Cfoe ILiorarp of tbr antoersitp of Jl3ott& Carolina Collection of ji2ontj CaroUntana " C37O.03 UNIVERSITY OF N C AT CHAPEL HILL 00030748834 This book must- not be token from the Library building. • — — THIS TITLE HAS! BEEN Iv.lCROOtkEg MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE JAM ES M< >< >Xi;V EXTRACT FROM THE NINETEENTH ANNUAL I;l PORT OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY WAS II IN (.ION GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE L9 02 Library, Univ. of North Carolina MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE JAMES MOONEY CONTENTS Page I — Introduction 11 II — Historical sketch of the Cherokee 14 The traditionary period 14 The period of Spanish exploration — 1540-? 23 The Colonial and Revolutionary period — 1654-1784 29 Relations with the United States 61 From the first treaty to the Removal— 1785-1S38 (il The Removal— 1838-1839 130 The Arkansas band— 1817-1838 135 The Texas hand— 1817-1900 L43 The Cherokee Nation of the AVest— 1840-1900 146 The East Cherokee— 1838-1900 157 III — Notes to the historical sketch 182 IV — Stories and story-tellers _ 229 V— The myths 239 Cosmogonic myths 239 1. How the world was made 239 2. The first fire 240 3. Kana'ti and Selu: Origin of corn and game 242 4. Origin of disease and medicine 250 5. The Daughter of the Sun : Origin of death 252 6. How they brought back the Tobacco 254 7. The journey to the sunrise 255 8. The Moon and the Thunders 256 9. What the Stars are like 257 10. Origin of the Pleiades and the Pine 258 11. The milky way 259 12. Origin of strawl perries 259 13. The Great Yellow-jacket: Origin of fish and frogs 260 14. The Deluge 261 Quadruped myths . . . .• 261 15. The four-tooted tribes 261 16. The Rabbit goes duck hunting 266 1 7. How the Rabbit stole the Otter's coat 267 IS. "Why the Possum's tail is bare 269 19. How the Wildcat caught the turkeys 269 20. How the Terrapin beat the Rabbit 270 21. The Rabbit and the tar wolf 271 22/ The Rabbit and the P >ssum after a wife 273 2::. The Rabl.it dines the Bear 273 24. The Rabbit escapes from the wolves 274 25. Flint visits the Rabbit 274 26. How the Deer got his horns 275 27. Why the Deer's teeth are blunt 276 2s. What became of the Rabbit 277 29. Why the Mink smells 277 30. Why the Mole lives under ground 277 6 CONTENTS [ETH.ANN.19 \ The rnythi — ( kmtinued. Quadruped myths — Continued. ra s>-' 31 The Terrapin's escape from the wolves 278 :;•_'. Origin of the Groundhog dance: The Groundhog's head 279 33 The migration of the animals 280 34. The Wolf's revenge: The Wolf and the Dog - 280 Bird myths 280 35. The 1 »ird t ribes 280 36. The ball game of the birds and animals 286 37. How the Turkey got his beard 287 38. Why the Turkey gobbles 288 39. How the Kingfisher got his bill 288 -10. How the Partridge got his whistle 289 41. How the Etedbird got his color 289 4l'. The Phi asant beating corn: The Pheasant ■lane.' 290 4:;. The race between the ( Irane and the Humming-bird 290 44. The Owl gets married 291 4.".. The Huhu gets married 292 46. Why the Buzzard's head i^ bare 29.", 47. The Eagle's revenge 293 4s. The Hunter and the Buzzard 294 Snake, fish, ami insect myths 294 49. The snake tribe 294 50. The Uktenaand the riufisu'ti 297 51. A.gan-Uni'tsi's search for the Uktena 298 52. The Red Man and the Uktena 300 53. The Hunter and the Oksu'hl 301 54. The Tstu'tli 302 55. The Uw'tsufi'ta 303 56. Tl ie Snake Boy 304 57. The Snake Man 304 58. The Rattlesnake's vengeance - 305 59. The smaller reptiles, fishes, and insects 306 60. Why the Bullfrog's head is striped 310 61. The Bullfrog lover 310 62. The Katydid's warning 311 Wonder stories 311 63. rntsaiyi'. the Gambler , 311 64. The nest of theTla'nuwa 315 65. The Hunter and the Tla'nuwa 316 66. r'tlufi'ta. the Spear-finger 316 07. Xun'yunu'wl, the stone man 319 68. The Hunter in the Dakwa' 320 69. A-taga'M, the enchanted lake 321 To. The Bride from the south 322 71 . The Ice Man t 322 72. The Hunter and Selu 323 73. The underground [■anthers 32 1 74. The Tsundige'wl 325 75. i >rigin of the I '.ear: The Bear songs 325 To. The Bear Man 327 77. TheGreat Leech of Tlanusi'yl.. 329 78. The Xunne'hi and other spirit folk 330 70. The removed townhouses 335 moonev.] CONTENTS 7 V— Tlie myths— Continued. Wonder stories — Continued. Page 80. The spirit defenders of Nikwasi' 336 8 1 . TsuikaliV, the slant-eyed giant 337 82. Kana'sta, the lust settlement 341 83. Tsuwe'nahi, a legend of Pilot knob 843 84. The man who married the Thunder's sister 345 85. The haunted whirlpool 347 sii. Yahula :;47 87. The water cannibals 349 Historical traditions . 350 , ss. First contact with whites 350 89. The Iroquois wars :;:, i 90. Hiadeoni, the Seneca 356 91. The two Mi .hawks 357 92. Escape of the Seneca boys 359 9.'!. The unseen helpers 359 94. Hatcinondon's escape from the Cherokee 362 95. Hemp-carrier. :;<;4 '.hi The Seneca peacemakers 365 97. Origin of the Yontonwisas .lance '365 us. i ra'na's adventures among the Cherokee 367 99. The Shawano wars 370 100. The raid on Tikwali'tsI 374 101. The last Shawano invasion :;74 102. The false warriors of Chilhowee 375 103. ( Wee town :;77 104. The eastern tribes _ 378 105. The southern and western tribes 382 100. The giants from the west 391 107. The lost Cherokee , 391 108. The massacre of the Ani'-Kuta'nl 392 109. The war medicine 393 110. Incidents of personal heroism :;:i| 111. The mounds and the constant lire: The old sacred things 395 Miscellaneous myths and legends 397 Ul'. The ignorant housekeeper :i'.i7 113. The man in the stump _ 397 114. Two lazy hunters 397 115. The two old men 399 116. The star feathers 399 117. Th,' Mother Bear's song 400 118. Baby song, to please tin- children 401 119. When babies are born: The Wren and the ( Iricket 401 120. The Raven Mocker 401 121. Herbert's spring 403 1-".'. Local legends i 4' North Carolina 404 123. Local legends of South Carolina 411 124. Local legends- of Tennessee 412 125. Local legends of t ieorgia 415 1 26. Plant lore 420 VI— Notes and parallels 42s VII— Glossary 506 ILLUSTRATIONS Plate I. In the Cherokee mountains 11 IT. Map: The Cherokee and their neighbors 14 III. Map: The old Cherokee country 23 IV. Sequi .ya | Sikwayl ) ' 108 V. The Chen ikee alphabet 112 VI. Tahchee (Tilts!) or Dutch 140 VII. Spring-fn ig or Ti x lantuh ( Du'stu') 142 VIII. John Ross (Gu'wisguwl') 150 IX. ColonelW. II. Thomas (Wil-Usdi') 160 X. Chief N. J. Smith (Tsaladihl') 178 XI. Swimmer (A'yuiVini ) 22S XII. John Ax (ItagiYnuhl) 238 XIII. Tagwadihl' 256 XIV. A yasta 272 XV. Sawanu'gl, a Cherokee l>all player 284 XVI. NlkwasI' mound at Franklin, North Carolina 337 X VII. Annie Ax ( Sac lay! ) 358 XVII 1. YValini', a< Iherokee woman 378 XIX. On Oconaluftee river 405 XX. Petroglyphs at Track-rock gap, Georgia 4 IS Figure 1. Feather wand of Eagle dance 2S2 2. Ancient Iroquois wampum 1 celts 354 9 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE By James Mooney I— INTRODUCTION The myths given in this paper are part of a large body of material collected among the Cherokee, chiefly in successive field seasons from 1887 to L890, inclusive, and comprising more or less extensive notes, together with original Cherokee manuscripts, relating to the history, archeology, geographic nomenclature, personal names, botany, medi- cine, arts, home life, religion, songs, ceremonies, and language of the tribe. It is intended that this material shall appear from time to time in a series of papers which, when finally brought together, shall constitute a monograph upon the Cherokee Indians. This paper may be considered the first of the series, all that has hitherto appeared being a short paper upon the sacred formulas of the tribe, published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau in 1891 and containing a synopsis of the Cherokee medico-religious theory, with twenty-eight specimens selected from a body of about six hundred ritual formulas written down in the Cherokee language and alphabet by former doctors of the tribe and constituting altogether the largest body of aboriginal American literature in existence. Although the Cherokee arc probably the largest and most impor- tant tribe in the Tinted States, having their own national government and numbering at any time in their history from 20,000 to 25,000 per- sons, almost nothing has yet been written of their history or general ethnology, as compared with the literature of such northern tribes as the Delawares, the Iroquois, or the Ojibwa. The difference is due to historical reasons which need not be discussed here. It might seem at first thought that the Cherokee, with their civi- lized code of laws, their national press, their schools and seminaries, are so far advanced along the white man's road as to offer but little inducement for ethnologic study. This is largely true of those in the Indian Territory, with whom the enforced deportation, two generations ago, from accustomed scenes and surroundings did more at a single stroke to obliterate Indian ideas than could have been accomplished 11 12 MYTHS OF THE OHEBOKEE [bth.aiw.19 by fifty years of slow development. There remained behind, however, in the bearl of the Carolina mountains, :i considerable body, outnum- bering todaj such well-known western tribes as the Omaha, Pawnee, Comanche, and Kiowa, and it is among these, the old conservative Kitn'hwa < 'lenient, that t lie ancient things have been preserved. Moun- taineers guard well the past, and in the secluded forests of Xantahala and Oconaluftee, faraway from the main-traveled road of modern progress, the Cherokee priest still treasures the Legends and repeats the mystic rituals handed down from his ancestors. There is change indeed in dress and outward seeming, but the heart of the Indian is still his own. For this and other reasons much the greater portion of the material herein contained has been procured among the East Cherokee living upon the Qualla reservation in western North Carolina and in various detached settlements between the reservation and the Tennessee line. This has been supplemented with information obtained in the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, chiefly from old men and women who had emigrated from what is now Tennessee and Georgia, and who consequently had a better local knowledge of these sections, as well as of the history of the western Nation, than is possessed by their kindred in Carolina. The historical matter and the parallels are, of course, collated chiefly from printed sources, but the myths proper, with but few exceptions, are from original investigation. The historical sketch must be understood as distinctly a sketch, not a detailed narrative, for which there is not space in the present paper. The Cherokee have made deep impress upon the history of the southern states, and no more has been attempted here than to give the leading- facts in connected sequence. As the history of the Nation after the removal to the West and the reorganization in Indian Territory pre- sents but few points of ethnologic interest, it has been but briefly treated. On the other hand the affairs of the eastern band have been discussed at some length, for the reason that so little concerning this remnant is to be found in print. One of the chief purposes of ethnologic study is to trace the development of human thought under varying conditions of race and environment, the result showing always that primitive man is essen- tially the same in every part of the world. With this object in view a considerable space has been devoted to parallels drawn almost entirely from Indian tribes of the United States and British America. For the southern countries there is but. little trustworthy material, and to extend the inquiry to the eastern continent and the islands of the sea would be to invite an endless task. The author desires to return thanks for many favors from the Library of Congress, the Geological Survey, and the Smithsonian Institution, and for much courteous assistance and friendly suggestion from the officers and stall' of the Bureau of American Ethnology; and mooney] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 13 tn acknowledge his indebtedness to the late Chief N. J. Smith and family for services as interpreter and for kindly hospitality during successive field seasons: to Agent H. W. Spray and wife for unvarying kindness manifested in many helpful ways; to Mr William Harden, librarian, and the Georgia State Historical Society, for facilities in consulting documents at Savannah, Georgia; to the late Col. W. H. Thomas: Lieut. Col. W. W. Stringfield, of Waynesville; ( 'apt. James W. Terrell, of Webster; .Mrs A. C. Avery and Dr P. L. Murphy, of Mor- ganton; Mr W. A. Fair, of Lincolnton; the late Maj. James Bryson, of Dillsboro; Mr II. G. Trotter, of Franklin: Mr Sibbald Smith, of Chero- kee; Maj. R.C.Jackson, of Smithwood, Tennessee; Mr D. R. Dunn, of Conasauga, Tennessee: the late Col. Z. A. Zile, of Atlanta: Mr L. M.Greer, of Ellijay, Georgia: Mr Thomas Robinson, of Portland. Maine; Mr Allen Ross, Mr W. T. Canup, editor of the Indian Arrow, and the officers of the Cherokee Nation. Tahlequah, Indian Territory; Dr D. T. Day, United States Geological Survey. Washington, D. C, and Prof. G. M. Bowers, of the United States Fish Commission, for valuable oral information, letters, clippings, and photographs; to Maj. J. Adger Smyth, of Charleston. S. C, for documentary material; to Mr Stansbury Hagar and the late Robert Grant Haliburton, of Brooklyn. N. Y., for the use of valuable manuscript notes upon Cherokee stellar legends; to Miss A. M. Brooks for the use of valuable Spanish document copies and translations entrusted to the Bureau of American Ethnology; to Mr James Blythe, interpreter during a great part of the time spent by the author in the field; and to various Cherokee and other informants mentioned in the body of the work, from whom the material was obtained. II HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHEROKEE The Traditionary Period The Cherokee were the mountaineers of the South, holding the entire Allegheny region from the interlocking bead-streams of the Kanawha and the Tennessee southward almost to the site of Atlanta, and from the Blue ridge on the east to the Cumberland range on the west, a territory comprising an area of about 40,000 square miles, now included in the states of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Their principal towns were upon the headwaters of the Savannah. Hiwassee, and Tuckasegee, and along the whole length of the Little Tennessee to its junction with the main stream. Itsati, or Echota, on the south hank of the Little Tennessee, a few miles above the mouth of Tellico river, in Tennessee, was commonly considered the capital of the Nation. As the advancing whites pressed upon them from the east and northeast the more exposed towns were destroyed or abandoned and new settlements were formed lower down the Tennessee and on the upper branches of the Chattahoochee and the Coosa. As is always (he ease with tribal geography-, there were no fixed boundaries, and on every side the Cherokee frontiers were contested by rival claimants. In Virginia, there is reason to believe, the tribe was held in check in early days by the Powhatan and the Monacan. On the east and southeast the Tuscarora and Catawba were their invet- erate enemies, with hardly even a momentary truce within the historic period; and evidence goes to show that the Sara or Cheraw were fully as hostile. On the south there was hereditary war with the Creeks, who claimed nearly the whole, of upper Georgia as theirs by original possession, but who were being gradually pressed down toward the Gulf until, through the mediation of the United States, a treaty was finally made fixing the boundary between the two tribes along a line running about due west from the mouth of Broad river on the Savan- nah. Toward the west, the Chickasaw on the lower Tennessee and the Shawano on the Cumberland repeatedly turned back the tide of Chero- kee invasion from the rich central valleys, while the powerful Iroquois in the far north set up an almost unchallenged claim of paramount lordship from the Ottawa river of Canada southward at Least to the Kentucky river. 14 NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL II uooney] TRIBAL NAMES 15 On the other hand, by their defeat of the ("reeks and expulsion <>f the Shawano, the Cherokee made good the claim which they asserted to all the lands from upper Georgia to the Ohio river, including the rich hunting grounds of Kentucky. Holding as they did the great mountain harrier between the English settlements on the coast and the French or Spanish garrisons along the Mississippi and the Ohio, their geographic position, no less than their superior number, would have given them the balance of power in the South but for a looseness of tribal organization in striking contrast to the compactness of the Iro- quois league, by which for more than a century the French power was held in check in the north. The English, indeed, found it con- venient to recognize certain chiefs as supreme in the tribe, but the only real attempt to weld the whole Cherokee Nation into a political unit was that made by the French agent, Priber, about 1 TMtJ. which failed from its premature discovery by the English. We frequently find their kingdom divided against itself, their very number preventing unity of action, while still giving them an importance above that of neighboring tribes. The proper name by which the Cherokee call themselves (l) 1 is Yuii'wiya'. or Ani'-Yun'wiya' in the third person, signifying •"real people," or " principal people." a word closely related toOnwe-hofiwe, the name by which the cognate Iroquois know themselves. The word properly denotes "Indians," as distinguished from people of other races, but in usage it is restricted to mean members of the Cherokee tribe, those of other tribes being designated as Creek, Catawba, etc., as the case may be. On ceremonial occasions they frequently speak of themselves as Ani'-Kitu'hwagi, or "people of Kitu'hwa," an ancient settlement on Tuckasegee river and apparently the original nucleus of the tribe. Among the western Cherokee this name has been adopted by a secret society recruited from the full-blood element and pledged to resist the advances of the white man's civilization. Under the various forms of Cuttawa, Gattochwa, Kittuwa. etc.. as spelled by dif- ferent authors, it was also used by several northern Algonquian tribes as a synonym for Cherokee. Cherokee, the name by which they are commonly known, has no meaning in their own language, and seems to be of foreign origin. As used among themselves the form is Tsa'lagi' or Tsa'ragi'. It first appears as Chalaque in the Portuguese narrative of De Soto's expedi- tion, published originally in L557, while we rind Cheraqui in a French document of 1699, and Cherokee as an English form as early, at 'east, as 1708. The name has thus an authentic history of 360 years. There is evidence that it is derived from the Choctaw word choluk or chiluk, signifying a pit or cave, and comes to us through the so-called Mobilian trade language, a corrupted Choctaw jargon formerly used as the 1 gee the notes !" the historical sketch. 16 MYTHS OE THE CHEROKEE [bth.ahh.19 medium of coi unication among all the tribes of the < rulf states, as fax north as the mouth of the < >hio (2). Within iliis area many of the tribes were commonly known under Choctaw names, even though <>t' widerj differing Linguistic stocks, ami if such a name existed for the Cherokee it must undoubtedly have been communicated to the first Spanish explorers by I >e Soto's interpreters. This theory is borne out by their Iroquois (Mohawk) name, Oyata'geronon', as given by Hewitt, signifying "inhabitants of the cave country," the Allegheny region being peculiarly a cave country, in which "rock shelters," con- taining numerous traces of Indian occupancy, are of frequent occur- rence. Their Catawba name also. Manteran, as given by Gatschet, signifying "coming out of the ground," seems to contain the same reference. Adair's attempt to connect the name Cherokee with their word for &re,atsila, is an error founded upon imperfect knowledge of the Language. Among other synonyms for the tribe are Rickahockan, or Recna- hecrian, the ancient Powhatan name, and Tallige', or Tallige'wi, the ancient name used in the Walam Olum chronicle of the' Lenape'. Con- cerning both the application and the etymology of this last name there has been much dispute, but there seems no reasonable doubt as to the identity of the people. Linguistically the Cherokee belong to the Iroquoian stock, the relationship having been suspected by Barton over a century ago, and by Gallatin and Hale at a later period, and definitely established by Hewitt in 1887. ] While there can now be no question of the connec- tion, the marked lexical and grammatical differences indicate that the separation must have occurred at a very early period. As is usually the case with a large tribe occupying an extensive territory, the lan- guage is spoken in several dialects, the principal of which may. for want of other names, be conveniently designated as the Eastern. Middle, and Western. Adair's classification into "Aviate" (.'/// the firsl account, the Delawares, advancing from the west, found their further progress opposed by a powerful people called Alligewi or Tal- ligcw i. occupying the country upon a river which Heckewelder thinks identical with the Mississippi, but which the sequel shows was more probably the upper Ohio. They wen' said to have regularly built earthen fortifications, in which they defended themselves so well that at la-t the Delawares were obliged to seek the assistance of the "Mengwe,"or Iroquois, with the result that aftera warfare extending over many years the Alligewi finally received a crushing defeat, the survivors fleeing down the river and abandoning the country to the invaders, who thereupon parceled it out amongst themselves, the ■* Mengwe" choosing the portion a I unit the I rreal lakes while the Dela- wares took possession of that to the south and cast. The missionary adds that the Allegheny (and Ohio) river was still called by the Dela- wares the Alligewi Sipu, or river of the Alligewi. This would seem to indicate it as the true river of the tradition. He speaks also of remarkable earthworks seen by him in 1 7^'-» in the neighborhood of Lake Erie, which were said by the Indians to have been built by the extirpated tribe as defensive fortifications in the course < if this war. Near two of these, in the vicinity of Sandusky, he was shown mounds under which it was said some hundreds of the slain Talligewi were buried. 1 As is usual in such traditions, the Alligewi were said to have been of gianl stature, far exceeding their conquerors in size. In the Walam Olum. which is. it is asserted, a metrical translation of an ancient hieroglyphic bark record discovered in L820, the main tra- dition is given in practically the same way. with an appendix which follows the fortunes of the defeated tribe up to the beginning of the historic period, thus completing the chain of evidence. (."■) In the Walam Olum also we find the Delawares advancing from the wesl or northwest until they come to "Fish river"'— the same which Heckewelder make- the Mississippi (6). On the other side, we are told. •■The Talligewi possessed the East." The Delaware chief '•desired the eastern land," and some of his ] pie go on. hut are killed by the Talligewi. The Delawares decide upon war and call in the help of their northern friends, the "Talamatan," i. e., the Wyan- dot and other allied Iroquoian tribes. A war ensues which continues through the terms of four successive chiefs, when victory declares for the invaders, and " all the Talega go south." The country is then divided, the Talamatan taking- the northern portion, while the Delawares "-ta\ south of the lakes." The chronicle proceeds to tell how. after eleven more chiefs have ruled, the Nanticokeand Shawano separate from the ■ Heckewelder, John, Indian Nations of Pennsylvania, pp. 17-49, oil. 1^76. mooney] DELAWARE TRADITIONS THE NAME TALLIGEWI 1 ',» parent tribe and remove to the south. Six other chiefs follow in suc- cession until we come to the seventh, who "went to theTalega moun- tains." By this time the Delawares have reached the ocean. Other chiefs succeed, after whom "the Easterners and the Wolves" prob- ably the Mahican or Wappinger and the Munsee — move off to the northeast. At last, after six more chiefs, "the whites came on the eastern sea." by which is probably meant the landing- of the Dutch on .Manhattan in 1609 (7). We may consider this a tally date, approxi- mating the beginning of the seventeenth century. Two more chiefs rule, and of the second we are told that "He fought at the south: he fought in the land of theTalega and Koweta," and again the fourth chief after the coming of the whites "went to the Talega." We have* thus a traditional record of a war of conquest carried on against the Talligewi by four successive chiefs, and a succession of about twenty- five chiefs between the final expulsion of that tribe and the appearance of the whites, in which interval the Nantieoke, Shawano. .Mahican. and Munsee branched oil' from the parent tribe of the Delawares. Without venturing to entangle ourselves in the devious maze of Indian chronology, it is sufficient to note that all this implies a very long period of timt — so long, in fact, that during it several new tribes, each of which in time developed a distinct dialect, branch off from the main Lenape' stem. It is distinctly stated that all the Talega went south after their final defeat: and from later references we rind that they took refuge in the mountain country in the neighborhood of the Koweta (the Creeks), and that Delaware war parties were still making raids upon both these tribes long after the first appearance of the whites. Although at first glance it might be thought that the name Tallige-wi is but a corruption of Tsalagi, a closer study leads to the opinion that it is a true Delaware word, in all probability connected with iruhJ, or walok, signifying a cave or hole (Zeisberger), whence we rind in the Walani Olum the word oligonunk rendered as "at the place of caves." It would thus be an exact Delaware rendering of the same name, "people of the cave country." by which, as we have seen, the Chero- kee were commonly known among the tribes. Whatever may be the origin of the name itself, there can be no reasonable doubt as to it~ application. "Name, location, and legends combine to identify the Cherokees or Tsalaki with the Tallike: and this is as much evidence as we can expect to produce in such researches." 1 The Wyandot confirm the Delaware story and fix the identification of the expelled tribe. According to their tradition, as narrated in 1802, the ancient fortifications in the Ohio valley had been erected in the course of a long war between themselves and tin 'Cherokee, which resulted finally in the defeat of the latter. ' The traditions of the Cherokee, so far as they have been preserved, 'Brinton. D.G., Walani Olum, p. 231; Phila., 1885. 2 Schoolcraft, H. E., Notes on the Iroquois, p. 162; Albany.1847. 20 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ahij.19 supplement and corroborate those of the northern tribes, thus bring- ing the storj down to their final settlement upon the headwaters of the Tennessee in the rich valleys of the southern Aileghenies. < >wing to the Cherokee predilection for new gods, contrasting strongly with tin conservatism of the Iroquois, their ritual forms and national epics had fallen into decay even before tin' Revolution, a- we learn from Adair. Some vestiges of their migration legend still existed in Hay- wood's time, but it is now completely Forgotten both in the East ami in the West. According' to Haywood, who wrote in 1823 on information obtained directly from leading members of the tribe long before the Removal, the Cherokee formerly had alone- migration lee-end. which was already lost, hut which, within the memory of the mother of one informant say about L750 was still recited by chosen orators on the occasion of the annual green-corn dance. This migration lee-end appears to have resembled that of the Delawares and the Creeks in beginning with genesis ami the period of animal monsters, and thence following the shifting fortune of the chosen hand to the historic period. The tradi- tion recited that they had originated in a land toward the rising sun. where they had been placed by the command of ••the four councils sent from above." In this pristine home were great snakes and water monsters, for which reason it was supposed to have been near the sea coast, although the assumption is not a necessary corollary, as these are a feature of the mythology of all the eastern tribes. After this genesis period there began a slow migration, during which "towns of people in many nights* encampment removed," but no details are given. From Heckewelder it appears that the expression, "a night's encamp- ment." which occurs also in the Delaware migration legend, is an Indian figure of speech for a halt of one year at a place. 1 In another place Haywood says, although apparently confusing the chronologic order of events: ■"One tradition which they have amongst them says they came from the west ami exterminated the former inhabitants; and then says they came from the upper parts of the Ohio, where they erected the mounds on Crave creek, and that they removed thither from the country where Monticello (near Charlottes- ville. Virginia) is situated." 8 The first reference is to the celebrated mounds on the ( )hio near Moundsville, below Wheeling. West Virginia; the other is doubtless to a noted burial mound described by Jefferson in 17sl as then existing near his home, on the low groundsof Kivanua river opposite the site of an ancient Indian town. He himself had opened it and found it to contain perhaps a thousand disjointed skeletons of hoth adults and children, the bones piled in successive layers, those near the to]) being least decayed. They showed no signs Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 17. ed. isti'.. 2 Haywood, John, Natural and Aboriginal History of Tenn pp H5-226; Nashville, 1823. mooney] EARLY DVVKLLING-PLACES 21 of violence, but were evidently the accumulation of long years from the neighboring Indian town. The distinguished writer adds: "But on whatever occasion they may have been made, they are of consider- able notoriety among the Indians: for a party passing, about thirty years ago [i. e., about L750], through the part of the country where this barrow is. went through the woods directly to it without any instructions or enquiry, and having staid about it some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey." 1 Although the tribe is not named, the Indians were probably Cherokee, as no other southern Indians were then accustomed to range in that section. As serving to corroborate this opinion we have the statement of a prominent Cher- okee chief, given to Schoolcraft in 1846, that acccording to their tradi- tion his people had formerly lived at the Peaks of Otter, in Virginia, a noted landmark of the Blue ridge, near the point where Staunton river breaks through the mountains. 2 From a candid sifting of the evidence Haywood concludes that the authors of the most ancient remains in Tennessee had spread over that region from the south and southwest at a very early period, hut that the later occupants, the Cherokee, had entered it from the north and northeast in comparatively recent times, overrunning and exterminat- ing the aborigines. He declares that the historical fact seems to be established that the Cherokee entered the country from Virginia, mak- ing temporary settlements upon New river and the upper Holston, until, under the continued hostile pressure from the north, they were again forced to remove farther to the south, fixing themselves upon the Little Tennessee, in what afterward became known asthe middle towns. By a leading mixed blood of the tribe he was informed that they had made their first settlements within their modern home territory upon Nolichucky river, and that, having lived the-re for a long period, they could give no definite account of an earlier location. Echota, their capital and peace town, "claimed to be the eldest brother in the nation," and the claim was generally acknowledged. In confirmation of the statement as to an early occupancy of the upper Holston region, it may he noted that " Watauga* )ld Fields," now Elizabeth town, were so called from the fact that when the first white settlement within the present state of Tennessee was begun there, so early as 1769, the bottom lands were found to contain graves and other numerous ancient remains of a former Indian town which tradition ascribed to the Cherokee, whose nearest settlements were then many miles to the southward. While the Cherokee claimed to have built the mounds on the upper i Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on Virginia, pp.136-137; ed. Boston, 1802. 2 Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, p. 163, i s i7. •■> Haywood, Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennesstv, w _'.;.;. j.:i,. ■_■.;■•. !-._■ .: 22 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.asjj.19 Ohio, the j yet, according to Haywood, expressly disclaimed the author- ship of the very numerous mounds and petroglyphs in their later home territory, asserting that these ancient works had exhibited the same appearance when they themselves had first occupied the region. 1 This accords with Bartram's statement that the Cherokee, although some- times utilizing the mounds as sites for their own town houses, were a- ignoranl as the whites of their origin or purpose, having only a gen era! tradition that their forefathers had found them in much the same condition on first coming into the country. 8 Although, as has been noted. Haywood expresses the opinion that the invading Cherokee had overrun and exterminated the earlier inhabitants, lie says in another place, on halfbreed authority, that the newcomers found no Indians upon the waters of the Tennessee, with the exception of some Creeks living upon that river, near the mouth of the Hiwassee, the main body of that tribe being established up md claiming all the streams to the southward. 3 There is considerable evidence that the Creek- preceded the Cherokee, and within the last century they still claimed the Tennessee, or at least the Tennessee watershed, for their northern boundary. There is a dim bul persistent tradition of a strange white race pre- ceding the ( 'herokee. .-onie of the Molic- e\ ell going SO far as to locate their former settlements and to identify them as the authors of the ancient works found in the country. The earliest reference appeal's to he that of Barton in 1797, on the statement of a gentleman whom he quotes as a valuable authority upon the southern tribes. "The Cheerake tell us, that when they first arrived in the country which they inhabit, they found it possessed by certain •moon-eyed people,' who could not see in the day-time. These wretches they expelled." He seems to consider them an albino race.' Haywood, twenty-six years later, says that the invading Cherokee found "white people" near the head of the Little Tennessee, with forts extending thence down the Tennessee as far as Chickamauga creek. He gives the location of three of these forts. The Cherokee made war against them and drove them to the mouth of Big Chickamauga creek, when' they entered into a treaty and agreed to remove if permitted to depart in peace. Permission being granted, they abandoned the country. Else- where he speaks of this extirpated white race as having extended into Llentucky and probably also into western Tennessee, according to the concurrent traditions of different tribes. He desci'ibes their houses. on wdiat authority is not stated, as having been small circular structures i Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tennessee, pp. 226, 284, 1828. SBartram.Wm., Travels, p. 365; reprint, London, L792. ••Hiiyw 1. op. Cit, pp. 23 i 'Barton, New Views,p. sliv, 17'JT. mooney] THE DE SOTO EXPEDITION — 1540 '23 of upright logs, covered with earth which had been dug out from the inside. 1 Harry Smith, a halfhreed born about 1815, father of the late chief of the East Cherokee, informed the author that when a boy he had been told by an old woman a tradition of a race of very small people, perfectly white, who once came and lived for some time on the site of the ancient mound on the northern side of Hiwassee, at the mouth of Peachtree creek, a few miles above the present Murphy, North Caro- lina. They afterward removed to the West. Colonel Thomas, the white chief of the East Cherokee, horn about the beginning of the century, had also heard a tradition of another race of people, who lived on Hiwassee. opposite the present Murphy, and warned the Cherokee that they must not attempt to cross over to the south side of the river or the great leech in the water would swallow them. 2 They finally went west, •"long before the whites came" The two stories are plainly the same, although told independently and many miles apart. The Period of Spanish Exploration — 1540-1 The definite history of the Cherokee begins with the year 1540, at which date we find them already established, where they were always afterward known, in the mountains of Carolina and Georgia. The earliest Spanish adventurers failed to penetrate so far into the intf rior, and the first entry into their country was made by De Soto, advancing up the Savannah on his fruitless quest for gold, in May of that year. While at Cofitachiqui. an important Indian town on the lower Savannah governed by a " queen," the Spaniards had found hatchets and other objects of copper, some of which was of finer color and appeared to be mixed with gold, although they had no means of testing it. 3 On inquiry they were told that the metal had come from an interior mountain province called Chisca, hut the country was represented as thinly peopled and the way as impassable for horses. Some time before, while advancing through eastern Georgia, they had heard also of a rich and plentiful province called Coca, toward the northwest, and by the people of Cofitachiqui they were now told that Chiaha, the nearest town of Coca province, was twelve days inland. As both men and animals were already nearly exhausted from hunger and hard travel, and the Indians either could not or would not furnish sufficient pro- vision for their needs, De Soto determined not to attempt the passage of the mountains then, but to push on at once to Coca, there to rest and recuperate before undertaking further exploration. In the mean- i Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tennessee, pp. 166, 234-235, 287-289, 1823. See story, "The Great Leech of Tlanusi'yl, " p 328. ^Garcilasodela Vega, La Florida del Inea, pp. 129, 133-134; Madrid, 1723. -1 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 time he hoped :i 1 — < > to obtain inure definite information concerning the mines. As the chief puipose of the expedition was the discovery of the mines, many of the officers regarded tin- change of plan a- a mistake, and favored staying where they were until the ae\i crop should !><■ ripened, then to go directly into the mountains, but as the general was "a stern man and of few words," none ventured to oppose his resolution. 1 The province of ( loca was the territory of the ( !reek Indians, called Ani'-Kusa by the < Iherokee, from EZusa, or < !oosa, their ancienl capital, while Chiaha was identical with Chehaw, 01 f the principal Creek towns on Chattahoochee river. Cofitachiqui may have Keen the capital of the LTchee Indians. The outrageous conduct of the Spaniards had bo angered the Indian queen thai she now refused i<> furnish guides and carriers, whereupon l>e Sot<> made her a prisoner, with the design of compelling her to act as guide herself, and at the same time to use her as a hostage to com- mand the obedience pf her subjects, instead, however, of ( lucting the Spaniards by the direct trail toward the west, she led them far out Hi' their course until she finally managed to make her escape, leaving them to find their way out of the mountain.-- as best they could. Departing from Cofitachiqui, they turned tirst toward the north, passing through several towns subject to the queen, to whom, although a pris r. the Indians everywhere showed great respect and obe- dience, furnishing whatever assistance the Spaniards compelled her to demand for their own purposes. In a few day- they came to "a province called Chalaque," the territory of the Cherokee Indians. probably upon the waters of Keowee river, the eastern head-stream of the Savannah. It is described as the poorest country for corn that they had yet seen, the inhabitants subsisting on wild root- and herbs and on game which they killed with bows and arrows. They were naked, lean, and unwarlike. The country abounded in wild turkeys ("gallinas"), which the people gave very freely to the strangers, one town presenting them with seven hundred. A chief also gave De Soto two deerskins a- a great present.' Garcilaso, writ- ing on the authority of an old soldier nearly fifty years afterward, says that the "Chalaques" deserted their towns on the approach of the white men and lied to the mountains, leaving behind only old men and women and some who were nearly blind. 3 Although it was too early for the new crop, the poverty of the people may have been more apparent than real, due to their unwillingness to give any part of their stored-up provision to the unwelcome strangers. As the Spaniards were greatly in need of. corn for themselves ami their horses, they made no stay, hut hurried on. In a few days they arrived Gentleman of Blvos, Publications of the Hakluyl Society, lx, pp. 52, 58, 64; London ;^">1 p mi. •Garcilaso, La Florida del Enca, p. 136, ed moosey] THE DE SOTO EXPEDITION 1540 25 at Guaquili, which is mentioned only by Ranjel, who does not specify whether it was a town or a province— i. e., a tribal territory. It was probably a small town. Here they were welcomed in a friendly man- ner, the Indians giving them a little corn and many wild turkeys, together with some dogs of a peculiar small species, which were bred for eating purposes and did not bark. 1 They were also supplied with men to help carry the baggage. The name Guaquili has a Cherokee sound and may be connected with wa'guli', "whipj rwill," uicd'gili, " f oam," or gill, "dog." 1/ Traveling still toward the north, they arrived a day or two later in the province of Xuala, in which we recognize the territory of the Suwali, Sara, or Cheraw Indians, in the piedmont region about the head of Broad river in North Carolina. Garcilaso, who did not sec it. represents it as a rich country, while the Elvas narrative and Biedma agree that it was a rough, broken country, thinly inhabited and poor in provision. According to Garcilaso, it was under the rule of the queen of Cofitachiqui, although a distinct province in itself. 