VII. THE CHEROKEES AND THE REVOLUTION.

On the 9th of October, 1775, the Virginia Committee of Safety made Joseph Martin, gentleman, a captain of the Pittsylvania militia; with the outbreak of the Revolution and the increasingly threatening attitude assumed by the Cherokees, the real life work of Gen. Martin begins. Before this time we have seen him in the triple capacity of explorer, pioneer, and soldier; but his great work, his lasting, but hitherto unrecognized, service to American independence, was to be rendered as Indian agent among the Cherokees.

As we have already seen, the Cherokees were the most important of the Southern Indians. They belonged to what has been called the Appalachian family. The other members of this family were the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, who were themselves an offshoot of the Creeks. During the Revolutionary period none of these savages came into such direct contact with the whites as did the Cherokees, and it is on the dealings with them that the fate of the Republic, in a large measure, depended. They were for that reason more important than the Iroquois. The latter served only as the allies of the British; when the British were conquered so were they; with the Cherokees it was the reverse, the British were allies, and not until the conquest of the Indians were the colonists safe.

The relations between the whites and Cherokees had been various. In 1721 Governor Nicholson, of South Carolina, made a treaty with them. In 1730 Sir Alexander Cummings was sent to treat with them, and seven of their headmen visited England. Adair* says that about 1735 they had 64 towns and 6,000 fighting men; but many of them were carried off in the next few years by smallpox. Their relations with the English were not always the same. They were constantly exposed to the emissaries of the French. The French Broad River recalls in its name the time when this territory was still in debate, but Governor Glen, of South Carolina, managed to keep them generally quiet. In 1753 he had a conference with them in Charleston. In 1756 Fort Loudon was built as a defence to both English and Indians against the French; †

"Adair: History North American Indians, 227.

+ Fort Loudon was built in their country "in a town called Tellico, on the south bank of the main Tennessee River and 120 miles from the Senneca Garrison, the whole interval Indian settlements. This is the Fort

but in 1760-61 these began a destructive war against the southern colonies; after their war with the English they were at war with the Creeks and Chickasaws and were defeated by both.

In the matter of language there were two divisions of the Cherokees, Otari and Erati; as Adair calls them (226), Otarre and Ayrate. But political divisions did not follow linguistic lines. There were three groups of Cherokee towns, upper, lower, and middle. The upper towns were on the branches of the "easternmost river of the great Mississippi," the Tennessee or Cherokee River, and its branches. These were the Overhill Cherokees and were chiefly Otaris. The lower towns were the least important; they were inhabited by Eratis and lay in the flat lands of upper South Carolina and Georgia, on the headwaters of the Savannah, Tugaloo, and Keowee. The middle towns, larger than either of the others, lay among the hills and waters and were shifting in boundaries.* The bonds between these divisions were loose, as they were between the towns; the nation could not stop a town from going to war, if it desired, nor could the town stop its young men from committing ravages. They had made some progress in civilization, lived by agriculture to a certain extent, and had stock.

It is a curious fact, which has often been commented on, that from the Blue Ridge westward to the Tennessee and Ohio, the country, although surrounded by powerful tribes, contained no extensive settlements. In Indian times the Cumberland was known as the Shawnee River and the Tennessee as the Cherokee River. The country between was occupied by none, because none could defend it. It was used as a hunting ground by white and red men alike. And in this no man's land was

Loudon spoken of by Haywood, but not on the north bank of Little Tennessee as he says [new edition, 44]. For Little Tennessee empties in a long way above. The remains of this Garrison I have seen more than fifty years ago. The walls were of Brick, much fallen and mouldered, when I saw it. It was Garrisoned, with 200 men, commanded by Capt. Watts, the father of the notorious John Watts, who afterwards so distinguished himself in the frontier wars." When the fortunes of victory again turned in favor of the French, Fort Loudon was besieged and its garrison forced to surrender. They were allowed to return to Fort Senneca. They started and were massacred the same night (Martin MSS.), Phelan, p. 11, and other historians differ radically from this.

*See Adair: History North American Indians, 226; J. H. Logan: History Upper South Carolina, 206, and Roosevelt, Winning of the West, 1, 55.

the great struggle between English civilization and Indian savagery to be fought out.

In 1769 the expansion of Virginia had carried settlers to the Watauga; the battle of the Alamance sent others there from North Carolina two years later; in 1776 there were white settlers at the Long Island of Holston. The Revolution also sent into the wilderness many refugees who fled from the East to escape service in the American armies. Many were Tories, others thieves and murderers. Their presence, together with that of many settlers who had come from better motives, made the savages suspicious and jealous. They were incited to open hostility by the action of the British authorities.

