One of the firm friends of the whites was Scolacutta, the chief of the Upper Cherokees. He tried to keep his people at peace, and repeatedly warned the whites of impending attacks. Nevertheless, he was unwilling or unable to stop by force the war parties of Creeks and Lower Cherokees who came through his towns to raid against the settlements and who retreated to them again when the raids were ended. Many of his young men joined the bands of horse-thieves and scalp-hunters. The marauders wished to embroil him with the whites, and were glad that the latter should see the bloody trails leading back to his towns. For two years after the signing of the treaty of Holston the war parties thus passed and repassed through his country, and received aid and comfort from his people, and yet the whites refrained from taking vengeance; but the vengeance was certain to come in the end.
In March, 1793, Scolacutta’s nearest neighbor, an Indian living next door to him in his own town, and other Indians of the nearest towns, joined one of the war parties which attacked the settlements and killed two unarmed lads.75 The Indians did nothing to the murderers, and the whites forbore to attack them; but their patience was nearly exhausted. In June following a captain, John Beard, with fifty mounted riflemen, fell in with a small party of Indians who had killed several settlers. He followed their trail to Scolacutta’s town, where he slew eight or nine Indians, most of whom were friendly.76 The Indians clamored for justice and the surrender of the militia who had attacked them. Blount warmly sympathized with them, but when he summoned a court-martial to try Beard it promptly acquitted him, and the general frontier feeling was strongly in his favor. Other militia commanders followed his example. Again and again they trailed the war parties, laden with scalps and plunder, and attacked the towns to which they went, killing the warriors and capturing squaws and children.77
The following January another party of red marauders was tracked by a band of riflemen to Scolacutta’s camp. The militia promptly fell on the camp and killed several Indians, both the hostile and the friendly. Other Cherokee towns were attacked and partially destroyed. In but one instance were the whites beaten off. When once the whites fairly began to make retaliatory inroads they troubled themselves but little as to whether the Indians they assailed were or were not those who had wronged them. In one case, four frontiersmen dressed and painted themselves like Indians prior to starting on a foray to avenge the murder of a neighbor. They could not find the trail of the murderers, and so went at random to a Cherokee town, killed four warriors who were asleep on the ground, and returned to the settlements. Scolacutta at first was very angry with Blount, and taunted him with his inability to punish the whites, asserting that the frontiersmen were “making fun” of their well-meaning governor; but the old chief soon made up his mind that as long as he allowed the war parties to go through his towns he would have to expect to suffer at the hands of the injured settlers. He wrote to Blount enumerating the different murders that had been committed by both sides, and stating that his people were willing to let the misdeeds stand as offsetting one another. He closed his letter by stating that the Upper Towns were for peace, and added: “I want my mate, General Sevier, to see my talk … We have often told lies, but now you may depend on hearing the truth,” which was a refreshingly frank admission.78
When, toward the close of 1792, the ravages became very serious, Sevier, the man whom the Indians feared more than any other, was called to take command of the militia. For a year he confined himself to acting on the defensive, and even thus he was able to give much protection to the settlements. In September, 1793, however, several hundred Indians, mostly Cherokees, crossed the Tennessee not thirty miles from Knoxville. They attacked a small station, within which there were but thirteen souls, who, after some resistance, surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared; but they were butchered with obscene cruelty. Sevier immediately marched toward the assailants, who fled back to the Cherokee towns. Thither Sevier followed them, and went entirely through the Cherokee country to the land of the Creeks, burning the towns and destroying the stores of provisions. He marched with his usual quickness, and the Indians were never able to get together in sufficient numbers to oppose him. When he crossed High Tower River there was a skirmish, but he soon routed the Indians, killing several of their warriors, and losing himself but three men killed and three wounded. He utterly destroyed a hostile Creek town, the chief of which was named Buffalo Horn. He returned late in October, and after his return the frontiers of Eastern Tennessee had a respite from the Indian ravages. Yet Congress refused to pay his militia for the time they were out, because they had invaded the Indian country instead of acting on the defensive.79
