The Winning of the West

by Theodore Roosevelt

  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 Chero-kees 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.38 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.39 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.40

  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.”41 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.42 Of course the adoption of such a measure would have amounted to putting a premium on murder and treachery.

  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.43 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.44 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 block-houses 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.45 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.46 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.

  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.47 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.”48 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 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.49

  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 offence 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 toward 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 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.50

  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.51 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.

  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 the 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.52 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.53

  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.54

  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 Chero-kees had given warning that a big war party was about to fall on the settlements round Nashville.55 Finding that the warning had been given, the Chickamauga chiefs sought to lull their foes into security by a rather adroit piece 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.56

  It was well that the whites were on their guard. Toward 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 Indian blood was scarcely noticeable, and these two men met the spies and decoyed them to their death. The Indians then, soon after midnight on the 30th of September, sought to rush the station by surprise. The alarm was given by the running of the frightened cattle, and when the sentinel fired at the assailants they were not ten yards from the gate of the block-house. The barred door withstood the shock and the flame-flashes lighted up the night as the gun-men fired through the loop-holes. The Indians tried to burn the fort, one of the chiefs, a half-breed, leaping on the roof; he was shot through the thigh and rolled off; but he stayed close to the logs trying to light them with his torch, alternately blowing it into a blaze and hallooing to the Indians to keep on with the attack. However, he was slain, as was the Shawnee head chief, and several warriors, while John Watts, leader of the expedition, was shot through both thighs. The log walls of the grim little block-house stood out black in the fitful glare of the cane torches; and tongues of red fire streamed into the night as the rifles rang. The attack had failed, and the
throng of dark, flitting forms faded into the gloom as the baffled Indians retreated. So disheartened were they by the check, and by the loss they had suffered, that they did not further molest the settlements, but fell back to their strongholds across the Tennessee. Among the Cherokee chiefs who led the raid were two signers of the treaty of Holston.57

  After this the war was open, so far as the Indians of the Lower Cherokee Towns and of many of the Creek Towns were concerned; but the whites were still restrained by strict orders from the United States authorities, who refused to allow them to retaliate. Outrage followed outrage in monotonously bloody succession. The Creeks were the worst offenders in point of numbers, but the Lower Cherokees from the Chickamauga towns did most harm according to their power. Sometimes the bands that entered the settlements were several hundred strong; but their chief object was plunder, and they rarely attacked the strong places of the white frontiersmen, though they forced them to keep huddled in the stockaded stations; nor did they often fight a pitched battle with the larger bodies of militia. There is no reason for reciting in full the countless deeds of rapine and murder. The incidents, though with infinite variety of detail, were in substance the same as in all the Indian wars of the backwoods. Men, women, and children were killed or captured; outlying cabins were attacked and burned; the husbandman was shot as he worked in the field, and the housewife as she went for water. The victim was now a militiaman on his way to join his company, now one of the party of immigrants, now a settler on his lonely farm, and now a justice of the peace going to Court, or a Baptist preacher striving to reach the Cumberland country that he might preach the word of God to the people who had among them no religious instructor. The express messengers and post riders, who went through the wilderness from one commander to the other, always rode at hazard of their lives. In one of Blount’s letters to Robertson he remarks: “Your letter of the 6th of February sent express by James Russell was handed to me, much stained with his blood, by Mr. Shannon, who accompanied him.” Russell had been wounded in an ambuscade, and his fifty dollars were dearly earned.58