In travelling to the western parts
the immigrants generally banded together in large parties, led by some
man of note. Among those who arrived in 1792 was the old North Carolina
Indian fighter, General Griffith Rutherford. He wished to settle on the
Cumberland, and to take thither all his company, with a large number of
wagons, and he sent to Blount begging that a road might be cut through
the wilderness for the wagons; or, if this could not be done, that some
man would blaze the route, "in which case," said he "there would be
hands of our own that could cut as fast as wagons could march."
[Footnote: Blount MSS., Rutherford to Blount, May 25, 1792.]
Meeting of the Territorial Legislature.
In 1794, there being five thousand free male inhabitants, as provided by
law, Tennessee became entitled to a Territorial legislature, and the
Governor summoned the Assembly to the meet at Knoxville on August 17th.
So great was the danger from the Indians that a military company had to
accompany the Cumberland legislators to and from the seat of government.
For the same reason the judges on their circuits had to go accompanied
by a military guard.
Among the first acts of this Territorial Legislature was that to
establish higher institutions of learning; John Sevier was made a
trustee in both Blount and Greeneville Colleges. A lottery was
established for the purpose of building the Cumberland road to
Nashville, and another one to build a jail and stocks in Nashville. A
pension act was passed for disabled soldiers and for widows and orphans,
who were to be given an adequate allowance at the discretion of the
county court. A poll tax of twenty-five cents on all taxable white polls
was laid, and on every taxable negro poll fifty cents. Land was taxed at
the rate of twenty-five cents a hundred acres, town lots one dollar;
while a stud horse was taxed four dollars. Thus, taxes were laid
exclusively upon free males, upon slaves, lands, town lots, and stud
horses, a rather queer combination. [Footnote: Laws of Tennessee,
Knoxville, 1803. First Session of Territorial Legislature, 1794.]
Many Industries Established.
Various industries were started, as the people began to demand not only
the necessaries of life but the comforts, and even occasionally the
luxuries. There were plenty of blacksmith shops; and a goldsmith and
jeweller set up his establishment. In his advertisement he shows that he
was prepared to do some work which would be alien to his modern
representative, for he notifies the citizens that he makes "rifle guns
in the neatest and most approved fashion." [Footnote: _Knoxville
Gazelle_, Oct. 20, 1792.]
Ferries and Taverns.
Ferries were established at the important crossings, and taverns in the
county-seats and small towns. One of the Knoxville taverns advertises
its rates, which were one shilling for breakfast, one shilling for
supper, and one and sixpence for dinner; board and lodging for a week
costing two dollars, and board only for the same space and of time nine
shillings. Ferriage was three pence for a man and horse and two
shillings for a wagon and team.
Trade.
Various stores were established in the towns, the merchants obtaining
most of their goods in the great trade centres of Philadelphia and
Baltimore, and thence hauling them by wagon to the frontier. Most of the
trade was carried on by barter. There was very little coin in the
country and but few bank-notes. Often the advertisement specified the
kind of goods that would be taken and the different values at which they
would be received. Thus, the salt works at Washington, Virginia, in
advertising their salt, stated that they would sell it per bushel for
seven shillings and sixpence if paid in cash or prime furs; at ten
shillings if paid in bear or deer skins, beeswax, hemp, bacon, butter,
or beef cattle; and at twelve shillings if in other trade and country
produce, as was usual. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 1, 1793.]
Currency.
The prime furs were mink, coon, muskrat, wildcat, and beaver. Besides
this the stores advertised that they would take for their articles cash,
beeswax, and country produce or tallow, hogs' lard in white walnut kegs,
butter, pork, new feathers, good horses, and also corn, rye, oats, flax,
and "old Congress money," the old Congress money being that issued by
the Continental Congress, which had depreciated wonderfully in value.
They also took certificates of indebtedness either from the State or the
nation because of services performed against the Indians, and
certificates of land claimed under various rights. The value of some of
these commodities was evidently mainly speculative. The storekeepers
often felt that where they had to accept such dubious substitutes for
cash they desired to give no credit, and some of the advertisements run:
"Cheap, ready money store, where no credit whatever will be given," and
then proceed to describe what ready money was,--cash, furs, bacon, etc.
The stores sold salt, iron-mongery, pewterware, corduroys, rum, brandy,
whiskey, wine, ribbons, linen, calamancos, and in fact generally what
would be found at that day in any store in the smaller towns of the
older States. The best eight by ten crown-glass "was regularly
imported," and also "beautiful assortments of fashionable coat and vest
buttons," as well as "brown and loaf sugar, coffee, chocolate, tea, and
spices." In the towns the families had ceased to kill their own meat,
and beef markets were established where fresh meat could be had twice a
week.