To chastise the Upper Cherokee Towns gave relief to the settlements on the Holston, but the chief sinners were the Chickamaugas of the Lower Cherokee Towns, and the chief sufferers were the Cumberland settlers. The Cumberland people were irritated beyond endurance, alike by the ravages of these Indians and by the conduct of the United States in forbidding them to retaliate. In September, 1794, they acted for themselves. Early in the month Robertson received certain information that a large body of Creeks and Lower Cherokees had gathered at the towns and were preparing to invade the Cumberland settlements. The best way to meet them was by a stroke in advance, and he determined to send an expedition against them in their strongholds. There was no question whatever as to the hostility of the Indians, for at this very time settlers were being killed by Avar parties throughout the Cumberland country. Some Kentuckians, under Colonel Whitley, had joined the Tennesseeans, who were nominally led by a Major Ore; but various frontier fighters, including Kaspar Mansker, were really as much in command as was Ore. Over five hundred mounted riflemen, bold of heart and strong of hand, marched toward the Chickamauga towns, which contained some three hundred warriors. When they came to the Tennessee they spent the entire night in ferrying the arms across and swimming the horses: they used bundles of dry cane for rafts, and made four “bull-boats” out of the hides of steers. They passed over unobserved and fell on the towns of Nickajack and Running Water, taking the Indians completely by surprise; they killed fifty-five warriors and captured nineteen squaws and children. In the entire expedition but one white man was killed and three wounded.80
Not only the Federal authorities, but Blount himself, very much disapproved of this expedition; nevertheless, it was right and proper, and produced excellent effects. In no other way could the hostile towns have been brought to reason. It was followed by a general conference with the Cherokees at Tellico Block-house. Scolacutta appeared for the Upper, and Watts for the Lower, Cherokee Towns. Watts admitted that “for their folly” the Lower Cherokees had hitherto refused to make peace, and remarked frankly, “I do not say they did not deserve the chastisement they received.” Scolacutta stated that he could not sympathize much with the Lower Towns, saying, “their own conduct brought destruction upon them. The trails of murderers and thieves was followed to those towns … Their bad conduct drew the white people on me, who injured me nearly unto death… . All last winter I was compelled to lay in the woods by the bad conduct of my own people drawing war on me.” At last the Cherokees seemed sincere in their desire for peace.81
These counter-attacks served a double purpose. They awed the hostile Cherokees; and they forced the friendly Cherokees, for the sake of their own safety, actively to interfere against the bands of hostile Creeks. A Cherokee chief, The Stallion, and a number of warriors, joined with the Federal soldiers and Tennessee militia in repulsing the Creek war parties. They acted under Blount’s directions, and put a complete stop to the passage of hostile Indians through their towns.82 The Chickasaws also had become embroiled with the Creeks.83 For over three years they carried on an intermittent warfare with them, and were heartily supported by the frontiersmen, who were prompt to recognize the value of their services. At the same time the hostile Indians were much cowed at the news of Wayne’s victory in the North.
All these causes combined to make the Creeks sue for peace. To
its shame and discredit the United States Government at first proposed to repeat toward the Chickasaws the treachery of which the British had just been guilty to the Northern Indians; for it refused to defend them from the Creeks, against whom they had been acting, partly, it is true, for their own ends, but partly in the interest of the settlers. The frontiersmen, however, took a much more just and generous view of the affair. Mansker and a number of the best fighters in the Cumberland district marched to the assistance of the Chickasaws; and the frontier militia generally showed grateful appreciation of the way both the Upper Cherokees and the Chickasaws helped them put a stop to the hostilities of the Chickamaugas and Creeks. Robertson got the Choctaws to interfere on behalf of the Chickasaws and to threaten war with the Creeks if the latter persisted in their hostilities. Moreover, the United States agents, when the treaty was actually made, behaved better than their superiors had promised, for they persuaded the Creeks to declare peace with the Chickasaws as well as with the whites.84 Many of the peaceful Creeks had become so alarmed at the outbreak that they began to exert pressure on their warlike brethren; and at last the hostile element yielded, though not until bitter feeling had arisen between the factions. The fact was, that the Creeks were divided much as they were twenty years later, when the Red Sticks went to war under the inspiration of the Prophet; and it would have been well if Wayne had been sent South, to invade their country and anticipate by twenty years Jackson’s feats. But the nation was not yet ready for such strong measures. The Creeks were met half way in their desire for peace; and the entire tribe concluded a treaty the provisions of which were substantially those of the treaty of New York. They ceased hostilities, together with the Cherokees.
