The use of this text or audio material is subject to the TR American Patriot user agreement located at: TR American Patriot.com THE WINNING OF THE WEST. VOLUME 4
CHAPTER 3
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. 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. 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. 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. 
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. 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." 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." 
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. 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." 
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." 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." 
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. 
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." 
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. 
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 
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, 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. 
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." 
    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. 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. 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." 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." 
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. 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." 
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," and he added that "to sustain our allied nations 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. 
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. 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. 
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." 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. 
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. 
    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. 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." 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. 
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. 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. 
    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." 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." 
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. 
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. 
    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. 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. 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. 
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. 
    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. 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. 
    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 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 blockhouse. The barred door withstood the shock and the flame-flashes lit 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 halloing 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 blockhouse 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. 
Monotony of the Indian Outrages.
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 a 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. 
  Horse-stealing.
  Brutal White Ruffians.
The Indians were even more fond of horse-stealing than of murder, and they found a ready market for their horses not only in their own nations and among the Spaniards, but among the American frontiersmen themselves. Many of the unscrupulous white scoundrels who lived on the borders of the Indian country made a regular practice of receiving the stolen horses. As soon as a horse was driven from the Tennessee or Cumberland it was hurried through the Indian country to the Carolina or Georgia frontiers, where the red thieves delivered it to the foul white receivers, who took it to some town on the seaboard, so as effectually to prevent a recovery. At Swannanoa in North Carolina, among the lawless settlements at the foot of the Oconee Mountain in South Carolina, and at Tugaloo in Georgia, there were regular markets for these stolen horses. There were then, and continued to exist as long as the frontier lasted, plenty of white men who, though ready enough to wrong the Indians, were equally ready to profit by the wrongs they inflicted on the white settlers, and to encourage their misdeeds if profit was thereby to be made. Very little evildoing of this kind took place Tennessee, for Blount, backed by Sevier and Robertson, was vigilant to put it down; but as yet the Federal Government was not firm in its seat, and its arm was not long enough to reach into the remote frontier districts, where lawlessness of every kind throve, and the whites wronged one another as recklessly as they wronged the Indians.
    Sufferings of the Honest Settlers.
    Blount's Efforts to Prevent Brutality.
The white scoundrels throve in the confusion of a nominal peace which the savages broke at will; but the honest frontiersmen really suffered more than if there had been open war, as the Federal Government refused to allow raids to be carried into the Indian territory, and in consequence the marauding Indians could at any time reach a place of safety. The blockhouses were of little consequence in putting a stop to Indian attacks. The most efficient means of defence was the employment of the hardiest and best hunters as scouts or spies, for they travelled hither and thither through the woods and continually harried the war parties. The militia bands also travelled to and fro, marching to the rescue of some threatened settlement, or seeking to intercept the attacking bands or to overtake those who had delivered their stroke and were returning to the Indian country. Generally they failed in the pursuit. Occasionally they were themselves ambushed, attacked, and dispersed; sometimes they overtook and scattered their foes. In such a case they were as little apt to show mercy to the defeated as were the Indians themselves. Blount issued strict orders that squaws and children were not to be slain, and the frontiersmen did generally refuse to copy their antagonists in butchering the women and children in cold blood. When an attack was made on a camp, however, it was no uncommon thing to have the squaws killed while the fight was hot. Blount, in one of his letters to Robertson, after the Cumberland militia had attacked and destroyed a Creek war party which had murdered a settler, expressed his pleasure at the perseverance with which the militia captain had followed the Indians to the banks of the Tennessee, where he had been lucky enough to overtake them in a position where not one was able to escape. Blount especially complimented him upon having spared the two squaws, "as all civilized people should"; and he added that in so doing the captain's conduct offered a most agreeable contrast to the behavior of some of his fellow citizens under like circumstances. 
Repeated Failures to Secure Peace.