Stock on the Range.
Houses and lots were advertised for sale, and one result of the method
of allowing the branded stock to range at large in the woods was that
the Range, there were numerous advertisements for strayed horses, and
even cattle, with descriptions of the brands and ear marks. The people
were already beginning to pay attention to the breeding of their horses,
and fine stallions with pedigrees were advertised, though some of the
advertisements show a certain indifference to purity of strain; one
stallion being quoted as of "mixed fox-hunting and dray" breed. Rather
curiously the Chickasaw horses were continually mentioned as of special
merit, together with those of imported stock. Attention was paid both to
pacers and trotters.
The lottery was still a recognized method of raising money for every
purpose, including the advancement of education and religion. One of the
advertisements gives as one of the prizes a negro, valued at one hundred
and thirty pounds, a horse at ten pounds, and five hundred acres of fine
land without improvements at twelve hundred pounds.
Government Escort for Immigrants.
Journeying to the long-settled districts of the East, persons went as
they wished, in their own wagons or on their own horses; but to go from
East Tennessee either to Kentucky, or to the Cumberland district, or to
New Orleans, was a serious matter because of the Indians. The
Territorial authorities provided annually an escort for immigrants from
the Holston country to the Cumberland, a distance of one hundred and ten
miles through the wilderness, and the departure of this annual escort
was advertised for weeks in advance.
Sometimes the escort was thus provided by the authorities. More often
adventurers simply banded together; or else some enterprising man
advertised that on a given date he should start and would provide
protection for those who chose to accompany him. Thus, in the _Knoxville
Gazette_ for February 6, 1795, a boat captain gives public notice to all
persons who wish to sail from the Holston country to New Orleans, that
on March 1st, if the waters answer, his two boats will start, the _Mary_
of twenty-five tons, and the _Little Polly_ of fifteen tons. Those who
had contracted for freight and passage are desired to attend previous to
that period.
Lawlessness.
There was of course a good deal of lawlessness and a strong tendency to
settle assault and battery cases in particular out of court. The
officers of justice at times had to subdue criminals by open force.
Andrew Jackson, who was District Attorney for the Western District,
early acquired fame by the energy and success with which he put down any
criminal who resisted the law. The worst offenders fled to the
Mississippi Territory, there to live among Spaniards, Creoles, Indians,
and lawless Americans. Lawyers drove a thriving business; but they had
their own difficulties, to judge by one advertisement, which appears in
the issue of the _Gazette_ for March 23, 1793, where six of them give
notice that thereafter they will give no legal advice unless it is
legally paid for.
Endless Land Speculations.
All the settlers, or at least all the settlers who had any ambition to
rise in the world, were absorbed in land speculations: Blount,
Robertson, and the other leaders as much so as anybody. They were
continually in correspondence with one another about the purchase of
land warrants, and about laying them out in the best localities. Of
course there was much jealousy and rivalry in the effort to get the best
sites. Robertson, being farthest on the frontier, where there was most
wild land, had peculiar advantages. Very soon after he settled in the
Cumberland district at the close of the Revolutionary War, Blount had
entered into an agreement with him for a joint land speculation. Blount
was to purchase land claims from both officers and soldiers amounting in
all to fifty thousand acres and enter them for the Western Territory,
while Robertson was to survey and locate the claims, receiving one
fourth of the whole for his reward. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Agreement
between William Blount and James Robertson, Oct. 30, 1783.] Their
connection continued during Blount's term as Governor, and Blount's
letters to Robertson contain much advice as to how the warrants shall be
laid out. Wherever possible they were of course laid outside the Indian
boundaries; but, like every one else, Blount and Robertson knew that
eventually the Indian lands would come into the possession of the United
States, and in view of the utter confusion of the titles, and especially
in view of the way the Indians as well as the whites continually broke
the treaties and rendered it necessary to make new ones, both Blount and
Robertson were willing to place claims on the Indian lands and trust to
luck to make the claims good if ever a cession was made. The lands thus
located were not lands upon which any Indian village stood. Generally
they were tracts of wilderness through which the Indians occasionally
hunted, but as to which there was a question whether they had yet been
formally ceded to the government. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to
Robertson, April 29, 1792.]
Land Tax and Land Sales.
Blount also corresponded with many other men on the question of these
land speculations, and it is amusing to read the expressions of horror
of his correspondents when they read that Tennessee had imposed a land
tax. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Lexington, Ky.,
March 29, 1795.] By his activity he became a very large landed
proprietor, and when Tennessee was made a State he was taxed on 73,252
acres in all. The tax was not excessive, being but $179.72. [Footnote:
_Do_., Return of taxable property of Blount, Nashville, Sept. 9, 1796.]