2 The principal town was beside a small rapid stream, (lose under a moun- tain. The chief received them in friendly fashion. giving them corn, dogs of the small breed already mentioned, carrying baskets, and bur- den bearers. The country roundabout showed greater indication- of gold mines than any they had yet seen. 1 Here De Soto turned to the west, crossing a very high mountain ranee, which appears to have been the Blue ridge, and descending on 'tin' other side to a stream flowing in the opposite direction, which was probably one id' the upper tributaries of the French Broad. 3 Although it was late in May, they found it very cold in the moun- tains.* After several days of such travel they arrived, about the end of the month, at the town of Guasili, or Guaxule. The chief and principal men came out some distance to welcome them, dressed in tine robes of skins, with feather head-dresses, after the fashion of the country. Before reaching this point the queen had managed to make her escape, together with three slaves of the Spaniards, and the last that was heard of her was that she was on her way back to her own country with one of the runaways as her husband. What grieved De Soto most in the matter was that she took with her a small box of pearls, which he had intended to take.from her before releasing her. but had left with her for the present in order •"not to discontent hei- altogether." Guaxule is described as a very large town surrounded by a number of small mountain streams which united to form the large river down which the Spaniard- proceeded after leaving the place. 6 Here, as 'Ranjel, in Oviedo, Historia Genera] y Natural de his Indias, i. p. 562; Madrid, 1851. 'Garcilaso, La Florida del Inca,p.l37, ITi':-;. 'Ranjel, "p. 'it., i. p. 562. Sei note 8, De Soto's route ■ Elvas, Hakluyt Society, ix. p. 61, 1851. o Garcilaso, op. cit., p. 139. 26 KYTH8 OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 elsewhere, the Indians received the white men with kindness and hos- pitality -ii much so thai the nan E Guaxule became to the army a synonym for good fortune. 1 Among other things they gave the Span- iards 3 logs for f I, although, according to the Elvas narrative, the Indian- themselves did qoI ea< them. 8 The principal officers of the expedition were lodged in the "chief's house," bj which we are to understand the townhouse, which was upon a high hill with a roadway to the top. 3 From a close study of the narrative it appears that this "hill" was ther than the greal Nacoochee mound, in White county, Georgia, a few miles northwest of the present Clarkesville.' It was within the Cherokee territory, and the town was probably a settlement of thai tribe. From here De Soto senl runners ahead to notify the chief of ( !hiaha of his approach, in order that sufficienl corn might he ready mi his arrival. Leaving < ruaxule, they proceeded down the river, w hich we identify with the Chattahoochee, and in two days arrived at Canasoga, or Cana- sagua, a frontier town of the Cherokee. As they neared the town the\ were met i>\ the Indians, bearing baskets of "mulberries," 5 more probably the delicious service-berry of the southern mountains, which ripens in early summer, while the mulberry matures later. From here they continued down the river, which grew constantly larger, through an uninhabited country which formed the disputed territory between the Cherokee and the Creeks. About five days after leaving Canasagua they were met by messengers, who escorted them to ( 'hiaha. the first town of the province of Coca. De Soto had crossed the state of Georgia, leaving the Cherokee country behind him. ami was now an lone- the Lower ( 'reeks, in the neighborhood of the present Columbus, Georgia. 6 With his subsequent wanderings after crossing the Chattahoochee into Alabama and beyond we need not concern ourselves (8). While resting at Chiaha De Soto met with a chief who confirmed what the Spaniards had heard before concerning mines in theproi ince of Chisca, saying that there was there "a melting of copper"and of another metal of about the same color, but softer, ami therefore not -o much used. 7 The province was northward from Chiaha. soinew here in upper Georgia or the adjacent part of Alabama or Tennessee, through all of which mountain region native copper is found. The other mineral, which the Spaniards understood to he gold, may have been iron pyrites, although there is some evidence that the Indians occa- sionally found and shaped gold nuggets.' i:.m |el, in i n Ledo, Hlstoria, [, p.563, 18 >1. 'Elvas, Biedma and Ranjel all make special reference to the dogs given them al this place; they seem to have been of the same small breed ["perrillos' which Ranjel says the Indians used foi I. sGarcilaso, La Florida del tnca, p. 139, 1728. 'See note 8, De Soto's in-. Hakluyt Society, ix. p. 61,1861; and Ranjel.op cit.,p ••■ route. 'Elvas, op. cit., p.64. mooxev] PARDO'S EXPEDITIONS — 1566-67 27 Accordingly two soldiers were sent on foot with Indian guides to find Chisca ;mi hospitality from the Creek chief s. This second fort was said to he one hundred and fortj leagues distant from that in the Sara country, which latter was called one hundred and twenty Leagues fr Santa Ciena. 3 In the summer of 1567, according to previous agreement, Captain Pardo left the fort at Santa Elena with a -mall detachment of troops, and after a week's travel, sleeping each night at a different Indian town, arrived at "Canos, which the Indian- call ( 'anosi. and by another name, Cofetacque" (the Cofitachiqui of the De Soto chronicle), which is described as situated in a favorable location for a large city. fifty leagues from Santa Elena, to which tl asiest road was by a river (the Savannah) which flowed by the town, or by another which they had passed ten Leagues farther back. Proceeding, they passed Jagaya, Gueza, and Arauchi, and arrived at Otariyatiqui, or Otari, in which we- have perhaps the Cherokee d'tdri or d'tdli, "mountain". It may have been a frontier Cherokee settlement, and. according to the old chronicler, its chief and Language ruled much good country. From here a trail went northward to Cuatari. Sauxpa. and L'si. i. e., the Wateree, Waxhaw (or Sissipahaw 'i. and l-'nerv or Catawba. Leaving Otariyatiqui, they went on to Quinahaqui, and then, turn ing to the Left, to [ssa, where they found mines of crystal (mica;). Thev came nexl to Ae'uai'lliri (the Gruaquili of the De Solo chronicle). and then to Joara, "near to the mountain, where Juan Pardo arrived i Narrative of Panto's expedition by Martinez, about IS68, Uruuks manuscripts. mooney] SPANISH MINING OPERATION'S 29 with his sergeant on his first trip." This, us has been noted, was the Xuala of the De Soto chronicle, the territory of the Sara Indians, in the foothills of the Blue ridge, southeast from the present Asheville, North Carolina. Vandera makes it one hundred leagues from Santa Elena, while Martinez, already quoted, makes the distance one hundred and twenty leagues. The difference is not important, as both state- ments were only estimates. From there they followed "along the mountains" to Tocax (Toxaway?), Cauchi (Nacoochee?), and Tanas- qui — apparently Cherokee towns, although the forms can not be iden- tified — and after resting three days at the last-named place went on "to Solameco, otherwise called Chiaha." where the sergeant met them. The combined forces afterward went on, through Cpssa (Kusa), Tas- quiqui (Taskigi). and other Creek towns, as far as Tascaluza, in the Alabama country, and returned thence to Santa Elena, having appar- ently met with a friendly reception everywhere along the route. From Cofitachiqui to Tascaluza they went over about the same road traversed by De Soto in 1540. " We come now to a great gap of nearly a century. Shea has a notice of a Spanish mission founded among the Cherokee in 1643 and still flourishing when visited by an English traveler ten years later.' but as his information is derived entirely from the fraudulent work of Davies, and as no such mission is mentioned by Barcia in any of these years, we may regard the story as spurious (10). The first mission work in the tribe appears to have been that of Priber, almost a hundred years later. Long before the end of the sixteenth century, however, the existence of mines of gold and other metals in the Cherokee country was a matter of common knowledge among the Spaniards at St. Augus- tine and Santa Elena, and more than one expedition had been fitted out to explore the interior. ' Numerous traces of ancient mining opera- tions, with remains of old shafts and fortifications, evidently of Euro- pean origin, show that these 'discoveries were followed up, although the policy of Spain concealed the fact from the outside world. How much permanent impression this early Spanish intercourse made on the Cherokee il is impossible to estimate, but it must have been considerable (11). , The Colonial and Revolutionary Period— i»>;>-L-1784 It was not until 1654 that the English first came into contact with the Cherokee, called in the records of the period Rechahecrians, a cor- ruption of Rickahockan, apparently the name by which they were known to the Powhatan tribes. In that year the Virginia colony, which had only recently concluded a long and exterminating war with the Powhatan, was thrown into alarm by the news that a great body of 1 Vandera narrative, 1569, in French, B. F., Hist. Colls. of La., new series pp. I'sy-^L'; New York, 1875. 2 Shea, J. G., Catholic Missions, p. 72; New York, 1855. 3 See Brooks manuscripts, in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology. •"•n MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.akn.U six or seven hundred Rechabecrian [ndians — by which is probably meant thai number of warriors from the mountains had invaded the lower country and established themselves at the falls of James river, where now is the city of Richmond. The assembly at once passed resolutions "thai these new come Indians be in no sort suffered to seal themselves there, or any place near us. it having cost so much blood to expel and extirpate those perfidious and treacherous Indians which were there formerly." It was therefore ordered that a force of at least 100 white men be at once senl against them, to be joined by the war- riors of all the neighboring subject tribes, according to treaty obliga- tion. The Pamunkey chief , with a hundred of his men. responded to the summons, and the combined force marched againsl the invaders. The result was a bloody battle, with disastrous outcome to the Vir- ginians, the Pamunkey chief with most ,,f hi- men being killed, while the whites were forced to make such terms of peace with the Recha- hecrians that the assembly cashiered the commander of the expedition and compelled him to pav the whole cost of the treatj from his own estate. 1 Owing to the imperfection of the Virginia records we have no means of knowing the causes >d' tin' sudden invasion or how long the invaders retained their position at the falls. In all probability it was only the last of a long series of otherwise unrecorded irruptions by the mountaineers on the more peaceful dwellers in the lowlands. From a remark in Ledererit is probable that the Cherokee were assisted also by some of the piedmont tribes hostile to the Powhatan. The Peaks of Otter, near which the Cherokee claim to have once lived, as has been already noted, are only about one hundred miles in a straight line from Richmond, while the burial mound and town site near Charlottesville, mentioned by Jefferson, are but half that distance. In L655 a Virginia expedition sent out from the falls of James river (Richmond) crossed over the mountains to the large streams flowing into the Mississippi. No details are given and the route is uncertain, hut whether or not they met Indians, they must have passed through Cherokee territory. 2 In L670 the German traveler. John Lederer, went from the falls of .lames river to the Catawba country in South Carolina, following for most of the distance the path used by the Virginia traders, who already had regular dealings with the southern tribes, including probably the Cherokee, lie speaks in several places of the Riekahoekan, which seems to he a re correct form than Rechahecrian. and his narrative and the accompanying map put them in the mountains of North Caro- lina, back of the Catawba and the Sara and southward from the head of Roanoke river. They were apparently on hostile terms with the tribes to the eastward, and while the traveler was stopping at an Indian i Burk, John, History of Virginia, n. pp 104-107; Petersburg, 1805. s Ramsey, J. G. M., Annals oi Tennessee, i». 87; Charleston, 1853 (quoting Man in, North euro] in a. r, p. 115, lv..;,. mooney] FIRST TREATY WITH SOUTH CAROLINA 1684 31 village on Dan river, about the present Clarksville, Virginia, a delega- tion of Rickahockan, which had come on tribal business, was barba- rously murdered at a dance prepared on the night of their arrival by their treacherous hosts. On reaching the Catawba country he heard of white men to the southward, and incidentally mentions that the neighboring mountains were called the Suala mountains by the Span- iards. 1 In the next year. 1671, a party from Virginia under Thomas Batts explored the northern branch of Roanoke river and crossed over the Blue ridge to the headwaters of New river, where they found trace- of occupancy, but do Indians. By this time all the tribes of this section, east of the mountains, were in possession of firearms. 2 The first permanent English settlement in South Carolina was estab- lished in L670. In L690 .lames Moore, secretary of the colony, made an exploring expedition into the mountains and reached a point at which, according to his Indian guides, he was within twenty miles of where the Spaniards were engaged in mining and smelting with bel- lows and furnaces, but on account of some misunderstanding he returned without visiting the place, although he procured specimens of ores, which he sent to England for assay. 3 It may have been in the neighborhood of the presenl Lincolnton, North Carolina, where a dam of cut stone and other remains of former civilized occupancy have recently been discovered (11). In this year. also. ( 'ornelius Dougherty', an Irishman from Virginia, established himself as the first trader among the Cherokee, with whom he spent the rest of his life.' Some of his descendants still occupy honored positions in the tribe. Among the manuscript archives of South Carolina there was said to be, some fifty years ago, a treaty or agreement made with the govern- ment of that colony by the Cherokee in L684, and signed with the hieroglyphics of eight chiefs of the lower towns, viz. Corani. the Raven (Ka'lanii): Sinnawa, the Hawk (Tla'nuwa); Nellawgitehi, Gor- haleke. and Owasta, all of Toxawa; and Canacaught, the great Con- juror, Gohoma, and Caunasaita, of Keowa. If still in existence, this is probably the oldest Cherokee treaty on record.'' What seems to be the next mention of the Cherokee in the South Carolina records occurs in L691, when we find an inquiry ordered in regard to a report that some of the colonists "have, without any proc- lamation of war. fallen upon and murdered" several of that tribe. 6 In 1693 some Cherokee chiefs went to Charleston with presents for the governor and offers of friendship, to ask the protection of South Carolina against their enemies, the Esaw (Catawba). Savanna (Shawano). 'Lederer, John, Discoveries, pp. 15, 26, 27, 29, 33, and map: reprint. Charleston, 1891; Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East (bulletin of Bureau of Ethnology i. pp. 53-54, 1894. -Mooney. op.cit., pp. 34-35. ^Document of 1699, quoted in South Carolina Hist. Soc. Colls., i, p. 209: Charleston. 1857. * Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tennessee, p. 233, 1823. 5 Noted in Cherokee Advocate, Tahlequah, Indian Territory. January SO, 1845. 6 Document of 1691. South Carolina Hist. Soc. Colls., I, p. 126. 1/ 32 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE isw.U and Congaree, all of thai colony, who bad made war upon them and sold a number of their tribesmen into slavery. They were told that their kinsmen could not n<>\\ be recovered, bul that the English desired friendship with their tribe, and thai the Government would see that there would be no future ground for such complaint.' The promise was apparently not kept, for in L705 we find a bitter accusation brought against Governor Moore, of South Carolina, that he had granted com- missions to a number of persons "to set upon, assault, kill, destroy, ami take captive as many Indians as they possible [sic] could.'* the prisoners being sold into slavery for his and their private profit. By this course, it was asserted, he had •"already almost utterly ruined the trade for skins and furs, whereby we held our chief correspondence with England, and turned it into a trade of Indians or slave making, whereby the Indians to the south and west of us are alreadj involved in blood and confusion.'" The arraignment concludes with a warning that such conditions would in all probability draw down upon the colony an Indian war with all its dreadful consequences. 2 In view of what happened a few years later this reads like a prophecy. Aliout tin' year L700the first guns were introduced among the Cher- okee. th<' event being fixed traditionally as having occurred in the girl- hood of an old woman of the tribe who died aliout L775. s In 17ns we rind them described as a numerous people, living in the mountains northwest from the Charleston settlements and havingsixty towns, hut of small importance in the Indian trade, being "but ordinary hunters and less warriors."* In the war with the Tuscarora in 1711-171:'.. which resulted in the expulsion of that tribe from North Carolina, more than a thousand southern Indians reenforced the South Carolina volunteers, among them being over two hundred Cherokee, hereditary enemies of the Tuscarora. Although these Indian allies did their work well in the actual encounters, their assistance was of doubtful advantage, as they helped themselves freely to whatever they wanted alone' the way. so that the settlers had reason to fear them almost as much as the hostile Tuscarora. After torturing a large number of their prisoners in the usual savage fashion, they returned with the remainder, whom they afterward sold as slaves to South Carolina.' Having wiped out old scores with the Tuscarora. the late allies of the English proceeded to discuss their own grievances, which, as we have seen, were sufficiently galling. The result was a combination Hewat, s.iuili Carolina and Georgia, i. p. 127, 1778, s Documents of 1705, in North Carolina Colonial Records, n, p. 904; Raleigh. 1886 Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Tenn., p. 287,1823; with the usual idea thai Indians live to old age, Haywood makes hei LlOyearsold at her death, patting back the introduction of Srearms i . m hi Rivers, South Carolina p 288, 18 6, Royci Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau "f Etl logj . p. L40, L888; Hewat,op. cit.,p.216 et passim. > key] Mi mirk's EXPEDITION — 1715-16 33 against the whites, embracing all the tribes from Cape Fear to the Chattahoochee, including the Cherokee, who thus for the first time raised their hand against the English. The war opened with a terrible massacre by the Yamassee in April, 1715, followed by assaults along the whole frontier, until for a time it was seriously feared that the colony of South Carolina would lie wiped out of existence. In a contest between savagery and civilization, however, the final result is inevitable. The settlers at last rallied their whole force under Gov- ernor Craven and administered such a crushing blow to the Yamassee that the remnant abandoned their country and took refuge with the Spaniards in Florida or among the Lower Creeks. The English then made short work with the smaller tribes along the coast, while those in the interior were soon glad to sue for peace. 1 A number of Cherokee chiefs having come down to Charleston in company with a trader to express their desire for peace, a force of several hundred white troops and a number of negroes under Colonel Maurice Moore went up the Savannah in the winter of 1715-16 and made headquarters among the Lower Cherokee, where they were met by the chiefs of the Lower and some of the western towns, who reaffirmed their desire for a lasting peace with the English, but refused to fight against the Yamassee, although willing to proceed against some other tribes. They laid the blame for most of the trouble upon the traders, who "had been very abuseful to them of late." A detachment under Colonel George Chicken, sent to the Upper Cherokee, penetrated to " Quoneashee " (Tlanusi'yi. on Hiwassee, about the present. Murphy) where they found the chiefs more defiant, resolved to continue the war against the ('reeks, with whom the Eng- lish were then trying to make peace, and demanding large supplies of guns and ammunition, saying that if they made a peace with the other tribes they would have no means of getting slaves with which to buy ammunition for themselves. At this time they claimed 2,370 war- riors, of whom half were believed to have guns. As the strength of the whole Nation was much greater, this estimate may have been for the Upper and Middle Cherokee only. After "abundance of per- suading" by tin- officers, they finally '"told us they would trust us once again," and an arrangement was made to furnish them two hun- dred guns with a supply of ammunition, together with fifty white soldiers, to assist them against the tribes with which the English were, still at war. In March, 171(5. this force was increased by one hundred men. The detachment under Colonel Chicken returned by way of the towns on the upper part of the Little Tennessee, thus penetrating the heart of the Cherokee country. ' iHewat, South Carolina and Georgia, i, p. 216 et passim, 177s. 2 St*e Journal of Colonel 'irorv..' chicken. 1715-16, with notes, in Charleston Yearbook, pp 13-354 1S94. 19 ETH— 01 3 ■U MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE ink.19 Steps were now taken to secure peace bj inaugurating a satisfactory trade system, for which purpose a large quantity of suitable goods was purchased at the public expense of South Carolina, and a corre- spondingly large partj was equipped for the initial trip.' In L721, in order still more to systematize Indian affairs, Governor Nicholson of South Carolina invited the chiefs of the Cherokee t" a conference, al which thirty-seven towns were represented. A treat} was made |p\ which trading methods were regulated, a boundary line between their territory and the English settlements was agreed upon, and an agent was appointed to superintend their affairs-. At the governor's suggestion, one chief, called WrosetasatoM i W was formally commis- sioned as supreme head of the Nation, with authority to punish all offenses, including murder, and to represent all Cherokee claim- to the colonial government. Thus were the ( Jherokee reduced from their former condition of a free people, ranging where their pleasure led. to that of dependent vassals with hounds fixed by a colonial governor. The negotiations were accompanied l>y a cession of land, the tirst in the bistorj of the tribe. In little more than a century thereafter they had signed away their whole original territory. 3 The document of 1 71 ti already quoted puts the strength of the ( Jhero- kee at that time at 2,370 warriors, hut in this estimate the Lower Cherokee seem not to have been included. In 171-"'. according to a trade census compiled by Governor Johnson of South Carolina, the tribe bad thirty towns, with 4,000 warriors and a total population of ll.i'lo.' Another census in L721 gives them fifty-three towns with 3,510 warriors and a total of L0,379, 6 while the report of the hoard of trade for the same year e-ives them 3,800 warriors, 6 equivalent, by the same proportion, to nearly L2,000 total. Adair, a good authority on such matters, estimates, about the year L735, when the country was better known, that they had "sixty-four towns and villages, populous and full of children," with more than 6,000 fighting men. equivalent <>n the same basis of computation to between 1.6,000 and L7,000 souls. From what we know of them in later times, it is probable that this last estimate is very nearly correct. I>\ this time the colonial government had become alarmed at the advance of the French, who had made their first 'permanent establish- ment in the Gulf states at Biloxi hay. Mississippi, in L699, and in 1711 had built Fort Toulouse, known to the English as "the fort at ■ rolina Assembly, in North Carolina Colonial R ds, n, pp. 225-227, -' For liuiicr. Bee the glossan South Carolina i i, pp. 297-298, 1778; Royce, Cherokee Nation, in F .hi .ii Ethnology, p. 144 and map, 1888, Ro E "p. Hi., p. 1 12. Documenl of L724, in Fernow Berthold, Ohio Valley in Colonial liny-, pp. 278-275; Albao • Report of Board ot Trade, 1721, in North Carolina Colonial Rei ! 1886, • Adair, James, American Indians, p. JJ7. London, 177'. cuming's treaty — L730 35 the Alabamas," on Coosa river, a few miles above the present Mont- gomery, Alabama. From this central vantage point they had rapidly extended their influence among all the neighboring tribes until in 1721 it was estimated that 3,400 warriors who had formerly traded with Carolina had been ••entirely debauched to the French interest," while 2,000 more were wavering, and only the Cherokee could still be considered friendly to the English. 1 From this time until the final withdrawal of the French in IT*'.:; the explanation of our Indian wars is to be found in the struggle between the two nations for territorial and commercial supremacy, the Indian being simply the cat's-paw of one o]- the other. For reasons of their own. the Chickasaw, whose territory lay within the recognized limits of Louisiana, soon became the uncompromising enemies of the French, and as their position enabled them in a measure to control the approach from the Mississippi, the Carolina government saw to it that they were kept well supplied with guns and ammunition. British traders were in all their towns, and on one occasion a French force, advancing against a Chickasaw palisaded village, found it garrisoned by Englishmen flying the British flag. 2 The Cherokee, although nominally allies of the English, were strongly disposed to favor the French, and it required every effort of the Carolina government to hold them to their allegiance. In 1730, to further lix the Cherokee in the English interest, Sir Alexander Cuming was dispatched on a secret mission to that tribe, which was again smarting under grievances and almost ready to join witli the Creeks in an alliance with the French. Proceeding to the ancient town of Nequassee (Nikwasi', at the present Franklin, North Carolina), lie so impressed the chiefs by his bold bearing that they conceded without question all his demands, submitting themselves and their people for the second time to the English dominion and designating Moytoy, 3 of Tellico, to act as their "emperor" and to represent the Nation in all transactions with the whites. Seven chiefs were selected to visit England, where, in the palace at Whitehall, they solemnly renewed the treaty, acknowledging the sovereignty of England and binding themselves to have no trade or alliance with any other nation, not to allow any other white people to settle among thein. and to deliver up any fugitive slaves who might seek refuge with them. To confirm their words they delivered a "crown", five eagle-tails, and four scalps, which they had brought with them. In return they received the usual glittering promises of love and per- petual friendship, together with a substantial quantity of guns, ammu- nition, and red paint. The treaty being concluded in September, ''Board of Trade report, 1721. North Carolina Colonial Records, n, p. 422, 1886. spiekett.H. A., History of Alabama, pp. 234, 280, 288; reprint, Sheffield, 1896. 3 For notice, see the glossary. 36 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.ann.19 they took ship for Carolina, where they arrived, as we are told by (he governor, "in good health and mightily well satisfied with His Majestj '- bounty to them." ' In the next year some action was taken to use the Cherokee and Catawba to subdue the refractory remnant of the Tuscarora in North Carolina, but when it was found that this was liable t<> bring down the wrath of the Iroquois upon the Carolina settlements, more peaceable methods were used instead. ' In L738 or 17:;'.' the smallpox, brought to Carolina by slave ships, broke out among the ( Iherokee with such terrible effect that, according to Adair, nearly half the tribe was swept away within a year. The awful mortality was due largely to the fact that as it was a new and strange disease to the Indian- they had no proper remedies against it. and therefore resorted to the universal Indian panacea for "strong" sickness of almost any kind. viz. cold plunge baths in the running stream, the worst treatment that could possibly !»• devised. A> the pestilence spread unchecked from town to town, despair fell upon the nation. The priests, believing the visitation a penalty for violation of the ancient ordinances, threw away their sacred paraphernalia as things which had lost their protecting power. Hundreds of the warriors committed suicide on beholding their frightful disfigurement. "So shot themselves, others cut their throats, some stabbed themselves with knives and others with sharp-pointed canes: many threw them- sel\ es with sullen madness into the tire and there slowly expired, a- ii they hail been utterly divested of the native power of feeling pain." 3 Another authority estimates their loss at a thousand warriors, partly from smallpox and partly from rum brought in by the traders. 1 A 1 >■ nit the year L 740 a trading path for horsemen was marked out by the Cherokee from the new settlement of Augusta, in Georgia, to their towns on the headwaters of Savannah river and thence on to the west. This road, which went up the south side of the river, soon became much frequented.* Previous to this time most of the trading goods had been transported on the backs of Indians. In the same year a party of Cherokee under the war chief Ka'lanu. •"The Raven," took part in Oglethorpe's expedition against the Spaniards of Saint Augustine. In L736 Christian Priber, said to be a Jesuit acting in the French interest, had come among the ( iherokee, and. by the facility with which he learned the language and adapted himself to the native dress and 'Hewat, S Ii Carolina and Georgia, n,pp.S-ll, L779; treat; documei ' 1730, North Carolina Colonial Ri — Is, ru, pp. 128 L33 1886; lenkinson, Collection of Treaties, n, pp. 315-318; Drake, S.G.. Early History of Georgia: Cuming's Embassy; Boston, 1872; letter of Governor Johnson, Dei 1780. noted In South Carolina Hist Soc. Colls., i p. 246, 1857. a of 1781 and 1732, North Carolina Col I Records, III pp.153 \\ nonym for scholarship, devotion, and courage from the days of Jogues and Mar- quette down to De Smet ami Mengarini. 1 I'p to this time no civilizing or mission work had been undertaken by either of the Carolina governments among any of the tribes within their borders. As one writer of the period quaintly puts it. "The gospel spirit is not yet so gloriously arisen as to seek them more than theirs." while another in stronger terms affirms. "To the shame of can Indians, pp. 240-243, 1775; Stevens, W;B., History of Georgia, r, pp. 104-107; I'hiln., MYTHS 01 THE I HEROKEE inn.19 the Christian name, no pains have ever been taken to convert them to Christianity; on the contrary, their morals are perverted and cor rupted da the sad example they daily have of its depraved professors residing in their towns."' Readers of Lawson and other narratives of the period will feel the force of the rebuke. Throughout the eighteenth century the Cherokee were engaged in chronic warfare with their Indian neighbors. As these quarrels con- cerned thr whites but little, however UK mieiiti hi- they may have been to the principals, we have but few details. The war with the Tusca- rora continued until the outbreak of the latter tribe against Carolina in 171 1 gave opportunity to the Cherokee to cooperate in striking the blow which drove the Tuscarora from their ancient homes to seek refuge in the north. The Cherokee then turned their attention to the Shawano on the ( 'uniberland. and with the aid of the ( 'hiekasaw finally expelled theiu from that region about the year L715. Inroads upon the Catawba were probably kept up until the latter had become so far reduced by war and disease as to be mere dependent pensioners upon the whites. The former friendship with the Chickasaw was at last broken through the overbearing conduct of the Cherokee, and a war followed of which we find incidental notice in L757, 8 and which termi- nated in a decisive victory for the Chickasaw about L768. The bitter war with the Iroquois of the far north continued, in spite of all the efforts of the colonial governments, until a formal treaty of peace was brought about by the efforts of Sir William Johnson (12) in the same year. The hereditary war with the Creeks for possession id' upper Georgia continued, with brief intervals of peace, or even alliance, until the United States finally interfered as mediator between the rival claimants. In L718 we find notice of a large Cherokee war party moving against the Creek tow n of i loweta, on the lower ( lhattahoocbee, but dispersing on learning of the presence there of some French and Spanish officers, a- well a- some English traders, all bent on arranging an alliance with the Creeks. The Creeks themselves had declared their willingness to be :it peace with the English, while still determined to keep the bloody hatchet uplifted against the Cherokee. 3 The most important incident of the Struggle between the two tribes was probably the battle of Tali'wa about the year 1755. ' By this time the weaker coast tribes had become practically extinct. and the more powerful tribes of the interior were beginning to take the alarm, as they saw the restless borderers pushing every \ ear farther into the Indian country. As early as 174S Dr Thomas Walker, with a company of hunters and woodsmen from Virginia, crossed the moun- 1 Anonymous writer in Carroll, Hist. Colls. of South Carolina, a, pp 97-98, 517, Buckle, Journal, 1757, in Rivers, South Carolina, p.57, 1856. i Barcia, A. G-, Ensayo Cbronologico para la Historia General rti In Florida pp. ...;.. ..i- Madrid, 1728. ' For more mi regard to these intertribal wars see the historical traditions MOONEY] FRENCH AND INDIAN" W'aI! 1754-6] 39 tains to the southwest, discovering and naming the celebrated Cumber- land gap and passing on to the headwaters of Cumberland river. Two years later he made a second exploration and penetrated to Ken- tucky river, but on account of the Indian troubles no permanent settlement was then attempted." This invasion of their territory awakened a natural resentment of the native owners, and we rind proof also in the Virginia records that the irresponsible borderers seldom let pass an opportunity to kill and plunder any stray Indian found in their neighborhood. In 1755 the Cherokee were officially reported to number 2,590 war- riors, as against probably twice that number previous to the great smallpox epidemic sixteen years before. Their neighbors and ancient enemies, the Catawba, had dwindled to 240 men. 2 Although war was not formally declared by England until L756, hostilities in tiie seven year's struggle between France and England, commonly known in America as the " French and Indian war." began in April, 1754. when the French seized a small postwhich the English had begun at tile present site of Pittsburg, and which was afterward finished by the French under the name of Fort Du Quesne. Strenuous efforts were made by the English to secure the Cherokee to their interest against the French and their Indian allies, and treaties were negotiated by which they promised assistance. 3 As these treaties. however, carried the usual cessions of territory, and stipulated for the building of several forts in the heart of the Cherokee country, it is to be feared that the Indians were not duly impressed by tin disin- terested character of the proceeding. Their preference for the French was but thinly veiled, and only immediate policy prevented them from throwing their whole force into the scale on that side. The reasons for this preference are given by Timberlake, the young Virginian officer who visited the tribe on an embassy of conciliation a few years later: I found the nation much attached to the French, who have the prudence, by familiar politeness — which costs hut little ami often does a great deal — ami conform- ing themselves to their ways and temper, to conciliate the inclinations of almost all the Indians they are acquainted with, while the pride of our officers often disgusts them. Nay, they did net scruple to own to me that it was the trade alone that induced them to make peace with us, ami net any preference to the French, whom they loved a great deal better. . . . The English are now so nigh, and encroached daily so far upon them, that they u^t only felt the had effects of it ill their hunting grounds, which were spoiled, hut had all the reason in the world to apprehend being swallowed up by so potent neighbors or driven from the country inhabited by their fathers, in which they were horn ami brought up, in tine, their native soil, for which all men have a particular tenderness and affection. i Walker, Thomas, Journal of an Exploration, etc., pp. 8, 35-37; Boston, 1888; Monette the Me-, i. p. 317; New York. 1848 erroneously makes the second date L758. 2 Letter of Governor Dobbs, 1755, in North Carolina Colonial Records, v, pp. 320,321, 1887. 'Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 50-52 L8S Royce i herokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bur. of Eth- nology, ]'■ 145, i v ^s 40 MYTH- OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.akn.1S He adds that only dire necessity had induced them to make peace with the English in I 761.' In accordance with the treaty stipulations Fori Prince George was built in L756 adjoining the important Cherokee town of Keowee, on the headwaters of the Savannah, and Fort Loudon near the junction of Tellico river with the Little Tennessee, in the center of the Cherokee towns beyond the mountains. 2 By special arrangement with the influential chief, Ata-kullakulla (Ata'-uul'kaliV). Fort Dobbs was also built in the same year about -Jo mile- west of the present Salis- bury. North ( larolina. 4 The Cherokee had agreed to furnish four hundred warriors to cooperate against the French in the north, but before Fort Loudon had been completed it was very evident that they had repented of their promise, as their great council at Echota ordered the work stopped and the garrison on the wax to turn hack, plainly telling the officer in charge that they did not want so many white people among them. Ata-kullakulla, hitherto supposed to he one of the stanchest friendsof the English, was now one of the most determined in the oppo- sition. It was in evidence also that they were in constant communi- cation with the French. By much tact and argument their objec- tions were at last overcome for a time, and they very unwillingly set about raising the promised force of warriors. Major Andrew Lewi-, who superintended the building of the fort, became convinced that the Cherokee were really friendly to the French, and that all their professions of friendship and assistance were ■•only to put a gloss on their knavery." The fort was finally completed, and. on his suggestion, wag garrisoned with a strong force of two hundred men under Captain Demere\ 5 'There was strong ground for believing that some depreda- tions committed about this time on the heads of Catawba and Broad rivers, in North ( 'arolina. were the joint work id' ( 'herokee and northern Indians." Notwithstanding all this, a considerable body of Cherokee joined the British forces on the Virginia frontier. Fort I >u Quesne was taken by the American provincials under Wash- ington, November 25, 17-Vs. Quebec was taken September L3, 1759, and by the final treaty of peace in I 7b:! the war ended with the transfer of Canada and the Ohio valley to the crown of England. Louisiana had already been ceded by France to Spain. Although France was thus eliminated from the Indian problem, the 'Timberlake, Henry, Memeirs, pp. 7:;. 74; London, 1765 Ramsi i nm - p ■• 1853 Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rept. Bur. of Ethnology, p. 145, 1888. i ,,, notice - i \iv sul"WUn', in the jlossarj 1 1: se] op ell . p 50. Letters ol Majoi Indrev Lewis and Governor Dinwiddle, 17:«;. in North Carolina Colonial Records v, pp i85 612-614 685,687,1887: Ramsey, op. clt., pp. 61, 52. s Letter of Governor Dobbs, 1756, in North Carolina Colonial Rei Is, V, p. 604, 1887 : Dinw iddle letter, I7~>7. ibid., p J key] LEWIS' EXPEDITION — 175(5 41 Indians themselves were not ready to accept the settlement. In the north the confederated tribes under Pontiac continued to war on their own account until 17<'>5. In the South the very Cherokee who had acted a^ allies of the British against Fort DuQuesne, and had volun- tarily offered to guard the frontier south of the Potomac, returned to rouse their tribe to resistance. The immediate exciting cause of the trouble was an unfortunate expe- dition undertaken against the hostile Shawano in February, L756, by Major Andrew Lewi-- (the same who had built Fort Loudon) withsome two hundred Virginia troops assisted by about one hundred Cherokee. After -i\ weeks of fruitless tramping through tin' woods, with the ground covered with snow and the streams s,, swollen by rains that they lost their provisions and ammunition in crossing, they were obliged to return to the settlements in a starving condition, having killed their horses on the way. The Indian contingent had from the first been disgusted at the contempt and neglect experienced from those whom they had conn 1 to assist. The Tuscarora and others had already gone home, and the Cherokee now started to return on foot to their own country. Finding some horses running loose on the range, they appropriated them, on the theory that as they had lost their own animals, to say nothing of having risked their lives, in the service of the colonists, it was only a fair exchange. The frontiersmen took another view of the question however, attacked the returning Cherokee, and killed a number of them, variously stated at from twelve to forty, including several of their prominent men. Accord- ing to Adair they also scalped and mutilated the bodies in the savage fashion to which they had become accustomed in the border wars, and bi'ought the scalps into the settlements, where they were represented as those of French Indians and sold at the regular price then estab- lished by law. The young warriors at once prepared to take revenge, but were restrained by the chief s until satisfaction could be demanded in the ordinary way. according to the treaties arranged with the colonial governments. Application was made in turn to Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, but without success. While the women were still wailing night and morning for their slain kindred, and the Creeks were taunting the warriors for their cowardice in thus quietly submitting to the injury, some lawless officers of Fort Prince George committed an unpardonable outrage at the neighboring Indian town {_^^while most of the men were away hunting. 