Repeated efforts were made to secure peace with the Indians. Andrew Pickens, of South Carolina, was sent to the exposed frontier in 1792 to act as peace Commissioner. Pickens was a high-minded and honorable man, who never hesitated to condemn the frontiersmen when they wronged the Indians, and he was a champion of the latter wherever possible. He came out with every hope and belief that he could make a permanent treaty; but after having been some time on the border he was obliged to admit that there was no chance of bringing about even a truce, and that the nominal peace that obtained was worse for the settlers than actual war. He wrote to Blount that though he earnestly hoped the people of the border would observe the treaty, yet that the Cherokees had done more damage, especially in the way of horse stealing, since the treaty was signed than ever before, and that it was not possible to say what the frontier inhabitants might be provoked to do. He continued: "While a part, and that the ostensible ruling part, of a nation affect to be at, and I believe really are for, peace, and the more active young men are frequently killing people and stealing horses, it is extremely difficult to know how to act. The people, even the most exposed, would prefer an open war to such a situation. The reason is obvious. A man would then know when he saw an Indian he saw an enemy, and would be prepared and act accordingly." 
The Georgia Frontier.
The people of Tennessee were the wronged, and not the wrongdoers, and it was upon them that the heaviest strokes of the Indians fell. The Georgia frontiers were also harried continually, although much less severely; but the Georgians were themselves far from blameless. Georgia was the youngest, weakest, and most lawless of the original thirteen States, and on the whole her dealings with the Indians were far from creditable, More than once she inflicted shameful wrong on the Cherokees. The Creeks, however, generally wronged her more than she wronged them, and at this particular period even the Georgia frontiersmen were much less to blame than were their Indian foes. By fair treaty the Indians had agreed to cede to the whites lands upon which they now refused to allow them to settle. They continually plundered and murdered the outlying Georgia settlers; and the militia, in their retaliatory expeditions, having no knowledge of who the murderers actually were, quite as often killed the innocent as the guilty. One of the complaints of the Indians was that the Georgians came in parties to hunt on the neutral ground, and slew quantities of deer and turkeys by fire hunting at night and by still hunting with the rifle in the daytime, while they killed many bears by the aid of their "great gangs of dogs." This could hardly be called a legitimate objection on the part of the Creeks, however, for their own hunting parties ranged freely through the lands they had ceded to the whites and killed game wherever they could find it.
Evil and fearful deeds were done by both sides. Peaceful Indians, even envoys, going to the treaty grounds were slain in cold blood; and all that the Georgians could allege by way of offset was that the savages themselves had killed many peaceful whites.
Brutal Nature of the Contest in Georgia.
The Georgia frontiersmen openly showed their sullen hatred of the United States authorities. The Georgia State government was too weak to enforce order. It could neither keep the peace among its own frontiersmen, nor wage effective war on the Indians; for when the militia did gather to invade the Creek country they were so mutinous and disorderly that the expeditions generally broke up without accomplishing anything. At one period a militia general, Elijah Clark, actually led a large party of frontiersmen into the unceded Creek hunting grounds with the purpose of setting up an independent government; but the Georgia authorities for once summoned energy sufficient to break up this lawless community. 
Blount's Faithful Efforts to Preserve the Peace.
The Georgians were thus far from guiltless themselves, though at this time they were more sinned against than sinning; but in the Tennessee Territory the white settlers behaved very well throughout these years, and showed both patience and fairness in their treatment of the Indians. Blount did his best to prevent outrages, and Sevier and Robertson heartily seconded him. In spite of the grumbling of the frontiersmen, and in spite of repeated and almost intolerable provocation in the way of Indian forays, Blount steadily refused to allow counter-expeditions into the Indian territory, and stopped both the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians when they prepared to make such expeditions. Judge Campbell, the same man who was himself attacked by the Indians when returning from his circuit, in his charge to the Grand Jury at the end of 1791, particularly warned them to stop any lawless attack upon the Indians. In November, 1792, when five Creeks, headed by a Scotch half-breed, retreated to the Cherokee town of Chiloa with stolen horses, a band of fifty whites gathered to march after them and destroy the Cherokee town; but Sevier dispersed them and made them go to their own homes. The following February a still larger band gathered to attack the Cherokee towns and were dispersed by Blount himself. Robertson, in the summer of 1793, prevented militia parties from crossing the Tennessee in retaliation. In October, 1794, the Grand Jury of Hamilton County entreated and adjured the people, in spite of the Indian outrages to stand firmly by the law, and not to try to be their own avengers; and when some whites settled in Powell's Valley, on Cherokee lands, Governor Blount promptly turned them off. 
Seagrove's Difficulties.