The concluding stage of the negotiations was marked by an incident which plainly betrayed the faulty attitude of the National Government toward Southwestern frontiersmen. With incredible folly, Timothy Pickering, at this time Secretary of War, blindly refused to see the necessity of what had been done by Blount and the Tennessee frontiersmen. In behalf of the administration he wrote a letter to Blount which was as offensive as it was fatuous. In it he actually blamed Blount for getting the Cherokees and Chickasaws to help protect the frontier against the hostile Indians. He forbade him to give any assistance to the Chickasaws. He announced that he disapproved of The Stallion’s deeds, and that the Cherokees must not destroy Creeks passing through their country on the way to the frontier. He even intimated that the surrender of The Stallion to the Creeks would be a good thing. As for protecting the frontier from the ravages of the Creeks, he merely vouchsafed the statement that he would instruct Seagrove to make “some pointed declarations” to the Creeks on the subject! He explained that the United States Government was resolved not to have a direct or indirect war with the Creeks; and he closed by reiterating, with futile insistency, that the instruction to the Cherokees not to permit Creek war parties against the whites to come through their country, did not warrant their using force to stop them.85 He failed to point out how it was possible, without force, to carry out these instructions.
A more shameful letter was never written, and it was sufficient of itself to show Pickering’s conspicuous incapacity for the position he held. The trouble was that he represented not very unfairly the sentiment of a large portion of the Eastern, and especially the Northeastern, people. When Blount visited Philadelphia in the summer of 1793 to urge a vigorous national war as the only thing which could bring the Indians to behave themselves,86 he reported that Washington had an entirely just idea of the whole Indian business, but that Congress generally knew little of the matter and was not disposed to act.87 His report was correct; and he might have added that the Congressmen were no more ignorant, and no more reluctant to do right, than their constituents.
The truth is that the United States Government during the six years from 1791 to 1796 behaved shamefully to the people who were settled along the Cumberland and Holston. This was the more inexcusable in view of the fact that, thanks to the example of Blount, Sevier, and Robertson, the Tennesseeans, alone among the frontiersmen, showed an intelligent appreciation of the benefits of the Union and a readiness to render it loyal support. The Kentuckians acted far less rationally; yet the Government tolerated much misconduct on their part, and largely for their benefit carried on a great national war against the Northwestern Indians. In the Southwest almost all that the Administration did was to prohibit the frontiersmen from protecting themselves. Peace was finally brought about largely through the effect of Wayne’s victory, and the knowledge of the Creeks that they would have to stand alone in any further warfare; but it would not have been obtained at all if Sevier and the other frontier leaders had not carried on their destructive counter-inroads into the Cherokee and Upper Creek country, and if under Robertson’s orders Nickajack and Running Water had not been destroyed; while the support of the Chickasaws and friendly Cherokees in stopping the Creek war parties was essential. The Southwesterners owed thanks to General Wayne and his army and to their own strong right hands; but they had small cause for gratitude to the Federal Government. They owed still less to the North-easterners, or indeed to any of the men of the Eastern seaboard; the benefits arising from Pinckney’s treaty form the only exception. This neglect brought its own punishment. Blount and Sevier were naturally inclined to Federalism, and it was probably only the supineness of the Federal Government in failing to support the Southwesterners against the Indians which threw Tennessee, when it became a State, into the arms of the Democratic party.