1 The warriors could no longer be restrained. Soon there was news of attacks upon the back settlements of Carolina, while on the other side of the mountains two soldiers of the Fort Loudon garrison were killed. War seemed at hand. 1 Adair. American Indians, 245-246, 177a; North Carol inn Colonial Records, v, p. xlviii, 1887; I lew at, quoted in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 54, 1853 42 MYTHS OB llli l HEROKEE At ihi- juncture, in November, 1758, a party of influential chiefs, having first ordered back a war party ju-t aboul in set mil from the western towns against the Carolina settlements, came down toChai - les- ton and succeeded in arranging the difficulty upon a friendly basis. The assembly had officially declared peace with (lie < !herokee, \\ hen, in M;i\ of 1759, Governor Lyttleton unexpectedly came forward with a demand for the surrender I'm- execution of every Indian who had killed a white man in tin' recent skirmishes, among these being t } » « - chiefs of Citieo and Tellico. At the same time the commanderal Fori Loudon, forgetful of the fact that In' had but a -mall garrison in the midst of several thousands of restless savages, made a demand for twentj four other chiefs whom he suspected of unfriendly action. Tocompel their surrender orders were given to stop all trading supplies intended for i he upper ( Iherokee. This roused tin' whole Nation, and a delegation representing everj town came down to Charleston, protesting the de-ire of the Indian- lor peace and friendship, but declaring their inability to surrender their own chiefs. The governor replied by declaring war in November, 1759, at once callingout troops and sending messengers to secure the aid of all the surrounding tribes against the Cherokee, [n the meantime asecond delegation of thirty -two of the most prominent men. led by the young war chief Oconostota (Agan-st&ta), 1 arrived t<> make a further efforl for peace, Imt the governor, refusing to listen to them, seized the whole party and confined them as prisoners at Fort Prince George, in a room large enough for only six soldiers, while at the same time he set fourteen hundred troops in motion to invade the Cherokee country. On further representation by Ata-kullakulla (Ata'-gul''kfilu'), the civil chief of the Nation and well known as a friend of the English, the gov- ernor released Oconostota and two others after compelling some half do/en of the delegation to sign a paper by which they pretended to agree lor their tribe to kill or seize any Frenchmen entering their countrj . and consented to the imprisonment of the parly until all the warriors demanded had been surrendered for execution <>r otherwise. At this stage of affairs the smallpox broke out in the Cherokee towns. rendering a further stay in their neighborhood unsafe, and thinking the whole matter now settled on his own basis, Lyttleton returned to ( 'harleston. The event soon proved how little he knew of Indian temper, < Ocono- stota at once laid siege to Fort 1'rince George, completely cutting off communication at a time when, as it was now winter, no help could well be expected from below. In February, L 760, after having kept the fort thus closely invested for some weeks, he sent word one day by an Indian woman that he \\ ished to speak to the commander, Lieut- enant Coytmore. As the lieutenant stepped out from the stockade 1 Fur notices Bee I he fi : i Montgomery's expedition — 1760 43 to see what was wanted, Oconostota, standing on the opposite side of the river, swung a bridle above his head as a signal to his warriors concealed in the bushes, and the officer was at once shot down. The soldiers immediately broke into the room where the hostages were confined, every cue being a chief of prominence in the tribe, and butchered them to the last man. It was now war to the end. Led by Oconostota, the Cherokee descended upon the frontier settlements of ( iarolina, while the warriors across the mountains laid close siege to Fort London. In June, L760, a strong force of over L,600 men. under Colonel Montgomery, started to reduce the Cherokee towns and relieve the beleaguered garrison. Crossing the Indian frontier. Montgomery quickly drove the enemy from about Fort Prince George and then, rapidly advancing, surprised Little Keow'ee, killing every man of the defenders, and destroyed in succession every one of the Lower Cherokee towns, burning them to the ground, cutting down the cornfields and orchards, killing and taking more than a hundred of their men. and driving the whole popu- lation into the mountains before him. His own loss was very slight. He then sent messengers to the .Middle and Upper towns, summoning them to surrender on penalty of the like fate, but, receiving no reply, he led his men across the divide to the waters of the Little Tennessee and continued down that stream without opposition until he came in the vicinity of Ephoee (Itse'yi), a few mile- above the sacred town of Nikwasi', the present Franklin. North Carolina. Here the Cherokee had collected their full force to resist his progress, and the result was a desperate engagement on dune 27, LTtio. by which Montgomery was compelled to retire to Fort Prince George, after losing nearly one hundred men in killed and wounded. The Indian loss is unknown. His retreat sealed the fate of Fort Loudon. The garrison, though hard pressed and reduced to the necessity of eating horses and dogs, had been enabled to hold out through the kindness of the Indian women, many of whom, having found sweethearts among the soldiers, brought them supplies of f 1 daily. When threatened by the chiefs the women boldly replied that the soldiers were their husbands and it was their duty to help them, and that if any harm came to themselves for their devotion their English relatives would avenge them. 1 The end was only delayed, however, and on August 8, 1760, the garrison of about two hundred men, under Captain Demere, surrendered to Oconostota on promise that they should be allowed to retire unmo- lested with their arms and sufficient ammunition for the march, on condition of delivering up all the remaining warlike stores. The troops marched out and proceeded far enough to camp for the night, while the Indians swarmed into the fort to see what plunder they might hud. "By accident a discovery was made of ten bags of J Tunberlake, Memoirs, p. 65, 1765. 44 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.ih powder and a large quantity of ball thai had been secretly buried in the fort, to prevent their falling into the enemy's hands" (Hewat). It i- said also that cannon, small arm-, and ammunition had been thrown into the river with the same intention (Haywood). Em-aged al this breach of the capitulation the Cherokee attacked the soldiers next morning at daylight, killing Deniere" and twenty-nine others at the first fire. The rest were taken ami held as pris »rs until ran- somed some time after. The second officer, Captain Stuart (13), for whom the Indian- had a high regard, was claimed by Ata-kullakulla. who soon after took him into the woods, ostensibly on a hunting excursion, and conducted him for nine days through the wilderness until he delivered him safely into the hands of friends in Virginia. The chief's kindness was well rewarded, and it was largely through his influence that peace was finally brought about. It was now too late, and the settlements were too much exhausted, for another expedition, so the fall and winter were employed by the English in preparations for an active campaign the next year in force to crush out all resistance. In June 1761, Colonel Grant with an army of 2,600 men. including a number of Chickasaw and almost every remaining warrior of the Catawba, 1 set out from Fort Prince George. Refusings request from Ata-kullakulla foi a friendly accom- modation, he crossed Rabun yap and advanced rapidly down the Little Tennessee alone- the same trail taken by the expedition of the previous year. On June 10, when within two miles of Montgomery's battlefield, he encountered the Cherokee, whom he defeated, although with considerable loss to himself, after a stubborn engagement lasting several hours. Having repulsed the Indians, he proceeded on his way, sending out detachments to the outlying settlements, until in the course of a month he had destroyed every one of the Middle town-. I.', in all. with all their granaries and cornfields, driven the inhabitants into the mountain-, and "pushed the frontier seventy miles farther to the west." y 1 ^ The Cherokee were now reduced to the greatest extremity. With some of their best towns in ashes, their fields and orchards wasted for two successive years, their ammunition nearly exhausted, many of their bravest warriors dead, their people fugitives in the mountains, hiding in caves and living like beasts upon roots or killing their horses for food, with the terrible scourge of smallpox adding to the mi-eric- of starvation, and withal torn by factional differences which had existed from the very beginning of the war ii wa- impossible for even brave men to resist longer. In September Ata-kullakulla, who had all alone- done everything in his power to stay the disaffec- tion, came down to Charleston, a treaty of peace was made, and the i Catawba reference from Milligan, 171;:;, in Carroll, South Carolina Historical Collections, 11, p. 519 M....NKV] AUGUSTA TREATY ADVANCE OF SETTLEMENTS 45 war was ended. From an estimated population of at least 5,000 war- riors some years before, the Cherokee had now been reduced to about 2,300 men. 1 In the meantime a force of Virginians under Colonel Stephen had advanced as far as the Great island of the Holston -now Klingsport, Tennessee — where they were met by a large delegation of Cherokee, who sued for peace, which was concluded with them by Colonel Stephen on November 19, 1761, independently of what was being done in South Carolina. On the urgent request of the chief that an officer might visit their people for a short time to cement the new friendship, Lieutenant Henry Timberlake, a young Virginian who had already dis- tinguished himself in active service, volunteered to return with them to their towns, where he spent several months. He afterward conducted a delegation of chiefs to England, where, as they had come without authority from the Government, they met such an unpleasant recep- tion that they returned disgusted. ' On the conclusion of peace between England and France in 1 T • *► : ; . by which the whole western territory was ceded to England, a great council was held at Augusta, which was attended by the chiefs and principal men of all the southern Indians, at which Captain John Stuart, superintendent for the southern tribes, together with the colo- nial governors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and ( reor gia, explained fully to the Indians the new condition of affairs, and a treaty of mutual peace and friendship was concluded on November 10 of that year. : Under several leaders, as Walker, W alien, Smith, and Boon, the tide of emigration now surged across the mountains in spite of every efforl to restrain it. 4 and the period between the end of the Cherokee war and the opening of the Revolution is principally notable for a number of treaty cessions by the Indians, each in fruitless endeavor to tix a permanent barrier between themselves and the advancing wave of white settlement. Chief among these was the famous Henderson pur- \/ chase in 1775, which included the whole tract between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers, embracing the greater part of the present state of Kentucky. By these treaties the Cherokee were shorn of practically all their ancient territorial claims north of the present Tennessee line and east of the Blue ridge and the Savannah, including much of their best hunting range; their home settlements were, how- ever, left still in their possession. ' 1 Figures from Adair, American Indians, p. 227, 177"'. When not otherwise the Cherokee war • <( 1760-61 is compiled chiefly from the contemporarj dispatches in the Gi rifleman's Magazine, supplemented from Hewat's Historical account of South Carolina and Georgia, 177s: with additional details from Adair. American Indians; Ramsej , Tennessei ; Royce, Cherokee Nation; North Carolina Colonial Records, v, documents and introduction; etc. -Timberlake. Memoirs, p. 9 et passim, 1765. 'Stevens, Georgia, II, pp. 26-29, 1859, 'Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 65-70, 1853 sRoycc Cherokei Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bur. of Ethnology, pp. 146-149, 1888. .. 46 MYTHS OK THE CHEROKEI [bih.ann.19 As ■ consequence of the late Cherokee war, a royal proclamation had been issued in L 763, with a view of checking future encroachments l>\ the whites, which prohibited any private land purchases from the Indians, or an} granting of warrants for lands wesl of the sources of the streams flowing into the Atlantic. 1 In L 768, on the appeal of the Indians themselves, the British superintendent for the southern tribes, Captain John Stuart, had negotiated a treaty at Hani Labor in South Carolina by which Kanawha and New rivers, along their whole course downward from the North Carolina line, were Sxed as the boundary between the Cherokee and the whites in that direction. In two years, however, so many borderers had crossed into the Indian country, where thej were evidently determined to remain, thai it was found necessary to substitute another treaty, by which the line was made to nm due south from t he mouth of the Kanawha to the Hols ton, thus cutting off from the Cherokee almost the whole of their hunting grounds in Virginia and West Virginia. Two years later, in I77l'. the Virginians demanded a further cession, by which everything east of Kentucky river was surrendered; and finally, on March 17. 177.">. the great Henderson purchase was consummated, including the whole tract between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers. By this last i/ cession the Cherokee were at last cut otl' from Ohio river and all their rich Kentucky hunting grounds. 8 While these transactions were called treaties, they were really forced upon the native proprietors, who resisted each in turn and finally signed only under protest and on most solemn assurances that no further demands would be made. Even before the purchases were made, intruders in large numbers had settled upon each of the tracts in question, and they refused to withdraw across the boundaries now established, but remained on one pretext or another to await a new adjustment. This was particularly the case on Watauga and upper Holston rivers in northeastern Tennessee, where the settlers, finding themselves still within the Indian boundary and being resolved to remain, effected a temporary lease from (he Cherokee in 177l'. As was expected and intended, the lease beca a permanent occupancy, the nucleus settlement of the future State of Tenne — er. Just before the outbreak of the Revolution, the botanist. William Hart ram. made an extended tour of the Cherokee country, anil has left US a pleasant account of the hospitable character ami friendly dispo- sition of the Indians at that time. He gives alist of forty-three towns then inhabited by the tribe.' The opening of the great Revolutionary struggle in 1 T T * "> found the Indian tribes almost to a man ranged on the British side against the R03 •' < Iherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 1 19; Eta 2 Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 98 122; Royce, op. cit. pp. 146-149. > Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 109 122; Royce,. op, cit. p. U6et pa < Bartram, Travels, pp 166 i" ! 1792 hoo.\-f.i- BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION 4i Americans. There was good reason for this. Since the fall of the French power the British government had stood to them as the sole representative of authority, and the guardian and protector of their rights against constant encroachments by the American borderers. Licensed British traders were resident in every tribe and many had intermarried and raised families among them, while the bonier man looked upon the Indian only as a cumberer of the earth. The British superintendents, Sir William Johnson in the north and Captain John Stuart in the south, they knew as generous friends, while hardly a warrior of them all was without some old cause of resentment against their backwoods neighbors. They felt that the only barrier between themselves and national extinction was in the strength of the British government, and when the final severence came they threw their whole power into the British scale. They were encouraged in this resolution by presents of clothing and other Moods, with promises of plunder from the settlement- and hopes of recovering a portion of their lost territories. The British government having determined, as early as June, 1775. to call in the Indians against the Americans, supplies of hatchets, guns, and ammunition were issued to the warriors of all the tribes from the lakes to the gulf, and bounties were offered for American scalps brought in to the commanding officer at Detroit or Oswego. 1 Even the Six Nations, w ho had agreed in solemn treaty to remain neutral, were won over by these persuasions. In August, 177">. an Indian "talk" was intercepted in which the Cherokee assured Cam- eron, the resident agent, that their warriors, enlisted in the service of the king, were ready at a signal to tall upon the back settlements of Carolina and Georgia. 2 Circular letters were sent out to all those persons in the back country supposed to he of royalist sympathies, directing them to repair to Cameron's headquarters in the Cherokee country to join the Indians in the invasion of the settlements." In .Tune. 1776, a British fleet under command of Sir Peter Parker, with a large aavaland military force, attacked Charleston, South Caro- lina, both by land and sea. and simultaneously a body of ( 'herokee, led by Tories in Indian disguise, came down from the mountains and ravaged the exposed frontier of South Carolina, killing and burning as they went. After a gallant defense by the garrison at Charleston the British were repulsed, whereupon their Indian and Tory allies withdrew.' About the same time the warning came from Nancy Ward 114). a noted friendly Indian woman of "teat authority in the ( 'herokee Nation. that seven hundred Cherokee warriors were advancing in two divisions against the Watauga and Holston settlements, with the design of 'Kin: [>p ii. L.'iu s.v.; Mi >notte, Valley of the Mississippi, I, pp. 400, 401, 431, 432, and II, pp. 33. 34, 1846; Roosevelt. Winning of the West, I. pp. 276-281, and II, pp. 1-6, 1889. op. 'it., p. 143. 'Quoted from Stedman, in Ramsey, op. cit., \>. 162. * Ramsey,op. cit., p. 162. 48 .MYTHS 01 THE CHEROKEE IKTH. destroying everything as far up as New river. The Holston men from b'oth sides of the Virginia line hastily collected under Captain Thompson and marched againsl the Indians, whom they met and defeated with signal loss after a hard-foughl battle near the Long island in the rlolston (Kingsport, Tennessee), on Augusl 20. The nexl da\ the second division of the Cherokee attacked the fori at Watauga, garrisoned by only forty men under ( Japtain .lame- Robert- son (15), but was repulsed without loss to the defenders, the Indians withdrawing on news of the result ai the Long island. A Mrs. Bean and a boy named Moore were captured on this occasion and carried to one of the Cherokee towns in the neighborhood of Tellico, where the boj was burned, hut tin' woman, after she had been condemned to death and everything was in readiness for the tragedy, was rescued by the interpositi f Nancy Ward. Two other Cherokee detachments moved against the upper settlements at the same time. One of these. finding all the inhabitants securely shut up in forts, returned without doing much damage. The other ravaged the country on Clinch river almost to its head, and killed a man and wounded other- at Black's station, now Abingdon, Virginia. 1 At the same time that one pari of the Cherokee were raiding the Tennessee settlements others came down upon the frontiers of Caro- lina and Georgia. On the upper Catawba they killed many people, hut the whites took refuge in the stockade stations, where they defended themselves until General Rutherford (hi) came to their relief. In Georgia an attempt had been made by a small party of Americans to seize Cameron, who lived in one of the Cherokee towns with his Indian \\ ife. hut. as was to have been expected, the Indians interfered, killing several of the party and capturing others, who were afterward tortured lo death. The Cherokee of the Upper and Mid. lie town-, with some Creeks and Tories of the vicinity, led by Cameron himself, at once began ravaging the South Carolina border, burning houses, driving off cattle, and killing men, women, and children without distinction, until the whole country was in a wild panic, tin 1 people abandoning their farms to seek safety in the garrisoned forts. On one occasion an at t aids by two hundred of the enemy, half of them being Tories, stripped and painted like Indians, was repulsed by the timely arrival of a body of Americans, who succeeded in capturing thirteen of the Tories. The invasion extended into Georgia, where also property was destroyed and the inhabitants were driven from their homes.' Realizing their common danger, the border states determined to strike such a concerted blow at the Cherokee as should render them passive while the struggle with England continued. In accord with this plan of cooperation tin; frontier forces were quickly mobilized and Ramse) Tenne ■. pp L50-159 1858 Eto aevelt, Winning of the West, I, pp. 293-297, 1889. i nkv] RUTHERFORD AND WILLIAMSON EXPEDITIONS 177«> 49 in the summer of 1776 four expeditions were equipped from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to enter the Cherokee territory simultaneously from as many different directions. In August of that year the army of North Carolina, 2,400 strong, under General Griffith Rutherford, crossed the Blue ridge at Swan- nanoa gap, and following the main trail almost along the present line of the railroad, struck the first Indian town, Stika'yi, or Stecoee, on the Tuekasegee, near the present Whittier. The inhabitants having fled, the soldiers burned the town, together with an unfinished town- house ready for the roof, cut down the standing corn, killed one or twostraggling Indians, and then proceeded on their mission of destruc- tion. Every town upon Oconaluftee, Tuekasegee, and the upper part of Little Tennessee, and on Hiwassee to below the junction of Valley river — thirty-six towns in all — was destroyed in turn, the corn cut down or trampled under the hoofs of the stock driven into the fields for that purpose, and the stock itself killed or carried off. Before such an overwhelming force, supplemented as it was by three others simultaneously advancing from other directions, the Cherokee made but poor resistance, and tied with their women and children into the fastnesses of the Great Smoky mountains, leaving their desolated fields and smoking towns behind them. As was usual in Indian wars, the actual number killed or taken was small, but the destruction of pro- perty was beyond calculation. At Sugartown (Kulsetsi'yi, east of the present Franklin) one detachment, sent to destroy it. was surprised, and escaped only through the aid of another force sent to its rescue. Rutherford himself, while proceeding to the destruction of the Hiwas- see towns, encountered the Indians drawn up to oppose his progress in the Wayagap of the Nantahala mountains, and one of the hardest tights of the campaign resulted, the soldiers losing over forty killed and wounded, although the Cherokee were finally repulsed (17). One of the Indians killed on this occasion was afterward discovered to be a woman, painted and armed like a warrior. 1 On September M the South Carolina army, 1,860 strong, under Colonel Andrew Williamson, and including a number of Catawba Indians, effected a junction with Rutherford's forces on Hiwassee river, near the present Murphy. North Carolina. It had been expected that Williamson would join the northern army at Cowee, on the Little Tennessee, when they would proceed together against the western towns, but he had been delayed, and the work of destruction in that direction was already completed, so that after a short rest each army returned home along the route by which it had come. The South Carolina men had centered by different detachments in 'See no. 110, "Incidents of Personal Heroism." For Rutherford's expedition, see Moore, Rutherford's Expedition, in North Carolina University Magazine, February, 1888; Swain, Sketch of the Indian War in 1776, ibid., May, 1852, reprinted in Historical Magazine, November, 1867; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 164, 1853; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, pp. 294-302, 1889, etc. 19 ETH 01 4 50 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.anu.m the lower Cherokee town- about the head of Savannah river, burning one town after another, cutting down the peach trees and ripened corn, and having an occasional brush with the Cherokee, who hung con- stantly 141011 their flanks. At the town of Seneca, near which they encountered ( 'aineron witti his Indian- and Tories, they had destroyed six thousand bushels of corn, besides other food stores, after burning all the houses, the Indians having retreated after a -tout resistance. The most serious encounter had taken place at Tomassee, where several whites and sixteen ( 'hcrokec wen- killed, the latter being all scalped afterward. Having completed the ruin of the Lower town-. Wil- liamson had cros-ed over Rabun gap and descended into the valley of the Little Tennessee to cooperate with Rutherford in the destruction of the Middleand Valley town-. As the army advanced every house in every settlement met was burned ninety houses in one settlement alone and detachments were sent into the fields to destroy the corn, of which the smallest town was estimated to have two hundred acre-, besides pota- toes, beans, and orchards of peach trees. The store- of dressed deer- skins and other valuables were carried off. Everything was swept clean, and the Indians who were not killed or taken were driven, homeless refugees, into the dark recesses of Nantahala or painfully made their way across to the Overhill towns in Tennessee, which were already menaced by another invasion from the north.' In -Inly, while Williamson was engaged on the the upper Savannah, a force of two hundred Georgians, under Colonel Samuel .lack, had marched in the same direction ami succeeded in burning two towns on the heads of ( 'hat t ahoochee and Tugaloo rivers, destroying the corn ami driving oil' the cattle, without the loss of a man. the Cherokee having apparently fallen hack to concentrate for resistance in the mountains. 2 The Virginia army, about two thousand strong, under Colonel William Christian (18), rendezvoused in August at the Long island of the Ilolston. the regular gathering place on the Tennessee side of the mountains. Among them were several hundred men from North Carolina, with all who could he spared from the garrisons on the Tennessee side. Paying hut little attention to small bodies of Lndi ans, who tried to divert attention ortodelay progress by flankattacks, they advanced steadily, hut cautiously, along the great Indian war- path (19) toward the crossing id' the French Broad, where a strong force of ( 'hcrokec was reported to he in waiting to dispute their pas- sage, .lust before reaching the river the Indians sent a Tory trader 1 For Williamson's expedition, ••<■<■ Ross Journal, with Rockwell's notes, in Historical Magazine, October, 1876; Swain.Sketch of the rndian War in n~u, in North Carolina University Magazine for May, 1852, reprinted in Historical Magazine, November, 1867; Jones, Georgia, 11, p. 246et passim, 1883 1: unsey, Tennessee, 168 164, 1858; 1: evelt, Winning of the West, 1, pp. 296 308, 1889. ; .i 9, op. cit., p. 246; Ramsey, op. cit., p. 163; Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 295. mooney] christian's expedition — 1776 51 with a flag of truce to discuss tonus. Knowing that his own strength was overwhelming. Christian allowed the envoy to go through the whole camp and then sent him back with the message that there could be no terms until the Cherokee towns had been destroyed. Arriving at the ford, he kindled fires and made all preparations as if intending to camp there for several days. As soon as night fell, however, he secretly drew off half his force and crossed the river lower down, to come upon the Indians in their rear. This was a work of great diffi- culty; as the water was so deep that it came up almost to the shoulders of the men, while the current was so rapid that they were obliged to support each other four abreast to prevent being swept off their feet. However, they kept their guns and powder dry. On reaching the other side they were surprised to find no enemy. Disheartened at the strength of the invasion, the Indians had fled without even a show of resistance. It is probable that nearly all their men and resources had been drawn off to oppose the Carolina forces on their eastern border. and the few who remained felt themselves unequal to the contest. Advancing without opposition, Christian reached the towns on Little Tennessee early in November, and, finding them deserted, pro- ceeded to destroy them, one after another, with their outlying fields. The few lingering warriors discovered were all killed. In the mean- time messages had been sent out to the farther towns, in response to which several of their head men came into Christian's camp to treat for peace. On their agreement to surrender all the prisoners and captured stock in their hands and to cede to the whites all the disputed territory occupied by the Tennessee settlements, as soon as represent- atives of the whole tribe could be assembled in the spring, Christian consented to suspend hostilities and retire without doing further injury. An exception was made against Tuskegee and another town, which had been concerned in the burning of the boy taken from Watauga, already noted, and these two were reduced to ashes. The sacred "peace town,'" Echota (20), had not been molested. Most of the troops were disbanded on their return to the Long island, but a part remained and built Fort Patrick Henry, where they went into winter quarters. 1 From incidental notices in narratives written by some of the partici- pants, we obtain interesting side-lights on the merciless character of this old border warfare. In addition to the ordinary destruction of war — the burning of towns, the wasting of fruitful fields, and the killing of the defenders — we find that every Indian warrior killed was scalped, when opportunity permitted; women, as well as men, were shot down and afterward ''helped to their end"; and prisoners taken were put up at auction as slaves when not killed on the spot. Near Tomassee a small 1 For the Virginia-Tennessee expedition see Roosevelt, Winning of the West, i, pp. 308-305, 1889; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 165-170,1853. ;>'- MVTHs OF THE CHEBOKJEE [cth.anh.19 party of Indian-, was surrounded and entirely cut <>tl'. "Sixteen were found dead in the valley when the battle ended. These our men scalped." In a personal encounter "a stout Indian engaged a sturdy young white man. who was a good bruiser and expert at gouging. After breaking their guns on each other they laid hold of one another, when the cracker had bis thumbs instantly in the fellow's eyes, who roared and cried i ccmaly'' -enough, in English. •Damn you,' says the white man. 'you can never have enough while you are alive.* He then threw him down, set his foot upon his head, and scalped him alive; then took up one of the broken guns and knocked out hi.- brains. It would have been fun if he had let the latter action alone and sent him home without his nightcap, to tell his countrymen how he had been treated." Later on some of the same detachment (Williamson's) seeing a woman ahead, fired on her and brought her down with two serious wounds, hut yet able to speak. After getting what informa- tion she could give them, through a half-breed interpreter, ■"the informer being unable to travel, 8 ! of our men favored her so far that they killed her there, to put her out of pain." A few days later ••a party of Colonel Thomas's regiment, being on a hunt of plunder. or Mime such thing, found an Indian squaw and took herprisoner, -he being lame, was unable to go with her friends. She was so sullen that -he would, as an old saying is. neither lead nor drive, and by their account she died in their hand-; hut I suppose they helped her to her end." At this place — on the Hiwassee -they found a large town. having ••upwards of ninety houses, and large quantities of corn." and "we encamped among- the corn, where we had a great plenty of corn. peas, beans, potatoes, and hogs." and on the next day "we were ordered to assemble in companies to spread through the town to destroy, cut down, and burn all the vegetables belonging to our heathen enemies, which was no small undertaking, they being so plentifully supplied." Continuing to another town, "we engaged in our former labor, that is, cutting and destroying all things that might be of advantage to our enemies. Finding here curious building-. great apple trees, and white-man-like improvements, these we destroyed." ' While crossing over the mountains Rutherford's men approached a house belonging to a trader, when one of his negro slaves ran out and '"was shot by the Reverend .lames Hall, the chaplain, as he ran. mis- taking him for an Indian."' Soon after they captured two women and a boy. It was proposed to auction them off at once to the highest bidder, and when one of the officers protested that the matter should be left to the disposition of Congress. •• the greater part swore bloodily that if they were not sold for slaves upon the spot they would kill and 1 Ross Journal, in Historical Magazine, October, lsr.7. "Swain, sketch ol the Indian War ..f 1776, in Historical Magazine, November, 1867. mooney] TREATIES OF DE WITTS CORNERS AND LONG ISLAND 53" scalp them immediately." The prisoners were accordinglj r sold for about twelve hundred dollars. 1 At the Wolf Hills settlement, now Abingdon, Virginia, a party sent out from the fort returned with the scalps of eleven warriors. Having recovered the books which their minister had left behind in his cabin, they held a service of prayer for their success, after which the fresh scalps were hung upon a pole above the gate of the fort. The barba- rous custom of scalping to which the border men had become habitu- ated in the earlier wars was practiced upon every occasion when opportunity presented, at least upon the bodies of warriors, and the South Carolina legislature offered a bounty of seventy-five pounds for every warrior's scalp, a higher reward, however, being offered for prisoners.'- In spite of all the bitterness which the war aroused there seems to be no record of any scalping of Tories or other whites by the Americans (-1). The effect upon the Cherokee of this irruption of more than six thousand armed enemies into their territory was well nigh paralyzing. More than fifty of their towns had been burned, their orchards cut down, their lields wasted, their cattle and horses killed or driven off. their stores of buckskin and other personal property plundered. Hundreds of their people had been killed or had died of starvation and exposure, others were prisoners in the hands of the Americans, and some had been sold into slavery. Those who had escaped were fugitives in the mountains, living upon acorns, chestnuts, and wild game, or were refugees with the British.' 1 From the Virginia line to the Chattahoochee the chain of destruction was complete. For the present at least any further resistance was hopeless, and they were compelled to sue for peace. By a treaty concluded at De Witts Corners in South Carolina on May •Jo. 1777. the first ever made with the new states, the Lower Cherokee surrendered to the conqueror all of their remaining territory in South Carolina, excepting a narrow strip along the western boundary. Just two months later, on July 20, by treaty at the Long island, as had been arranged by Christian in the preceding fall, the Middle and Upper Cherokee ceded everything east of the Blue ridge, together with all the disputed territory on the 'Watauga. Nolichucky, upper Holston, and New rivers. By this second treaty also Captain James Robertson was appointed agent for the Cherokee, to reside at Echota. to watch their movements, recover any captured property, and prevent their correspondence with persons unfriendly to the American cause. As the Federal government was not yet in perfect operation these treaties i Moore's narrative, in North Carolina University Magazine. February, 1888. ^Roosevelt, Winning of the West, i. pp. 285, 290, 303, 1889. 'About rive hundred sought refuge with Stuart, the British Indian superintendent in Florida, where they were fed for some time at the expense of the British government (Jones, Georgia, II, p. 246, 1S83). 54 MYTHS OF THE OHEEOKEE bth.akii.19 were negotiated by commissioners from the four states adjoining the Cherokee country, the territory thus acquired being parceled oul to Sou tli ( iarolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. 1 While tlif Cherokee Nation had thus been compelled to a treaty of peace, a very considerable portion of the tribe was irreconcilably hos- tile to the Americans and refused to be a party to the late cessions, especially on the Tennessee side. Although Ata-kullakulla sen! word that he was readj with five hundred young warriors to fighl for the Americans against the English or Indian enemy whenever called upon, Dragging-canoe (Tsiyu-gunsi'ni), who had led the opposition against the Watauga settlements, declared that he would holdfast to Cameron's talk and continue to make war upon those who had taken his hunting grounds. Under his leadership some hundreds id' the most warlike and implacable warriors of the tribe, with their families, drew out from the Upper and Middle towns and moved far down upon Tennes- see river, where thej established new settlements on Chickamauga creek, in the neighborhood of the present Chattanooga. The locality appears to have been already a rendezvous for a sort of Indian ban- ditti, who sometimes plundered boats disabled in the rapids at this point while descending the river. Under the name "Chickamaugas" they >oon became noted for their uncompromising and never-ceasing hostility. In ITs-J. in consequence of the destruction of their towns liv Sevier and Campbell, they abandoned this location and moved farther down the river, where they built what were afterwards known as the ••five lower towns." viz. Running Water, Nickajack, Long Island. Crow town, and Lookout Mountain town. These were all on the extreme western Cherokee frontier, near where Tennessee river crosses the state line, the first three being within the present limits' of Tennessee, while Lookout Mountain town and Crow town were respectively in the adjacent corners of Georgia and Alabama. Their population was recruited from Creeks. Shawano, and white Tories, until they were estimated at a thousand warriors. Here they remained, a constant thorn in the side of Tennessee, until their towns were destroyed in L794.' The expatriated Lower Cherokee also removed to the farthest west- tern border of their tribal territory, where they might hope to be secure from encroachment for a time at least, and built new" towns for themselves on the upper waters of the Coosa. Twenty years after- i Royce, Cherol Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, i> 160 and map, 1888; Ramsey, rennessee pp 172-1 ens, G gia, II, p. 144, 1859; Roosevelt, Winning of tin- West, i. i>. 806, 1889. i Ramsey, "p. eit., pp. 171-177. 186-186, 610 el passim; Royce, op. ■■it., p, 160; Campbell letter, 17sj. mill other documents in Virginia state Papers, in. pp. J7!. 571, 699, 1888, and tv. pp n\ 286, 1884; Hi. unit letter, January 14, 179:;. American State Papers; Indian Iffairs, i. p. Bl, 1882. Campbell says thej abandoned their first location on account oi the invasion from Tenne Governor Blount says they left on account of witches. mooney] DESTRUCTION OF CHICKAMAUGA TOWNS 1779 55 ward Hawkins found the population of Willstown, in extreme western Georgia, entirely made up of refugees from the Savannah, and the children so familiar from their parents with stories of Williamson's invasion that they ran screaming from the face of a white man (i^l'). 1 In April. 1777. the legislature of North Carolina, of which Tennes- see was still a part, authorized bounties of land in the new territory to all able-bodied men who should volunteer against the remaining hostile Cherokee. Under this act companies of rangers were kept along the exposed border to cut off raiding parties of Indians and to protect the steady advance of the pioneers, with the result that the Tennessee set- tlements enjoyed a brief respite and were even able to send some assist- ance to their brethren in Kentucky, who were sorely pressed by the Shawano and other northern tribes. 