Some one or other of the leaders was almost always employed against the Indians. The Cherokees and Creeks were never absolutely quiet and at peace.
Indian Troubles.
After the chastisement inflicted upon the former by the united forces of all the southern backwoodsmen, treaties were held with them, [Footnote: See ante, Chapter XI. of Vol. I.] in the spring and summer of 1777. The negotiations consumed much time, the delegates from both sides meeting again and again to complete the preliminaries. The credit of the State being low, Isaac Shelby furnished on his own responsibility the goods and provisions needed by the Virginians and Holston people in coming to an agreement with the Otari, or upper Cherokees [ Footnote: Shelby's MS. autobiography, copy in Col. Durrett's library.]; and some land was formally ceded to the whites.
But the chief Dragging Canoe would not make peace. Gathering the boldest and most turbulent of the young braves about him, he withdrew to the great whirl in the Tennessee, [Footnote: Va. State Papers, III., 271; the settlers always spoke of it as the "suck" or "whirl.">[ at the crossing-place of the Creek war parties, when they followed the trail that led to the bend of the Cumberland River. Here he was joined by many Creeks, and also by adventurous and unruly members from almost all the western tribes [Footnote: Shelby MS.]—Chickasaws, Chocktaws, and Indians from the Ohio. He soon had a great band of red outlaws round him. These freebooters were generally known as the Chickamaugas, and they were the most dangerous and least controllable of all the foes who menaced the western settlements. Many tories and white refugees from border justice joined them, and shared in their misdeeds. Their shifting villages stretched from Chickamauga Creek to Running Water. Between these places the Tennessee twists down through the sombre gorges by which the chains of the Cumberland ranges are riven in sunder. Some miles below Chickamauga Creek, near Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain towers aloft into the clouds; at its base the river bends round Moccasin Point, and then rushes through a gap between Walden's Ridge and the Raccoon Hills. Then for several miles it foams through the winding Narrows between jutting cliffs and sheer rock walls, while in its boulder-strewn bed the swift torrent is churned into whirlpools, cataracts, and rapids. Near the Great Crossing, where the war parties and hunting parties were ferried over the river, lies Nick-a-jack Cave, a vast cavern in the mountain side. Out of it flows a stream, up which a canoe can paddle two or three miles into the heart of the mountain. In these high fastnesses, inaccessible ravines, and gloomy caverns the Chickamaugas built their towns, and to them they retired with their prisoners and booty after every raid on the settlements.
No sooner had the preliminary treaty been agreed to in the spring of '77 than the Indians again began their ravages. In fact, there never was any real peace. After each treaty the settlers would usually press forward into the Indian lands, and if they failed to do this the young braves were sure themselves to give offence by making forays against the whites. On this occasion the first truce or treaty was promptly broken by the red men. The young warriors refused to be bound by the promises of the chiefs and headmen, and they continued their raids for scalps, horses, and plunder. Within a week of the departure of the Indian delegates from the treaty ground in April, twelve whites were murdered and many horses stolen. Robertson, with nine men, followed one of these marauding parties, killed one Indian, and retook ten horses; on his return he was attacked by a large band of Creeks and Cherokees, and two of his men were wounded; but he kept hold of the recaptured horses and brought them safely in. [Footnote: Chas. Robertson to Captain-General of North Carolina, April 27, 1777.] On the other hand, a white scoundrel killed an Indian on the treaty ground, in July, the month in which the treaties were finally completed in due form. By act of the Legislature the Holston militia were kept under arms throughout most of the year, companies of rangers, under Sevier's command, scouring the woods and canebrakes, and causing such loss to the small Indian war parties that they finally almost ceased their forays. Bands of these Holston rangers likewise crossed the mountains by Boon's trail, and went to the relief of Boonsborough and St. Asaphs, in Kentucky, then much harassed by the northwestern warriors. [Footnote: See ante Chap. I.] Though they did little or no fighting, and stayed but a few days, they yet by their presence brought welcome relief to the hard-pressed Kentuckians. [Footnote: Monette (followed by Ramsey and others) hopelessly confuses these small relief expeditions; he portrays Logan as a messenger from Boon's Station, is in error as to the siege of the latter, etc.] Kentucky during her earliest and most trying years received comparatively little help from sorely beset Virginia; but the backwoodsmen of the upper Tennessee valley—on both sides of the boundary—did her real and lasting service.
In 1778 the militia were disbanded, as the settlements were very little harried; but as soon as the vigilance of the whites was relaxed the depredations and massacres began again, and soon became worse than ever. Robertson had been made superintendent of Indian affairs for North Carolina; and he had taken up his abode among the Cherokees at the town of Chota in the latter half of the year 1777. He succeeded in keeping them comparatively quiet and peaceable during 1778, and until his departure, which took place the following year, when he went to found the settlements on the Cumberland River.
