Early in 1792 a messenger who had been sent on business for Governor Blount to the Chickamauga towns returned with the report that a party had just come in with prisoners and some fresh scalps, over which the chiefs and warriors of two towns were then dancing; that the Shawano were urging the Cherokee to join them against the Americans; that a strong body of Creeks was on its way against the Cumberland settlements, and that the Creek chief, McGillivray, was trying to form a general confederacy of all the Indian tribes against the whites. To understand this properly it must be remembered that at this time all the tribes northwest of the Ohio and as far as the heads of the Mississippi were banded together in a grand alliance, headed by the warlike Shawano, for the purpose of holding the Ohio river as the Indian boundary against the advancing tide of white settlement. They had just cut to pieces one of the finest armies ever sent into the West, under the veteran General St Clair (28), and it seemed for the moment as if the American advance would be driven back behind the Alleghenies.
In the emergency the Secretary of War directed Governor Blount to hold a conference with the chiefs of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee at Nashville in June to enlist their warriors, if possible, in active service against the northern tribes. The conference was held as proposed, in August, but nothing seems to have come of it, although the chiefs seemed to be sincere in their assurances of friendship. Very few of the Choctaw or Cherokee were in attendance. At the annuity distribution of the Cherokee, shortly before, the chiefs had also been profuse in declarations of their desire for peace.[177] Notwithstanding all this the attacks along the Tennessee frontier continued to such an extent that the blockhouses were again put in order and garrisoned. Soon afterwards the governor reported to the Secretary of War that the five lower Cherokee towns on the Tennessee (the Chickamauga), headed by John Watts, had finally declared war against the United States, and that from three to six hundred warriors, including a hundred Creeks, had started against the settlements. The militia was at once called out, both in eastern Tennessee and on the Cumberland. On the Cumberland side it was directed that no pursuit should be continued beyond the Cherokee boundary, the ridge between the waters of Cumberland and Duck rivers. The order issued by Colonel White, of Knox county, to each of his captains shows how great was the alarm:
Knoxville, September 11, 1792.
Sir: You are hereby commanded to repair with your company to Knoxville, equipped, to protect the frontiers; there is imminent danger. Bring with you two days’ provisions, if possible; but you are not to delay an hour on that head.
I am, sir, yours,
James White.[178]
About midnight on the 30th of September, 1792, the Indian force, consisting of several hundred Chickamaugas and other Cherokee, Creeks, and Shawano, attacked Buchanan’s station, a few miles south of Nashville. Although numbers of families had collected inside the stockade for safety, there were less than twenty able-bodied men among them. The approach of the enemy alarmed the cattle, by which the garrison had warning just in time to close the gate when the Indians were already within a few yards of the entrance. The assault was furious and determined, the Indians rushing up to the stockade, attempting to set fire to it, and aiming their guns through the port holes. One Indian succeeded in climbing upon the roof with a lighted torch, but was shot and fell to the ground, holding his torch against the logs as he drew his last breath. It was learned afterward that he was a half blood, the stepson of the old white trader who had once rescued the boy Joseph Brown at Nickajack. He was a desperate warrior and when only twenty-two years of age had already taken six white scalps. The attack was repulsed at every point, and the assailants finally drew off, with considerable loss, carrying their dead and wounded with them, and leaving a number of hatchets, pipes, and other spoils upon the ground. Among the wounded was the chief John Watts. Not one of those in the fort was injured. It has been well said that the defense of Buchanan’s station by such a handful of men against an attacking force estimated all the way at from three to seven hundred Indians is a feat of bravery which has scarcely been surpassed in the annals of border warfare. The effect upon the Indians must have been thoroughly disheartening.[179]
In the same month arrangements were made for protecting the frontier along the French Broad by means of a series of garrisoned blockhouses, with scouts to patrol regularly from one to another, North Carolina cooperating on her side of the line. The hostile inroads still continued in this section, the Creeks acting with the hostile Cherokee. One raiding party of Creeks having been traced toward Chilhowee town on Little Tennessee, the whites were about to burn that and a neighboring Cherokee town when Sevier interposed and prevented.[180] There is no reason to suppose that the people of these towns were directly concerned in the depredations along the frontier at this period, the mischief being done by those farther to the south, in conjunction with the Creeks.
Toward the close of this year, 1792, Captain Samuel Handley, while leading a small party of men to reenforce the Cumberland settlement, was attacked by a mixed force of Cherokee, Creeks, and Shawano, near the Crab Orchard, west of the present Kingston, Tennessee. Becoming separated from his men he encountered a warrior who had lifted his hatchet to strike when Handley seized the weapon, crying out “Canaly” (for higĭna′liĭ), “friend,” to which the Cherokee responded with the same word, at once lowering his arm. Handley was carried to Willstown, in Alabama, where he was adopted into the Wolf clan (29) and remained until the next spring. After having made use of his services in writing a peace letter to Governor Blount the Cherokee finally sent him home in safety to his friends under a protecting escort of eight warriors, without any demand for ransom. He afterward resided near Tellico blockhouse, near Loudon, where, after the wars were over, his Indian friends frequently came to visit and stop with him.[181]
The year 1793 began with a series of attacks all along the Tennessee frontier. As before, most of the depredation was by Chickamaugas and Creeks, with some stray Shawano from the north. The Cherokee from the towns on Little Tennessee remained peaceable, but their temper was sorely tried by a regrettable circumstance which occurred in June. While a number of friendly chiefs were assembled for a conference at Echota, on the express request of the President, a party of men under command of a Captain John Beard suddenly attacked them, killing about fifteen Indians, including several chiefs and two women, one of them being the wife of Hanging-maw (Ushwâ′li-gûtă), principal chief of the Nation, who was himself wounded. The murderers then fled, leaving others to suffer the consequences. Two hundred warriors at once took up arms to revenge their loss, and only the most earnest appeal from the deputy governor could restrain them from swift retaliation. While the chief, whose wife was thus murdered and himself wounded, forebore to revenge himself, in order not to bring war upon his people, the Secretary of War was obliged to report, “to my great pain, I find to punish Beard by law just now is out of the question.” Beard was in fact arrested, but the trial was a farce and he was acquitted.[182]
Believing that the Cherokee Nation, with the exception of the Chickamaugas, was honestly trying to preserve peace, the territorial government, while making provision for the safety of the exposed settlements, had strictly prohibited any invasion of the Indian country. The frontier people were of a different opinion, and in spite of the prohibition a company of nearly two hundred mounted men under Colonels Doherty and McFarland crossed over the mountains in the summer of this year and destroyed six of the middle towns, returning with fifteen scalps and as many prisoners.[183]