2 The war between England ami the colonies still continued, however, and the British government was unremitting in its effort to secure the active assistance of the Indians. With the Creeks raiding the Georgia ami South Carolina frontier, and with a British agent, Colonel Brown, and a number of Tory refugees regularly domiciled at Chickamauga, 3 it was impossible for the Cherokee lone' to remain quiet. In the spring of 177'.» the warning came from Robertson, stationed at Echota, that three hundred warriors from Chickamauga had started against the back settlements of North Carolina. Without a day's delay the states of North Carolina (including Tennessee) and Virginia united to send a strong force of volunteers against them under command of Colonels Shelby and Montgomery. Descending the Holston in April in a fleet of canoes built for tin 1 occasion, they took the Chickamauga towns so completely by surprise that the few warriors remaining fled to the mountains without attempting to give battle. Several were killed, Chickamauga and the outlying villages were burned, twenty thousand bushels of corn were destroyed and large numbers of horses and cattle captured, together with a great quantity of goods sent by the British Governor Hamilton at Detroit for distribution to the Indians. The success of this expedition frustrated the execution of a project by Hamilton for uniting all the northern and southern Indians, to lie assisted by British regulars, in a concerted attack along the whole American frontier. ( )n learning, through runnel's, of the blow that had befallen them, the Chickamauga warriors gave up all idea of invading the settlements, and returned to their wasted villages. 1 They, as well as the Creeks, however, kept in constant communication with 1 Hawkins, manuscript journal, 1796, with Georgia Historical Socii ty. 2 Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 174-178, 1S53. 3 t'ampbell letter, 1782, Virginia State Papers, ill, p. 271, 1883. < Ramsey, op. eit, pp. 186-188; Roosevelt. Winning of the West, II, pp. 236-238, 1889. Ramsey's state- ments, chiefly on Haywood's authority, of the strength of the expedition, the number of warriors killed, etc., are so evidently overdrawn that they are here omitted. 56 MYTHS ok THE CHEROKEE the British commander in Savannah. In this year also a delegation of Cherokee \ isited the Ohio towns to offer condolences on the death of the noted I Delaware chief, White ej es. 1 In tlic early spring of L780 a large company of emigrants under Colonel John Donelson descended the Holston and the Tennessee to the Ohio, whence they ascended the Cumberland, effected a junction with another party under Captain James Robertson, which hud just arrived by a toilsome overland route, and made the ti i-t settlement on the present site of Nashville. In passing the Chickamauga towns they had run the gauntlet of the hostile Cherokee, who pursued them for a considerable distance beyond the whirlpool known as the Suck, where the river breaks through the mountain. The family of a man named Stuart being infected with the smallpox, his boat dropped behind, and all on board, twenty-eight in number, were killed or taken by the Indians, their cries being distinctly heard by their friends ahead who were unable to help them. Another boat having run upon the rocks, the three women in it, one of whom had become a mother the night before, threw the cargo into the river, and then, jumping into the water, succeeded in pushing the boat into the current while the hus- band of one of them kept the Indians at bay with his rifle. The infant was killed in the confusion. Three cowards attempted to escape, without thought of their companions. One was drowned in the river; the other two were captured and carried to Chickamauga. where one was burned and the other was ransomed by a trader. The rest went on their way to found the capital of a new commonwealth. 2 As if in retributive justice, the smallpox broke out in the Chickamauga band in consequence of the capture of Stuart's family, causing the death of a great number.' The British having reconquered Georgia and South Carolina and destroyed all resistance in the south, early in L780 Cornwallis, with his subordinates, Ferguson and the merciless Tarleton, prepared to invade North Carolina and sweep the country northward to Virginia. The Creeks under McGillivray (S\). and a number of the Cherokee under various local chiefs, together with the Tories, at once joined his standard. While the Tennessee backwoodsmen were gathered at a barbecue to contest for a shooting prize, a paroled prisoner brought a demand from Ferguson for their submission; with the threat, if they refused, that he would cross the mountains, hang their leaders, kill every man found in arms and burn every settlement. Up to this time the moun- tain men had confined their effort to holding in check the Indian enemy, but now, with the fate of the Revolution at stake, they felt Bei kewelder, [ndian Nations, p. 327, reprint oi 1876. *Donelson's Journal, etc., in Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 197-208, L853; Roosevelt, Winning of tin- West, ii, pp. ::ji ::i". 1889. •Ibid., ii. p ;:.;7. mooney] THE BORDER FIGHTERS 57 that the time for wider action had come. They resolved not to await the attack, hut to anticipate it. Without order or authority from Congress, without tents, commissary, or supplies, the Indian fighters of Virginia. North Carolina, and Tennessee quickly assembled at the Svcamore shoals of the Watauga to the number of about one thousand men under Campbell of Virginia, Sexier (24) and Shelby of Tennessee, and McDowell of North Carolina. Crossing the mountains, they met Ferguson at Kings mountain in South Carolina on October 7. 1780, and gained the decisive victory that turned the tide of the Revolution in the South. 1 It is in place here to quote a description of these men in buckskin, white by blood and tradition, but half Indian in habit and instinct, who, in half a century of continuous conflict, drove back Creeks, Cherokee, and Shawano, and with one hand on the plow and the other on the rifle redeemed a wilderness and carried civilization and free government to the banks of the Mississippi. "They were led by leaders they trusted, they were wonted to Indian warfare, they were skilled as horsemen and marksmen, they knew how to face every kind of danger, hardship, and privation. Their fringed and tasseled hunting shirts were girded by bead-worked belts, and the trappings of their horses were stained red and yellow. On their heads they wore caps of coon skin or mink skin, with the tails hanging down, or else felt hats, in each of which was thrust a buck tail or a sprig of evergreen. Every man carried a small-bore rifle, a toma- hawk, and a scalping knife. A very few of the officers had swords, and there was not a bayonet nor a tent in the army." 2 To strike the blow at Kings mountain the border men had been forced to leave their own homes unprotected. Even before they could cross the mountains on their return the news came that the Cherokee were again out in force for the destruction of the upper settlements, and their numerous small bauds were killing, burning, and plundering in the usual Indian fashion. Without loss of time the Holston settle- ments of Virginia and Tennessee at once raised seven hundred mounted riflemen to march against the enemy, the command being assigned to Colonel Arthur Campbell of Virginia and Colonel John Sexier of Tennessee. Sevier started first with nearly three hundred men, going south along the great Indian war trail and driving small parties of the Cherokee before him, until he crossed the French Broad and came upon seventy of them on Boyds creek, not far from the present Sex in - ville, on December 16, 1780. Ordering his men to spread out into a half circle, he sent ahead some scouts, who, by an attack and feigned retreat, managed to draw the Indians into the trap thus prepared, 1 Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 241-294, 1SS9; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 208-249, 1853. - Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 256. 58 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.ajih.19 with the result that they lefl thirteen dead ;m 'It "p. '-it.. |i.302. mooney] TREATY OF LONG ISLAND 1781 59 determined to make a sudden stroke upon them, and early in March of the same year. 1781, with 150 picked horsemen, he started to cross the Great Smoky mountains over trails never before attempted by white men. and so rough in places that it was hardly possible to lead horses. Falling unexpectedly upon Tuckasegee, near the present Webster, North Carolina, he took the town completely by surprise, killing several warriors and rapturing- a number of women and chil- dren. Two other principal towns and three smaller .settlements were taken in the same way. with a quantity of provision and about 200 horses, the Indians being entirely off their guard and unprepared to make any effective resistance. Having spread destruction through the middle towns, with the loss to himself of only one man killed and another wounded, he was off again as suddenly as he had come, moving so rapidly that he was well on his homeward way before the Cherokee could gather for pursuit. 1 At the same time a smaller Tennessee expe- dition w r ent out to disperse the Indians who had been making head- quarters in the mountains about Cumberland gap and harassing travelers along the road to Kentucky.- Numerous indications of Indians were found, hut none were met, although the country was scoured for a con- siderable distance. 3 In summer the Cherokee made another incursion, this time upon the new settlements on the French Broad, near the present Newport, Tennessee. With a hundred horsemen Sexier fell suddenly upon their camp on Indian creek, killed a dozen warriors, ami scat- tered the rest. 1 By these successive blows the Cherokee were so worn out and dispirited that they were forced to sue for peace, and in mid- summer of 1781 a treaty of peace -doubtful though it might be — was negotiated at the Long island of the Holston. 5 Tin' respite came just in time to allow the Tennesseeaus to send a detachment against Corn- wallis. Although there was truce in Tennessee, there was none in the South. In November of this year the Cherokee made a sudden inroad upon the Georgia settlements, destroying everything in their way. In retaliation a force under General Pickens marched into their country, destroying their towns as far as Valley river. Finding further prog- ress blocked by heavy snows and learning through a prisoner that the Indians, who had retired before him, were collecting to oppose him in the mountains, he withdrew, as he says, "through absolute necessity," having accomplished very little of the result expected. Shortly after- ward the Cherokee, together with some ( 'reeks, again invaded ( leorgia, 'Campbell, letter, March 28, 1781, in Virgin in slate Papers, t, p. 602, 1875; Martin, letter, Marcb.31,1781, ibid., p. 613; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 268, 1853; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 305-307, 1889. ^Campbell, letter, March 28, 1781, in Virginia State Papers, I, p. 602, 1S75. 3 Ramsey, op. eit.. p. 269. 4 Ibid.; Roosevelt, op. eit.. p. 307. 5 Ibid.; Ramsey, op. eit., pp. 267. 268. The latter authority seems i ate it 1782, which is evidently a mistake. 60 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.amh.19 but were met on Ocoi river and driven back by a detachment of American troops. 1 The Overhill Cherokee, on lower Little Tennessee, seem to have been trying in g I faith to bold t<> the peace established at the Long island. Early in 17^1 the government land office had been closed to further entries, no! to be opened again until peace had been declared with England, bul the borderers paid little attention t<> the law in such matters, and the rage t'<>r speculation in Tennessee land- gre^ stronger daily. 8 In the fall of L 782 the chief, Old Tassel of Echota, Steven9, G £ia, H, pp. 282-285, 1859; Jones, Georgia, n. p. 603, 1888. = Roosevelt, Winning of the West, ti, \>. 811, 1889. • Old Tassel's iulk, in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 271, 1858, and In Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 816. 1 Ramsey, op. cit., p. 272; Roosevelt, op. cit., i>. :si7 el passim. ^Stevens "i>. cit., pp. 411-415. tRoyce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Aim. Rep. Bureau "i Ethnology, \: 151, 1888. L- mooney] TREATY OF HOPEWELL 1785 61 tinning the contest alone, began to sue for peace. By seven years of constant warfare they had been reduced to the lowest depth of misery, almost indeed to the verge of extinction. Over and over again their towns had been laid in ashes and their fields wasted. Their best war- riors had been killed and their women and children had sickened and starved in the mountains. Their great war chief. Oconostota, who had led them to victory in 1780, was now a broken old man. and in this year, at Echota, formally resigned his office in favor of his son, The Terrapin. To complete their brimming cup of misery the small- pox again broke out among them in 1783. 1 Deprived of the assistance of their former white allies they wee left to their own cruel fate, the last feeble resistance of the mountain warriors to the advancing tide of settlement came to an end with the burning of ( 'owee town, 8 and the way was left open to an arrangement. In the same year the North Carolina legislature appointed an agent for the Cherokee and made regulations for the government of traders among them.' Relations with the United States from the first treaty to the removal — 1785-1838 Passing over several unsatisfactory and generally abortive negotia- tions conducted by the various state governments in L783-84, includ- ing' the treaty of Augusta already noted. 4 we come to the turning- point in the history of the Cherokee, their first treaty with the new government of the United States for peace and boundary delimitation, concluded at Hopewell (25) in South Carolina on November 28, 17s.">. Nearly one thousand Cherokee attended, the commissioners for the United States being Colonel Benjamin Hawkins (liti). of North Caro- lina; General Andrew Pickens, of South Carolina; Cherokee Agent Joseph Martin, of Tennessee, and Colonel Lachlan Mcintosh, of Georgia. The instrument was signed by thirty-seven chiefs and prin- cipal men. representing nearly as many different towns. The negotia- tions occupied ten days, being complicated by a protest on the part of North Carolina and Georgia against the action of the government com- missioners in confirming to the Indians some lands which had already been appropriated as bounty lands for state troops without the consent of the Cherokee. On the other hand the Cherokee complained that 3,000 white settlers were at that moment in occupancy of unceded land between the Holston and the French Broad. In spite of their protest these intruders were allowed to remain, although the territory was not acquired by treaty until some years later. As finally arranged the treaty left the Middle and Upper towns, and those in the vicinity 1 Sec documents in Virginia State Papers, ill. pp. 234. 39S, S27. 1883. - Ramsey. Tennessee, p. 280, 1853. 3 Ibid., p. 271. *See Royce, Cherokee Nation, op.cit,, pp.151,152; Ramsey, op. cit., p.299et passim. 62 MVI'HS mf TIIK CHEROKEE [*th. of Coosa river, undisturbed, while the whole country east of the Blue ridge, with tin- Watauga ai 'I ( "uni Ucrhi m I settlements, was given over to the white-. The general boundary followed the dividing ridge between Cumberland river and the more southern waters of the Ten- nessee eastward to the junction of the two forks of Holston, near the present Kingsport, Tennessee, thence southward to the Blue ridge and southwestward to a point not far from the present Atlanta. Georgia, thence westward to the Coosa river and northwestward to a creek running into Tennessee river a< the western line of Alabama. thence northward with the Tennessee river to the beginning. The lands south and west of these lines were recognized as belonging to the Creeks and Chickasaw. Hostilities were to cease and the Cherokee were taken under the protection of the United States. The proceed- ings ended with the distribution of a few presents. 1 While the Hopewell treaty defined the relations of the Cherokee to the general government and furnished a safe basis for future negotia- tion, it yet failed to bring complete peace and security. Thousands of intruders were still settled on Indian lands, and minor aggressions and reprisals were continually occurring. The Creeks and the north- ern tribes were still hostile and remained so for some years later, and their warriors, cooperating with those of the implacable Chickamauga towns, continued to annoy the exposed settlements, particularly on the Cumberland. The British had withdrawn from the South, but the Spaniards and French, who claimed the lower Mississippi and the Gulf region and had their trading posts in west Tennessee, took every opportunity to encourage the spirit of hostility to the Americans. ' But the spirit of the Cherokee nation was broken and the Holston settlements were now too surely established to be destroyed. The Cumberland settlements founded by Robertson and Donelson in the winter of 1779-80 had had but short respite. Early in spring the Indians Cherokee. Creeks. Chickasaw, and northern Indians had begun a scries of attacks with the design of driving these intruders from their lands, and thenceforth for years no man's life was safe out- side the stockade. The long list of settlers shot down at work or while hunting in the woods, of stock stolen and property destroyed, while of sorrowful interest to those most nearly concerned, is too tedious for recital here, and only leading events need be chronicled. Detailed notice may be found in the works of local historians. On the night of January L5, L781, a band of Indians stealthily approached Freelaud's station and had even succeeded in unfastening 1 Indian Treaties, p. 8 el passim, i- ;:. For a full discussion of the Hopewell treaty, from official docu- ments, see Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 1 >2 158, 1888, with map; Treaty Journal, etc., American State Papers; Indian AfTnirs, i, pp. 38-44, 1832; also Stevens, Georgia, n, pp. 117 129,1859; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 336,337, 1853; see also the map accompanying this work. - I',:i \ , op. 'it. it 169 H'l. Agent Martin and Hopewell commissioners, ibid., pp, 31f Bledsoe and Robertson letter, ibid., p. 165; Roosevelt, Winning of the West. it. p.Stts, l«w. MOONEY] HOSTILITY OF HIWASSEE AND CHICK All AUG A TOWNS 63 the strongly barred gate when Robertson, being awake inside, heard the noise and sprang up just in time to rouse the garrison and beat off the assailants, who continued to fire through the loopholes after they had been driven out of the fort. Only two Americana were killed, although the escape was a narrow one. 1 About three months later, on April 2, a large body of Cherokee approached the fort at Nashville (then called Nashborough, or simply '"the Bluff"), and by sending a decoy ahead succeeded in drawing a large part id' the garrison into an ambush. It seemed that they would be cut otl'. as the Indians were between them and the fort, when those inside loosed the dogs, which rushed so furiously upon the Indians that the latter found work enough to defend themselves, and were finally forced to retire, carrying with them, however, five American scalps. 2 The attacks continued throughout this and the next year to such an extent that it seemed at one time as if the Cumberland settlements must be abandoned, but in June. 1783, commissioners from Virginia and North Carolina arranged a treaty near Nashville (Nashborough) with chiefs of the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creeks. Tjiis treaty. although it did not completely stop the Indian inroads, at least greatly diminished them. Thereafter the Chickasaw remained friendly, and only the Cherokee and < 'reeks continued to make trouble. The valley towns on Hiwassee, as well as those of Chickamauga, seem to have continued hostile. In L786a large body of their warriors. led by the mixed-blood chief. John Watts, raided the new settlements in the vicinity of the, present Knoxville, Tennessee. In retaliation Sevier again marched his volunteers across the mountain to the valley towns and destroyed three of them, killing a number of warriors; but he retired on learning that the Indians were gathering to give him battle. 4 In the springof this year Agent Martin, stationedat Echota, had made a tour of inspection of the Cherokee towns and reported that they were generally friendly and anxious for peace, with the exception of the Chickamauga band, under Dragging-canoe, who, acting with the hostile ('reeks and encouraged by the French and Spaniard-, were making preparations to destroy the Cumberland settlements. Not- withstanding the friendly professions of the others, a party sent out to obtain satisfaction for the murder of four Cherokee by the Tennes- seeans had come back with fifteen white scalps, and sent word to Sevier that they wanted peace, but if the whites wanted war they would get it. 5 "With lawdess men on both sides it is evident that peace was in jeopardy. In August, in consequence of further killing and reprisals, commissioners of the new "state of Franklin." as Tennessee was now 1 Roosevelt, Winning of the West, n, p.353, 1889. 2 Ibid., p. :;.». 1889; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 452-454, 1853. 3 Ibid., pp. 358-366, 1889. * Ibid., p. 341, 1853. "Martin k-tu-r of Miiy 11, 1786, ibid., p. 142 64 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE ink.U called, concluded a negotiation, locally known as the "treat}' of Coyatee," with the chiefs of the Overhill towns. In spite of references to peace, love, and brotherly friendship, it is very doubtful if the era of good will was in any wise hastened by the so-called treaty, as the Tennesseeans, who bad just burned another Indian town in reprisal for the killing of a white man. announced, without mincing words, that they had been given by North Carolina against which state, l>\ the way, they were then in organized rebellion the whole country north of the Tennessee river as far west as the Cumberland mountain, and that they intended to take it "by the -word, which is the best right to all countries." As the whole of this country was within the limits of the territory solemnly guaranteed to the Cherokee by the Hopewell treaty only the year before, the chiefs simply replied that Congress had -aid nothing to them on the subject, and SO the matter rested. 1 The theory of state's rights was too complicated for the Indian under- standing. While this conflict between state and federal authority continued, with the Cherokee lands as the prize, there could lie no peace. In March, L787, a letter from Echota, apparently written by Agent Martin, speaks of a recent expedition against the Cherokee towns, and the confusion and alarm among them inconsequence of the daily encroachments of the "Franklinites" or Tennesseeans, who had pro- ceeded to make good their promise by opening ;i hind office for the sale of all the lands southward to Tennessee river, including even apart id' the beloved town of Echota. At the same time messengers were coming to the Cherokee from traders in the foreign interest, telling them that England, France, and Spain had combined against the Americans and urging them with promises of c-uns and ammunition to join in the war. ' As a result each further advance of the Tennessee settlements, in defiance as it was of any recognized treaty, was stubbornly con- tested by the Indian owners of the land. The record of these encoun- ters, extending over a period of several years, is too tedious for recital. "Could a diagram he drawn, accurately designating every spot sig- nalized by an Indian massacree, surprise, or depredation, or courageous attack, defense, pursuit, or victory by the whites, or station or fort or battlefield, or personal encounter, the whole of that section of country would lie studded over with delineations of such incidents. Every spring, every ford, every path, every farm, every trail, every house nearly, in its first settlement, was once the scene of danger, exposure, attack, exploit, achievement, death."' 1 The end was the winning of Tennessee. In the meantime the inroads of the Creeks and their Chickamauga > Reports of Tennessee commissioners unci replies by Cherokee chiefs, etc., 1786, in Ramsey, Tennes- see, pp. 843 846, 1853. •Martin (?) letter of March 25, lTsv, ibid., i>. 869. • Ibid., p. 870. moonet] DEFEAT OF GENERAL MARTIN 1788 65 allies upon the Georgia frontier and the Cumberland settlements around Nashville became so threatening that measures were taken for a joint campaign by the combined forces of Georgia and Tennessee ("Franklin"). The enterprise came to naught through the interfer- ence of the federal authorities. 1 All through the year 1788 we hear of attacks and reprisals along the Tennessee border, although the agent for the Cherokee declared in his official report that, with the exception of the Chickamauga band, the Indians wished to lie at peace if the whites would let them. In March two expeditions under Sevier and Kennedy set out against the towns in the direction of the French Broad. In May several persons of a family named Kirk were murdered a few miles south of Knoxville. In retaliation Sevier raised a large party and marching against a town on Hiwassee river — one of those which had been destroyed some years before and rebuilt — and burned it. killing a number of the inhabitants in the river while they were trying to escape. lie then turned, and proceeding to the towns on Little Tennessee burned several of them also, killing a num- ber of Indians. Here a small party of Indians, including Abraham and Tassel, two well-known friendly chiefs, was brutally massacred by one of the Kirks, no one interfering, after they had voluntarily come in on request of one of the officers. This occurred during the temporary absence of Sevier. Another expedition under Captain Favne was drawn into an ambuscade at Citico town and lost several in killed and wounded. The Indians pursued the survivors almost to Knoxville, attacking a small station near the present Maryville by the way. They were driven off by Sevier and others, who in turn invaded the Indian settlements, crossing the mountains and penetra- ting as far as the valley towns on Hiwassee. hastily retiring as they found the Indians gathering in their front. 2 In the same summer another expedition was organized against the Chickamauga towns. The chief command was given to General Martin, who left White's fort, now Knoxville. with four hundred and fifty men and made a rapid inarch to the neighborhood of the present Chattanooga, where the main force encamped on the site of an old Indian settlement. A detachment sent ahead to surprise a town a few miles farther down the river was fired upon and driven back, and a general engagement took place in the narrow pass between the bluff and the river, with such disastrous results that three captains were killed and the men so badly demoralized that thejr refused to advance. Martin was compelled to turn back, after burying the dead officers in a large townhouse, which was then burned down to conceal the grave. 3 In October a large party of Cherokee and Creeks attacked Gilles- pie's station, south of the present Knoxville. The small garrison was 1 Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 393-399, 1853. = Ibid., pp. 417-423, 1853. 3 Ibid., pp. 517-519, and Brown's narrative, ibid., p. 515. 19 ETH — 01 5 66 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE overpowered af ter a shorl resistance, and twenty-eight persons, includ- ing several women and children, were killed. The Indians left behind a Letter signed by four chiefs, including John Watts, expressing regret for what they called the accidental lolling of the women and children, reminding the whites of their own treachery in killing Abraham and the Tassel, and defiantly concluding, "When you move off the land, then we will make peace." Other exposed stations were attacked, until at last Sevier again mustered a force, cleared the enemy from the frontier, and pursued the Indians as far as their towns on the head waters of Coosa river, in such vigorous fashion that they were compelled to ask for terms of peace and agree to a surrender of prisoners, which was accomplished at Coosawatee town, in upper Georgia, in the following April. 1 Among the captives thus restored to their friends were Joseph Brown, a boy of sixteen, with his two younger sisters, who, with several others, had been taken at Nickajack town while descending the Tennessee in a fiatboat nearly a year before. His father and the other men of the party, about ten in all, had been killed at the time. while the mother and several other children were carried to various Indian towns, some of them going to the Creeks, who had aided the Cherokee in the capture. Young Brown, whose short and simple narrative is of vivid interest, was at first condemned to death, but was rescued by a white man living in the town and was afterward adopted into the family of the chief, in spite of the warning of an old Indian woman that if allowed to live he would one day guide an army to destroy them. The warning was strangely prophetic, for it was Brown himself who guided the expedition that finally rooted out the Chickamauga towns a few years later. When rescued at Coosawatee he was in Indian costume, with shirt, breechcloth, scalp lock, and holes bored in his ears. His little sister, five years old. had become so attached to the Indian woman who had adopted her. that she refused to go to her own mother ami had to be pulled alone- by force. 3 The mother and another of the daughters, who had been taken by the Creeks, were afterwards ransomed by McGillivray, head chief of the Creek Nation, who restored them to their friends, generously refusing any compensation for his kindness. An arrangement had been made with the Chickasaw, in 1783, by which they surrendered to the Cumberland settlement their own claim to the lands from the Cumberland river south to the dividing ridge of Duck river. 3 It was not, however, until the treaty of Hopewell, two years later, that the Cherokee surrendered their claim to the same region, and even then the Chickamauga warriors, with their allies, the 1 Ramsey, Tennessee, pp.516, 519. ■ Brown's narrative, etc., ibid.. pp. .308-516. a Ibid., pp. 159, 489. hookey] DESTRUCTION OF COLDWATER — 1787 <'>" hostile Creeks and Shawano, refused to acknowledge the cession and continued their attacks, with the avowed purpose of destroying the new settlements. Until the final running of the boundary line, in 1797, Spain claimed all the territory west of the mountains and south of Cumberland river, and her agents were accused of stirring up the Indians against the Americans, even to the extent of offering rewards for American scalps. 1 One of these raiding parties, which had killed the brother of Captain Robertson, was tracked to Coldwater, a small mixed town of Cherokee and Creeks, on the south side of Tennessee river, about the present Tuscumbia, Alabama. Robertson determined to destroy it, and taking a force of volunteers, with a couple of Chick- asaw guides, crossed the Tennessee without being discovered and surprised and burnt the town. The Indians, who numbered less than fifty men, attempted to escape to the river, but were surrounded and over twenty of them killed, with a loss of but one man to the Tennes- seeans. In the town were found also several French traders. Three of these, who refused to surrender, were killed, together with a white woman who was accidentally shot in one of the boats. The others were afterward released, their large stock of trading goods having been taken and sold for the benefit of the troops. The affair took place about the end of June. 1787. Through this action, and an effort made by Robertson about the same time to come to an understanding with the Chickaniauga band, there was a temporary cessation of hostile inroads upon the Cumberland, but long before the end of the year the attacks were renewed to such an extent that it was found necessary to keep out a force of rangers with orders to scour the country and kill every Indian found east of the Chickasaw boundary. 2 The Creeks seeming now to be nearly as much concerned in these raids as the Cherokee, a remonstrance was addressed to McGillivray, their principal chief, who replied that, although the Creeks, like the other southern tribes, had adhered to the British interest during the Revolution, they had accepted proposals of friendship, but while negotiations were pending six of their people had" been killed in the affair at Coldwater. which had led to a renewal of hostile feeling. He promised, however, to use his best efforts to bring about peace, and seems to have kept his word, although the raids continued through this and the next year, with the usual sequel of pursuit and reprisal. In one of these skirmishes a company under Captain Murray followed some Indian raiders from near Nashville to their camp on Tennessee river and succeeded in killing the whole party of eleven warriors. 1 A treaty of peace was signed with the Creeks in 1790, but, owing to the intrigues of the Spaniards, it had little practical effect, 4 and not i Bledsoe and Robertson letter of June 12, 1787. in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 465, 1853. 2 Ibid., with Robertson tetter, pp. 465-476. a Ibid., pp. 479-486. 4 Monette, Valley of tin- Mi^i-Mppi, i. p ■■"'• lMr;. 68 MTTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.ass.19 until Wayne'- decisive victory over the confederated northern tribes in L 794 and the final destruction of the Nickajack towns in tin- same \ ear did real peace came to the frontier. I!v deed of cession of February .!•">. 17'.»n. Tennessee ceased to be a pari of North < larolina and was organized under federal laws as " The Territory of the United Mate- south of the < >hio river," preliminary to taking full rank as a state six year- later. William Blount (27) was appointed lir-t territorial governor and also superintendent for the southern Indian-, with a deputy resident with each of the four prin- cipal tribes. 1 Pensacola, Mobile, St. Louis, and other southern posts were -till held by the Spaniard-, who claimed the whole country south of the Cumberland, while the British garrisons had not yet been with- drawn from the north. The resentment of the Indians at the occupancy of their reserved and guaranteed lands by the whites was sedulously encouraged from both quarters, and raids alone- the Tennessee fron- tier were of common occurrence. At this time, according to the official report of President Washington, over five hundred families of intruders were settled upon lands belonging rightly to the Cherokee. in addition to those between the French Broad and the Holston. 2 More than a year before the Secretary of War had stated that "the disgraceful violation of the treaty of Hopewell with the Cherokee requires the serious consideration of Congress. If so direct and man- ifest contempt of the authority of the United States tie suffered with impunity, it will he in vain to attempt to extend the arm of govern- ment to the frontiers. The Indian tribes can have no faith in such imbecile promises, and the lawless whites will ridicule a government which shall on paper only make Indian treaties and regulate Indian boundaries." 3 To prevent any increase of the dissatisfaction, the general government issued a proclamation forbidding any further encroachment upon the Indian kinds on Tennessee river; notwith- standing which, early in L791, a party of men descended the river in boats, and. landing on an island at the Muscle shoals, near the present ruscumbia, Alabama, erected a blockhouse and other defensive works. Immediately afterward the Cherokee chitd'. Class, with about sixty warriors, appeared and quietly informed them that if they did notat once withdraw he would kill them. After some parley the intruders retired to their boats, when the Indians set tire to the buildings and reduced them to ashes.' To forestall more serious difficulty it was necessary to negotiate a new treaty with a view to purchasing the disputed territory. Accord- ingly, through the efforts of Governor Blount, a convention was held with the principal men of the Cherokee at White's fort, now Knox- 1 Ramseyj Tennessee, pp. 522, ~. 271; Deraque deposition, September 15, 1792, ibid., p. 292; Pickens, letter, September 12, 1792, ibid., p.317. 8 See letters of Shaw, Casey, Pickens, and Blount. 1792-93, ibid., pp. .'77, 278, 317, 136, 137, 140. ■"Knox, instructions to Shaw, February 17, 1792, ibid., p. 247; Blount, letter, March 20, 1792, ibid., p. 263; Knox, letters, October 9, 1792, ibid., pp. 261, 2U2. 72 SIXTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [kth.ami.19 the ground to -how by whom the deed wasd -. So swift was savage vengeance.' Early in 1792 a messenger who had been sent on business for Gov- ernor Blount to the Chickamauga towns returned with the report thai 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 SI ia\\ aiio were urging the Cherokee to join them against the Ameri- cans; that a strong body of Creeks was on it- way against the Cum- berland settlements, and that the ( 'reck chief. Met rillivray, was trying to form a general confederacy of all the Indian tribes against the whites. To understand this properly it must lie 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 l>\ 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 a- if the American advance would he driven hack 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 dune 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 child's seemed to lie 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.' Notwith- standing all this the attacks along the Tennessee frontier continued to such an extent that the blockhouses were again put in order ami gar- risoned. Soon afterwards the governor reported to the Secretary of War that the five lower Cherokee towns on the Tennessee (the Chicka- mauga), headed by John Watts, had finally declared war against the United State-, 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 Cumber- land. On the Cumberland side it was directed that no pursuit should he 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: ■ Governor Telfair's letters of November n ami December 5, with inclosure, 1792, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i, pp.332, 336, 887, 1832. 2 Rainwy, Trancm 1 , i.|..;,r,_'-.«,:;,-V.is, is:,:;. mooney] ATTACK ON BUCHANAN'S STATION — L792 73 Knoxville, September n. 1792. Sir: You arc 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. 1 About midnight on the 30th of September, 1792, the Indian force, consisting of several hundred Chickamaugas and other Cherokee, ("reeks, 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 wtis furious and determined, the Indians rushing up to the stockade, attempting to set tire 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 assail ants 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. 2 In the same month arrangements were made for protecting the fron- tier along the French Broad by means of a series of garrisoned block- houses, 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. 3 There is no reason to suppose that the people of these towns were directly concerned in the depredations along the frontier at this period, 1 Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 662-565, ls:>:v 2 Blount, letter. October 2, 1792, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i, p. 294, 1832; Blount, letter, etc., in Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 566, 567, 599-601; see also Brown's narrative, ibid., 511, 512; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 170, 1888. 3 Ramsey, op. cit., 569-571. 74 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE unt.M the mischief I >< ■ i 1 1 trikc when Handley seized the weapon, crying out "Canaly" (for higtona'lii), "friend," to which the Cherokee responded with tin' same word, at oner lowering his arm. Handley was carried to Willstown, in Alabama, where he was adopted into the Wolf elan (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. 1 The year 1T'.»H began with a series of attacks all along the Tennes- see frontier. As before, most of the depredation was by Chicka- maugas 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 sud- denly attacked them, killing about fifteen Indians, including several chiefs and two women, one of them being the wife of Hanging-maw (Ushwa'li-guta), principal chief of the Nation, who was himself wounded. The murderers then tied, leaving others to suffer the conse- quences. Two hundred warriors at once took up arms to revenge their loss, and only the most earnest appeal from the deputy governor could lest rain 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. 8 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 i Ramsey, Tennessee, pp.571-673, 1863. »Ibid.,pp moosey] MASSACRE AT CAVITTS STATION 1793 75 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.' Late in September a strong force estimated at one thousand war- riors — seven hundred Creeks and three hundred Cherokee — under John Watts and Doublehead, crossed the Tennessee and advanced in the direction of Knoxville. where the public stores were then deposited. In their eagerness to reach Knoxville they passed quietly by one or two smaller settlements until within a short distance of the town, when, at daybreak of the 25th, they heard the garrison tire the sunrise gun and imagined that they were discovered. Differences had already broken out among the leaders, and without venturing to advance farther they contented themselves with an attack upon a small block- house a few miles to the west, known as Cavitts station, in which at the time were only three men with thirteen women and children. After defending themselves bravely for some time these surrendered on promise that they should be held for exchange, but as soon as they came out Doublehead's warriors fell upon them and put them all to death with the exception of a boy, who was saved by John Watts. This bloody deed was entirely the work of Doublehead. the other chiefs having done their best to prevent it. 2 A force of seven hundred men under General Sevier wasat once put upon their track, with orders this time to push the pursuit into the heart of the Indian nation. Crossing Little Tennessee and Hiwassee they penetrated to Ustanali town, near the present Calhoun, Georgia. Finding it deserted, although well tilled with provision, they rested there a few days, the Indians in the meantime attempting a night attack without success. After burning the town. Sevier con- tinued down the river to Etowah town, near the present site of Rome. Here the Indians— Cherokee and Creeks — had dug intrenchments and prepared to make a stand, but, being outflanked, were defeated with loss and compelled to retreat. This town, with several others in the neighborhood belonging to both Cherokee and Creeks, w-as destroyed, with all the provision of the Indians, including three hundred cattle, after which the army took up the homeward march. The Americans had lost but three men. This was the last military service of Sevier. 3 During the absence of Sevier's force in the south the Indians made a sudden inroad on the French Broad, near the present Dandridge, killing and scalping a woman and a boy. While their friends were accompanying the remains to a neighboring burial ground for "inter- ment, two men who had incautiously gone ahead were tired upon. One 1 Ramsey. Tennessee, p. 579. 