It was of course entirely proper for Blount to get possession of the
land in this way. The theory of government on the frontier was that each
man should be paid a small salary, and be allowed to exercise his
private business just so long as it did not interfere with his public
duties. Blount's land speculations were similar to those in which almost
every other prominent American, in public or private life, was engaged.
Neither Congress nor the States had as yet seen the wisdom of allowing
the laud to be sold only in small parcels to actual occupants, and the
favorite kind of speculation was the organization of land companies. Of
course there were other kinds of business in which prominent men took
part. Sevier was interested not only in land, but in various mercantile
ventures of a more or less speculative kind; he acted as an intermediary
with the big importers, who were willing to furnish some of the stores
with six months' credit if they could be guaranteed a settlement at the
end of that time. [Footnote: _Do_., David Allison to Blount, Oct. 16,
1791.]
Business Versatility of the Frontiersman
One of the characteristics of all the leading frontiersmen was not only
the way in which they combined business enterprises with their work as
Government officials and as Indian fighters, but the readiness with
which they turned from one business enterprise to another. One of
Blount's Kentucky correspondents, Thomas Hart, the grandfather of
Benton, in his letter to Blount shows these traits in typical fashion.
He was engaged in various land speculations with Blount, [Footnote: Clay
MSS., Blount to Hart, Knoxville, February 9, 1794. This was just as Hart
was moving to Kentucky.] and was always writing to him about locating
land warrants, advertising the same as required by law, and the like. He
and Blount held some tens of thousands of acres of the Henderson claim,
and Hart proposed that they should lay it out in five-hundred-acre
tracts, to be rented to farmers, with the idea that each farmer should
receive ten cows and calves to start with; a proposition which was of
course hopeless, as the pioneers would not lease lands when it was so
easy to obtain freeholds. In his letters, Hart mentioned cheerfully that
though he was sixty-three years old he was just as well able to carry on
his manufacturing business, and, on occasion, to leave it, and play
pioneer, as he ever had been, remarking that he "never would be
satisfied in the world while new countries could be found," and that his
intention, now that he had moved to Kentucky, was to push the mercantile
business as long as the Indian war continued and money was plenty, and
when that failed, to turn his attention to farming and to divide up
those of his lands he could not till himself, to be rented by others.
[Footnote: Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Dec. 23, 1793.]
This letter to Blount shows, by the way, as was shown by Madison's
correspondent from Kentucky, that the Indian war, scourge though it was
to the frontiersmen as a whole, brought some attendant benefits in its
wake by putting a stimulus on the trade of the merchants and bringing
ready money into the country. It must not be forgotten, however, that
men like Hart and Blount, though in some ways they were benefited by the
war, were in other ways very much injured, and that, moreover, they
consistently strove to do justice to the Indians and to put a stop to
hostilities.
In his letters Colonel Hart betrays a hearty, healthy love of life, and
capacity to enjoy it, and make the best of it, which fortunately exist
in many Kentucky and Tennessee families to this day. He wanted money,
but the reason he wanted it was to use it in having a good time for
himself and his friends, writing: "I feel all the ardor and spirit for
business I did forty years ago, and see myself more capable to conduct
it. Oh, if my old friend Uncle Jacob was but living and in this country,
what pleasure we should have in raking up money and spending it with our
friends!" and he closed by earnestly entreating Blount and his family to
come to Kentucky, which he assured him was the finest country in the
world, with moreover, "a very pleasant society, for," said he, "I can
say with truth that the society of this place is equal, if not superior,
to any that can be found in any inland town in the United States, for
there is not a day that passes over our heads but I can have half a
dozen strange gentlemen to dine with us, and they are from all parts of
the Union." [Footnote: Blount MSS., Hart to Blount, Lexington, Feb. 15,
1795.]
The Neverending Indian Warfare.
Incessant Violation of the Treaties by Both the Red Men and the White.
The one overshadowing fact in the history of Tennessee during Blount's
term as governor was the Indian warfare. Hostilities with the Indians
were never ceasing, and, so far as Tennessee was concerned, during these
six years it was the Indians, and not the whites who were habitually the
aggressors and wrongdoers. The Indian warfare in the Territory during
these years deserves some study because it was typical of what occurred
elsewhere. It illustrates forcibly the fact that under the actual
conditions of settlement wars were inevitable; for if it is admitted
that the land of the Indians had to be taken and that the continent had
to be settled by white men, it must be further admitted that the
settlement could not have taken place save after war. The whites might
be to blame in some cases, and the Indians in others; but under no
combination of circumstances was it possible to obtain possession of the
country save as the result of war, or of a peace obtained by the fear of
war. Any peace which did not surrender the land was sure in the end to
be broken by the whites; and a peace which did surrender the land would
be broken by the Indians. The history of Tennessee during the dozen years
from 1785 to 1796 offers an admirable case in point. In 1785 the United
States Commissioners concluded the treaty of Hopewell with the Indians,
and solemnly guaranteed them certain lands. The whites contemptuously
disregarded this treaty and seized the lands which it guaranteed to
the Indians, being themselves the aggressors, and paying no heed to
the plighted word of the Government, while the Government itself was
too weak to make the frontiersmen keep faith. The treaties of New York
and of Holston with the Creeks and Cherokees in 1790 and 1791 were
fairly entered into by fully authorized representatives of the tribes.