However, peace was finally wrung from the Indians, and by the beginning of 1796 the outrages ceased. The frontiers, north and south alike, enjoyed a respite from Indian warfare for the first time in a generation; nor was the peace interrupted until fifteen years afterward.
Throngs of emigrants had come into Tennessee. A wagon road had been chopped to the Cumberland District, and as the Indians gradually ceased their ravages, the settlements about Nashville began to grow as rapidly as the settlements along the Holston. In 1796 the required limit of population had been reached, and Tennessee with over seventy-six thousand inhabitants was formally admitted as a State of the Federal Union; Sevier was elected Governor, Blount was made one of the Senators, and Andrew Jackson was chosen Representative in Congress. In their State Constitution the hardworking backwoods farmers showed a conservative spirit which would seem strange to the radical Democracy of new Western States to-day. An elective Governor and two legislative houses were provided; and the representation was proportioned, not to the population at large, but to the citizen who paid taxes; for persons with some little property were still considered to be the rightful depositaries of political power. The Constitution established freedom of the press, and complete religious liberty—a liberty then denied in the parent State of North Carolina; but it contained some unwise and unjust provisions. The Judges were appointed by the Legislature, and were completely subservient to it; and, through the influence of the land speculators all lands except town lots were taxed alike, so that the men who had obtained possession of the best tracts shifted to other shoulders much of their own proper burden.88
1 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.
2 “Knoxville Gazette,” July 17, 1795, etc. See also issue Jan. 28, 1792.
3 Blount MSS., Journal of the Proceedings, etc.
4 American State Papers, IV; Daniel Smith to the Secretary of War, Knoxville, July 19, 1793.
5 Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793.
6 “Knoxville Gazette,” March 27, 1794.
7 “Knoxviile Gazette,” November 3, 1792.
8 See Edward T. Sanford’s “ Blount College and the University of Tennessee,” p. 13.
9 “Knoxville Gazette,” June 19, 1794.
10 “Knoxville Gazette,” Jan. 30 and May 8, 1794.
11 Blount MSS., Rutherford
to Blount, May 25, 1792.
12 Laws of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1803. First Session of Territorial Legislature, 1794.
13 “Knoxville Gazette,” Oct. 20, 1792.
14 “Knoxville Gazette,” June 1, 1793.
15 Blount MSS., Agreement between William Blount and James Robertson, Oct. 30, 1783.
16 Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, April 29, 1792.
17 Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Lexington, Ky., March 29, 1795.
18 Do., Return of taxable property of Blount, Nashville, Sept. 9, 1796.
19 Do., David Alison to Blount, Oct. 16, 1791.
20 Clay MSS., Blount to Hart, Knoxville, February 9, 1794. This was just as Hart was moving to Kentucky.
21 Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Dec. 23, 1793-
22 Blount MSS., Hart to Blount, Lexington, Feb. 15, 1795.
23 Blount MSS., Hawkins to Blount, March 10, 1791.
24 Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Sept. 3, I791.
25 Do., Blount to Robertson, Jan. 2, 1792; to Bloody Fellow Sept. 13, 1792.
26 Blount MSS., Robertson to Blount, Jan. 17, 1793.
27 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents; Letter of Carondelet to Duke of Alcudia, Nov. 24, 1794.
28 Draper MSS., Letter of Carondelet, New Orleans, Sept. 25, 1795-
29 Draper MSS., Spanish Docs.; Carondelet’s Report, Oct. 23, 1793.
30 Do., Carondelet to Don Louis De Las Casas, June 13, 1795, inclosing letters from Don M. G. De Lemos, Governor of Natchez.
31 Carondelet to Alcudia, Aug. 17, 1793.
32 Do., Manuel Gayoso De Lamos to Carondelet, Nogales, July 25, 1793.
33 Carondelet to De Lemos, Aug. 15, 1793.
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