2 Ibid., pp. 580-583 1853; Smith. letter, September 27, 1793, American stale Papers: Indian Affairs, [, p. 468, 1832, Ramsey gives tin- Indian force 1,000 warriors; smith *nys that in many places they marched in tiles of Js abreast, each tile being supposed to number 40 men. a Ramsey, up. cit., pp. 584-588. ■ 76 MYTH- OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.akk.19 of them escaped, but the other one was fouud killed and scalped when the resl of thecompany came up, and was buried with the first victims.. Sevier's success brought temporary respite to the Cumberland settle- ments. During the early part of the year the Indian attacks by small raiding parties had been so frequent and annoying that a force of men had been kept out on patrol service under officers who adopted with some success the policy of hunting the Indian- in their camping places in the thickets, rather than waiting for them to come i n t < . the settlements.' In February, 1 T'.*4. the Territorial assembly of Tennessee met at Knoxvillc and. among other business transacted, addressed a strong memorial to Congress calling for mure efficient protection for the frontier and demanding a declaration of war against the Creeks and Cherokee. The memorial states that since the treaty of Eiolston (July, L791), these two tribes bad killed in a most barbarous and inhuman manner more than two hundred citizens of Tennessee, of both sexes. had carried others into captivity, destroyed their stock, burned their houses, and laid waste their plantations, had robbed the citizens of their slaves and stolen at least two thousand horses. Special atten- tion was directed to the two great invasion- in September, 17'.':.'. and September, 1793, and the memorialists declare that there was scarcely a man of the assembly hut could tell of "a dear wife or child, an aged parent or near relation, besides friends, massacred by the hands of these bloodthirsty nations in their house or fields." 8 In the meantime the raids continued and every scattered cabin was a target for attack. In April a party of twenty warriors surrounded the house of a man named Casteel on the French Broad about nine miles above Knoxville and massacred father, mother, and four children in most brutal fashion. One child only was left alive, a girl of ten years, who was found scalped and bleeding from six tomahawk gashes, vet survived. The others were buried in one grave. The massacre roused such a storm of excitement that it required all the effort of the governor and the local officials to prevent an invasion in force of the Indian country. Tt was learned that Doublehead. of the Chicka- mauga towns, was trying to get the support of the valley towns, which, however, continued to maintain an attitude of peace. The friendly Cherokee also declared that the Spaniards were constantly instigating the lower tow ns to hostilities, although John Watts, one of their prin- cipal chiefs, advocated peace. ' In June a boat under command of William Scott, laden with pot-, hardware, and other property, and containing six white men. three women, four children, and twenty negroes, left Knoxville to descend I Ramsey. Tennessee, pp. 590. 602-605. 1853. i Haywood, civil and Political Historj of Tennessee, pp 800-802; Knoxville, 1828 ii, mi pp 308-308,1828; Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 591 594. Haywood's history of this period Is little more than a continuous record of killings and petty encounters. mooney] CONFLICTS WITH CREEKS — 1794 ii Tennessee river to Natchez. As it passed the Chickamauga towns it was fired upon from Running Water and Long island without damage The whites returned the tire, wounding two Indians. A large party of Cherokee, headed by White-man-killer (Une'ga-dihi"). then started in pursuit of the boat, which they overtook at Muscle shoals, where they killed all the white people in it. made prisoners of the negroes, an. I plundered the goods. Three Indians were killed and one was wounded in the action. 1 It is said that the Indian actors in this massacre tied across the Mississippi into Spanish territory and became the nucleus of the Cherokee Nation of the West, as will be noted elsewhere. On June 26, 1794, another treaty, intended to be supplementary to that of Holston in 1791, was negotiated at Philadelphia, being signed by the Secretary of War and by thirteen principal men of the Chero- kee. An arrangement was made for the proper marking of the boundary then established, and the annuity was increased to five thousand dollars, with a proviso that fifty dollars were to be deducted for every horse -tolen by the Cherokee and not restored within three months. 2 In July a man named John Ish was shot down while plowing in his field eighteen miles below Knoxville. By order of Hanging-maw, the friendly chief of Echota, a party of Cherokee took the trail and cap- tured the murderer, who proved to be a Creek, whom they brought in to the agent at Tellico blockhouse, where he was formally tried and hanged. When asked the usual question he said that his people were at war with the whites, that he had left home to kill or be killed. that he had killed the white man and would have escaped but for the Cherokee, and that there were enough of his nation to avenge his death. A few days later a party of one hundred Creek warriors crossed Tennessee river against the settlements. The alarm was given by Hanging-maw. and fifty-three Cherokee with a few federal troops started in pursuit. On the loth of August they came up with the Creeks, killing one and wounding another, one Cherokee being slightly wounded. The Creeks retreated and the victors returned to the Cherokee towns, where their return was announced by the death song and the tiring of guns. "The night was spent in dancing the scalp dance, according to the custom of warriors after a victory over their enemies, in which the white and red people heartily joined. The Upper Cherokee had now stepped too far to go back, and their pro- fessions of friendship were now no longer to be questioned." In the same month there was an engagement between a detachment of about 1 Haywood, Civil and Political History of Tennessee, p. 308.1823; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 594. 1853; see also memorial in Putnam, Middle Tennessee, p. 502, 1859. Haywi lod calls the leader Unacala, which should be Une'ga-dihl', " White-man-killer.* ' Compare Hayw 1's statement with that of Wash- burn, on page 100. ^Indian Treaties, pp. 39,40, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation. Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 171, 172, 1SS8: Documents of 17'.>7-v\ American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i, pp. 628-631, 1832. The treaty is not mentioned by the Tennessee historians. 78 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ajhi.19 forty soldiers and a large body of Creeks near ('rah ( >rchard, in which several of each were killed. 1 It is evident that much of the damage on hnth sides <>t' the Cumberland range was due to the Creeks. In the meantime Governor Blount was trying to negotiate peace with tin' whole Cherokee Nation, but with little success. The Cher- okee claimed to he anxious for permanent peace, hut said thai it was impossible to restore the property taken by them, as it had been taken in war, and they had themselves been equal losers from the white-. They said also that they COuld not prevent the hostile Creeks from passing through their territory. About the end of July it was learned that a strong body of ('reeks had started north against the settlements. The militia was at once ordered out alone- the Tennessee frontier, and the friendly Cherokees offered their services, while measures were taken to protect their women and children from the enemy. The ( 'reeks advanced as far as Willstown, when the news came of the com- plete defeat of the confederated northern tribes by General Wayne (30), and fearing the same fate for themselves, they turned back and scattered to their towns. - The Tennesseeans. especially those on the Cumberland, had lone- ago come to the conclusion that peace could he brought about only through the destruction of the Chickamauga towns. Anticipating some action of this kind, which the general government did not think necessary or advisable, orders against any such attempt had been issued by the Secretary of War to Governor Blount. The frontier people went about their preparations, however, and it is evident from the result that the local military authorities were in connivance with the under- taking. General Robertson was the chief organizer of the volunteers about Nashville, who were reenforced by a company id' Kentuckians under Colonel Whitley. Major Ore had been sent by Governor Blount with a detachment of troops to protect the Cumberland settle- ments, and on arriving at Nashville entered as heartily into the project as if no counter orders had ever been issued, and was given chief com- mand of the expedition, which for this reason is commonly known as ■•( he's expedition." < )n September 7. L794, the army of five hundred and fifty mounted men left Nashville, and five days later crossed the Tennessee near the mouth of the Sequatchee river, their guide being the same Joseph Brown of whom the old Indian woman had said that he would one day bring the soldiers to destroy them. Having left their horses on the other side of the river, they moved up along the south hank just after daybreak of the L3th and surprised the town of Nickajack, killing several warriors and taking a Dumber of prisoners. Some who attempted to escape in canoes were shot in the water. The warriors -.1, Civil 1 Political Historj oi Tennessee, pp 809-311, 1828; Ramsey, rennessee, pp. 594, -IImvu l,op.cit.,pp 314-316; Ramsey, op. eit., p, 06. mooney] END OB 1 CHEROKEE WAR J 79-1 79 iii Running Water town, four miles above, heard the firing and came at once to the assistance of their friends, but wen 1 driven back after attempting to hold their ground, and the second town shared the fate of the first. More than fifty Indians had been killed, a number were prisoners, both towns and all their contents had been destroyed, with a loss to the assailants of only three men wounded. The Breath, the chief of Running Water, was among those killed. Two fresh scalps with a large quantity of plunder from the settlements were found in the towns, together with a supply of ammunition said to have been furnished by the Spaniards. 1 Soon after the return of the expedition Robertson sent a message to John Watts, the principal leader of the hostile Cherokee, threatening a second visitation if the Indians did not very soon surrender their prisoners and give assurances of peace. 2 The destruction of their towns on Tennessee and Coosa and the utter defeat of the northern confederates had now broken the courage of the Cherokee, and on their own request Governor Blount held a conference with them at Tellico blockhouse, November 7 and 8, 1794, at which Hanging-maw, head chief of the Nation, and Colonel John Watt, principal chief of the hos- tile towns, with about four hundred of their warriors, attended. The result was satisfactory; all differences were arranged on a friendly basis and the long Cherokee war came to an end. 3 Owing to the continued devastation of their towns during the Rev- olutionary struggle, a number of Cherokee, principally of the Chicka- mauga band, had removed across the Ohio about 1782 and settled on Paint creek, a branch of the Scioto river, in the vicinity of their friends and allies, the Shawano. In 17*7 they were reported to num- ber about seventy warriors. They took an active part in the hostili- ties along the Ohio frontier and were present in the great battle at the Maumee rapids, by which the power of the confederated northern tribes was effectually broken. As they had failed to attend the treaty con- ference held at Greenville in August, 1795, General Wayne sent them a special message, through their chief Long-hair, that if they refused to come in and make terms as the others had done they would be con- sidered outside the protection of the government. Upon this a part of them came in and promised that as soon as they could gather their crops the w T hole band would leave Ohio forever and return to their people in the south. 4 'Haywood, Political and civil History of Tennessee, pp. 392-396. 1823; Ramsey, Tennessee (with Major Ore's report), pp. 608-618, 1853; Royce, Cherokee Nation. Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau Ethnology, p L71, 1888; Ore, Robertson, and Blount, reports, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i, pp. 632-634, 1832 -Ramsey, op. cit., p. 618. Tellico lferenee, November 7-8, 1794, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i. pp. 536-538, ls:!2, Royce, op. cit.. p. 173; Ramsey, op. cit, p. 596. 'Beaver's talk. 17sl, Virginia state Papers, in, p. 571,1883; McDowell, report, 1786, ibid., iv, p. 118, 1884; McDowell, report, 1787, ibid., p. 286: Todd, letter, 1787, ibid., p. 277; Tellico conference. Novem- ber 7, 1794, American State Papers; Indian Affairs, I, p. 538, 1832; Greenville treaty conference, August, 1795, ibid., pp. 582-583. 80 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.akn.19 The Creeks were -till hostile and continued their inroads upon the western settlements. Early in January, 17'.i.">. Governor Blount held another conference with the Cherokee and endeavored t" persuade them i" organise a company of their young men to patrol the frontier against the Creeks, but to this proposal the chiefs refused to consent. 1 In the next year it was discovered that a movement was on foot to take possession of certain Indian lands south of the Cumberland on pretense of authority formerly granted by North Carolina for the relief of Revolutionary soldiers. As such action would almost surely have resulted in another Indian war. Congress interposed, on the rep- resentation of President Washington, with an act for the regulation of intercourse between citizens of the United States and the various Indian tribes. Its main purpose was to prevent intrusion upon lands to which the Indian title had not been extinguished by treaty with the general government, and under its provisions a number of squatters were ejected from the Indian country and removed across the boundary. The pressure of border sentiment, however, was constantly for extend- ing the area of white settlement and the result was an immediate agita- tion to procure another treaty cession. : In consequence of urgent representations from the people of Ten- nessee, Congress took steps in IT'.tT for procuring a new treaty with the Cherokee by which the ejected settlers might '»■ reinstated and the boundaries of the new state so extended as to bring about closer com- munication between the eastern settlements and those on the ( lumber- land. Tin 1 Revolutionary warfare had forced the Cherokee west and south, and their capital and central gathering place was now Ustanali town, near the present Calhoun. Georgia, while Echota, their ancient capital and beloved peace town, was almost on the edge of the white settlements. The commissioners wished to have the proceedings con- ducted at Echota, while the Cherokee favored Ustanali. After some debate a choice was made of a convenient place near Tellico block- house, where the conference opened in July, hut was brought to an abrupt (dose by the peremptory refusal of the Cherokee to sell any land- or to permit the return of the ejected settlers. The rest of the summer was spent in negotiation alone' the linos already proposed, and on October 2, L798, a treaty, commonly known as the "first treaty of Tellico." was concluded*at the same place, and was signed by thirty-nine chiefs on behalf of the Cherokee. By this t reaty the Indians ceded a tract between ( !linch river and the Cumber- land ridge, another alone- the northern hank of Little Tennessee extending up to Chilhowee mountain, and a third in North Carolina mi the heads of French Broad and Pigeon rivers and including the sites i Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. IT:;, 1888 s Ibid., pp. 174,175; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp ''7'.' • - mooxey] CONDITION OF CHEROKEE IX 1800 81 of the present Waynesville and Hendersonville. These cessions included most or all of the lands from which settlers had been ejected. Permission was also given for laying out the "Cumberland road." to connect the east Tennessee settlements with those about Nashville. In consideration of the lands and rights surrendered, the United States agreed to deliver to the Cherokee five thousand dollars in goods, and to increase their existing annuity by one thousand dollars, and as usual, to •■continue the guarantee of the remainder of their country forever."' Wayne's victory over the northern tribes at the battle of the Mau- niee rapids completely broke their power and compelled them to accept the terms of peace dictated at the treaty of Greenville in the summer of 1795. The immediate result was the surrender of the Ohio river boundary by the Indians and the withdrawal of the British garrisons from the interior posts, which up to this time they had continued to hold in spite of the treaty made at the close of the Revolution. By the treaty made at Madrid in October, L795, Spain gave up all claim on the east side of the Mississippi north of the thirty-first parallel, but on various pretexts the formal transfer of posts was delayed and a Spanish garrison continued to occupy San Fernando de Barrancas, at the present Memphis. Tennessee, until the fall of 1797, while that at Natchez, in Mississippi, was not surrendered until March. 1798. The Creeks, seeing the trend of affairs, had made peace at Colerain. Georgia, in June, 179t>. With the hostile European influence thus eliminated, at least for the time, the warlike tribes on the north and on the south crushed and dispirited and the Chickamauga towns wiped out of existence, the Cherokee realized that they must accept the situation and, after nearly twenty years of continuous warfare, laid \^ aside the tomahawk to cultivate the arts of peace and civilization. The close of the century found them still a compact people (the westward movement having hardly yet begun) numbering probably about 20,000 souls. After repeated cessions of large tracts of land, to some of which they had but doubtful claim, they remained in recog- nized possession of nearly 4:3,000 square miles of territory, a country about equal in extent to Ohio. Virginia, or Tennessee. Of this 'terri- tory about one half was within the limits of Tennessee, the remainder being almost equally divided between Georgia and Alabama, with a small area in the extreme southwestern corner of North Carolina. 2 The old Lower towns on Savannah river had been broken up for twenty years, and the whites had so far encroached upon the Upper towns that the capital and council tire of the nation had been removed from the ancient peace town of Echota to Ustanali, in Georgia. The i Indian Treaties, pp. 78-82. 1837; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 692-697. ls.">:;; Royce, Cherokei (with map and full discussion i, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 174-lw, 1888. -See table in Royce, op.cit., p. 378. 19 ETH— 01 6 82 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ank.19 towns on Coosa river and in Alabama were almost all of recent estab- lishment, peopled by refugees from the east and north. The Middle towns, in North Carolina, were still surrounded by Indian country. Firearms had been introduced into the tribe about one hundred years before, and the Cherokee had learned well their use. Such civilized goods as hatchets, knives, clothes, and trinkets had become so common before the first Cherokee war that the Indians had declared that they could no longer live without the trader-. Horses and other domestic animals had been introduced early in the century, and at the opening of the war of L760, according to Adair, the Cherokee had "a prodigious number of excellent horses." and although hunger had compelled them t<> eat a great many of these during that period, they still had, in 1775. from two to a dozen each, and bid fair soon to have plenty of the best sort, as, according to the same authority, they were skilful jockeys and nice in their choice. Some of them had grown fond of cattle, and they had also an abundance of hoes and poultry, the Indian pork being esteemed better than that raised in the white settlements on account of the chestnut diet. 1 In Sevier's expedition against the towns on Coosa river, in 1793, the army killed three hun- dred beeves at Etowah and left their carcasses rotting on the ground. While crossing the Cherokee country in 1796 Hawkins met an Indian woman on horseback driving ten very fat cattle to the settlements for sale. Peach trees and potatoes, as well as the native corn and beans, were abundant in their fields, and some had bees and honey and did a considerable trade in beeswax. They seem to have quickly recovered from the repeated ravages of war. and there was a general air of pros- perity throughout the nation. The native arts () f pottery and basket- making were still the principal employment of the women, and the warriors hunted with such success that a party of traders brought down thirty wagon loads of skins on one trip." In dress and house- building the Indian style was practically unchanged. In pursuance of a civilizing policy, the government had agreed, by the treaty of 17U1, to furnish the Cherokee gratuitously with farming tools and similar assistance. This policy was continued and broadened to such an extent that in L801 Hawkins reports that "in the Cherokee agency, the wheel, the loom, and the plough is [sic] in pretty general use. farming, manufactures, and stock raising the topic of conversation among the men and women." At a conference held this year we find the chiefs of the mountain towns complaining that the people of the more western and southwestern settlements had received more than their share of spinning wheels and cards, and were consequently more advanced in making their own clothing as well as in farming, to which 1 Adair, American Indians, pp.280,281, I77.Y 2 See Hawkins, MS journal from South Carolina to tin- Creeks, 17%, in library of Georgia Historical Society. N uney] INTERMARRIAGE WITH WHITES 83 the others retorted that these things had been offered to all alike at the same time, but while the lowland people had been quick to accept, the mountaineers had hung back. "Those who complain came in late. We have got the start of them, which we are determined to keep." The progressives, under John Watts, Doublehead. and Will, threatened to secede from the rest and leave those east of Chilhowee mountain to shift for themselves. 1 We see here the germ of dissatisfaction which led ultimately to the emigration of the western band. Along with other things of civilization, negro slavery had been introduced and several of the leading men were now slaveholders (31). Much of the advance in civilization had been due to the intermar- riage among them of white men, chiefly traders of the ante-Revolu- tionary period, with a few Americans from the back settlements. The families that have made Cherokee history were nearly all of this mixed descent. The Doughertys, Galpins. and Adairs were from Ireland: the Rosses, Vanns, and Macintoshes, like the McGillivrays and Graysons among the Creeks, were of Scottish origin; the Waffords and others were Americans from Carolina or Georgia, and the father of Sequoya was a (Pennsylvania '.) German. Most of this white blood was of good stock, very different from the "squaw man" element of the western tribes. Those of the mixed blood who could afford it usually sent their children away to be educated, while some built schoolhouses upon their own grounds and brought in private teachers from the outside. With the beginning of the present century we find influential mixed bloods in almost every town, and the civilized idea dominated even the national councils. The Middle towns, shut in from the outside world by high mountains, remained a stronghold of Cherokee conservatism. With the exception of Priber, there seems to be no authentic record of any missionary worker among the Cherokee before 1800. There is, indeed, an incidental notice of a Presbyterian minister of North Caro- lina being on his way to the tribe in 1758, but nothing seems to have come of it, and we find him soon after in South Carolina and separated from his original jurisdiction. 2 The first permanent mission was estab- lished by the Moravians, those peaceful German immigrants whose teachings were so well exemplified in the lives of Zeisberger and Heckewelder. As early as 1734, while temporarily settled in Georgia, they had striven to bring some knowledge of the Christian religion to the Indians immediately about Savannah, including perhaps some stray Cherokee. Later on they established missions among the Dela- wares in Ohio, where their first Cherokee convert was received in 1773, being one who had been captured by the Delawares when a boy and had grown up and married in the tribe. In 1752 they had formed a settlement on the upper Yadkin, near the present Salem, 1 Hawkins, Treaty Commission, 1801, manuscript No. 5, m library of Georgia Historical Society. -Foote (?), in North Carolina Colonial Records, v. p. 1'2'J6, 1887. M MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE lbth.akh.1S North Carolina, where 1 1 n - \ made friendly acquaintance with the Cherokee. 1 In L799, hearing thai the Cherokee desired teachers or perhaps bj direct invitation of the chiefs two missionaries visited the tribe to investigate the matter. Another visit wa- made in the next summer, and a council was held at Tellico agency, where, after a debate in which the Indians showed considerable difference <>t' opinion, it was decided tn open a mission. Permission having been obtained from the government, the work was begun in April. L801, by Rev. Abraham Steiner and Rev. Gottlieb Byhan at the residence of David Vann, a prominent mixed-blood chief, who lodged them in his own bouse and gave them every assistance in building the mission, which they afterward called Spring place, where now is the village of the same name in Murray county, northwestern Georgia. They were also materially aided by the agent, Colonel Return J. Meigs (32). It was soon seen that the Cherokee wanted civilizers for their children, and not new theologies, and when they found that a school could not at once 1 pened the great council at I'stanali sent orders to the missi iries to organize a school within six months or leave the nation. Through Vann's help the matter was arranged and a school was opened, several sons of prominent chiefs being among the pupils. Another Moravian mission was established by Reverend .1. Gambold at Oothcaloga, in the same county, in 1821. Roth were in flourishing condition when broken up. with other Cherokee missions, by the Stair of Georgia in 1834:. The work was afterward renewed beyond the Mississippi. 5 In 1804 the Reverend Gideon Blackburn, a Presbyterian minister of Tennessee, opened a school among the Cherokee, which continued for several years until abandoned for lack of funds. 8 Notwithstanding the promise to the Cherokee in the treaty of 1798 that the Government would "continue the guarantee of the remain- der of their country forever." measures were begun almost imme- diately to procure another large cession of land and road privileges. In spite of the strenuous objection of the Cherokee, who sent a delegation of prominent chiefs to Washington to protest against any further sales, such pressure was brought to hear, chiefly through the efforts of the agent, Colonel Meigs, that the object of the Government was accomplished, and in L804 and 1805 three treaties were negotiated at Tellico agency, by which the Cherokee were shorn id' more than eight thousand square miles of their remaining territory. By the first of these treaties October 24, 1804 — a purchase was made of a small tract in northeastern Georgia, known as the "Warlord ' North Carolina Colonial R rds, v. p. \, i.ss;. JReichel, E. II.. Historical Sketch of the Church and Missions of the I nited Brethren, pp. 65 81; hem en L848; Holmes, J. ait,. Sketches ol the Missions o! the United Brethren, pp. 124, 125, 109 i ! Dublin L818: II pson, A. ('.. Moravian Mis-ions, p. 341; New York, 1890; De Schweinitz, Edmund, Life ol Zeisberger, pp. 894 196 Phils . 1870. ■ Morse, American Geography, i, p. 577, 1819. mooney] TREATY OF WASHINGTON — 18(»6 85 settlement," upon which a party led by Colonel Wafford had located some years before, under the impression that it was outside the bound- ary established bythe Hopewell treaty. In compensation the Cherokee were to receive an immediate payment of live thousand dollars in goods or cash with an additional annuity of one thousand dollars. By the other treaties — October 25 and u'7. L805 — a large tract was obtained in central Tennessee and Kentucky, extending between the Cumber- land range and the western line of the Hopewell treaty, and from Cumberland river southwest to Duck river. One section was also secured at Southwest point (now Kingston, Tennessee) with the design of establishing there the state capital, which, however, was located at Nashville instead seven years later. Permission was also obtained for two mail roads through the Cherokee country into Georgia and Ala- bama. In consideration of the cessions by the two treaties the United States agreed to pay fifteen thousand six hundred dollars in working implements, goods, orcash, with an additional annuity of three thousand dollars. To secure the consent of some of the leading chiefs, the treaty commissioners resorted to the disgraceful precedent of secret articles, by which several valuable small tracts were reserved for Doublehead and Tollunteeskee, the agreement being recorded as a part of the treaty, but not embodied in the copy sent to the Senate for con- firmation. 1 In consequence of continued abuse of his official position for selfish ends Doublehead was soon afterward killed in accordance with a decree of the chiefs of the Nation, Major Ridge being selected as executioner. 2 By the treaty of October 25, 1805, the settlements in eastern Tennessee were brought into connection with those about Nashville on the Cumber- land, and the state at last assumed compact form. The whole southern portion of the state, as defined in the charter, was still Indian coun- try, and there was a strong and constant pressure for its opening, the prevailing sentiment being in favor of making Tennessee river the boundary between the two races. New immigrants were constantly crowding in from the east. and. as Royce says, "the desire to settle on Indian land was as potent and insatiable with the average border settler then as it is now." Almost within two months of the last treaties another one was concluded at Washington on January 7, 1806, by which the Cherokee ceded their claim to a large tract between Duck river and the Tennessee, embracing nearly seven thousand ' square miles in Tennessee and Alabama, together with the Long island (Great island) in Holston river, which up to this time they had claimed as theirs. They were promised in compensation ten thousand dollars in five cash installments, a grist mill and cotton gin, and a life annuity 1 Indian treaties, pp.108, 121, 125, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnol- ogy, pp. 183 193, 1888 (map and full discussion I. -McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, n, p. 92, 1858. 86 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 of one hundred dollars for Black-fox, the aged head chief of the nation. The signers of the instrument, including Doublehead and Tollunteeskee, were accompanied to Washington by the same commissioners who had procured the previous treaty. In consequence of some misunderstand ing, the boundaries <>l' the ceded trad were Mill further extended in a supple ntary treaty concluded at the Chickasaw Old Fields on the Tennessee, on September 11. L807. As the country between Duck river and the Tennessee was claimed also by t In- Chickasaw, their title was extinguished by separate treaties.' The ostensible compensation for this lust Cherokee cession, as shown by the treaty, was two thou sand dollars, but it was secretly agreed by Agent Meigs that what he calls a "silenl consideration" of one thousand dollars and some rifles should be given to the chiefs who signed it. ; In L807 Colonel Elias Earle, with the consent of the Government, obtained a concession from the Cherokee for the establishment of iron works at the mouth of Chickamauga creek, on the south side of Ten- nessee river, to be supplied from ores mined in the Cherokee country. It was hoped that this would be a considerable step toward the civili- zation of the Indians, besides enabling the Government to obtain its supplies of manufactured iron at a cheaper rate, hut after prolonged effort the project was finally abandoned on account of the refusal of the state of Tennessee to sanction the grant. 3 In the same year, by arrangement with the general government, the legislature of Tennessee attempted to negotiate with the Cherokee for that part of their unceded lands lying within the state limits, but without success, owing to the unwillingness of the Indians to part with any more territory, and their special dislike for the people of Tennessee.* In L810 the Cherokee national council registered a further advance in civilization by formally abolishing the custom of clan revenge, hitherto universal among the tribes. The enactment bears the signa- tures of Black-fox (Ina'li), principal chief, and seven others, and reads as follows: In Council, Oostinaleh, April IS, 1810. 1. Be it known this .lay, That the various clans or tribes which compose the Cher- okee nation have unanimously passed an act of oblivion for all lives for which they may have been indebted one to the other, and have mutually agreed that after this evening the aforesaid act shall become binding upon every clan or tribe thereof. •1. Tlie aforesaid clans or tribes have also agreed that if, in future, any life should be lost without malice intended, the innocent aggressor shall not be accounted guilty; i Indian Treaties, pp. 132-136, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Kip. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 193-197, 1888. 2 Meigs, letter, September 28, 1807, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i. p. 754, 1832 Royi op.cit., p. 197. si < treaty, December ^, 1807, and Jefferson's message, with inclosures, March 10, 1808, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i. pp. 752-754, 1832; Royce, op.cit., pp. 199-201. • Ibid., pp. 201,202. mooney] THE UNICOI TURNPIKE Si and. should it so happen thai a brother, forgetting his natural affections, should raise his hands in anger and kill his brother, he shall be accounted guilty of murder and suffer accordingly. ::. If a man have a horse stolen, and overtake the thief, and sin mid his anger be so great as to cause him to shed his hi 1, let it remain on his ow n conscience, bul no satisfaction shall be required for his life, from his relative or clan he may have belonged to. Bj order of the seven clans. ' Under an agreement with the Cherokee in 1813a company composed pf representatives of Tennessee, Georgia, and the Cherokee nation was organized to lay out a free public road from Tennessee river to the head of navigation on the Tugaloo branch of Savannah river, with provision for convenient stopping places alone- the line. The road was completed within the next three years, and became the great high- way from the coast to the Tennessee settlements. Beginning on the Tugaloo or Savannah a short distance below the entrance of Toccoa creek, it crossed the upper Chattahoochee, passing through Clarkes- ville, Nacoochee valley, the Unicoi gap. and Hiwassee in Georgia; then entering North Carolina it descended the Hiwassee, passing through Hayesville and Murphy and over the Great Smoky range into Tennessee, until it reached the terminus at the Cherokee capital, Echota, on Little Tennessee. It was officially styled the Unicoi turn- pike,' but was commonly known in North Carolina as the Wachesa trail, from Watsi'sa or Wachesa, a prominent Indian who lived near the crossing-place on Beaverdam creek, below Murphy, this portion of the road being laid out along the old Indian trail which already bore that name. 3 Passing over for the present some negotiations having for their pur- pose the removal of the Cherokee to the West, we arrive at the period of the Creek war. Ever since the treaty of Greenville it had been the dream of Tecum- tha, the great Shawano chief (33), to weld again the conf ederacj' of the northern tribes as a harrier against the further aggressions of the white man. His own burning eloquence was ably seconded by the subtler persuasion of his brother, who assumed the role of a prophet with a new revelation, the burden of which was that the Indians must return to their old Indian life it' they would preserve their national existence. The new doctrine spread among all the northern tribes and at hist reached those of the south, where TecumAha himself had gone to enlist the warriors in the great Indian confederacy. The prophets of the Upper Creeks eagerly accepted the doctrine and in a short time their warriors were dancing the "dance of the Indians of the lakes." In iln American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n, p. 283, 1831. 2 See contract appended to Washington treaty, 1819, Indian Treaties, pp. 269-271, 1837; Royce map, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1888. 3 Author's personal information. MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE i ™ anticipation of an expected war with the United Stair- the British agents in Canada had I n encouraging the hostile feeling toward the Americans by talks and presents of goods and ammunition, while the Spaniards also covertly fanned the flame of discontent.' At the beighl of the ferment war was declared between thi- country and England on June 28, 1812. Tecumtha, :it the bead of fifteen hundred warriors, at once entered the British service with a commission as general, while the Creeks began murdering and burning along the southern frontier, after having vainly attempted to secure the cooperation of the ( Iherokee. From the Creeks the new revelation was brought to the Cherokee, whose priests at once began to dream dreams and to preach a return to the old life as the only hope of the Indian rare. A greal medicine dance was appointed at (Jstanali, the national capital, where, after the dance was over, the doctrine was publicly announced and explained by a Cherokee prophet introduced by a delegation from Coosawatee. He began by saying that some of the mountain towns had abused him and refused to receive his message, hut nevertheless he must continue to hear testimony of his mission whatever might happen. The Cherokee had broken the road which had been given to their fathers at the begin- ningof the world. They hud taken the white man's clothes and trinkets. they had beds and tables and mills; some even had hooks and cats. All this was had, and because of it their gods were angry and the game was leaving their country. If they would live and be happy as before they must put off the white man's dress, throw away his mills and looms, kill their cats, put on paint and buckskin, and be Indians again; otherwise swift destruction would come upon them. His speech appealed strongly to the people, who cried out in great excitement that his talk was good. Of all those present only Major Ridge, a principal child', had the courage to stand up and oppose it, warning his hearers that such talk would inevitably lead to war with the United States, which would end in their own destruction. The maddened followers of the prophet sprang upon Ridge and would have killed him hut for the interposition of friends. As it was. he was thrown down and narrowly escaped with his life, while one of his defender- was stabbed by his side. The prophet had threatened after a certain time to invoke a terrible storm, which should destroy all hut the true believers, who were exhorted to gather for safety on one of the high peaks of the Great Smoky mountains. In full faith they abandoned their bees, their orchards, their slaves, and everything that had come to them from the white man. and took up their toilsome march for the high mountains. There they waited until the appointed day had come and passed, show- 1 Mooney, Ghost-dance Religion, Fourteenth Ami. Rep. Bim'au of Ethnology, p. 670 el passim, 1896; contemporary documents in American State Papers: [ndian Affairs,!, pp. 798-801, 845 moosev] BEGINNING OF CREEK WAR — 1813 89 in be groundless, when they sadly returned to their homes and the great Indian revival among the Cherokee came in an end. 1 Among the ('recks, where other hostile influences were at work, the excitement culminated in the Creek war. Several murders and outrages had already been committed, but it was not until the terrible massacre at Fort Minis (34), on August 30, L813, that the whole American nation was aroused. Through the influence of Ridge and other prominent chiefs the Cherokee had refused to join the hostile Creeks, and on the contrary had promised to assist the whites and the friendly towns. 2 More than a year before the council had sent a friendly letter to the Creeks warning them against taking the British side in the approach- ing war, while several prominent chiefs had proposed to enlist a Chero- kee force for the service of the United States.' Finding that no help was to be expected from the Cherokee, the Creeks took occasion to kill a Cherokee woman near the town of Etowah, in Georgia. With the help of a conjurer the murderers were trailed and overtaken and killed on the evening of the second day in a thicket where they had concealed themselves. After this there could be no alliance between the two tribes.* At the time of the Fort Mims massacre Mcintosh (35), the chief of the friendly Lower Creeks, was visiting the Cherokee, among whom he had relatives. By order of the Cherokee council he was escorted home by a delegation under the leadership of Ridge. On his return Ridge brought with him a request from the Lower Creeks that the Cherokee would join with them and the Americans in putting down the war. Ridge himself strongly urged the proposition, declaring that if the, prophets were allowed to have their way the work of civil- ization would be destroyed. The council, however, decided not to interfere in the affairs of other tribes, whereupon Ridge called for volunteers, with the result that so many of the warriors responded that the council reversed its decision and declared war against the Creeks." For a proper understanding of the situation it is necessary to state that the hostile feeling was confined almost entirely to the Upper Creek towns on the Tallapoosa, where the prophets of the new religion had their residence. The half-breed chief, Weatherford (•".»'