Under them, for a valuable consideration, and of their own motion, the
Creeks and Cherokees solemnly surrendered all title to what is now the
territory of Tennessee, save to a few tracts mostly in the west and
southeast; and much of the land which was thus ceded they had ceded
before. Nevertheless, the peace thus solemnly made was immediately
violated by the Indians themselves. The whites were not the aggressors
in any way, and, on the contrary, thanks to the wish of the United
States authorities for peace, and to the care with which Blount strove
to carry out the will of the Federal Government, they for a long time
refrained even from retaliating when injured; yet the Indians robbed and
plundered them even more freely than when the whites themselves had been
the aggressors and had broken the treaty.
Confusion of the Treaties.
Before making the treaty of Holston Blount had been in correspondence
with Benjamin Hawkins, a man who had always been greatly interested in
Indian affairs. He was a prominent politician in North Carolina, and
afterwards for many years agent among the Southern Indians. He had been
concerned in several of the treaties. He warned Blount that since the
treaty of Hopewell the whites, and not the Indians, had been the
aggressors; and also warned him not to try to get too much land from the
Indians, or to take away too great an extent of their hunting grounds,
which would only help the great land companies, but to be content with
the thirty-fifth parallel for a southern boundary. [Footnote: Blount
MSS., Hawkins to Blount, March 10, 1791.] Blount paid much heed to this
advice, and by the treaty of Holston he obtained from the Indians little
more than what the tribes had previously granted; except that they
confirmed to the whites the country upon which the pioneers were already
settled. The Cumberland district had already been granted over and over
again by the Indians in special treaties, to Henderson, to the North
Carolinians and to the United States. The Creeks in particular never had
had any claim to this Cumberland country, which was a hundred miles and
over from any of their towns. All the use they had ever made of it was
to visit it with their hunting parties, as did the Cherokees, Choctaws,
Chickasaws, Shawnees, Delawares, and many others. Yet the Creeks and
other Indians had the effrontery afterwards to assert that the
Cumberland Country had never been ceded at all, and that as the settlers
in it were thus outside of the territory properly belonging to the
United States, they were not entitled to protection under the treaty
entered into with the latter.
Blount's Good Faith with the Indians.
Blount was vigilant and active in seeing that none of the frontiersmen
trespassed on the Indian lands, and when a party of men, claiming
authority under Georgia, started to settle at the Muscle Shoals, he
co-operated actively with the Indians in having them brought back, and
did his best, though in vain, to persuade the Grand Jury to indict the
offenders. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Sept. 3,
1791.] He was explicit in his orders to Sevier, to Robertson, and to
District Attorney Jackson that they should promptly punish any white man
who violated the provisions of the treaty; and over a year after it had
been entered into he was able to write in explicit terms that "not a
single settler had built a house, or made a settlement of any kind, on
the Cherokee lands, and that no Indians had been killed by the whites
excepting in defence of their lives and property." [Footnote: _Do_.,
Blount to Robertson, Jan. 2, 1792; to Bloody Fellow, Sept. 13, 1792.]
Robertson heartily co-operated with Blount, as did Sevier, in the effort
to keep peace, Robertson showing much good sense and self-control, and
acquiescing in Blount's desire that nothing should be done "inconsistent
with the good of the nation as a whole," and that "the faith of the
nation should be kept." [Footnote: Blount MSS., Robertson to Blount,
Jan. 17, 1793.]
Bad Faith of the Indians.
The Indians as a body showed no appreciation whatever of these efforts
to keep the peace, and plundered and murdered quite as freely as before
the treaties, or as when the whites themselves were the aggressors. The
Creek Confederacy was in a condition of utter disorganization,
McGillivray's authority was repudiated, and most of the towns scornfully
refused to obey the treaty into which their representatives had entered
at New York. A tory adventurer named Bowles, who claimed to have the
backing of the English Government, landed in the nation and set himself
in opposition to McGillivray. The latter, who was no fighter, and whose
tools were treachery and craft, fled to the protection of the Spaniards.