The unfortunate Indian agent among the Creeks, Seagrove, speedily became an object of special detestation to the frontiersmen generally, and the inhabitants of the Tennessee country in particular, because he persistently reported that he thought the Creeks peaceable, and deemed their behavior less blameable than that of the whites. His attitude was natural, for probably most of the Creek chiefs with whom he came in contact were friendly, and many of those who were not professed to be so when in his company, if only for the sake of getting the goods he had to distribute; and of course they brought him word whenever the Georgians killed a Creek, either innocent or guilty, without telling him of the offence which the Georgians were blindly trying to revenge. Seagrove himself had some rude awakenings. After reporting to the Central Government at Philadelphia that the Creeks were warm in professing the most sincere friendship, he would suddenly find, to his horror, that they were sending off war parties and acting in concert with the Shawnees; and at one time they actually, without any provocation, attacked a trading store kept by his own brother, and killed the two men who were managing it. Most of the Creeks, however, professed, and doubtless felt, regret at these outrages, and Seagrove continued to represent their conduct in a favorable light to the Central Government, though he was forced to admit that certain of the towns were undoubtedly hostile and could not be controlled by the party which was for peace.
Blount calls Seagrove to Account.
Blount was much put out at the fact that Seagrove was believed at Philadelphia when he reported the Creeks to be at peace. In a letter to Seagrove, at the beginning of 1794, Blount told him sharply that as far as the Cumberland district was concerned the Creeks had been the only ones to blame since the treaty of New York, for they had killed or enslaved over two hundred whites, attacking them in their houses, fields, or on the public roads, and had driven off over a thousand horses, while the Americans had done the Creeks no injuries whatever except in defence of their homes and lives, or in pursuing war parties. It was possible of course that occasionally an innocent hunter suffered with the guilty marauders, but this was because he was off his own hunting grounds; and the treaty explicitly showed that the Creeks had no claim to the Cumberland region, while there was not a particle of truth in their assertion that since the treaty had been entered into there had been intrusion on their hunting grounds. Seagrove, in response, wrote that he believed the Creeks and Cherokees sincerely desired peace. This was followed forthwith by new outrages, and Blount wrote to Robertson: "It does really seem as if assurances from Mr. Seagrove of the peaceful disposition of the Creeks was the prelude to their murdering and plundering the inhabitants of your district." The Knoxville Gazette called attention to the fact that Seagrove had written a letter to the effect that the Creeks were well disposed, just four days before the attack on Buchanan Station. On September 22d Seagrove wrote stating that the Creeks were peaceable, that all their chief men ardently wished for the cessation of hostilities, and that they had refused the request of the Cherokees to go to war with the United States; and his deputy agent, Barnard, reiterated the assertions and stated that the Upper Creeks had remained quiet, although six of their people had been killed at the mouth of the Tennessee. The Gazette thereupon published a list of twenty-one men, women, and children who at that very time were held in slavery in the Creek towns, and enumerated scores of murders which had been committed by the Creeks during precisely the period when Seagrove and Barnard described them as so desirous of peace. 
Increasing Indignation of the Settlers.
Under such circumstances the settlers naturally grew indignant with the United States because they were not protected, and were not even allowed to defend themselves by punishing their foes. The Creeks and Cherokees were receiving their annuities regularly, and many presents in addition, while their outrages continued unceasingly. The Nashville people complained that the Creeks were "as busy in killing and scalping as if they had been paid three thousand dollars for so doing, in the room of fifteen hundred dollars to keep the peace." A public address was issued in the Knoxville Gazette by the Tennesseeans on the subjects of their wrongs. In respectful and loyal language, but firmly, the Tennesseeans called the attention of the Government authorities to their sufferings. They avowed the utmost devotion to the Union and a determination to stand by the laws, but insisted that it would be absolutely necessary for them to take measures to defend themselves by retaliating on the Indians.
Nature of the Indian Inroads.
A feature of the address was its vivid picture of the nature of the ordinary Indian inroad and of the lack of any definite system of defence on the frontier. It stated that the Indian raid or outbreak was usually first made known either by the murder of some defenceless farmer, the escape of some Indian trader, or the warning of some friendly Indian who wished to avoid mischief. The first man who received the news, not having made any agreement with the other members of the community as to his course in such an emergency, ran away to his kinsfolk as fast as he could. Every neighbor caught the alarm, thought himself the only person left to fight, and got off on the same route as speedily as possible, until, luckily for all, the meeting of the roads on the general retreat, the difficulty of the way, the straying of horses, and sometimes the halting to drink whiskey, put a stop to "the hurly-burly of the flight" and reminded the fugitives that by this time they were in sufficient force to rally; and then they would return "to explore the plundered country and to bury the unfortunate scalped heads in the fag-end of the retreat"; whereas if there had been an appointed rendezvous where all could rally it would have prevented such a flight from what might possibly have been a body of Indians far inferior in numbers to the armed men of the settlements attacked. 