But the Chickamaugas refused to make peace, and in their frequent and harassing forays they were from time to time joined by parties of young braves from all the Cherokee towns that were beyond the reach of Robertson's influence—that is, by all save those in the neighborhood of Chota. The Chickasaws and Choctaws likewise gave active support to the king's cause; the former scouted along the Ohio, the latter sent bands of young warriors to aid the Creeks and Cherokees in their raids against the settlements. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter of Rainsford and Tait to Hamilton. April 9, 1779.]
The British agents among the southern Indians had received the letters Hamilton sent them after he took Vincennes; in these they were urged at once to send out parties against the frontier, and to make ready for a grand stroke in the spring. In response the chief agent, who was the Scotch captain Cameron, a noted royalist leader, wrote to his official superior that the instant he heard of any movement of the northwestern Indians he would see that it was backed up, for the Creeks were eager for war, and the Cherokees likewise were ardently attached to the British cause; as a proof of the devotion of the latter, he added: "They keep continually killing and scalping in Virginia, North Carolina, and the frontier of Georgia, although the rebels are daily threatening to send in armies from all quarters and extirpate the whole tribe." [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Series B., Vol. 117, p. 131. Letter of Alexander Cameron, July 15, 1779.] It would certainly be impossible to desire better proof than that thus furnished by this royal officer, both of the ferocity of the British policy towards the frontiersmen, and of the treachery of the Indians, who so richly deserved the fate that afterwards befell them.
While waiting for the signal from Hamilton, Cameron organized two Indian expeditions against the frontier, to aid the movements of the British army that had already conquered Georgia. A great body of Creeks, accompanied by the British commissaries and most of the white traders (who were, of course, tories), set out in March to join the king's forces at Savannah; but when they reached the frontier they scattered out to plunder and ravage. A body of Americans fell on one of their parties and crushed it; whereupon the rest returned home in a fright, save about seventy, who went on and joined the British. At the same time three hundred Chickamaugas, likewise led by the resident British commissaries, started out against the Carolina frontier. But Robertson, at Chota, received news of the march, and promptly sent warning to the Holston settlements [Footnote: Do. "A rebel commissioner in Chote being informed of their movements here sent express into Holston river." This "rebel commissioner" was in all probability Robertson.]; and the Holston men, both of Virginia and North Carolina, decided immediately to send an expedition against the homes of the war party. This would not only at once recall them from the frontier, but would give them a salutary lesson.
Accordingly the backwoods levies gathered on Clinch River, at the mouth of Big Creek, April 10th, and embarked in pirogues and canoes to descend the Tennessee. There were several hundred of them [Footnote: State Department MSS. No. 51, Vol. II., p. 17, a letter from the British agents among the Creeks to Lord George Germaine, of July 12, 1779. It says, "near 300 rebels"; Haywood, whose accounts are derived from oral tradition, says one thousand. Cameron's letter of July 15th in the Haldimand MSS. says seven hundred. Some of them were Virginians who had been designed for Clark's assistance in his Illinois campaign, but who were not sent him. Shelby made a very clever stroke, but it had no permanent effect, and it is nonsense to couple it, as has been recently done, with Clark's campaigns.] under the command of Evan Shelby; Isaac Shelby having collected the supplies for the expedition by his individual activity and on his personal credit. The backwoodsmen went down the river so swiftly that they took the Chickamaugas completely by surprise, and the few warriors who were left in the villages fled to the wooded mountains without offering any resistance. Several Indians were killed [Footnote: Cameron in his letter says four, which is probably near the truth. Haywood says forty, which merely represents the backwoods tradition on the subject, and is doubtless a great exaggeration.] and a number of their towns were burnt, together with a great deal of corn; many horses and cattle were recaptured, and among the spoils were large piles of deer hides, owned by a tory trader. The troops then destroyed their canoes and returned home on foot, killing game for their food; and they spread among the settlements many stories of the beauty of the lands through which they had passed, so that the pioneers became eager to possess them. The Chickamaugas were alarmed and confounded by this sudden stroke; their great war band returned at once to the burned towns, on being informed by swift runners of the destruction that had befallen them. All thoughts of an immediate expedition against the frontier were given up; peace talks were sent to Evan Shelby [Footnote: State Department MSS. No. 71, Vol. I., p. 255, letter of Evan Shelby, June 4, 1779.]; and throughout the summer the settlements were but little molested.