Bowles, among other feats, plundered the stores of Panton, a white
trader in the Spanish interest, and for a moment his authority seemed
supreme; but the Spaniards, by a trick, got possession of him and put
him in prison.
Intrigues of the Spaniards.
The Spaniards still claimed as their own the Southwestern country, and
were untiring in their efforts to keep the Indians united among
themselves and hostile to the Americans. They concluded a formal treaty
of friendship and of reciprocal guarantee with the Choctaws, Chickasaws,
Creeks, and Cherokees at Nogales, in the Choctaw country, on May 14,
1792. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents; Letter of Carondelet to
Duke of Alcudia, Nov. 24, 1794.] The Indians entered into this treaty at
the very time they had concluded wholly inconsistent treaties with the
Americans. On the place of the treaty the Spaniards built a fort, which
they named Fort Confederation, to perpetuate, as they hoped, the memory
of the confederation they had thus established among the Southern
Indians. By means of this fort they intended to control all the
territory enclosed between the rivers Mississippi, Yazoo, Chickasaw, and
Mobile. The Spaniards also expended large sums of money in arming the
Creeks, and in bribing them to do, what they were quite willing to do of
their own accord,--that is, to prevent the demarkation of the boundary
line as provided in the New York treaty; a treaty which Carondelet
reported to his Court as "insulting and pernicious to Spain, the
abrogation of which has lately been brought about by the intrigues with
the Indians." [Footnote: Draper MSS., Letter of Carondelet, New Orleans,
Sept. 25, 1795.]
Carondelet's Policy.
At the same time that the bill for these expenses was submitted for
audit to the home government the Spanish Governor also submitted his
accounts for the expenses in organizing the expedition against the
"English adventurer Bowles," and in negotiating with Wilkinson and the
other Kentucky Separatists, and also in establishing a Spanish post at
the Chickasaw Bluffs, for which he had finally obtained the permission
of the Chickasaws. The Americans of course regarded the establishment
both of the fort at the Chickasaw Bluffs and the fort at Nogales as
direct challenges; and Carondelet's accounts show that the frontiersmen
were entirely justified in their belief that the Spaniards not only
supplied the Creeks with arms and munitions of war, but actively
interfered to prevent them from keeping faith and carrying out the
treaties which they had signed. The Spaniards did not wish the Indians
to go to war unless it was necessary as a last resort. They preferred
that they should be peaceful, provided always they could prevent the
intrusion of the Americans. Carondelet wrote: "We have inspired the
Creeks with pacific intentions towards the United States, but with the
precise restriction that there shall be no change of the boundaries,"
[Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Docs.; Carondelet's Report, Oct. 23,
1793.] and he added that "to sustain our allied nations [of Indians] in
the possession of their lands becomes therefore indispensable, both to
preserve Louisiana to Spain, and in order to keep the Americans from the
navigation of the Gulf." He expressed great uneasiness at the efforts of
Robertson to foment war between the Chickasaws and Choctaws and the
Creeks, and exerted all his powers to keep the Indian nations at peace
with one another and united against the settler-folk. [Footnote: _Do_.,
Carondelet to Don Louis De Las Casas, June 13, 1795, enclosing letter
from Don M. G. De Lemos, Governor of Natchez.]
The Spaniards far more Treacherous than the British.
The Spaniards, though with far more infamous and deliberate deceit and
far grosser treachery, were pursuing towards the United States and the
Southwestern Indians the policy pursued by the British towards the
United States and the Northwestern Indians; with the difference that the
Spanish Governor and his agents acted under the orders of the Court of
Spain, while the English authorities connived at and profited by, rather
than directly commanded, what was done by their subordinates. Carondelet
expressly states that Colonel Gayoso and his other subordinates had been
directed to unite the Indian nations in a defensive alliance, under the
protection of Spain, with the object of opposing Blount, Robertson, and
the frontiersmen, and of establishing the Cumberland River as the
boundary between the Americans and the Indians. The reciprocal guarantee
of their lands by the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws was,
said Carondelet, the only way by which the Americans could be retained
within their own boundaries. [Footnote: Carondelet to Alcudia, Aug. 17,
1793.] The Spaniards devoted much attention to supporting those traders
among the Indians who were faithful to the cause of Spain and could be
relied upon to intrigue against the Americans. [Footnote: _Do_., Manuel
Gayoso De Lemos to Carondelet, Nogales, July 25, 1793.]
Carondelet's Tortuous Intrigues.