At the beginning of the Revolution, John Stuart, the British superintendent for the Southern Indians, was instructed by the War Office to secure the alliance of the savages in the coming struggle. He sent his deputies, Alexander Cameron and Henry Stuart, to incite them. Naturally suspicious of the whites who were encroaching on their territory, little fuel was needed to light the torch of war. A talk with the Indians was intercepted which assured Cameron that they were ready to attend him and massacre all the back settlers of the Carolinas and Georgia, without distincion of age or sex.* The further programme of the English was to land an army in West Florida, march it through the Creeks to the Chickasaw Nation; five hundred warriors from each were to join them; they were to pass up and take North Carolina and Virginia in the rear; another army was to appear on the coast, and between these twc millstones were the States to be crushed.t

Had it been possible to carry out this programme the South would have been conquered. The British succeeded in arousing the Cherokees. Early in 1776 they began a devastating war on the whole frontier. One party attacked and broke up the second Powell's Valley settlement in June, 1776, and another under the Little Carpenter‡ made an onslaught against South Carolina and the southern part of North Carolina.

Their projected attack on what is now northern Tennessee was revealed to the whites through Nancy Ward, who, on this occasion, nobly did more than the work of a Pocahon

*Ramsey: Tennessee, 143; see also Roosevelt.

+Ramsey, 160-163, quoting Stedman's American War.

Colonel Martin thinks the Little Carpenter was one of the chiefs who had accompanied Dr. Walker to England.

tas. There were living at this time among the Indians two white men, William Faulin (Ramsey calls him Fallin), a horsethief who had fled to the Indians and had married a wife there, and Isaac Thomas, a trader. These men, inspired by Nancy Ward, stole away from the Indians, traveled 120 miles, and gave warning to the whites. Now why did Nancy Ward betray the plans of the Indians? She was a half-breed and being nearly allied to some of the chiefs, had in this way gotten their secrets. She was the mother of Betsy Ward, whom we find living with Gen. Martin the next year as his wife. We do not know when this relation began. It is very reasonable to suppose that she already knew Gen. Martin well as he had traveled much among the Indians and already felt great interest in him, if he was not yet connected with her family. I think we may safely conclude that the revelation was directly or indirectly due to his influence.

The Indians were under Dragon Canoe and had 700 (Martin MSS.) or 800 men (Shelby). Their plan was to divide, one party was to attack the Watauga settlement, the other the settlers in the fork of the Holston and thence proceed to Virginia. But the message of Nancy Ward had done its work; five companies containing 176 men of North Carolina and Virginia troops, but mostly Virginians, rendezvoused at Eaton's Station, 6 miles north from the Long Island of Holston on the Fort Chiswell road. The Indians trusted to their superior numbers and came rushing on but were defeated. This was on July 20, 1776. The other division of Indians was repulsed by Robertson and Sevier and the first move in the British policy was checkmated.†

VIII.—CHRISTIAN'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CHEROKEES IN

1776.

Martin was not present in the battle of the Long Island Flats of Holston. This occurred soon after the break up of the second Powell's Valley settlement and he had returned to his home

*

Ramsey: Tennessee, 151 et seq.; Draper: King's Mountain, 420.

+ See Ramsey's Tennessee, 151. Dragon Canoe was not killed as stated by Phelan, 43. Roosevelt says that the whites were superior in numbers on this occasion and animadverts severely on those historians who are consciously or unconsciously exaggerating the number of Indians. Royce, puts the battle on the south side of the river on his map.

in Virginia to raise volunteers for the Indian war. There was now to be a general movement against the savages by Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Col. William Christian commanded the Virginia troops, Gen. Griffith Rutherford those of North Carolina, and led them against the Overhill Cherokees. Those of South Carolina were under Gen. Andrew Williamson and marched up into southwest North Carolina. Here they fell into an ambuscade below Franklin, lost a few men, but recovered and inflicted some chastisement on the Indians. There was not perfect coöperation between the commanders. Rutherford marched in July and coöperated with Williamson. The troops of Christian rendezvoused at the Long Island of Holston in August and were here joined by a company of some 50 men raised in Pittsylvania for six months by Martin, who had been chosen captain. They were stationed here some six weeks, and a part were engaged in erecting a fort. Others came in until they amounted to 1,800 or 2,000 in number. (Martin MSS.)

Col. Christian writes Governor Henry from Six-Mile Camp, 6 miles from Fort Patrick Henry, October 6, 1776: "I shall march in less than an hour, and take with me thirty days' flour and seventy days' beef; I hope to cross Broad River the 15th instant, where it is most likely I shall be attacked, or meet with proposals of peace. The men who have fled from the towns say that the Indians will surely fight desperately, which they promised Stuart, the King's superintendent to do; and Cameron, his deputy, who remains amongst them is daily encouraging them to defend their country against a parcel of rebels.

Col. Christian followed the great Indian war path, crossing the Holston, the French Broad and the Little Tennessee, to the Indian towns to the southwest. The Indians had 1,000 warriors, and it was thought resistance would be offered at the French Broad. Every precaution was had to prevent a sur prise. A party was sent below to cross at another ford, and, on the next day, another division of 600, with Martin's company in front, crossed at the usual fording place where the attack was expected. On this occasion two of the men were sick, but insisted on going with their company. Martin stripped himself to his shirt, took one of the men on his back and forded the river to an island in the middle at the head of