Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 6 (of 8) / The United States of North America, Part I

by Unknown

A description of the Cherokee lower towns and of the siege of Watauga is given by Edmund Kirke (James R. Gilmore) in Lippincott's Magazine (July and August, 1855), in a paper on "The Pioneers of the South West." Bare mention is made of the fact that Georgia participated in the campaign of 1776, by Stevens in his Georgia, who follows Moultrie in assigning the command of the Georgia troops to Colonel Jack.

McCall, in his History of Georgia, gives a curious account of an attempt by a party of Americans to penetrate the Indian country and seize Cameron. Their leader, Capt. James McCall, had with him two officers, twenty-two Carolinians, and eleven Georgians. They were suspected by the Indians of treachery, and were themselves attacked. Their leader was captured and several of the men were killed, but the greater number escaped, and after severe sufferings reached the settlements. Drayton (Memoirs, ii. 338) states that this expedition of McCall's was forwarded in consequence of an agreement on the part of the Cherokees in June to permit the arrest of refugees in their towns. The attack was therefore a piece of treachery on the part of the Indians. McCall himself escaped shortly afterward, and joined the Virginia column of invasion. He again made an attempt to seize Cameron. This time he reached the Indian town where Cameron had his headquarters, but the latter had left for Mobile the morning that Captain McCall arrived at the town. McCall gives an account of a raid by General Pickens in the fall of 1782. This apparently is the same as the one described in 1781.

C. C. Jones's Georgia deals with the border wars to about the same extent as McCall. The precise time of Jack's raid is not given, but Jones has followed those who have spoken of it as simultaneous with the joint movement in Virginia and North and South Carolina, among whom we find Ramsay in his History of the Revolution of South Carolina. A letter to Gov. Bullock, from B. Rea, July 3, 1776 (Remembrancer, Part iii., 1776, p. 50), says: "I shall order the draft that has been made of this regiment to Broad River and Ogeechee as soon as possible, but not to go over the line till I receive your excellency's orders, which I shall wait for with impatience. I shall likewise be glad to know how far we are to act in concert with the Carolinians, or if we are only to guard our own frontiers." This shows that troops were put in the field by Georgia before the question of coöperation was raised, but that it immediately suggested itself as a possibility.

It will be inferred from what has been said that confusion of dates as to the movement of the troops exists. McCall tells the story as if Jack's march in the middle of July were part of a preconcerted plan, in which South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia participated. Jones, as has been seen, follows him in this respect. Ramsey, in his Annals of Tennessee, says Christian went into the field on the 1st of August. Williamson, on his second raid, and Rutherford started out about the 1st of September. Christian's march was evidently in coöperation with them, and doubtless at the same time, although in Foote's Sketches of Virginia it is said (pp. 118, 119) that Col. William Christian's campaign against the Cherokees was in October. It is probable that he did not return to the settlements until that month.

It is evident that the attack upon the lower towns of the Cherokees by the Georgia militia was not regarded at the time as a part of the joint concerted movement. On the 5th of August President Rutledge issued a proclamation requiring the Legislative Council and General Assembly to meet at Charleston on the 17th of September, at which time his excellency congratulated them on the success of the troops under Colonel Williamson, and added, "It has pleased God to grant very signal success to their operations; and I hope by his blessings on our arms, and those of North Carolina and Virginia, from whom I have promises of aid, an end may soon be put to this war." In the replies of the Council and of the Assembly recognition is made of the coöperative movements of the North Carolina and Virginia forces. No reference is made in any of these proceedings to the Georgia contingent.

The Boston Gazette and Country Journal, Sept. 16, 1776, contains an account of the outbreak in North Carolina, which says: "The ruined settlers had collected themselves together at different places and forted themselves: 400 and upwards at Major Shelby's, about the same number at Captain Campbell's, and a considerable number at Amos Eaton's." It then describes the relief of Watauga by Colonel Russell with three hundred men. The acts of these men and the first raid of Williamson were the spontaneous movements of the frontier inhabitants. The participation of Georgia was inspired from headquarters at Augusta, with intelligent comprehension of the value of coöperation. The campaigns of the month of September were concerted.

The raid of Gen. Andrew Pickens is described in Ramsay's South Carolina and in Henry Lee's Memoirs, the account in the latter being copied in Cecil B. Hartley's Heroes and Patriots of the South (Philad., 1860). The raid of Col. Arthur Campbell is described in Girardin's continuation of Burk's Virginia (iv. p. 472). Campbell's report, in the Calendar of the State Papers of Virginia (i. p. 434), says that he destroyed upwards of one thousand houses, and not less than fifty thousand bushels of corn and a large quantity of other provisions.