The divided condition of the Creeks, some of whom wished to carry out in
good faith the treaty of New York, while the others threatened to attack
whoever made any move towards putting the treaty into effect, puzzled
Carondelet nearly as much as it did the United States authorities; and
he endeavored to force the Creeks to abstain from warfare with the
Chickasaws by refusing to supply them with munitions of war for any such
purpose, or for any other except to oppose the frontiersmen. He put
great faith in the endeavor to treat the Americans not as one nation,
but as an assemblage of different communities. The Spaniards sought to
placate the Kentuckians by promising to reduce the duties on the goods
that came down stream to New Orleans by six per cent., and thus to
prevent an outbreak on their part; at the same time the United States
Government was kept occupied by idle negotiations. Carondelet further
hoped to restrain the Cumberland people by fear of the Creek and
Cherokee nations, who, he remarked, "had never ceased to commit
hostilities upon them and to profess implacable hatred for them."
[Footnote: Carondelet to De Lemos, Aug. 15, 1793.] He reported to the
Spanish Court that Spain had no means of molesting the Americans save
through the Indians, as it would not be possible with an army to make a
serious impression on the "ferocious and well-armed" frontier people,
favored as they would be by their knowledge of the country; whereas the
Indians, if properly supported, offered an excellent defence, supplying
from the Southwestern tribes fifteen thousand warriors, whose keep in
time of peace cost Spain not more than fifty thousand dollars a year,
and even in time of war not more than a hundred and fifty thousand.
[Footnote: Carondelet to Alcudia, Sept. 27, 1793.]
He Continually Incites the Indians to War.
The Spaniards in this manner actively fomented hostilities among the
Creeks and Cherokees. Their support explained much in the attitude of
these peoples, but doubtless the war would have gone on anyhow until the
savages were thoroughly cowed by force of arms. The chief causes for the
incessantly renewed hostilities were the desire of the young braves for
blood and glory, a vague but well-founded belief among the Indians that
the white advance meant their ruin unless stayed by an appeal to arms,
and, more important still, the absolute lack of any central authority
among the tribesmen which could compel them all to war together
effectively on the one hand, or all to make peace on the other.
Seagrove the Indian Agent.
Blount was Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Indians as
well as Governor of the Territory; and in addition the Federal
authorities established an Indian agent, directly responsible to
themselves, among the Creeks. His name was James Seagrove. He did his
best to bring about a peace, and, like all Indian agents, he was apt to
take an unduly harsh view of the deeds of the frontiersmen, and to
consider them the real aggressors in any trouble. Of necessity his point
of view was wholly different from that of the border settlers. He was
promptly informed of all the outrages and aggressions committed by the
whites, while he heard little or nothing of the parties of young braves,
bent on rapine, who continually fell on the frontiers; whereas the
frontiersmen came in contact only with these war bands, and when their
kinsfolk had been murdered and their cattle driven off, they were
generally ready to take vengeance on the first Indians they could find.
Even Seagrove, however, was at times hopelessly puzzled by the attitude
of the Indians. He was obliged to admit that they were the first
offenders, after the conclusion of the treaties of New York and Holston,
and that for a long time the settlers behaved with great moderation in
refraining from revenging the outrages committed on them by the Indians,
which, he remarked, would have to be stopped if peace was to be
preserved. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Seagrove to the
Secretary of War, St. Mary's, June 14, 1792.]
Disorder among the Frontiersmen.
McGillivray Bewildered.
As the Government took no efficient steps to preserve the peace, either
by chastising the Indians or by bridling the ill-judged vengeance of the
frontier inhabitants, many of the latter soon grew to hate and despise
those by whom they were neither protected nor restrained. The disorderly
element got the upper hand on the Georgia frontier, where the
backwoodsmen did all they could to involve the nation in a general
Indian war; and displayed the most defiant and mutinous spirit toward
the officers, civil and military, of the United States Government.
[Footnote: _Do_., Seagrove to the President, Rock Landing, on the
Oconee, in Georgia, July 17, 1792.] As for the Creeks, Seagrove found it
exceedingly hard to tell who of them were traitors and who were not; and
indeed the chiefs would probably themselves have found the task
difficult, for they were obliged to waver more or less in their course
as the fickle tribesmen were swayed by impulses towards peace or war.
One of the men whom Seagrove finally grew to regard as a confirmed
traitor was the chief, McGillivray. He was probably quite right in his
estimate of the half-breed's character; and, on the other hand,
McGillivray doubtless had as an excuse the fact that the perpetual
intrigues of Spanish officers, American traders, British adventurers,
Creek chiefs who wished peace, and Creek warriors who wished war, made
it out of the question for him to follow any settled policy. He wrote to
Seagrove: "It is no wonder the Indians are distracted, when they are
tampered with on every side. I am myself in the situation of a keeper
of Bedlam, and nearly fit for an inhabitant." [Footnote: American State
Papers, IV., McGillivray to Seagrove, May 18, 1793.] However, what he
did amounted to but little, for his influence had greatly waned, and
in 1793 he died.