.). was the leader of the war party. The Lower Creek towns on the Clu.ttahoo- iSee Mooney, Ghost dance Religion, Fourteenth Aim. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 670-677, 1896; McKennej and Hall, Indian Tribes, II, pp. 93-95, 1858; see also contemporary letters (1813, etc.) by Hawkins. Cornells, and others in American state Papers: Indian Affairs, i, 1S32. -Letters of Hawkins, Pinckney, and Cussetah King, July, 1813, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 847-849, 1832. :l Meigs, letter, May s. 1812, and Hawkins, letter. May 11, 1812, ibid., p.809. 4 Author's information from James I). Wafford. 'MeKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, n, pi.. 96-97, IS 8 ■ Mi MYTHS OF THE CHKEOKEE [bth inn- .19 chec, under Mcintosh, another half-breed chief , were friendly, and acted with the Cherokee and the Americans against their own brethren. It is not our purpose to give a history of the Creek war, but only to note the part which the Cherokee had in it. The friendly Lower Creeks, under Mcintosh, with a few refugees from the Upper towns, operated chiefly with the army under Genera] Floyd which invaded the southern pari of the Creels country from Georgia. Some friendly Choctaw and Chickasaw also lenl their assistance in tin- direction. The Cherokee, with some friendly Creeks of the Upper towns, acted with tli*' armies under Generals White and .lack-on. which entered the Creek country from the Tennessee side. While some hundreds of their warriors were thus fighting in the field, the Cherokee at home were busily collecting provisions for the American troops. As Jackson approached from the north, about the end of October, L813, be wa- met by runners asking him to come to the aid of Path- killer, a Cherokee chief, who was in danger of being cut off by the hostilcs. at his village of Turkeytown, on the upper Coosa, near the present Center. Alabama. A fresh detachment on its way from east Tennessee, under General White, was ordered by Jackson to relieve the town, and successfully performed this work. White's force con- sisted of one thousand men. including four hundred Cherokee under Colonel Gideon Morgan and .John Lowrey. 1 As the army advanced down the Coosa the Creeks retired to Tallasee- hatchee, on the creek of the same name, near the present Jacksonville, Calhoun county. Alabama. One thousand men under General Coffee, together with a company of Cherokee under Captain Richard Brown and some few Creeks, were sent against them. The Indian auxiliaries wore headdresses of white feathers and deertails. The attack was made at daybreak of November •"». 1813, and the town was taken after a desperate resistance, from which not one — they fought as long as "lie existed, but their destruction was very Boon completed. Our men rushed up i" the doors of the house- ami in a few minutes killed the last warrior of then). The enemy f ought with savage fury and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining — not one asked to he spared, butfought as long as they could stand or sit. < )f such fighting stuff did the Creeks prove themselves, against over whelming numbers, throughout the war. The bodies of nearly two hundred dead warriors were counted on the field, and the general reiterates that "not one of the warriors escaped." A number of women and children were taken prisoners. Nearly every man of the Creeks had a how with a bundle of arrows, which he used after the 'Drake, Indians, pp. 895-396, 1880; Pickett, Alabama, p, 556, reprint "i 1896. mookey] BATTLES OF TALLADEGA AND HILLABEE — 1813 91 first fire with his gun. The American loss was only five killed and forty-one wounded, which may not include the Indian contingent. 1 White's advance guard, consisting chiefly of the four hundred other Cherokee under Morgan and Lowrey, reached Tallaseehatchee the same evening, only to find it already destroyed. They picked up twenty wounded Creeks, whom they brought with them to Turkeytown. 5 The next great battle was at Talladega, on the site of the present town of the same name, in Talladega county. Alabama, on November 9, 1813. Jackson commanded in person with two thousand infantry and cavalry. Although the Cherokee are not specifically mentioned they were a part of the army and must have taken part in the engagement. The town itself was occupied by friendly Creeks, who were besieged l>y the hostiles, estimated at over one thousand warriors on the out- side. Here again the battle was simply a slaughter, the odds being two to one. the Creeks being also without cover, although they fought .so desperately that at one time the militia was driven back. They left two hundred and ninety-nine dead bodies on the field, which, according to their own statement afterwards, was only a part of their total loss. The Americans lost fifteen killed and eighty-five wounded. 3 A day or two later the people of Hillabee town, about the site of the present village of that name in Clay county. Alabama, sent mes- sengers to Jackson's camp to ask for peace, which that commander immediately granted. In the meantime, even while the peace mes- sengers were on their way home with the good news, an army of one thousand men from east Tennessee under General White, who claimed to be independent of Jackson's authority, together with four hundred Cherokee under Colonel Gideon Morgan and John Lowrey. surrounded the town on November 18, 1813, taking it by surprise, the inhabitants having trusted so confidently to the success of their peace embassy that they had made no preparation for defense. Sixty warriors were killed and over two hundred and fifty prisoners taken, with no loss to the Americans, as there was practically no resistance. In White's official report of the affair he states that he had sent ahead a part of his force, together with the Cherokee under Morgan, to surround the town, and adds that "Colonel Morgan and the Cherokees under his command gave undeniable evidence that they merit the employ of their government."' Not knowing that the attack had been made without Jackson's sanction or knowledge, the Creeks naturally con- 1 Coffee, report, etc., in Drake, Indians, p. 396, 1880; Lossing, Field Book of the War of 1812, pp. 762,763 [n. d. (1869)]; Pickett, Alabama, p. 553, reprint of 18%. 2 Ibid.,p. 556. 3 Drake, Indians, p. 396, 1880; Pickett, op.cit., pp. 554, 555. 'White's report, etc., in Fay and Davison, Sketches of the War, pp. 240. 241: Rutland, Vt., 1815; Low. John! Impartial History of the War, p. 199; New York, 1815; Drake, op. cit., p. 397; Pickett, op. cit., p. 557; Lossing, op. cit., p. 767. Low says White had about 1,100 mounted men, -'including upward "f 300 Cherokee Indians." Pickett gives White 400 Cherokee. 92 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth. eluded thai peace overtures were of no avail, and thenceforth until tlir close of the war there was m> talk of surrender. On November 29, L813, the Georgia army under General Floyd, consisting of nine hundred and fifty American troops and four hun- dred friendly Indian-, chiefly Lower Creeks under Mcintosh, took and destroyed Autossee town on the Tallapoosa, west of the present Tuskegee. killing about two hundred warriors and burning four hun- dred well-buill nouses. On December .'•': the Creeks were again defeated by General Claiborne, assisted by some friendly Choctaws, at Ecanachaca or the Holy Ground on Alabama river, near the present Benton in Low ndes county. This town and another a few miles awav were also destroyed, with a great quantity of provisions and other property. 1 It is doubtful if any Cherokee were concerned in either action. Before the close of the year Jackson's force in northern Alabama had been so far reduced by mutinies and expiration of service terms that he had l>ut one hundred soldiers left and was obliged to employ the Cherokee to garrison Fort Armstrong, on the upper Coosa, ami to protect his provision depot.' With theopeningof the new year, L814, having received reinforcements from Tennessee, together with about two hundred friendly Creeks and sixty-five more Cherokee, he left his camp on the Coosa and advanced against the towns on the Tallapoosa. Learning, on arriving near the river, that he was within a few miles of the main body of the enemy, he halted for a reconnoissance and camped in order of Wattle on Fmukfaw creek, on the northern hank of the Tallaj sa, only a short distance from the famous Horseshoe bend. Here, on the morning of June 24, 1814, he was suddenly attacked by the enemy with such fury that, although the troops charged with the bayonet, the Creeks returned again to the fight and were at last broken only by the help of the friendly Indians, who came upon them from the rear. As it was, .lack-on was so badly crippled that he retreated to Fort Strother on the Coosa, carrying his wounded, among them ( ren- eral Coffee, on horse-hide litters. The Creeks pursued and attacked him again as he was crossing Enotochopco creek on January 24, hut after a severe fight were driven back with discharges of grapeshot from a six-pounder at close range. The army then continued its retreat to Fort Strother. The American loss in these two battles was about one hundred killed and wounded. The loss of the ( 'reeks was much greater, hut they had compelled a superior force, armed with bayonet and artillery, to retreat, and without the aid of the friendly Indians it is doubtful if Jackson could have saved his army from demoralization. The Creeks themselves claimed a victory and boasted afterward that they had " whipped Jackson and run him to the Coosa fiver." Indian! pp 191, 898, 1880; Pickett, Alabama, pi 9 92 96 reprint of 189C 'Ibid., p. 579; Lossfng Field Book of the War of 1812, p. 77:; hookey] BATTLE OF HORSESHOE BEND — 1814 V)3 Pickett states, on what seems good authority, that the Creeks engaged did not number more than five hundred warriors. Jackson had prob- ably at least one thousand two hundred men. including Indians. 1 While these events were transpiring in the north, General Floyd again advanced from Georgia with a force of about one thousand three hundred Americans and four hundred friendly Indians, but was sur- prised on Caleebee creek, near the present Tuskegee, Alabama, on the morning of January 27, 1814, and compelled to retreat, leaving the enemy in possession of the field. 2 We come now to the final event of the Creek war, the terrible battle of the Horseshoe bend. Having received large reenforcements from Tennessee, Jackson left a garrison at Fort Strother, and. about the middle of March, descended the Coosa river to the mouth of Cedar creek, southeast from the present Columbiana, where he built Fori Williams. Leaving his stores here with a garrison to protect them, he began his march for the Horseshoe bend of the Tallapoosa, where the hostiles were reported to have collected in great force. At this place, known to the Creeks as Tohopki or Tohopeka, the Tallapoosa made a bend so as to inclose some eighty or a hundred acres in a nar- row peninsula opening to the north. On the lower side was an island in the river, and about a mile below was Emukfaw creek, entering from the north, where Jackson had been driven back two months before Both locations were in the present Tallapoosa county. Alabama, within two miles of the present post village of Tohopeka. Across the neck of the peninsula the Creeks had built a strong breastwork of logs, behind which were their houses, and behind these were a number of canoes moored to the bank for use if retreat became necessary. The fort was defended by a thousand warriors, with whom were also about three hundred women and children. Jackson's force numbered about two thousand men, including, according to his own statement, five hundred Cherokee. He had also two small cannon. The account of the battle, or rather massacre, which occurred on the morning of .March •_'". 1814, is best condensed from the official reports of the principal commanders. Having arrived in the neighborhood of the fort, Jackson disposed his men for the attack by detailing General Coffee with the mounted men and nearly the whole of the Indian force to cross the river at a foi-d about three miles below and surround the bend in such manner that none could escape in that direction. He himself, with the restof his force, advanced to the front of the breastwork and planted hiscan- • Fay and Davison, Sketches of the War. pp. 247-250, 1815; Pickett. Alabama, pp. 579-584, reprint of 1896; Drake, Indians, pp. 398-400, 1S80. Piekett says Jackson had "767 men. with mi friendly Indians " ; Drake says he started with 930 men and was joined at Talladega by 200 friendly Indians; Jackson himself, as quoted in Fay and Davison, says that In- started with 930 men, excluding Indians, and was joined at Talladega " by between 200 and 300 friendly Indians;" ' > being Cherokee the resl Creeks. The inference is that he already had a number of Indians with him at the start— probablj the Cherokee who had been doing garrison duty. 2 Pickett, op. cit., pp. 584-586. 9 1 MYTH8 OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.ank.19 iiuii upon a slight rise within eighty yards of the fortification, tie then directed a heavy cannonade upon the center of the breastwork, while the rifles mid muskets kept up a galling fire upon the defenders when- ever they showed themselves behind the logs. The breastwork was very strongly and compactly built, from five to eight feel high, with a double row of portholes, and so planned that no enemy could approach without being exposed to a crossfire from those on the inside. After about two hours of cannonading and rifle fire to no great purpose, "Captain Russell's company of spies and a party of the Cherokee tone, headed by their gallant chieftain, Colonel Richard Brown, and conducted by the brave Colonel Morgan, crossed over to the peninsula in canoes and set fire to a few of their buildings there situated. They then advanced with great gallantry toward the breastwork and com- menced firing upon the enemy, who lay behind it. Finding that this force, notwithstanding the determination they displayed, was wholly insufficient to dislodge the enemy, and that General Coffee had secured the opposite hanks of the river. I now determined on taking possession of their works by storm.'" ' Coffee's official report to his commanding officer states that he had taken seven hundred mounted troops and about six hundred Indians, of whom five hundred were Cherokee and the rest friendly Creeks, and had come in behind, having- directed the Indians to take position secretly along the bank of the river to prevent the enemy crossing, as already noted. This was done, but with fighting going on so near at hand the Indians could not remain quiet. Continuing, Coffee says: The firing of your cannon and small arms in a short time l>ecame general and heavy, which animated our Indians, and seeing about one hundred of the warriors and all the squaws and children of the enemy running about among the huts of the village, which was open to our view, they could no longer remain silent spectators. While some kept up a fire across the river to prevent the enemy's approach to the hank, others plunged into the water ami swam the river for canoes thai lay at the other shore in considerable numbers and brought them over, in which crafts a num- ber of them embarked and landed on the bend with the enemy. Colonel Gideon Morgan, who < unanded the Cherokees, Captain Kerr, and Captain William Rus- sell, with a part of his company of spies, were a lg the first that crossed the river. They advanced into the village and very soon drove the enemy from the huts up the river bank to the fortified works from which they were fighting you. They pursued and continued to annoy during your whole action. This movement of my Indian forces left the river bank unguarded and made it necessary that I should send a part of my line to take possession of the river bank. 9 According to the official report of Colonel Morgan, who commanded the Cherokee and who was himself Severely wounded, the Cherokee took the places assigned them along the bank in such regular order ■Jackson's report !<• Governor Blount, March 81, 1814, in Fay and Pavison, Sketches of the War, pp. 253,234, 181 • 'General Coffee's report to General Jackson, April 1,1814, Ibid., i>. 267. MoosEv] BATTLE OF HORSESHOE BEND — 1814 95 that no part was left unoccupied, and the few fugitives who attempted to escape from the fort by water "fell an easy prey to their ven- geance." Finally, seeing that the cannonade had no mure effect upon the breastwork than to bore holes in the logs, some of the Cherokee plunged into the river, and swimming over to the town brought back a number of canoes. A part crossed in these, under cover of the guns of their companions, and sheltered themselves under the bank while the canoes were sent hack for reenforcements. In this way they all crossed over and then advanced up the bank, where at once they were warmly assailed from every side except the rear, which they kept open only by hard righting. 1 The Creeks had been righting the Americans in their front at such close quarters that their bullets flattened upon the bayonets thrust through the portholes. This attack from the rear by five hundred Cherokee diverted their attention and gave opportunity to the Tennes- seeans, Sam Houston among them, cheering them on. to swarm over the breastwork. With death from the bullet, the bayonet and the hatchet all around them, and the smoke of their blazing homes in their eyes, not a warrior begged for his life. When more than half their number lay dead upon the ground, the rest turned and plunged into the river, only to rind the banks on the opposite side lined with enemies and escape cut off in every direction. Says General Coffee: Attempts to cross the river at all points of the bend were made by the enemy, but nnt .me ever escaped. Very few ever reached the bank and that lew was killed the instant they landed. From the report of my officers, as well as from my own obser- vation, I feel warranted in saying that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred of the enemy was buried under water and was not numbered with tin- dead that were found. Some swam for the island below the bend, but here too a detach- ment had been posted and " not one ever landed. They were sunk by Lieutenant Bean's command ere they reached the bank." : Quoting again from Jackson — The enemy, although many of them fought to the last with that kind of bravery which desperation inspires, were at last entirely routed and cut to pieces. The battle may be said to have continued with severity for about five hours, but the firing and slaughter continued until it was suspended by the darkness of night. The next morning it was resumed and sixteen of the enemy slain who had concealed them- selves under the banks. 3 It was supposed that the Creeks had about a thousand warriors, besides their women and children. The men sent out to count the dead found five hundred and fifty-seven warriors lying dead within the inclosure, and Coffee estimates that from two hundred and fifty to •Colonel Morgan's report to Governor Blount, in Fay and Davison, Sketches of tin- War, pp. 258, 259 1815. 2 Coflee's report to Jackson, ibid., pp. 257,258. 3 Jackson's report to Governor Blount, ibid., pp. 255,256. 96 MYTH- 01 THE CHEROKEE ure.19 three hundred were shot in the water. How many more there may have been can not be known, bul Jackson himself states that not more than twenty could have escaped. There is no mention of any wounded. About three hundred prisoners were taken, of whom only three were men. The defenders of the Horseshoe had been exterminated.' ( )n the other side the loss vras 26 Americans killed and I07 wounded, 18 Cherokee killed and 36 wounded. 5 friendly Creeks killed and 11 wounded. It will be noted that the Loss of the Cherokee was out of all proportion to their numbers, their fighting having been hand to hand work without protecting cover. In view of the fact that Jack- son had only a few weeks before been compelled to retreat before this same enemy, and that two hours of artillery and rifle fire had produced no result until the, Cherokee turned the rear of the enemy by their daring passage of the river, there is considerable truth in the boast of the Cherokee that they saved the day for Jackson at Horseshoe bend. In the number of men actually engaged and the immense proportion killed, this ranks as the greatest Indian battle in the history of the United States, with the possible exception of the battle of Mauvila, fought by the same Indians in De Soto's time. The result was decisive. Two weeks later Weatherford came in and surrendered, and the Creek war was at an end. As is usual where Indians have acted as auxiliaries of white troops, it is difficult to get an accurate statement of the number of Cherokee engaged in this war or to apportion the credit among the various leaders. Coffee's official report states that five hundred Cherokee were engaged in the last great battle, and from incidental hints it seems probable that others were employed elsewhere, on garrison duty or otherwise, at the same time. McKenney and Hall state that Ridge recruited eight hundred warriors for Jackson, 8 and this may be near the truth, as the tribe had then at least six times as many fighting men. On account of the general looseness of Indian organization we com monly find the credit claimed for whichever chief may be best known to the chronicler. Thus. McKenney and Hall make Major Ridge the hero of the war. especially of the Horseshoe fight, although he is not mentioned in the official reports. Jackson speaks particularly of the Cherokee in that battle as being "headed by their gallant chieftain, Colonel Richard Brown, and conducted by the brave Colonel Mor- gan." Coffee says that Colonel Gideon Morgan "commanded the Cherokees," and it is Morgan who makes the official report of their part in the battle. In a Washingtoi wspaper notice of the treaty > Jackson a report and Colone] Morgan's report, in Fay and Davison, Sketches ol the War, pp. 255, 250,259, 1815. Pickett makes tin- lossoi the white troops 82 killed and 99 wounded, rhi Houston reference Is (rom Lossing. The battle Is described also bj Pickett, Alabama, pp.588 691, reprint ol 1896; Drake, in. Man-, pp. 891, 100, 1880; McKenney an.! Hall. Indian l ribes, n. pp.98,99, 1858. 'McKenney and Hull, op, .'it., p. 98. MooNKYj TREATIES OF WASHINGTON 1816 97 delegation of 1816 the six signers arc mentioned as Colonel [John] Lowrey, Major [John] Walker, Major Ridge, Captain [Richard] Taylor, Adjutant [John] Ross, and Kunnesee (Tsi'yu-gunsi'm, Cheucunsene) and are described as men of cultivation, nearly all of whom had served as officers of the Cherokee forces w ith Jackson and distinguished themselves as well by their bravery as by their attachment to the United States. 1 Among the East Cherokee in Carolina the only name still remembered is that of their old chief. Junaluska (Tsunu'Iahufl'ski), who said after- ward: "If 1 had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes u/' I would have killed him that day at the Horseshoe." The Cherokee returned to their homes to rind them despoiled and ravaged in their absence by disorderly white troops. Two years after- ward, by treaty al Washington, the Government agreed to reimburse them for the damage. Interested parties denied that they had suffered any damage or rendered any services, to which their agent indignantly replied: "It may he answered that thousands witnessed both; that in nearly all the battles with the Creeks the Cherokees rendered the most efficient service, and at the expense of the lives of many tine men. whose wives and children and brothers and sisters are mourning their fall." 2 In the spring of 1816 a delegation of seven principal men. accom- panied by Agent Meigs, visited Washington, and the result was the negotiation of two treaties at that place on the Name date. March 22, 1816. By the first of these the Cherokee ceded for five thousand dollars their last remaining territory in South Carolina, a small strip in the extreme northwestern corner, adjoining Chattooga river. By the sec- ond treaty a boundary was established between the lands claimed by the Cherokee and Creeks in northern Alabama. This action was made necessary in order to determine the boundaries of the great tract which the Creeks had been compelled to surrender in punishment for their late uprising. The li no was run from a point on Little Bear creek in northwestern Alabama direct to the Ten islands of the Coosa at old Fort Strother, southeast of the present Asheville. Gen- era] Jackson protested strongly against this line, on the ground that all the territory south of Tennessee river and west of the Coosa belonged to the Creeks and was a part of their cession. The Chicka- saw also protested against considering this tract as Cherokee terri- tory. The treaty also granted free and unrestricted road privileges throughout the Cherokee country, this concession being the result of years of persistent effort on the part of the Government: and an appropriation of twenty-five thousand five hundred dollars was made 1 Drake, Indians, p. 401, 1880. - Indian Treaties, p. 187, 1837; Meigs' letter to Secretary of War, August 19, 1816, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n, pp. 113, 114, 1X34. It) ETH — 01— 7 98 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 for damages sustained i>\ the Cherokee from the depredations of the troops passing through their country during the Creek war. 1 At the lasl treaty the Cherokee had resisted r\<-\-\ efforl to induce them i" cede more land on either side of the Tennessee, the Govern- ment being especially desirous t" extinguish their claim north of thai river within the- limit - of the state of Tennessee. Failing in this. pressure was at once begun t<> bring about a cession in Alabama, with the result thai on September 11 of the same year a treat] was con- cluded at the Chickasaw council-house, and afterward ratified in gen- eral council at Turkeytown on the Coosa, by which the Cherokee ceded all their claims in thai state south of Tennessee river and wesl of an irregular line running from Chickasaw island in thai stream, below the entrance of Flint river, to the junction of Wills creek with the Coosa, al the presenl Gadsden. For this cession, embracing an area of nearlj three thousand five hundred square miles, they were to receive sixty thousand dollars in ten annual payments, together with five thousand dollars t'<>r the improvements abandoned. We turn aside now for a time from the direel narrative to note the developmenl of events which culminated in the forced expatriation of the Cherokee from their ancestral homes and their removal to the far western wilderness. With a few notable exceptions the relations between the French and Spanish colonists and the native tribes, after the first occupation of the country, had been friendly and agreeable. Qnder the rule of France or Spain there was never any Indian boundary. Pioneer and Indian built their cabins and tilled their fields side by side, ranged the w Is toe-ether, knelt before the >ame altar and frequently inter- married on terms of equality, so far as race was concerned. The 7-esult is seen to-day in the mixed-blood communities of Canada, and in Mexico, where a nation lias been built upon an Indian foundation. Within the area of English colonization it was otherwise. From the lir-t settlement to the recent inauguration of the allotment system it never occurred to the man of Teutonic blood that he could have for a neighbor anyone not of his own stock and color. While the English colonists recognized the native proprietorship so far as to make trea- ties with tile Indians, it was chiefly for the purpose of fixing limits beyond which the Indian should never come after he had ;e parted with his title for a consideration of goods and trinkets. In an early Virginia treaty it was even stipulated that friendly Indians crossing the line should sutler death. The Indian was regarded as an incum- brance to be cleared oil', like the trees and tin- wolves, before white men could live in the country. Intermarriages were practically 1 Indian Treaties, pp. 186 187, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 197 209, 1888 'Indian Treaties, pp 199,200, 1887; Royce, op. cit., pp. 209-211. mooney] EARLY WESTWARD EMIGRATION 99 unknown, and the children of such union were usually compelled by race antipathy to cast their lot with the savage. Under such circumstances the tribes viewed the advance of the English and their successors, the Americans, with keen distrust, and as early as the close of the French and Indian war we find some of them removing from the neighborhood of the English settlements io a safer shelter in the more remote territories still held by Spain, Soon after the French withdrew from Fort Toulouse, in 1763, a part of the Alabama, an incorporated tribe of the ('reek confederacy, left their villages on the Coosa, and crossing the Mississippi, where they halted for a time on its western bank, settled on the Sabine river under Spanish protection. 1 They were followed some years later by a part of the Koasati. of the same confederacy." the two tribe.- subsequently drifting into Texas, where they now reside. The Hichitee and others of the Lower Creeks moved down into Spanish Florida, where the Yamassee exiles from South Carolina had long before preceded them, the two combining to form the modern Seminole tribe. When the Revolution brought about a new line of division, the native tribes, almost without exception, joined sides with England as against the Americans, with the result that about one-half the Iroquois tied to Canada, where they still reside upon lands granted by the British gov- ernment. A short time before' Wayne's victory a part of the Shawano and Delawares, worn out by nearly twenty years of battle with the Americans, crossed the Mississippi and settled, by permission of the Spanish government, upon lands in the vicinity of Cape Girardeau, in what is now southeastern Missouri, for which they obtained a regular deed from that government in 1793. 3 Driven out by the Americans some twenty years later, they removed to Kansas and thence to Indian territory, where they are now incorporated with their old friends, the Cherokee. When the first Cherokee crossed the Mississippi it is impossible to say, but there was probably never a time in the history of the tribe when their warriors and hunters were not accustomed to make excur- sions beyond the great river. According to an old tradition, the earliest emigration took place soon after the first treaty with Carolina, when a portion of the tribe, under the leadership of Yunwi-usga'se'ti, ••Dangerous-man," forseeing the inevitable end of yielding to the demands of tin 3 colonists, refused to have any relations with the white man, and took up their long march for the unknown West. Commu- nication was kept up with the home body until after crossing the Mississippi, when they were lost sight of and forgotten. Long years '■Claiborne, letter to Jefferson, November 5, 1808, American State Papers, i, p. 755, 1832; Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, i, p. 88, 1884. - Hawkins, 1799. quoted in Gatschet, op. cit., p. 89. 3 See Treaty of St Louis, 1S25, and of Castor hill, 1S52, in Indian Treaties, pp. 388, 539, 1837. 100 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE afterward a rumor came from the west thai they were Mill livingnear the base of the Rocky mountains.' In 1782 the Cherokee, who bad fought faithfully on the British side throughout the long Revolution- ary struggle, applied to the Spanish governor al New Orleans for permission to settl > the wesl side of the Mississippi, within Spanish territory. Permission was granted, and it i- probable that some of them removed to the Arkansas country, although there seems to be no definite record of the matter.' We learn incidentally, however, that about this peried the hostile Cherokee, like the Shawano and other northern tribes, were in the habit of making friendly visits to the Spanish settlements in that quarter. According to Reverend Cephas Washburn, the pioneer misssionary of the western Cherokee, the first permanent Cherokee settlement beyond the Mississippi was the direct result of the massacre, in L794, of the Scott party at Muscle shoals, on Tennessee river, by the hostile warriors of the Chickamauga towns, in the summer. As told by the missionary, the story differs considerably from that given by IIa\ wood and other Tennessee historians, narrated in another place. According to Washburn, the whites were the aggressors, having first made the Indians drunk and then swindled them out of the annuity money with which they were just returning from the agency at Tellico. When the Indians became sober enough to demand the return of their money the whites attacked and killed two of them, whereupon the others boarded the boat and killed every white man. They spared the wi n and children, however, with their negro slaves and all their personal belongings, and permitted them to continue on their way. the chief and his party personally escorting them down Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers as far as the mouth of the St. Francis, whence the emigrants descended in safety to New Orleans, while their captors, under their chief. The Bowl, went up St. Francis river then a part of Spanish territory — to await the outcome of the event. As soon as the news came to the Cherokee Nation tin' chiefs formally repudiated the action of the Howl party and volunteered to assist in arresting those i cerned. Bowl and his men were finally exonerated, but had conceived such bitterness at the conduct of their former friends, and. moreover, had found the soil so rich and the game so abundant where the] were, that they refused to return to their tribe and decided to remain permanently in the West. Others joined them from time to time, attracted by the hunting prospect, until they were in sufficient number to obtain recognition from the Government.' iSee number 107, " Hie Lost Cherokee." -sri- lettei of Governor Estevan Mir., to Robertson, \pril 20,1783, in Roosevelt, Winning ol the West, ii. p i". !•"' iSee pp. 76-77. i Washburn, Reminiscences, pp.76 79, 1869; -. • also Royce, Cherokee Nation, riiii. Ann. Rep. Bureau ..i I ilili. .!"«>. !•. '-'Ml. isss. moosey] THE BOWL EMIGRATION 1794 101 While the missionary may be pardoned for making the best show- ing possible for his friends, his statement contains several evident errors, and it is probable that Haywood's account is more correct in the main. As the Cherokee annuity at that time amounted to but fifteen hundred dollars for the whole tribe, or somewhat less than ten cents per head, they could hardly have had enough money from that source to pay such extravagant prices as sixteen dollars apiece for pocket minors, which it is alleged the boatmen obtained. Moreover, as the Chickamauga warriors had refused to sign any treaties and were notoriously hostile, they were not as yet entitled to receive payments. Haywood's statement that the emigrant party was first attacked while passing the ( Ihickamauga towns and then pursued to the Muscle shoals and there massacred is probably near the truth, although it is quite possible that the whites may have provoked the attack in some such way as is indicated by the missionary. As Washburn got his account from one of the women of the party, living long afterward in New Orleans, it is certain that some at least were spared by the Indians, and it is probable that, as he states, only the men were killed. The Bowl emigration may not have been the first, or even the most important removal to the western country, as the period was one of Indian unrest. Small bands were constantly crossing the Mississippi into Spanish territory to avoid the advancing Americans, only to find themselves again under American jurisdiction when the whole western country was ceded to the United States in 1803. The persistent land- hunger of the settler could not be restrained or satisfied, and early in the same year President Jefferson suggested to Congress the desira- bility of removing all the tribes to the west of the Mississippi. In the next year. 1804, an appropriation was made for taking prelimi- nary steps toward such a result. 1 There were probably but few Chero- kee on the Arkansas at this time, as they are not mentioned in Sibley's list of tribes south of that river in 1805. In the summer of 1808, a Cherokee delegation being about to visit Washington, their agent. Colonel Meigs, was instructed by the Secre- tary of War to use every effort to obtain their consent to an exchange of their lands for a tract beyond the Mississippi. By this time the government's civilizing policy, as carried out in the annual distribution of farming tools, spinning wheels, and looms, had wrought a consider- able difference of habit and sentiment between the northern and southern Cherokee. Those on Little Tennessee and Hiwassee were generally farmers and stock raisers, producing also a limited quantity of cotton, which the women wove into cloth. Those farther down in Georgia and Alabama, the old hostile element, still preferred the hunting life and rejected all effort at innovation, although the game had now become so scarce that it was evident a change must soon 'Royee, Cherokee Nation, Filth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, op. 202, 203, lsss. lli-_' MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [sth.an.n.19 come. Jealousies bad arisen in consequence, and the delegates repre- senting the progressive element now proposed to the government that a line be run through the nation I" separate the two parties, allowing t Ik ■-.• on the north to divide their lands in severalty and become citi- zens of the United States, while those on the south might continue to be bunters as long as the game should last. Taking advantage of this condition of a Hairs, the government authorities instructed the agent to submit t<> the conservatn es a proposition for a cession of their share of the tribal territory in return for a tract west of the Mississippi of suf- ficient area to enable them to continue the hunting life. The plan was approved by President Jefferson, and a sum was appropriated to pay the expenses of a delegation to visit and inspect the lands on Arkansas and White rivers, with a view to removal. The visit was made in the summerof 1809, and the delegates brought back such favorable report that a large number of ( Iherokee signified their intention to remoi e at once. A- no funds were then available for their removal, the matter was held in abeyance for several years, during which period families and individuals removed to the western country at their own expense until, before the year 1817, they numbered in all two or three thousand souls. 1 They became known as the Arkansas, or Western. Cherokee. The emigrants soon became involved in difficulties with the native tribes, the Osage claiming all the lands north of Arkansas river, while the Quapaw claimed those on the south. Upon complaining to the government the emigrant Cherokee were told that they had originally been permitted to remove only on condition of a cession of a portion of their eastern territory, and that nothing could he done to protect them in their new western home until such cession had been carried out. The body of the Cherokee Nation, however, was strongly opposed to any such sale and proposed that the emigrants should he compelled to return. After protracted negotiation a treaty was concluded at the Cherokee agency (now Calhoun. Tennessee) on July 8, 1817, by which the Cherokee Nation ceded two considerable tracts — the first in Georgia, lying east of the Chattahoochee, and the other in Tennessee. between Waldens ridge ami the Little Sequatchee — as an equivalent for a tract to he assigned to those who had already removed, or intended to remove, to Arkansas. Two smaller tracts on the north bank of the Tennessee, in the neighborhood of the Muscle shoals. were also ceded. In return for these cessions the emigrant Cherokee were to receive a tract within the present limits of the state of Arkan- ■ Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Aim. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 202-204, 1888; see also Indian Treaties, pp. 209-215, 1887. The preamble to the treaty of 1817 snys thut the delegation of 1808 had de treda division of the tribal territory in order that the people of the Upper (northern townt might "begin the establishment of fixed laws and « regular government," while those of tin- Lower (southern) towns desired t.. remove t" the West Nothing i- said of severalty allotments >>r citizenship. mooney] TREATY OF CHEROKEE AGENCY — 1817 103 sas, bounded on the north and south by White river and Arkansas river, respectively, on the east l>y a line running between those .streams approximately from the present Ratesville to Lewisburg. and on the west by a line to lie determined later. As afterward estab- lished, this western line ran from the junction of the Little North Fork with White river to just beyond the point where the present western Arkansas boundary strikes Arkansas river. Provision was made for taking the census of the whole Cherokee nation east and west in order to apportion annuities and other payments properly in the future, and the two hands were still to he considered as forming one people. The United States agreed to pay for any substantial improvements abandoned by those removing from the ceded lands, and each emigrant warrior who left no such valuable property behind was to be given as full compensation for his abandoned field and cabin a rifle and ammunition, a blanket, and a kettle or a beaver trap. The government further agreed to furnish boats and provisions for the journey. Provision was also made that individuals residing upon the ceded lands might retain allotments and become citizens, if they so elected, the amount of the allotment to be deducted from the total cession. The commissioners for the treaty w*ere General Andrew Jackson, General David Meriwether, and Governor Joseph McMinn of Ten- nessee. On behalf of the Cherokee it was signed by thirty-one princi- pal men of the eastern Nation and fifteen of the western band, who signed by proxy. 