D. CONNECTICUT SETTLERS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

In 1768, the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania secured an Indian deed for the territory already claimed by the Susquehanna Company of Connecticut, and a lease was executed, which vested in certain enterprising individuals the rights of the Proprietaries to this region, whether gained by royal grant or by purchase. This was followed by simultaneous preparation on the part of the Pennsylvanian lessees and of the Connecticut Company for the occupation by settlers, who were expected to defend their rights against other claimants. The Pennsylvanians were first on the ground, and in January, 1769, built a block-house on the land which had been improved by former Connecticut settlers. Early in February the first detachment of colonists from Connecticut arrived, and then began the contest for possession, which was waged, with success alternating on either side, until the fall of 1771. Houses were burned, crops were laid waste, cattle were driven off and killed, and there was some bloodshed during the progress of these hostilities. Proclamations were put forth by the governor of Pennsylvania, and warrants were issued by the courts of that province for the arrest of the Connecticut leaders for the crime of arson. The several military expeditions of the Pennsylvanians were generally accompanied by a sheriff, whose mission was supposed to be to execute the laws. The citizens of that province do not appear to have been in sympathy with the lessees of the Proprietaries. If they had been, it would have been easy to have crushed the Connecticut colony. This settlement was not at the outset recognized as a part of Connecticut. Permission had been given the company to apply to his majesty for a separate charter. The expectation that an independent government might perhaps be formed, and the opposition to the movement already expressed at London, explain the supineness of the mother colony. The Susquehanna settlement depended for its life upon the efforts of the company. Five townships were laid out, and liberal offers of shares in the lands were made to the first settlers in each of them. Three more townships were subsequently settled on the same plan. These inducements had attracted settlers in such numbers that the Pennsylvanian lessees could not dispossess them. In the autumn of 1771 the Pennsylvanians withdrew, leaving the Connecticut colonists, for the time, in undisturbed possession. Some correspondence followed between the authorities of the colonies, in which the government of Pennsylvania sought to ascertain how far the colony of Connecticut backed up the emigrants; and the governor of that colony in reply denied having authorized any hostile demonstration, but carefully avoided saying anything which could be interpreted as a relinquishment on the part of the colony of its rights under the charter to the land. During the next two years the settlement, although looked upon by Pennsylvania as an invasion and not as yet acknowledged by Connecticut, increased in numbers and prospered. Meetings of the Proprietors were occasionally held, at which the affairs of the towns were adjusted in a general way, authority being delegated to a committee of settlers to act in the intervals between the meetings. In June, 1773, the company adopted at Hartford a form of government for the settlers, stating in the preamble that "we have as yet no established civil authority residing among us in the settlement." In October the Connecticut Assembly resolved that the colony would "make their claim to these lands, and in a legal manner support the same." Commissioners were appointed, and fruitless negotiations were opened with Pennsylvania. In January, 1774, the territory of Susquehanna Company was incorporated into the town of Westmoreland, and became temporarily a part of the county of Litchfield, Connecticut. Almost simultaneously, proclamations were issued by the governors of the two colonies, each prohibiting settlements on the disputed territory except under authority of the colony which he represented. Meantime the settlements in the valley increased. In September, 1775, about eighty settlers, who had just arrived on the west branch of the Susquehanna, were attacked by the Pennsylvania militia. One man was killed; several were wounded; and the men of the Connecticut party were taken prisoners to Sunbury. Upon receipt of this news the Continental Congress, in November, passed resolutions urging the two colonies to take steps to avoid open hostilities. This was, however, of no effect. Boats from Wyoming, loaded with the property of settlers, were seized and confiscated at Fort Augusta. During the fall, extensive preparations were made by the Pennsylvanians for an invasion of Wyoming, under authority from Governor Penn, for the purpose of enforcing the laws of Pennsylvania. In December, Congress expressed the opinion that all appearance of force ought to stop until the dispute could be decided by law; but at the time that the resolution expressing this opinion was under consideration, an army of Pennsylvanians, accompanied by a sheriff, was already invading the valley. The Connecticut people, having been forewarned, successfully resisted this military posse. Several lives were lost in this attempt of the Pennsylvanians to dispossess the colonists. With this failure the attempts of Pennsylvania to expel the Connecticut settlers by force ended. The Revolutionary War was now in progress. Connecticut needed her able-bodied men. She now forbade further settlement on the disputed territory unless licensed by her Assembly.