The Frontiersmen Ask Permission to Retaliate.
The convention of Mero district early petitioned Congress for the right to retaliate on the Indians and to follow them to their towns, stating that they had refrained from doing so hitherto not from cowardice, but only from regard to Government, and that they regretted that their "rulers" (the Federal authorities at Philadelphia) did not enter into their feelings or seem to sympathize with them. When the Territorial Legislature met in 1794 it petitioned Congress for war against the Creeks and Cherokees, reciting the numerous outrages committed by them upon the whites; stating that since 1792 the frontiersmen had been huddled together two or three hundred to the station, anxiously expecting peace, or a legally authorized war from which they would soon wring peace; and adding that they were afraid of war in no shape, but that they asked that their hands be unbound and they be allowed to defend themselves in the only possible manner, by offensive war. They went on to say that, as members of the Nation, they heartily approved of the hostilities which were then being carried on against the Algerines for the protection of the seafaring men of the coast-towns, and concluded: "The citizens who live in poverty on the extreme frontier are as much entitled to be protected in their lives, their families, and their little properties, as those who roll in luxury, ease, and affluence in the great and opulent Atlantic cities,"—for in frontier eyes the little seaboard trading-towns assumed a rather comical aspect of magnificence. The address was on the whole dignified in tone, and it undoubtedly set forth both the wrong and the remedy with entire accuracy. The Tennesseeans felt bitterly that the Federal Government did everything for Kentucky and nothing for themselves, and they were rather inclined to sneer at the difficulty experienced by the Kentuckians and the Federal army in subduing the Northwestern Indians, while they themselves were left single-handed to contend with the more numerous tribes of the South. They were also inclined to laugh at the continual complaints the Georgians made over the comparatively trivial wrongs they suffered from the Indians, and at their inability either to control their own people or to make war effectively. 
The Situation Grows Intolerable.
Such a state of things as that which existed in the Tennessee territory could not endure. The failure of the United States authorities to undertake active offensive warfare and to protect the frontiersmen rendered it inevitable that the frontiersmen should protect themselves; and under the circumstances, when retaliation began it was certain sometimes to fall upon the blameless. The rude militia officers began to lead their retaliatory parties into the Indian lands, and soon the innocent Indians suffered with the guilty, for the frontiersmen had no means of distinguishing between them. The Indians who visited the settlements with peaceful intent were of course at any time liable to be mistaken for their brethren who were hostile, or else to be attacked by scoundrels who were bent upon killing all red men alike. Thus, on one day, as Blount reported, a friendly Indian passing the home of one of the settlers was fired upon and wounded; while in the same region five hostile Indians killed the wife and three children of a settler in his sight; and another party stole a number of horses from a station; and yet another party, composed of peaceful Indian hunters, was attacked at night by some white militia, one man being killed and another wounded. 
Scolacutta, the Friendly Cherokee.
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.
His Village Attacked.
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. 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. 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. 
Revengeful Forays.
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 off-setting 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. 
    Sevier Takes Command.
    He makes a Brilliant Raid.
When, towards 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. 
Destruction of Nickajack and Running Water.
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 war 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. 
This Brings the Cherokees to Terms.
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 Blockhouse. 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. 
Cherokees and Chikasaws Restrain Creeks.
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. The Chickasaws also had become embroiled with the Creeks. 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.
    Treachery of the United States Government to the Chickasaws.
    The Frontiersmen Stand by Chickasaws.
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 towards 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. Many of the peaceful Creeks had become so alarmed at the outlook 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 all hostilities, together with the Cherokees.
Fatuity of Timothy Pickering.
The concluding stage of the negotiations was marked by an incident which plainly betrayed the faulty attitude of the National Government towards 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. 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, 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. 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.
Misconduct of the Federal Government.
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 Northeasterners, 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.
Peace.
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 afterwards.
Growth of Tennessee.
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.
The Tennessee Constitution.
In their State Constitution the hard-working 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.