1 The majority of the Cherokee were bitterly opposed to any cession or removal project, and before the treaty had been concluded a memorial signed by sixty-seven chiefs and headmen of the nation was .presented to the commissioners, which stated that the delegates who had first broached the subject in Washington some years before had acted without any authority from the nation. They declared that the great body of the Cherokee desired to remain in the land of their birth, where they were rapidly advancing in civilization, instead of being compelled to revert to their original savage conditions and sur- roundings. They therefore prayed that the matter might not lie pressed further, but that they might be allowed to remain in peaceable possession of the land of their fathers. No attention was paid to the memorial, and the treaty was carried through and ratified. Without waiting for the ratification, the authorities at once took steps for the removal of those who desired to go to the West. Boats were provided at points between Little Tennessee and Sequatchee rivers, and the emigrants were collected under the direction of Governor McMinn. Within the next year a large number had emigrated, and before the 'Indian Treaties, pp. 209-215, 1837; Royee, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 212-217, 1888; see also maps in Royce. 104 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 end of 1819 the number of emigrants was said to have increased to six thousand. "Flic chiefs of the nation, however, claimed that the esti- mate was greatly in excess of the truth. 1 "There can be no question that a very large portion, and probably a majority, of the Cherokee nation residing east of the Mississippi had been and still continued bitterly opposed to the terms of the treaty of 18 L 7. They viewed with jealous and aching hearts all attempts to drive them from the homes of their ancestors, for they could not but consider the constant and urgent importunities of the federal authori- ties in the light of an imperative demand for the cession of more territory. They felt that they were, as a nation, being slowly but surely compressed within the contracting coils of the giant anaconda of civilization; yet they held to the vain hope that a spirit of justice and mercy would be born of their helpless condition which would anally prevail in their favor. Their traditions furnished them no guide by which to judge of the results certain to follow such a conflict as that in which they were engaged. This difference of sentiment in the nation upon a subject so vital to their welfare was productive of much bitterness and violent animosities. Those who had favored the emigration scheme and had been induced, either through personal preference or by the subsidizing influences of the government agents, to favor the conclusion of the treaty, became the object of scorn and hatred to the remainder of the nation. They were made the subjects of a persecution so relentless, while they remained in the eastern country, that it was never forgotten, and when, in the natural course of events, the remainder of the nation was forced to remove to the Arkansas country and join the earlier emigrants, the old hatreds and dissensions broke out afresh, and to this day they find lodgment in some degree in the breasts of their descendants." 2 Two months after the signing of the treaty of July 8, 1817, and three months before its ratification, a council of the nation sent a dele- gation to Washington to recount in detail the improper methods and influences which had been used to consummate it. and to ask that it be set aside and another agreement substituted. The mission was without result. 3 In 1817 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established its first station among the Cherokee at Brainerd, in Ten- nessee, on the west side of Chickamauga creek, two miles from the Georgia line. The mission took its name from a distinguished pioneer worker among the northern tribes (37). The government aided in the erection of the buildings, which included a schoolhouse, gristmill, and workshops, in which, besides the ordinary branches, the boys were taught simple mechanic arts while the girls learned the use of the ' Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 217-218, 1888. •Ibid., pp. 218-219. "Ibid., p. 219. « mn PRESSURE FOB REMOVAL 105 needle and the spinningwheel. There was also a large work farm. The mission prospered and others were established at Willstown, Hightower, and elsewhere by the same board, in which two hundred pupils were receiving instruction in L820. ] Among the earliest and most noted workersat the Brainerd mission were Reverend I). S. But trick and Reverend S. A. Worcester {'■'■*<). the latter especially having done much for the mental elevation of the Cherokee, and more than once having suffered imprisonment for his zeal in defending their cause. The missions flourished until broken up by the state of Georgia at the beginning of the Removal troubles, and they were afterwards renewed in the western country. Mission ridge preserves the memory of the Brainerd establishment. Early in 1818 a delegation of emigrant Cherokee visited Washing- ton for the purpose of securing a more satisfactory determination of the boundaries of their new lands on the Arkansas. .Measures were soon afterward taken for that purpose. They also asked recognition in the future as a separate and distinct tribe, but nothing was done in the matter. In order to remove, if possible, the hostile feeling between the emigrants and the native Osage, who regarded the former as intruders. Governor William Clark, superintendent of Indian affairs for Missouri, arranged a conference of the chiefs of the two tribes at St. Louis in October of that year, at which, after protracted effort, he succeeded in establishing friendly relations between them. Efforts were made about the same time, both by the emigrant Cherokee and by the government, to persuade the Shawano and Delawares then residing in Missouri, and the Oneida in New York, to join the western Cherokee, but nothing- cameof the negotiations. 2 In 1825 a delegation of western Cherokee visited the Shawano in < )hio for the same purpose, but without success. Their object in thus inviting friendly Indians to join them was to strengthen themselves against the Osage and other native tribes. In the meantime the government, through Governor McMinn, was bringing- strong pressure to bear upon the eastern Cherokee to compel their removal to the West. At a council convened by him in November, L818, the governor represented to the chiefs that it was now no longer possible to protect them from the encroachments of the surrounding white population: that, however the government might wish to help them, their lands would be taken, their stock stolen, their women cor- rupted, and their men made drunkards unless they removed to the western paradise. He ended by proposing to pay them one hundred thousand dollars for their whole territory, with the expense of removal, if they would go at once. Upon their prompt and indignant refusal he offered to double the amount, but with as little success. •Morse, Geography, i, p.577, 1819; and p. 185, 1822. -Rc.yiT, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau ol Ethnology, pp. 221-222, 18S8, 106 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 Every point of the negotiation having failed, another course was adopted, and a delegation was selected to visit Washington under the conduct of Agent Meigs. Here the effort was renewed until, wearied and discouraged at the persistent importunity, the chiefs consented to a large cession, which was represented as necessary in order to com- pensate in area for the tract assigned to the emigrant Cherokee in Arkansas in accordance with the previous treaty. This estimate was based on the tigures given by Governor McMinn, who reported 5,291 Cherokee enrolled as emigrants, while the eastern Cherokee claimed that not more than 3,500 had removed and that those remaining num- bered 12.544, or more than three-fourths of the whole nation. The governor, however, chose to consider one-half of the nation as in favor of removal and one-third as having already removed. 1 The treaty, concluded at Washington on February 27, 1819, recites that the greater part of the Cherokee nation, having expressed an earnest desire to remain in the East, and being anxious to begin the necessary measures for the civilization and preservation of their nation, and to settle the differences arising out of the treaty of 1817, have offered to cede to the United States a tract of country "at least as extensive" as that to which the Government is entitled under the late treaty. The cession embraces (1) a tract in Alabama and Ten- nessee, between Tennessee and Flint rivers; (2) a tract in Tennessee, between Tennessee river and Waldens ridge; (3) a large irregular tract in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, embracing in Tennessee nearly r all the remaining Cherokee lands north of Hiwassee river, and in North Carolina and Georgia nearly everything remaining to them east of the Nantahala mountains and the upper western branch of the Chattahoochee; (4) six small pieces reserved by previous treaties. The entire cession aggregated nearly six thousand square miles, or more than one-fourth of all then held by the nation. Individual reservations of one mile square each within the ceded area were allowed to a num- ber of families which decided to remain among the whites and become citizens rather than abandon their homes. Payment was to be made for all substantial improvements abandoned, one-third of all tribal annuities were hereafter to be paid to the western hand, and the treaty was declared to be a final adjustment of all claims and differences aris- ing from the treaty of 1817. 2 Civilization had now progressed so far among the Cherokee that in the fall of 1820 they adopted a regular republican form of govern- ment modeled after that of the United States. Under this arrangement the nation was divided into eight districts, each of which was entitled 1 Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 222-228, 1888. ^Indian Treaties, pp. 265-269, 1S37; Royce, op. cit., pp. 219-221 and table, p. 378. mooney] CHEEOKEE GOVEENMENX — Missions 107 to send lour representatives to the Cherokee national legislature, which met at Newtown, or New Echota, the capital, at the junction of Conasauga and Coosawatee rivers, a few miles above the present Calhoun, Georgia. The legislature consisted of an upper and a lower house, designated, respectively (in the Cherokee language), the national committee and national council, the members being elected for limited terms by the voters of each district. The principal officer was styled president of the national council; the distinguished John Ross was the first to hold this office. There was also a clerk of the committee and two principal members to express the will of the coun- cil or lower house. For each district there were appointed a council house for meetings twice a year, a judge, and a marshal. Companies of "light horse" were organized to assist in the execution of the laws, with a "ranger" for each district to look after stray stock. Each head of a family and each single man under the age of sixty was subject to a poll tax. Laws were passed for the collection of taxes and debts, for repairs on loads, for licenses to white persons engaged in farming or other business in the nation, for the support of schools, for the regulation of the liquor traffic and the conduct of negro slaves, to pun- ish horse stealing and theft, to compel all marriages between white men and Indian women to be according to regular legal or church form, and to discourage polygamy. By special decree the right of blood revenge or capital punishment was taken from the seven clans and \ested in the constituted authorities of the nation. It was made treason, punishable with death, for any individual to negotiate the sale of lands to the whites without the consent of the national council (39). White men were not allowed to vote or to hold office in the nation. 1 The system compared favorably with that of the Federal government or of any state government then existing. At this time there were five principal missions, besides one or two small branch establishments in the nation, viz: Spring Place, the oili- est, founded by tin 1 Moravians at Spring place, Georgia, in 1801; Oothcaloga, Georgia, founded by the same denomination in 1S21 on the creek of that name, near the present Calhoun; Brainerd, Tennes- see, founded by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in L817; "Valley-towns." North Carolina, founded by the Baptists in 1820, on the site of the old Natchez town on the north side of Hiwassee river, just above Peachtree creek; Coosawatee, Georgia ("Tensawattee," by error in the State Papers), founded also by the Baptists in fs2L. near the mouth of the river of that name. All were in flourishing condition, the Brainerd establishment especially, with nearly one hundred pupils, being obliged to turn away applicants for 1 Laws of theCherol Nation several documents), 1820, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, it, pp. 279-283, 1834; letter quoted by McKei y, 1825, ibid., pp. 651, 652; Drake, In. linn-, pp. 137, 138 i 108 MYTHS OF THE CHEBOKEE [eth.ann.19 lack of accommodation. The superintendent reported that the children were apt to learn, willing to labor, and readily submissive to discipline, adding- that the Cherokee were fast advancing toward civilized life and generally manifested an ardent desire for instruction. The Valley- towns mission, established at the instance of Currab.ee Dick, a promi- nent local mixed-blood chief, was in charge of the Reverend Evan Jones, known as the translator of the New Testament into the Cherokee language, his assistant being James D. Watford, a mixed-blood pupil, who compiled a spelling book in the same language. Reverend S. A. Worcester, a prolific translator and the compiler of the Cherokee almanac and other works, was stationed at Brainerd, removing thence to New Echota and afterward to the Cherokee Nation in the West. 1 Since 1817 the American Board had also supported at Cornwall, Con- necticut, an Indian school at which a number of young Cherokee were being educated, among them being Elias Boudinot, afterward the editor of the Cherokee Phcenix. About this time occurred an event which at once placed the Cherokee in the front rank among native tribes and was destined to have profound influence on their whole future history, viz., the invention of the alphabet. The inventor, aptly called the Cadmus of his race, was a mixed- blood known among his own people as Sikwa'yi (Sequoya) and among the whites as George Gist, or less correctly Guest or Guess. As is usually the case in Indian biography much uncertainty exists in regard to his parentage and early life. Authorities generally agree that his father was a white man, who drifted into the Cherokee Nation some years before the Revolution and formed a temporary alliance with a Cherokee girl of mixed blood, who thus became the mother of the future teacher. A writer in the Cherokee Phnni.r, in lsi's. says that only his paternal grandfather was a white man." McKenney and Hall say that his father was a white man named Gist. 3 Phillips asserts that his father was George Gist, an unlicensed German trader from Georgia, who came into the Cherokee Nation in 1708. 4 By a Kentucky family it is claimed that Sequoya's father was Nathaniel Gist, son of the scout who accompanied Washington on his memorable excursion to the Ohio. As the story goes, Nathaniel Gist was cap- tured by the Cherokee at Braddock's defeat (1755) and remained a prisoner with them for six years, during which time he became the father of Sequoya. On his return to civilization he married a white woman in Virginia, by whom he had other children, and afterward 1 List of missions and reports of missionaries, etc., American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n, pp. 277-279, 159, 1834; personal information from James D. Warlord concerning Valley-towns mission. For notices of Worcester, Jones, and Watford, see Pilling, Bibliography of the Iroqnoian Languages, 1888. " '-'<;. < '., in Cherokee Phoenix; reprinted in Christian Advocate and Journal, New York, September 26, 1828. ;i McKenney and Hall. Indian Tribes. I, p. 35, et passim, 1858. * Phillips, Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, pp. 542-548, September, 1870. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. IV SEQUOYA SIKWAYi l-'r McKenney and Hill copi uf Hi ginal [iiiimiiiK of IS2S) mooney] 8EQUOYA AM> III- ALPHABET 109 removed to Kentucky, where Sequoya, then a Baptist preacher, fre~ (| in- nt ly visit ed hin i and was always recognized by the family as his son. 1 Aside from the fact thai the Cherokee acted as allies of the English during the war in whim Braddock's defeat occurred, and that Sequoya, so far from being a preacher, was not even a Christian, the story con- tains other elements of improbability and appears to he one of those genealogical myths built upon a chance similarity of name. On the other hand, it is certain that Sequoya was horn before the dale that Phillips allows. On his mother's side he was of good family in the tribe, liis uncle being a chief in Echota. 2 According to personal infor- mation of dames Watford, who knew him well, being his second cousin, Sequoya was probably horn about the year L760, and lived as a boy with his mother at Tuskegee town in Tennessee, just outside of old Fort Loudon. It is quite possible that his white father may have been a soldier of the garrison, one of those lovers for whom the Cherokee women risked their lives during the siege. 3 What became of the father is not known, but the mother lived alone with her son. The only incident of his boyhood that has come down to us is his presence at Echota during the visit of the Iroquois peace delegation, about the year 17Ty.' His early years were spent amid the stormy alarms of the Revolution, and as he grew to manhood he devel- oped a considerable mechanical ingenuity, especially in .silver work- ing. Like most of his tribe he was also a hunter and fur trader. Having nearly reached middle age before the first mission was estab- lished in the Nation, he never attended school and in all his life never learned to speak, read, or write the English language. Neither did he ever abandon his native religion, although from frequent visits to the .Moravian mission he became imbued with a friendly feeling toward the new civilization. Of an essentially contemplative disposi- tion, he was led by a chance conversation in 1809 to reflect upon the ability of the white men to communicate thought by means of writing, with the result that he set about devising a similar system for his <>w n people. By a hunting accident, which rendered him a cripple for life, lie was fortunately afforded more leisure for study. The presence of his name. George Guess, appended to a treaty of 1816, indicates that he «;i- already of some prominence in the Nation, even before the per- fection of his great invention. After years of patient and unremitting labor in the face of ridicule, discouragement, and repeated failure, he finally evolved the Cherokee syllabary and in 1821 submitted it to a public test by the leading men of the Nation. By this time, in con- sequence of repeated cessions, the Cherokee had been dispossessed of the country about Echota, and Sequoya was now living at Willstown, ■ Manuscript letters by John Mason Brown, January 17. 18, 22, and Februarj I. 1889, In archives oi tli- Bureau of American Ethnology SMcKenney and Hall. Lndian Tribes, i. p. 15, 1858. *See page 43. *See nunibrr s'.i. "Thu lruis wars." 110 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 on an upper branch of Coosa river, in Alabama. The syllabary was soon recognized as an invaluable invention for the elevation of the tribe, and within a few months thousands of hitherto illiterate Chero- kee were able to read and write their own language, teaching each other in the cabins and along the roadside. The next year Sequoya visited the West, to introduce the new science among those who had emigrated to the Arkansas. In the next year, 1823, he again visited the Arkansas and took up his permanent abode with the western band, never afterward returning to his eastern kinsmen. In the autumn of the same year the Cherokee national council made public acknowledg- ment of his merit by sending to him, through John Ross, then presi- dent of the national committee, a silver medal with a commemorative inscription in both languages. 1 In 1828 he visited AVashington as one of the delegates from the Arkansas band, attracting much attention, and the treaty made on that occasion contains a provision for the pay- ment to him of five hundred dollars, "for the great benefits he has conferred upon the Cherokee people, in the beneficial results which they are now experiencing from the use of the alphabet discovered by him. 1 ' 2 His subsequent history belongs to the West and will be treated in another place (40). 3 The invention of the alphabet had an immediate and wonderful effect on Cherokee development. On account of the remarkable adapta- tion of the syllabary to the language, it was only necessary to learn the characters to be able to read at once. No schoolhouses were built and no teachers hired, but the whole Nation became an academy for the study of the system, until, "in the course of a few months, without school or expense of time or money, the Cherokee were able to read and write in their own language. 4 An active correspondence began to be carried on between the eastern and western divisions, and plans were made for a national press, with a national library and museum to be established at the capital, New Echota. 5 The missionaries, who had at first opposed the new alphabet on the ground of its Indian origin, now saw the advisability of using it to further their own work. In the fall of 1821 Atsi or John Arch, a young native convert, made a manuscript translation of a portion of St. John's gospel, in the sylla- bary, this being the first Bible translation ever given to the Cherokee. It was copied hundreds of times and was widely disseminated through 1 AtcKenneyand Hall, Indian Tribes, i, p. 46, 1858; Phillips, in Harper's Magazine, p. 547, September, 18711. - Indian Treaties, p. 425, 1837. :1 Fur details concerning the life and invention of Sequoya, see McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, 1, 1858; Phillips, Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, September 1870- Foster, Sequoyah, 1885, and Story of the Cherokee Bible, 1S99, based largely on Phillips' article; G. C, Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet, in Cherokee Pbcenix, republished in Christian Advocate and Journal, New York, Septem- ber 26, 1828: Pilling, Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages, 1888. 4 G. C, Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet, op. cit. 6 (Unsigned) letter of David Brown, September 2, 1825, quoted in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n, p. 652, 1834. uooney] THE CHEKOKEE PHOENIX 111 the Nation. 1 In September, L825, David Brown, a prominent half- breed preacher, who had already made some attempt al translation in the Roman alphabet, completed a translation of the N i • w Testament in the new syllabary, the work being handed about in manuscript, as there were asyet no typescast in the Sequoya characters. 8 In the same month he forwarded to Thomas McKenney, chief of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Washington, a manuscript table of the characters, with explanation, this being probably its first introduction to official notice. ; In L827 the Cherokee council having formally resolved to establish a national paper in the Cherokee language and characters, types for that purpose were cast in Boston, under the supervision of the noted missionary, Worcester, of the American Hoard of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who. in December of that year contributed to the Missionary Herald five verses of Genesis in the new syllabary, this seeming to be its first appearance in print. Early in the next year the press and types arrived at New Echota, and the first number of the new paper, Tsa'lagi Tsu'lehisanun' hi, the Cherokee Phoenix, printed in both languages, appeared on February 21, 1828. The first printers were two white men. Isaac N. Harris and .John F. Wheeler, with John Candy, a half-blood apprentice. Elias Boudinot (Galagi'na, ••The Buck"), an educated Cherokee, was the editor, and Reverend S. A. Worcesterwas the guiding spirit who brought order out of chaos and set the work in motion. The office was a log house. The hand press and types, aftei having been shipped by water from Boston, were trans- ported two hundred miles by wagon from Augusta to their destination. The printing paper had been overlooked and had to be brought by the same tedious process from Knoxville. Cases and other equipments had to be devised and fashioned by the printers, neither of whom understood a word of Cherokee, but simply set up the characters, as handed to them in manuscript by Worcester and the editor. Such was the beginning of journalism in the Cherokee nation. After a precari- ous existence of about six years the Phoenix was suspended, owiny to the hostile action of the Georgia authorities, who went so far as to throw Worcester and Wheeler into prison. Its successor, after the removal of the Cherokee to the West, was the Oheroke* Advocate, of which the first number appeared at Tahlequah in 1S44. with William P. Ross as editor. It is still continued under the auspices of the Nation, printed in both languages and distributed free at the expense of the Nation to those unable to read English — an example without parallel in any other government. In addition to numerous Bible translations, hymn books, and other 1 Poster, Sequoyah, pp. 120, 121,1885. ! Filling, Iroquoiun Bibliography, p. 21, ls.sf<. 'Brown letter (unsigned I, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n. p. 652, 1S34. 112 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE religious works, there have been printed in the Cherokee language and syllabary the Cheroket Phcenioo (journal), Cheroket Advocate (journal), Cherokei Messenger (periodical). Cheroket Almanac (annual). Cherokee spelling books, arithmetics, and other schoolbooks for those unable to read English, several editions of the laws of the Nation, and a large body of tracts and minor publications. Space forbids even a mention of the names of the devoted workers in this connection. Besides this printed literature the syllabary is in constant and daily use among the non-English-speaking element, both in Indian Territory and in North Carolina, for letter writing, council records, personal memoranda, etc. What is perhaps strangest of all in this literary evolution is the fact that the same invention has been seized by the priests and conjurers of the conservative party for the purpose of preserving to their suc- cessors the ancient rituals and secret knowledge of the tribe, whole volumes of such occult literature in manuscript having been obtained among them by the author. 1 In L819 the whole Cherokee population had been estimated at 15.000, one-third of them being west of the Mississippi. In 1825 a census of the eastern Nation showed: native Cherokee, 13,563; white men mar- ried into the Nation, 117; white women married into the Nation, 73; negro slaves, 1,277. There were large herds of cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep, with large crops of every staple, including cotton, tobacco, and wheat, and some cotton was exported by boats as far as New Or- leans. Apple and peach orchards were numerous, butter and cheese were in use to some extent, and both cotton and woolen cloths, espe- cially blankets, were manufactured. Nearly all the merchants were native Cherokee. Mechanical industries nourished, the Nation was out of debt, and the population was increasing.'- Estimating one-third beyond the Mississippi, the total number of Cherokee, exclusive of adopted white citizens and negro slaves, must then have been about 20,000. Simultaneously with the decrees establishing a national press, the Cherokee Nation, in general convention of delegates held for the pur- pose at New Echota on July 26, 1827, adopted a national constitution, based on the assumption of distinct and independent nationality. John Ross, so celebrated in connection with the history of his tribe, was president of the convention which framed the instrument. Charles R. Hicks, a Moravian convert of mixed blood, and at that time the most influential man in the Nation, was elected principal chief, with John 1 For extended notice of Cherokee literature and authors see numerous references in Pilling, Bibli- ography of the Iroquoian Languages, 1888: also Foster, Sequoyah, 1885, and Story of the Cherokee Bible, 1899. The largest body of original Cherokee manuscript material in existence, including hundreds of ancient ritual formulas, was obtained by the writer anions lie Ivist Cherokee, and is now in possession of the Bureau of American Ethnology, to be translated at some future time. Brown letter (unsigned), September 2, 1825, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n, pp. 651,652, 1884. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. V ; 1) (llirrnhn it 'iUpljalirt. T/ oV \ // • 1/ 0//// m, ■ ; vbt//a 1 1 f/a I A f/e \Jf/r a*. %, 1 llv 1 t*£w !,„■ \\/i k*. (J isa Vr'isv V*. ww Mr,- c &r„ 6w e£>,» 3- vV t\,rs ilT/y/ Bv a as // i/i firt/iw rv x/ir r,//st///t forte, or .t/)n> / . . eu '/» '" /">< «r sfi/rrt at am i // //s ag '// //">/. or s///»/ r/s ft 0t /_ /; /is ll m /'///■ ////sr/S/e'"'/ iv/ .«// Coll SO II il II Sounds y nnrr/r si., w AW///u/i , /„ /" /.- /'A/w.ur/ i /a. i . //j /// /"■>•" "/'/./. VO' /rrv .vn/ttr-4 /*>/y//.V//. Syffaii Ssw/U- .r/tii/trfr// /r .rw/tf •////// '/ /:. /•/ rt/v/r/r n.v //i fi.//y /'■?/' '"/' "/'/' at foymnmf m?/Af nrrr/'t. .y *«iv ,„„„ />/. //• am£ S,//«M->- I"'"''" "'^ i r r„n /"/// //mrj-///r \ THE CHEROKEE ALPHABET hooney] WHITE-PATH'S REBELLION 1828 II ."> Boss as assistant chief. 1 With a constitution and national press, a well-developed system of industries and home education, and a gov- ernment administered by educated Christian men. the Cherokee were now justly entitled to be considered a civilized people. The idea of a civilized Indian government was not a new one. The lirst treaty ever negotiated by the United States with an Indian tribe, in 177s. held out to the D( da wares the hope that by a confederation id' friendly tribes they might he aide "to form a stale, whereof the 1 >ela- ware nation shall he the head and have a representation in Con- gress.'" Priber, the Jesuit, had already familiarized the Cherokee with the formsof civilized government before the middle of the eight- eenth century. As the cap between the conservative and progressive elements widened after the Revolution the idea grew, until in L808 representatives of both parties visited Washington to propose an arrangement by which those who clung to the old life might he allowed to remove to the western hunting grounds, while the rest should remain to take up civilization and "begin the establishment of fixed law- and a regular government." The project received the warm encourage- ment of President Jefferson, and it was with this understanding that the western emigration was first officially recognized a few years later. Immediately upon the return of the delegates from Washington the Cherokee drew up their first brief written code of laws, modeled agree- ably to the friendly suggestions of Jefferson. ; By this time the rapid strides of civilization and Christianity had alarmed the conservative element, who saw in the new order of things only 7 the evidences of apostasy and swift national decay. In 1828 "White-path (Nun'na-tsune'ga), an influential full-blood and councilor, living at Turniptown (U'lun'yi), near the present Ellijay, in Gilmer county. Georgia, headed a rebellion against the new code of laws, with all that it implied. He soon had a large band of followers, known to the whites as "Red-sticks," a title sometimes assumed by the more warlike element among the Creeks and other southern tribes. From the townhouse of Ellijay he preached the rejection of the new consti- tution, the discarding of Christianity and the white man's ways, and a return to the old tribal law and custom — the same doctrine that had more than once constituted the burden of Indian revelation in the past. It was now too late, however, to reverse the wheel of progress, and under the rule of such men as Hicks and Ross the conservative oppo- sition gradually melted away. White-path was deposed from his seat 'SeeRoyee, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 241, 1888; Meredith, inTheFive Civilized Tribes. Extra Census Bulletin, i>. 41, 1894; Morse, American Geography, i, p. 677, 1819 (for Hicks,. = Fort Pitt treaty, September 17, 1778. Indian Treaties, p. 3, 1837. 3 Cherokee Agency treaty, July 8, 1817, ibid., p. 209; Drake, Indians, p. 450, ed. 1880; Johnson in Senate Report on Territories; Cherokee Memorial, Januarj is. 1831; see lawsof 1808, ism. and Inter, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 279-283, 1834. The volume of Cherokee laws, com- piled in the Cherokee language by the Nation, in 1850, begins with the year 1808. 19 ETH— 01 8 114 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 in council, but subsequently made submission and was reinstated. He was afterward one of the detachment commanders in the Removal, but died while on the march. 1 In this year, also, John Ross became principal chief of the, Nation, a position which he held until his death in 1866, thirty-eight years later.'' In this long period, comprising the momentous episodes of the Removal and the War of the Rebellion, it may lie truly said that his history is the history of the Nation. And now. just when it seemed that civilization and enlightenment wcic about to accomplish their perfect work, the Cherokee began to hear the first low muttering of the coming storm that was soon to overturn their whole governmental structure and sweep them forever from the land of their birth. By an agreement between the United States and the state of Georgia in L802, the latter, for valuable consideration, had ceded to the general government her claims west of the present state boundary, the United States at the same time agreeing to extinguish, at its own expense, but for the benefit of the state, the Indian claims within the state limits, "as early as the same can be peaceably obtained on reasonable terms." 3 In accordance with this agreement several treaties had already been made with the Creeks and Cherokee, by which large tracts had been secured for Georgia at the expense of the general government. Notwithstanding this fact, and the terms of the. proviso, Georgia accused the government of bad faith in not taking summary measures to compel the Indians at once to surrender all their remaining lands within the chartered state limits, coupling the complaint with a threat to take the matter into her own hands. In 1820 Agent Meigs had expressed the opinion that the Cherokee were now so far advanced that further government aid was unnecessary, and that their lands should be allotted and the surplus sold for their benefit, they themselves to be invested with full rights of citizenship in the several states within which they resided. This .suggestion had been approved by President Monroe, but had met the most determined opposition from the states concerned. Tennessee absolutely refused to recognize, individual reservations made by previous treaties, while North Carolina and Georgia bought in all such reservations with money appropriated by Congress.* No Indian was to be allowed to live within those states on any pretext whatsoever. In the meantime, owing to persistent pressure from Georgia, repeated unsuccessful efforts had been made to procure from the Cherokee a cession of their lands within the chartered limits of the 1 Persona] information from Jnines D. Wafford. So far as is known this rebellion of the conservatives lias never hitherto been noted in print. =See Resolutions of Honor, in Laws of the Cherokee Nation, pp. 137-140, 1868: Meredith, in The Five civilized Tribes, Extra Census Bulletin, p. 41, 1894; Appleton, Cyclopedia of American Biography. 3 See fourth article of "Articles of agreement and cession," April 24, 1802, in American State Papers: class viu. Public Lands, i, quoted also by Greeley, American Conflict, I, p. 103, 1864. < Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 231-233, 1888. hookey] PRESSURE FOE REMOVAL — 1823 24 L15 state. Every effort met with a firm refusal, the [ndians declaring that having alreadj r made cession after cession from a territory once extensive, their remaining lands were no more than were needed for themselves and their children, more especially as experience had shown that each concession would be followed by a further demand. They conclude: " It is the fixed and unalterable determination of this nation never again to cede one foot more of land." Soon afterward they addressed to the President a memorial of similar tenor, to which ^Calhoun, as Secretary of War. returned answer that as Georgia objected to their presence either as a tribe or as individual owners or citizens, they must prepare their minds for removal beyond the Mis- sissippi.' In reply, the Cherokee, by their delegates — John Ross. George Lowrey, Major Ridge, and Elijah Hicks — sent a strong letter calling attention to the fact that by the very wording of the L802 agreement the compact was a conditional one which could not he carried out without their own voluntary consent, and suggesting that Georgia might be satisfied from the adjoining government lands in Florida. Continuing, they remind the Secretary that the Cherokee are not foreigners, but original inhabitants of America, inhabiting and stand- ing now upon the soil of their own territory, with limits denned by treaties with the United States, and that, confiding in the good faith of the government to respect its treaty stipulations, they do not hesitate to say that their true interest, prosperity, and happiness demand their permanency where they are and the retention of their lands. ' A copy of this letter was sent by the Secretary to Governor Troup of Georgia, who returned a reply in which he blamed the missionaries for the refusal of the Indians, declared that the state would not permit them to become citizens, and that the Secretary must either assist the state in taking possession of the Cherokee lands, or. in resisting that occupancy, make war upon and shed the blood of brothers and friends. The Georgia delegation in Congress addressed a similar letter to Presi- dent Monroe, in which the government was censured for ha\ ing instructed the Indians in the arts of civilized life and having therebj imbued them with a de-ire to acquire property." For answer the President submitted a report by Secretary Calhoun showing that since the agreement had been made with Georgia in 1802 the government had. at its own expense, extinguished the Indian claim to 24,600 square miles within the limits of that state, or more than three-fifths of the whole Indian claim, and had paid on that and other accounts connected with the agreement nearly seven and a half million 'Cherokee correspondence 1823 and 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, n, pp. 168 it::, 1834; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. j 16 237, 1888. 'Cherokee memorial, February 11. 1824, in American State Papers: Indian Lffairs, a, pp. II I 194, 1834 Royce, op cit, p J 17 i Letters of Governor Troup of Georgia, February 28, 1824, and of Georgia delegates, March 10,1824, American State Papers Indian Affairs, n. pp. 475, 177, 1834; Royce, op. cit., pp. 287, 238. V 116 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 dollars, of which by far the greater part had gone to Georgia or her citizens. In regard to the other criticism the report states that the civilizing policy was as old as the government itself, and that in per- forming the high duties of humanity to the Indians, it had never been conceived that the stipulation of the convention was contravened. In handing in the report the President again called attention to the con- ditional nature of the agreement and declared it as his opinion that the title of the Indians was not in the slightest degree affected by it and that there was no obligation on the United States to remove them by force. 1 Further efforts, even to the employment of secret methods, were made in 1827 and 1828 to induce a cession or emigration, but without avail. On July 26, 1827, as already noted, the Cherokee adopted a constitution as a distinct and sovereign Nation. Upon this the Georgia legislature passed resolutions affirming that that state "had the power and the right to possess herself, by any means she might choose, of the lands in dispute, and to extend over them her authority and laws, 1 ' and recommending that this be done by the next legislature, if the lands were not already acquired by successful negotiation of the gen- eral government in the meantime. The government was warned that the lands belonged to Georgia, and she must and would have them. It was suggested, however, that the United States might be permitted to make a certain number of reservations to individual Indians. 2 Passing over for the present some important negotiations with the western Cherokee, we come to the events leading to the final act in the drama. Up to this time the pressure had been for land only, but now a stronger motive was added. About the year 1815 a little Cherokee boy playing along Chestatee river, in upper Georgia, had brought in to his mother a shining yellow pebble hardly larger than the end of his thumb. On being washed it proved to be a nugget of gold, and on her next trip to the settlements the woman carried it with her and sold it to a white man. The news spread, and although she probably con- cealed the knowledge of the exact spot of its origin, it was soon known that the golden dreams of DeSoto had been realized in the Cherokee country of Georgia. Within four years the whole territory east of the Chestatee had passed from the possession of the Cherokee. They still held the western bank, but the prospector was abroad in the mountains and it could not be for long. 3 About 1828 gold was found on Ward's creek, a western branch of Chestatee, near the present Dahlonega. 4 and the doom of the nation was sealed (11). 1 Monroe, message to the Senate, with Calhoun's report, March 30, 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 460, 462, 1834. 2 Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 241, 242, 1888. 3 Personal information from J. D. Warlord. 4 Nitze, H. B. C. , in Twentieth Annual Report United States Geological Survey, part 6 (Mineral Resources), p. 112,1899. hookey] EXTENSION OF GEORGIA LAWS —1830 117 In November, L828, Andrew Jackson was elected to succeed John Quinoy Adams as President. He was a frontiersman and Indian bater, and the change boded no good to the ( Jherokee. His position was we'd understood, and there is good ground for believing thai the action at once taken by Georgia was at bis own suggestion. 