The Indians the Aggressors.
On the Georgia frontier the backwoodsmen were very rough and lawless,
and were always prone to make aggressions on the red men; nevertheless,
even in the case of Georgia in 1791 and '92, the chief fault lay with
the Indians. They refused to make good the land cession which they had
solemnly guaranteed at the treaty of New York, and which certain of
their towns had previously covenanted to make in the various more or
less fraudulent treaties entered into with the State of Georgia
separately. In addition to this their plundering parties continually
went among the Georgians. The latter, in their efforts to retaliate,
struck the hostile and the peaceful alike; and as time went on they made
ready to take forcible possession of the lands they coveted, without
regard to whether or not these lands had been ceded in fair treaty.
In the Tennessee country the wrong was wholly with the Indians. Some of
the chiefs of the Cherokees went to Philadelphia at the beginning of the
year 1792 to request certain modifications of the treaty of Holston,
notably an increase in their annuity, which was granted. [Footnote:
_Do_., Secretary of War to Governor Blount, Jan. 31, 1792.]
Their Outrages on the Tennesseeans.
The General Government had conducted the treaties in good faith and had
given the Indians what they asked. The frontiersmen did not molest them
in any way or trespass upon their lands; yet their ravages continued
without cessation. The authorities at Washington made but feeble efforts
to check these outrages, and protect the southwestern settlers. Yet at
this time Tennessee was doing her full part in sustaining the National
Government in the war against the Northwestern tribes; a company of
Tennessee militia, under Captain Jacob Tipton, joined St. Clair's army,
and Tipton was slain at the defeat, where he fought with the utmost
bravery. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Dec. 17, 1791. I use the word
"Tennessee" for convenience; it was not at this time used in this
sense.] Not unnaturally the Tennesseeans, and especially the settlers on
the far-off Cumberland, felt it a hardship for the United States to
neglect their defence at the very time that they were furnishing their
quota of soldiers for an offensive war against nations in whose subdual
they had but an indirect interest. Robertson wrote to Blount that their
silence and remoteness was the cause why the interests of the Cumberland
settlers were thus neglected, while the Kentuckians were amply
protected. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Robertson's letter, Nashville,
Aug. 25, 1791.]
Anger of the Tennesseeans.
Blindness of the Federal Government.
Naturally the Tennesseeans, conscious that they had not wronged the
Indians, and had scrupulously observed the treaty, grew imbittered over,
the wanton Indian outrages. They were entirely at a loss to explain the
reason why the warfare against them was waged with such ferocity. Sevier
wrote to Madison, with whom he frequently corresponded: "This country is
wholly involved in a war with the Creek and Cherokee Indians, and I am
not able to suggest the reasons or the pretended cause of their
depredations. The successes of the Northern tribes over our late
unfortunate armies have created great exultation throughout the whole
Southern Indians, and the probabilities may be they expect to be equally
successful. The Spaniards are making use of all their art to draw over
the Southern tribes, and I fear may have stimulated them to commence
their hostilities. Governor Blount has indefatigably labored to keep
these people in a pacific humor, but in vain. War is unavoidable,
however ruinous and calamitous it may be." [Footnote: State Dep. MSS.,
Madison Papers, Sevier's letter, Oct. 30, 1792.] The Federal Government
was most reluctant to look facts in the face and acknowledge that the
hostilities were serious, and that they were unprovoked by the whites.
The Secretary of War reported to the President that the offenders were
doubtless merely a small banditti of Creeks and Cherokees, with a few
Shawnees who possessed no fixed residence; and in groping for a remedy
he weakly suggested that inasmuch as many of the Cherokees seemed to be
dissatisfied with the boundary line they had established by treaty it
would perhaps be well to alter it. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS.,
Washington Papers, Secretary of War to the President, July 28, and Aug.
5, 1792.] Of course the adoption of such a measure would have amounted
to putting a premium on murder and treachery.
Odd Manifestations of Particularistic Feeling.
If the Easterners were insensible to the Western need for a vigorous
Indian war, many of the Westerners showed as little appreciation of the
necessity for any Indian war which did not immediately concern
themselves. Individual Kentuckians, individual colonels and captains of
the Kentucky militia, were always ready to march to the help of the
Tennesseeans against the Southern Indians; but the highest officials of
Kentucky were almost as anxious as the Federal authorities to prevent
any war save that with the tribes northwest of the Ohio. One of the
Kentucky senators, Brown, in writing to the Governor, Isaac Shelby, laid
particular stress upon the fact that nothing but the most urgent
necessity could justify a war with the Southern Indians. [Footnote:
Shelby MSS., J. Brown to Isaac Shelby, Philadelphia, June 2, 1793.]