1 On December 20, 1828, a month after his election, Georgia passed an act annexing thai part of the Cherokee countrj within her chartered limits and extending over it her jurisdiction; all laws and customs established among the Cherokee were declared null and void, and no person of Indian Mood or descent residing within the Indian country was henceforth to he allowed as a witness or party in any suit where a white man should be defendant. The act was to take effect June 1. L830 (42). The whole territory was soon after mapped out into counties and surveyed by state surveyors into •'land lots" of L60 acres each, and "gold lots" of 40 acres, which were put up and distributed among the white citizens of Georgia by public lottery, each white citizen receiving a ticket. Every Cherokee head of a family was. indeed, allowed a reservation of 160 acres, hut no d 1 was given, and his continuance depended solely on the pleasure of the legislature. Provision was made for the settlement of contested lottery claims among; the white citizens, hut by the most stringent enactments, in addition to the sweeping law which forbade anyone of Indian blood to bring suit or to testify against a white man, it was made impossible for the Indian owner to defend his right in any court or to resist the seizure of his homestead, or even his own dwelling house, and anyone so resisting was made sub- ject to imprisonment at the discretion of a Georgia court. Other laws directed to the same end quickly followed, one of which made invalid any contract between a white man and an Indian unless established by the testimony of two white witnesses — thus practically canceling all deb ts due from white men to Indians — while another obliged all white men residing in the Cherokee country to take a special oath of allegi- ance to the state of Georgia, on penalty of four years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, this act being intended to drive out all the mis- sionaries, teachers, and other educators who refused to countenance the spoliation. About the same time the Cherokee were forbidden to hold councils, or to assemble for any public purpose, 2 or to dig for gold upon their own lands. 1 See Butler letter, quoted in Etoyce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. '-".>7, ee also Everett, speech in the House of Representatives on May 31, 1838, pp. 16-17, 3 s-33, i " -For extracts and synopses of these nets sit Royce, op. clt., pp. 259-264; Drake, indians, pp. 43! i 6, 1880; Greeley, American Conflict, i, pp. 105, 106, 1864; Edward Everett, speech in the House of Rep- resentatives, February 14, 1831 I lottery law). The Hold lottery is also noted incidentally by Lanman, Charles, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, p. 10; New York. 1849, and by Nitze, in his repO] l >n the Georgia gold fields, in the Twentieth annual Report of the United States Ge part 6 I Mineral Resources |, p. L12, 1899. The author has himseli seen in a mountain villas in Georgia an old book titled "The Cherokee Land and Gold Lottery," containing map' and plats covering the whole Cherokee country of Georgia, with each lot numbered, aid descriptions of the watercourses, soil, and supposed mineral veins. 118 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.ij The purpose of this legislation was to render life in their own country intolerable to the Cherokee by depriving them of all legal protection and friendly counsel, and the effect was precisely as intended. In an eloquent address upon the subject before the House of Representatives the distinguished Edward Everett clearly pointed out the encouragement which it gave to lawless men: "They have but to cross the Cherokee line; they have but to choose the time and the place where the eye of no white man can rest upon them, and they may burn the dwelling, waste the farm, plunder the property, assault the person, murder the children of the Cherokee subject of Georgia, and though hundreds of the tribe may be looking on. there is not one of them that can be permitted to bear witness against the spoiler." 1 Senator Sprague, of Maine, said of the law that it devoted the prop- erty of the Cherokee to the cupidity of their neighbors, leaving them exposed to every outrage which lawless persons could inflict, so that even robbery and murder might be committed with impunity at noon- day, if not in the presence of whites who would testify against it. 2 The prediction was fulfilled to the letter. Bands of armed men invaded the Cherokee country, forcibly seizing horses and cattle, taking possession of houses from which they had ejected the occu- pants, and assaulting the owners who dared to make resistance. 3 In one instance, near the present Dahlonega, two white men, who had been hospitably received and entertained at supper by an educated Cherokee citizen of nearly pure white blood, later in the evening, during the temporary absence of the parents, drove out the children and their nurse and deliberately set fire to the house, which was burned to the ground with all its contents. They were pursued and brought to trial, but the case was dismissed by the judge on the ground that no Indian could testify against a white man. 1 Cherokee miners upon their own ground were arrested, fined, and imprisoned, and their tools and machinery destroyed, while thousands of white intruders were allowed to dig in the same places unmolested. 5 A Cherokee on trial in his own nation for killing another Indian was seized by the state authorities, tried and condemned to death, although, not understanding English, he was unable to speak in his own defense. A United States court forbade the execution, but the judge who had conducted the trial defied the writ, went to the place of execution, anil stood beside the sheriff while the Indian was being hanged. 6 1 -I eh of May 19, 1830, Washington; printed by Gales & Seaton,1830. ^Speech in the Senate of the United States, April 16, 1830; Washington, Peter Force, printer, 1830. B See Cherokee Memorial to Congress, January 18, 1831. * Personal information from Prof. Clinton Duncan, of Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, whose father's house \\:is the one thus burned. ^Cherokee Memorial to Congress January 18, 1831. c lbid.; see also speech of Edward Everett in House of Representatives February 14, 1831; report >>i the select committee of the senate of Massarhusettsupon t lie Georgia resolutions, Boston, 1831; Greeley, American Conflict, I, p. 106, 1864; Abbott, Cherokee Indians in Georgia; Atlanta Constitution. October 27, 1889. koonki ARREST OF MISSIONARIES — 1831 119 Immediately on the passage of the first ad the ( Iherokee appealed to President Jackson, but were told that no protection would be afforded tlirni. Other efforts were then made — in 1829 — to persuade them to removal, or to procure another cession this time of all their lands in North Carolina but the Cherokee remained firm. The Georgia law was declared in force on June :;. L830, whereupon the Presidenl directed that the annuity payment due the < Iherokee Nation under pre- vious treaties should no longer lie jiaid to their national treasurer, as hitherto, but distributed per capita by the agent. As a national fund it had been used for the maintenance of their schools and national press. A- a per capita payment it amounted to forty-two cents to each individual. Several years afterward it still remained unpaid. Fed- eral troops were also sent into the Cherokee country with orders to prevent all mining by either whites or Indians unless authorized by the state of Georgia. All these measures served only to render the Chero- kee more bitter in their determination. In September, 1830, another proposition was made for the removal of the tribe, but the national council emphatically refused to consider thesubject. 1 In January, 1831, the Cherokee Nation, by John Ross as principal chief, brought a test suit of injunction against Georgia, in the United States Supreme Court. The majority of the court dismissed the suit on the ground that the Cherokee were not a foreign nation within the meaning of the Constitution, two justices dissenting from this opinion. 8 Shortly afterward, under the law which forbade any white man to reside in the Cherokee Nation without taking an oath of allegiance to Georgia, a number of arrests were made, including Wheeler, the printer of the Cherokei Phmnix, and the missionaries. Worcester. But- ler. Thompson, and Proctor, who. being there by permission of the agent and feeling that plain American citizenship should hold good in an\ part of the United States, refused to take the oath. Soi if those arrested took the oath and were released, but Worcester and Butler, still refusing, were dressed in prison garb and put at hard labor among felons. Worcester had plead in his defense that he was a citizen of Vermont, and had entered the Cherokee country by permis- sion of the President of the United Statesand approval of the Cherokee Nation: and that as the United States by several treaties had acknowl- edged the Cherokee to be a nation with a guaranteed and definite ter- ritory, the state had no right to interfere with him. 1 Ie was sentenced to four year- in the penitentiary. On March 3, 1832, the matter was appealed as a test ease to the Supreme Court of the United States, which rendered a decision in favor of Worcester and the Cherokee Nation and ordered his release. Georgia, however, through her ^n ernor. had defied the summons with a threat of opposition, even tothe i erokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 261,262, 2 Ibid., p. 262. 120 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [etb.ann.19 annihilation of the Union, and now ignored the decision, refusing to release the missionary, who remained in prison until set free by the will of the governor nearly a year later. A remark attributed to President Jackson, on hearing of the result in the Supreme Court, may throw some light on the whole proceeding: ■•John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." 1 On the 19th of July. 1832, a public fast was observed throughout the Cherokee Nation. In the proclamation recommending it, Chief Ross observes that "Whereas the crisis in the affairs of the Nation exhibits the day of tribulation and sorrow, and the time appears to be fast hastening when the destiny of this people must be sealed; whether it has been directed by the wonted depravity and wickedness of man, or by the unsearchable and mysterious will of an allwise Being, it equally becomes us, as a rational and Christian community, humbly to bow in humiliation," etc. 2 Further attempts were made to induce the Cherokee to remove to the West, but met the same firm refusal as before. It was learned that in view of the harrassing conditions to which they were subjected the Cherokee were now seriously considering the project of emigrating to the Pacific Coast, at the mouth of the Columbia, a territory then claimed by England and held by the posts of the British Hudson Bay Company. The Secretary of War at once took steps to discourage the movement. 3 A suggestion from the Cherokee that the government satisfy those who had taken possession of Cherokee lands under the lottery drawing by giving them instead an equivalent from the unoc- cupied government lands was rejected by the President. In the spring of 1834 the Cherokee submitted a memorial which, after asserting that they would never voluntarily consent to abandon their homes, proposed to satisfy Georgia by ceding to her a portion of their territory, they to be protected in possession of the remainder until the end of a definite period to be fixed b}^ the United States, at the expiration of which, after disposing of their surplus lands, they should become citizens of the various states within which they resided. They were told that their difficulties could be remedied only Iry their removal to the west of the Mississippi. In the meantime a removal treaty was being negotiated with a self-styled committee of some fif- teen or twenty Cherokee called together at the agency. It was carried through in spite of the protest of John Ross and the Cherokee Nation, as embodied in a paper said to contain the signatures of 13,000 Chero- kee, but failed of ratification.* Despairing of any help from the President, the Cherokee delega- 1 Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bateau of Ethnology, pp. 264-2titi, 1SS8; JJrake, Indians, pp i.ii i .T. L880; Greeley, American Conflict, i. 106,1864. s Drake, Indians, p 158, 1880. ;| Royce, up. cit., pp. 262-264, -~-. 273. * [bid., pp.274, 275. ' ' TREATY WITH RIDGE PARTY— 1835 121 tion, headed by John Ross, addressed another earnest memorial to Congress on May 17. 1834. Royee quotes the document at length, with the remark, "Without affecting to pass judgment on the merits of the controversy, the writer thinks this memorial well deserving of reproduction here as evidencing the devoted and pathetic attachment wilh which the Cherokee clung to the land of their fathers, and, remembering the wrongs and humiliations of the past, refused to he convinced that justice, prosperity, and happiness awaited them beyond the Mississippi." ' In August of this year another council was held at Ued Clay, south- eastward from Chattanooga and just within the Georgia line, where the question of removal was again debated in what i- officially described a- a tumultuous and excited meeting. One of the prin- cipal advocates of the emigration scheme, a prominent mixed-blood named John Walker, jr.. was assassinated from ambush while return- ing from the council to his home a few miles north of the present Cleveland, Tennessee. On account of his superior education and influential connections, his wife being a niece of former agent Return ,1. Meigs, the affair created intense excitement at the time. The assassination has been considered the first of the long series of political murders growing out of the removal agitation, but, according to the testimony of old Cherokee acquainted with the facts, the killing was due to a more personal motive.* The Cherokee were now nearly worn out by constant battle against a fate from which they could see no escape. In February, 1835, two rival delegations arrived in Washington, One, the national party, headed by John Ross, came prepared still to tight to the end for home and national existence. The other, headed by Major John Ridge, a prominent subchief, despairing of further successful resistance, was prepared to negotiate for removal. Reverend J. F. Schermerhorn was appointed commissioner to arrange with the Ridge party a treaty to he confirmed later by the Cherokee people in general council. On this basis a treaty was negotiated with the Ridge party by which the Cherokee were to cede their whole eastern territory and remove to the West in consideration of the sum id' $3,250,000 with some addi- tional acreage in the West and a small sum for depredations com- mitted upon them by the whites. Finding that these negotiation- were proceeding, the Ross party tiled a counter proposition for $20,000, P, which was rejected by the Senate as excessive. The Schermerhorn compact with the Ridge party, with the consideration changed to $4,500,000, was thereupon completed and signed on March 14. Ism;,. hut with the express stipulation that it should receive the approval of •Royce.Chi tion, Fifth Ann. Report Bureau of Etl logy, p. 276, 1888. * Commissioner Elbert Herring, November 25, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 240, L834; author's personal information from Major R. C Jackson and J. D. Wafford. 122 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE the Cherokee nation in full council assembled before being considered of any binding force. This much accomplished, Mr. Schermerhorn departed for the Cherokee country, armed with an address from President Jackson in which the great benefits of removal were set forth to the Cherokee. Having exhausted the summer and fall in fruitless effort to secure favorable action, the reverend gentleman notified the President, proposing either to obtain the signatures of the leading Cherokee by promising them payment for their improve- ments at their own valuation, if in any degree reasonable, or to con- clude a treaty with a part of the Nation and compel its acceptance by the rest. He was promptly informed by the Secretary of War, Lewis Cass, on behalf of the President, that the treaty, if concluded at all, must be procured upon fair and open terms, with no particular promise to any individual, high or low, to gain his aid or influence, and without sacrificing the interest of the whole to the cupidity of a fev^ He was also informed that, as it would probably be contrary to his wish, his letter would not be put on file. 1 In October, 1835, the Ridge treaty was rejected by the Cherokee Nation in full council at Red Clay, even its main supporters, Ridge himself and Elias Boudinot, going over to the rnajoruy, most unex- pectedly to Schermerhorn, who reports the result, piously adding, "but the Lord is able to overrule all things for good." During the session of this council notice was served on the Cherokee to meet commissioners at New Echota in December following for the purpose of negotiating a treaty. The notice was also printed in the Cherokee language and circulated throughout the Nation, with a statement that those who failed to attend would be counted as assenting to any treaty that might be made. 2 The council had authorized the regular delegation, headed by John Ross, to conclude a treaty either there or at Washington, but, finding that Schermerhorn had no authority to treat on any other basis than the one rejected by the Nation, the delegates proceeded to Washing- ton. 8 Before their departure John Ross, who had removed to Ten- nessee to escape persecution in his own state, was arrested at his home by the Georgia guard, all his private papers and the proceedings of the council being taken at the same time, and conveyed across the line into Georgia, where he was held for some time without charge against him, and at last released without apology or explanation. The poet, John Howard Payne, who was then stopping with Ross, engaged in the work of collecting historical and ethnologic material relating to the Cherokee, was seized at the same time, with all his letters and scien- i Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 278-280, 1888; Everett speech in House of Representatives, May 31, 1838, pp. 28, 29, 1839, in which the Secretary's reply is given in full. = Royce, op. cit., pp. 280-281. » Ibid., p. 281. hooney] TKKATY OF NEW ECHOTA 1835 L23 tific manuscripts. The national paper, the Cheroket Phamix, had been suppressed and its oilier plant seized by the same guard a few days before. 1 Thus in their greatest need the Chei'okee were deprived of the help and counsel of their teachers, their national press, and their chief. Although for two months threats and inducements had been held out to secure a full attendance at the December conference at New Echota, there were present when the proceedings opened, according to the report of Schermerhorn himself , only from three hundred to five hundred men. women, and children, out of a population of over lT.ooii. Notwithstanding the paucity of attendance and the absence of the principal officers of the Nation, a committee was appointed to arrange the details of a treaty, which was finally drawn up and signed on December 29, L835. s Briefly stated, by this treaty id' New Echota, Georgia, the Cherokee Nation ceded to the United States its whole remaining territory cast of the Mississippi for the sum of five million dollars and a common joint interest in the territory already occupied by the western Chero- kee, in what is now Indian Territory, with an additional smaller tract adjoining on the northeast, in what is now Kansas. Improvements were to be paid for. and the Indians were to lie removed at the expense of the United States and subsisted at the expense of the Government for one year after their arrival in the new country. The removal was to take place within two years from the ratification of the treaty. On the strong representations of the Cherokee signers, who would probably not have signed otherwise even then, it was agreed that a limited number of Cherokee who should desire to remain behind in North Carolina. Tennessee, and Alabama, and become citizens, having first been adjudged "qualified or calculated to become useful citizens."' might so remain, together with a few holding individual reservations under former treaties. This provision was allowed by the commis- sioners, hut was afterward struck out on the announcement by Presi- dent Jackson of his determination "not to allow any preemptions or reservations, his desire being that the whole Cherokee people should remove together." Provision was made also for the payment of debts due by the Indians out of any moneys coming to them under the treaty: for the reestab- lishment of the missions in the West; for pensions to Cherokee wounded in the service of the government in the war of 1812 and the Creek war; for permission to establish in the new country such military posts and roads for the use of the United States as should he deemed necessary; for satisfying Osage claims in the western territory and iRoyce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit. (R.'ss arrest), p. 281; Drake, Indian- Ross Paj le, Phcenix), p. 159, 1880; Bee also Everett speech .»■" May 31, 1888, op. cit. -Royce, op. cit., pp. :M i m [>n .[..,■! ii is:>. 124 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE Leth.ann.19 for bringing about a friendly understanding between the two tribes; and for the commutation of all annuities and other sums due from the ■United States into a permanent national fund, the interest to be placed at the disposal of the officers of the Cherokee Nation and by them disbursed, according to the will of their own people, for the care of schools and orphans, and for general national purposes. The western territory assigned the Cherokee under this treaty was in two adjoining tracts, viz, (1) a tract of seven million acres, together with a "perpetual outlet west." already assigned to the western Cherokee under treaty of 1833, as will hereafter be noted, 1 being identical with the present area occupied by the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, together with the former "Cherokee strip," with the exception of a two-mile strip along the northern boundary, now included within the limits of Kansas; (2) a smaller additional tract of eight hundred thousand acres, running fifty miles north and south and twenty-five miles east and west, in what is now the southeastern corner of Kansas. For this second tract the Cherokee themselves were to pay the United States five hundred thousand dollars. The treaty of 1833, assigning the first described tract to the western Cherokee, states that the United States agrees to "guaranty it to them forever, and that guarantee is hereby pledged." By the same treaty, "in addition to the seven millions of acres of land thus pro- vided for and bounded, the United States further guaranty to the Cherokee nation a perpetual outlet west and a free and unmolested use of all the country lying west of the western boundary of said seven millions of acres, as far west as the sovereignty of the United States and their right of soil extend . . . and letters patent shall be issued by the United States as soon as practicable for the land hereby guaranteed." All this was reiterated by the present treaty, and made to include also the smaller (second) tract, in these words: Art. o. The United States also agree that the lands above ceded by the treaty of February 14, 1833, including the nutlet, and those ceded by this treaty, shall all be included in one patent, executed to the Cherokee nation of Indians by the President of the United States, according to the provisions of the act of May 28, 1S30. . . . Art. 5. The United States hereby covenant and agree that the lands ceded to the Cherokee nation in the foregoing article shall in no future time, without their con- sent, be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of anystate or territory. But they shall secure to the Cherokee nation the right of their national councils to make ami carry into effect all such laws as they may deem necessary for the govern- ment ami pre itection of the persons and property within their own country belonging to their people or such persons as have connected themselves with them: Provided always, that they shall not be inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States and such acts of Congress as have been or may be passed regulating trade and inter- course with the Indians; and also that they shall not be considered as extending to such citizens and army of the United States as may travel or reside in the Indian !See Fort Gibson treaty, 1833, p. 142. mooned TREATY OF NEW ECHOTA — 1835 125 country by permission, according to tl»- lu«> and regulations established by the gov- ernment of the same. . . . \ki. 6. Perpetual peace and friendship shall exist between the citizens of the I'niti'.l States nail the Cherokee Indians. The United stales agree to protect the Cherokee nation from domestic strife and foreign enemies and against intestine wars between the several tribes. The Cherokees shall endeavor to preserve and maintain the peace of the country, and not make war upon their neighbors; they shall also be protected against interruption and intrusion from citizens of the United stairs who may attempt to settle in the country without their consent; an. 1 all such persons shall be removed from the same' by order of the President of the United States. But this is not intended to prevent the residence among them of useful farmers, mechan- ics, and teachers for the instruction of the Indians according to treaty stipulations. Ajrticle 7. The Cherokee nation having already made great progress in civiliza- tion, and deeming it important that every proper and laudable inducement should be offered to their people to improve their condition, as well as to guard and secure in the most effectual manner the rights guaranteed to them in this treaty, and with a view to illustrate tin- liberal and enlarged policy of the government of the United States toward the Indians in their removal beyond the territorial limits of the states. it is stipulated that they shall be entitled to a Delegate in the Hou i Representa- tives of the United States whenever Congress shall make provision for the same. The instrument was signed by (Governor) "William Carroll of Ten- nessee and (Reverend) .1. F. Schermerhorn as commissioners— the former, however, having been unable to attend by reason of illness and by twenty Cherokee, among whom the most prominent were Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot, former editor of the Phoenix. Neither John Ross nor any one of the officers of the Cherokee Nation was present or represented. After some changes by the Senate, it was ratified May 23, 1S36. 1 Upon the treaty of New Echota and the treaty previously made with tlie western Cherokee at Fort Gibson in 1833, the united Cherokee Nation based it> claim to the present territory held by the tribe in Indian Territory and to the Cherokee outlet, and to national self-govern- ment, with protection from outside intrusion. An official census taken in L835 showed the whole number of Chero- kee in Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee to he 16,542, exclusive of 1,592 negro slaves and 201 whites intermarried with Cherokee. The Cherokee were distributed as follows: Georgia, 8,946; North Carolina, 3,644; Tennessee, 2,528; Alabama, 1 .4i4. 2 Despite the efforts id' Ro~s and the national delegates, who presented protests with .signatures representing nearly Id.ooot 'herokee. the treaty ■ See New Echota treaty, 1835, and Fort Gibson treaty, 1833 Indian Treaties, pp. 633-64* and »i I - 1837; also, for full di sen-, ion of l.nlli t rallies [;. ,vee, Cherokee Nat inn. Fifth Ann. iep. I tun an , . I i h nology, pp. 249-298. For a summary of all the measures of pressure brought to bear upon the Cher okee up to the final removal see also Everett, speech in the House of Representative-, May 31, 1838; the chapters on "Expatriation of the Cherokees," Drake, Indians, 1880; and tin' chapter on - 1 1 1.- Rights— Nullification," in Greeley, American Conflict, i, 1864. The Georgia side of the controversy is presented in E..t.Harden'sLifeof (Governor! George M. Troup, 1849. - Ri iyee. op. cit., p. 289. The Indian total is also given in the Report of the Indian Commissioner, p. 369, 1836. 126 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ank.19 had been ratified by a majority of one vote over the necessary number, and preliminary steps were at once taken to carry it into execution. Councils were held in opposition all over the Cherokee Nation, and resolutions denouncing the methods used and declaring the treaty absolutely null and void were drawn up and submitted to General Wool, in command of the troops in the Cherokee country, by whom they were forwarded to Washington. The President in reply expressed his surprise that an officer of the army should have received or trans- mitted a paper so disrespectful to the Executive, the Senate, and the American people; declared his settled determination that the treaty should be carried out without modification and with all consistent dispatch, and directed that after a copy of the letter had been delivered to Ross, no further communication, by mouth or writing, should be held with him concerning the treaty. It was further directed that no coun- cil should be permitted to assemble to discuss the treaty. Ross had already been informed that the President had ceased to recognize any existing government among the eastern Cherokee, and that any fur- ther effort by him to prevent the consummation of the treaty would be suppressed. 1 Notwithstanding this suppression of opinion, the feeling of the Nation was soon made plain through other sources. Before the ratifi- cation of the treaty Major W. M. Davis had been appointed to enroll the Cherokee for removal and to appraise the value of their improve- ments. He soon learned the true condition of affairs, and, although holding his office by the good will of President Jackson, he addressed to the Secretary of War a strong letter upon the subject, from which the following extract is made: I conceive that my duty to the President, to yourself, and to my country reluc- tantly compels me to make a statement of .facts in relation to a meeting of a small number of Cherokees at New Echota last December, who were met by Mr. Scher- merhorn and articles of a general treaty entered into between them fur the whole Cherokee nation. . . . Sir, that paper, . . . called a treaty, is no treaty at all, because not sanctioned by the great body of the Cherokee and made without their participation or assent, I solemnly declare to you that upon its reference to the Cherokee people it would be instantly rejected by nine-tenths of them, and I believe by nineteen-twentieths of them. There were not. present at the conclusion of the treaty mere than one hundred Cherokee voters, and not more than three hundred, including women and children, although the weather was everything that could be desired. The Indians had long been notified of the meeting, and blankets were promised to all who would come and vote for the treaty. The most cunning and artful means were resorted to to conceal the paucity of numbers present at the treaty. No enumeration of them was made by Schermerhorn. The business of making the treaty was transacted with a committee appointed by the Indians present, so as not to expose their numbers. The power of attorney under which the committee acted was signed only by the president and secretary of the meeting, so as not to disclose their weakness. . . . Mr. Schermerhorn's apparent design was to conceal the real number present and to impose on the public and the government upon this point. ■Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. eit., pp. 283,284; Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 285, 286, 1836. > seyJ GENERAL wniil.'s REPORTS — 1837 I "J 7 The delegation taken to Washington by Mr. Schermerhorn had no more authority to make a treaty than any other dozen Cherokee accidentally picked up for the purpose. I no« warn you and the President thai if this paper of Schermerhorn's called a treaty is sent t" the Senate and ratified you «ill bring trouble upon the government arid eventual!) destroy this [the < Iherokee] Nat inn. The Cherokee are a peaceable, harmless people, bul you may drive them to desperation, and this treaty can not be carried into effect except bj the strong arm of force. 1 General Wool, who had been placed in command of the troops con- centrated in the Cherokee country to prevent opposition to the enforce- ment of the treaty, reported on February L8, 1837, thai he had called them toe-ether and made them an address, but "'it is. however, vain to talk to a people almost universally opposed to the treaty and who maintain that they never made such a treaty. So determined are they in their opposition that not one of all those who were present ami voted at tin' council held hut a day or two since, however poor or destitute, would receive either rations or clothing from the United States lest they might compromise themselves in regard to the treaty. These same people, as well as those in the mountains of North Carolina. during the summer past, preferred living upon the roots and sap of trees rather than receive provisions from the United States, and thousands, as I have been informed, had no other food for weeks. Many have said they will die before they will leave the country." 2 Other letters from General Wool while engaged in the work of disarming and overawing the Cherokee show how very disagreeable that duty was to him and how strongly his sympathies were with the Indians, who were practically unanimous in repudiating the treaty. In one letter he says: The whole scene since I have hern in this country has been nothing but a heart- rending one. and such a one as I would he glad to get rid of as soon as circumstances will permit. Because I am firm and decided, do not believe I would be unjust. If I could, and I could not do them a greater kindness, I would remove every Indian to-morrow beyond the reach of the white men. who, like vultures, are watching, ready to pounce upon their prey and strip them of everything they have or expert from the government of the Dinted state-. Yes, sir, nineteen-twentieths, if not ninety-nine out of every hundred, will go penniless to the West. :l How it was to be brought about is explained in part by a letter addressed to the President by Major Ridge himself, the principal signer of the treaty: We now come to address you on the subject of our griefs and afflictions from the acts of the white people. They have got our lands and now they are preparing to fleece US of the money accruing from the treaty. We found our plantations taken either in whole or in part by the Georgians — suits instituted against us for back rents for our own farms. These suits are commenced in the inferior courts, with the i Quoted by Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. «-i r . . pp. 284-285; quoted also, with some verbal differ* by Everett, speech in House oi Representatives on Maj 31,1838. i .i in Royce, op 'it., p 286. » Letter of General Wool, September 10, 1836, in Everett, speeeh in Hous ol Representatives, May 31, 1838. 128 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.ann.19 evident design that, when we are ready to remove, to arrest our people, and on these vile claims to induce us to com promise for our own release, to travel with our families. Thus our funds will lie filched from mir people, and we shall he compelled to leave our country as beggars and in want. Even the Georgia laws, which deny us our oaths, are thrown aside, and notwith- standing the cries of our people, and protestation of our innocence and peace, the lowest classes of the white people are flogging the Cherokees with cowhides, hick- ories, and clubs. We are not safe in our houses — our people are assailed by day and night by the rabble. Even justices of the peace and constables are concerned in this business. This barbarous treatment is not confined to men, but the women are stripped also and whipped without law or mercy. . . . Send regular troops to protect us from these lawless assaults, and to protect our people as they depart for the West. If it is not done, we shall carry off nothing but the scars of the lash on our backs, and our oppressors will get all the money. We talk plainly, as chiefs having property and life in danger, and we appeal to you for protection. . . .' ( reneral Dunlap, in command of the Tennessee troops called out to prevent the alleged contemplated Cherokee uprising, having learned for himself the true situation, delivered an indignant address to his men in which he declared that he would never dishonor the Tennessee arms by aiding to carry into execution at the. point of the bayonet a treaty made by a lean minority against the will and authority of the Cherokee people. He stated further that he had given the Cherokee all the protection in his power, the whites needing none. 2 A confidential agent sent to report upon the situation wrote in Sep- tember, 1837, that opposition to the treaty was unanimous and irrecon- cilable, the Cherokee declaring that it could not bind them because they did not make it. that it was the work of a few unauthorized indi viduals and that the Nation was not a party to it. They had retained the forms of their government, although no election had been held since 1830, having continued the officers then in charge until their gov- ernment could again be reestablished regularly. Under this arrange- ment John Ross was principal chief, with influence unbounded and unquestioned. "The whole Nation of eighteen thousand persons is with him. the few — about three hundred — who made the treaty having left the country, with the exception of a small number of prominent individuals — as Ridge, Boudinot, and others — who remained to assist in carrying it into execution. It is evident, therefore, that Ross and his party are in fact the Cherokee Nation. ... 1 believe that the mass of the Nation, particularly the mountain Indians, will stand or fall with Ross. . . .'"'' So intense was public feeling on the subject of this treat}* that it became to some extent a part} - question, the Democrats supporting President Jackson while the Whigs bitterly opposed him. Among 1 Letter of .nine 30, 1836, to President Jackson, in Everett, speech in the House of Representatives, May 31, 1S38. - Quoted by Everett, ibid,; also by Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit.,p.286. 3 Letter of J.M.Mason, jr., to Secretary of War, September 25, 1837, in Everett, speech in House of Representatives, May 31, 1838; also quoted in extract by Royce, op. cit., pp. 286-287. MuusF.Y] ARRIVAL OF TROOPS 129 notable leaders of the opposition were Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edward K\ erett, Wise of Virginia, and 1 >avid ( Ii'ockett. The speeches in Congress upon the subject ••were characterized by a depth and bit- terness of feeling such as had never been exceeded even on the slavery question." 1 It was considered not simply an Indian question, but an issue between state rights on the one hand and federal jurisdiction and the ( institution on the other. In spite of threats of arrest and punishment, Ross still continued active effort in behalf of his people. Again, in the spring of I 838, t wo months before the time fixed for the removal, he presented to Con- gress another protest and memorial, which, like the others, was tabled by the Senate. Van Buren had now succeeded Jackson and was dis- posed to allow the Cherokee a longer time to prepare for emigration, but was met by the declaration from Governor < rilmer of Georgia that any delay would be a violation of the rights of that state and in oppo- sition to the rights of tht owners of tin sot?, and that if trouble came from any protection afforded by the government troops to the Chero- kee a direct collision must ensue between the authorities of the state and general go^ ernment. 8 Up to the last moment the Cherokee still believed that the treaty would not he consummated, and with all the pressure brought to bear upon them only about 2,000 of the 17,000 in the eastern Nation had removed at the expiration of the time fixed for their departure, May 26, 1838. As it was evident that the removal could only he accom- plished by force. Genera] Winfield Scott was now appointed to that duty with instructions to start the Indians for the West at the earliest possible moment. For that purpose he was ordered to take command of the troops already in the Cherokee country, together with addi- tional reenforcements of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, with authority to call upon the governors of the adjoining states for as many as 4,000 militia and volunteers. The whole force employed numbered about 7,000 men -regulars, militia, and volunteers. 3 The Indian- had already been disarmed by General Wool. On arriving in the Cherokee country Scott established headquarters at the capital, New Echota, whence, on May 10, he issued a proclama- tion to tin* ( Iherokee, warning them that the emigration must he com- menced in haste and that before another moon had passed every Cherokee man. woman, and child must he in motion to join his brethren in the far West, according to the determination id' the Presi- dent, which he. the general, had come to enforce. The proclamation conclude-: •• My troops already occupy many positions . . . and ' Royce, Cherokee Nation, up. eit. pp. 287, 289. - [bid., pp. 289,290. > Ibid., p. 291. The statement "( the total number of trooj in tin- House "i Representatives, May 31, 1838, covering the whole stion of the treaty. lit ETH— 01 9 130 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 thousands and thousands are approaching from every quarter to render resistance and escape alike hopeless. . . . Will you. then, by resistance compel us to resort to arms . . . or will you by night seek to hide yourselves in mountains and forests and thus oblige us to hunt you down?" — reminding them that pursuit might result in con- flict and bloodshed, ending in a general war. 1 Even after this Ross endeavored, on behalf of his people, to secure some slight modification of the terms of the treaty, but without avail. 2 THE REMOVAL — 1838-39 The history of this Cherokee removal of 1838, as gleaned by the author from the lips of actors in the tragedy, may well exceed in weight