Shelby himself sympathized with this feeling. He knew what an Indian war
was, for he had owed his election largely to his record as an Indian
fighter and to the confidence the Kentuckians felt in his power to
protect them from their red foes. [Footnote: _Do_., M. D. Hardin to
Isaac Shelby, April 10, 1792, etc., etc.] His correspondence is filled
with letters in relation to Indian affairs, requests to authorize the
use of spies, requests to establish guards along the wilderness road and
to garrison blockhouses on the frontier; and sometimes there are more
pathetic letters, from a husband who had lost a wife, or from an "old,
frail woman," who wished to know if the Governor could not by some means
get news of her little granddaughter who had been captured in the
wilderness two years before by a party of Indians. [Footnote: _Do._,
Letter of Mary Mitchell to Isaac Shelby, May 1, 1793.] He realized fully
what hostilities meant, and had no desire to see his State plunged into
any Indian war which could be avoided.
Yet, in spite of this cautious attitude, Shelby had much influence with
the people of the Tennessee territory. They confided to him their
indignation with Blount for stopping Logan's march to the aid of
Robertson; while on the other hand the Virginians, when anxious to
prevent the Cumberland settlers from breaking the peace, besought him to
use his influence with them in order to make them do what was
right. [Footnote: Shelby MSS., Arthur Campbell to Shelby, January 6,
1890; letter from Cumberland to Shelby, May 11, 1793; John Logan to
Shelby, June 19, 1794; petition of inhabitants of Nelson County, May 9,
1793.] When such a man as Shelby was reluctant to see the United States
enter into open hostilities with the Southern Indians, there is small
cause for wonder in the fact that the authorities at the National
capital did their best to deceive themselves into the belief that there
was no real cause for war.
Intolerable Hardships of the Settlers.
Inability to look facts in the face did not alter the facts. The Indian
ravages in the Southern Territory grew steadily more and more serious.
The difficulties of the settlers were enormously increased because the
United States strictly forbade any offensive measures. The militia were
allowed to drive off any war bands found among the settlements with
evidently hostile intent; but, acting under the explicit, often
repeated, and emphatic commands of the General Government, Blount was
obliged to order the militia under no circumstances to assume the
offensive, or to cross into the Indian hunting grounds beyond the
boundaries established by the treaty of Holston. [Footnote: Robertson
MSS., Blount to Robertson, April 1, 1792.] The inhabitants of the
Cumberland region, and of the frontier counties generally, petitioned
strongly against this, stating that "the frontiers will break if the
inroads of the savages are not checked by counter expeditions."
[Footnote: _Do_., Feb. 1, 1792.]
Blount's Good Conduct.
It was a very disagreeable situation for Blount, who, in carrying out
the orders of the Federal authorities, had to incur the ill-will of the
people whom he had been appointed to govern; but even at the cost of
being supposed to be lukewarm in the cause of the settlers, he loyally
endeavored to execute the commands of his superiors. Yet like every
other man acquainted by actual experience with frontier life and Indian
warfare, he knew the folly of defensive war against Indians. At this
very time the officers on the frontier of South Carolina, which was not
a State that was at all inclined to unjust aggression against the
Indians, notified the Governor that the defensive war was "expensive,
hazardous, and distressing" to the settlers, because the Indians "had
such advantages, being so wolfish in their manner and so savage in their
nature," that it was impossible to make war upon them on equal terms if
the settlers were confined to defending themselves in their own country,
whereas a speedy and spirited counter-attack upon them in their homes
would probably reduce them to peace, as their mode of warfare fitted
them much less to oppose such an attack than to "take skulking, wolfish
advantages of the defenceless" settlers. [Footnote: American State
Papers, IV., Robert Anderson to the Governor of South Carolina, Sep. 20,
1792.]
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, passing 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 bloody 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 Cumberland 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 harassed the frontiers of Georgia somewhat,
but devoted their main attention to the Tennesseeans, and especially to
the isolated settlements on the Cumberland. 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, passed 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 titles borne by the chiefs of the Creeks, Cherokees,
and Choctaws--the Bloody Fellow, the Middle Striker, the Mad Dog, the
Glass, 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
friendship, 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 principal 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 assured 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 Cumberland 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
Glass and The Bloody Fellow, wrote to Blount complaining that they had
assembled 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
assurances 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 Glass and The Bloody 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 Cumberland people. Accordingly three hundred militia were put under
arms. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Sept. 6, 1792;
Blount to The Bloody Fellow, Sept. 10, 1792; to Robertson, Sept. 12;
to The Glass, Sept. 13; to The Bloody 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 Cumberland
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
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