acts which they had been powerless to prevent and were powerless to punish.36 The Justices of the Court of Abbeville County, South Carolina, with Andrew Pickens at their head, wrote "to the people living on Nolechucke, French Broad, and Holstein," denouncing in unmeasured terms the encroachments and outrages of which Sevier and his backwoods troopers had been guilty.37 In their zeal the Justices went a little too far, painting the Cherokees as a harmless people, who had always been friendly to the Americans,—a statement which General Martin, although he too condemned the outrages openly and with the utmost emphasis, felt obliged to correct, pointing out that the Cherokees had been the inveterate and bloody foes of the settlers throughout the Revolution.38 The Governor of North Carolina, as soon as he heard the news, ordered the arrest of Sevier and his associates -doubtless as much because of their revolt against the State as because of the atrocities they had committed against the Indians.39 In their panic many of the Indians fled across the mountains and threw themselves on the mercy of the North and South Carolinians, by whom they were fed and protected. Others immediately joined the Chickamaugas in force, and the frontier districts 36 Do., No. 27, p. 359, and No. 151. p. 351. 31 Do., No. 56, Andrew Pickens to Thos. Pinckney, July 11, 1788; No. 150, Vol. III, Letter of Justices, July 9th. 38 Do., No. 150, Vol. III, Martin to Knox, Aug. 23, 1788. 39 Do., No. 72, Samuel Johnston to Sec'y of Congress, Sept. 29, 1788. of the Franklin region were harried with vindictive ferocity. The strokes fell most often and most heavily on the innocent. Half of the militia were called out, and those who most condemned the original acts of aggression committed by their neighbors were obliged to make common cause with these neighbors, so as to save their own lives and the lives of their families.40 The officers of the district ordered a general levy of the militia to march against the Indian towns, and in each county the backwoodsmen began to muster.11 Before the troops assembled many outrages were committed by the savages. Horses were stolen, people were killed in their cabins, in their fields, on the roads, and at the ferries; and the settlers nearest the Indian country gathered in their forted stations, and sent earnest appeals for help to their unmolested brethren. The stations were attacked, and at one or two the Indians were successful; but generally they were beaten off, the militia marching promptly to the relief of each beleaguered garrison. Severe skirmishing took place between the war parties and the bands of militia who first reached the frontier; and the whites were not always successful. Once, for instance, a party of militia, greedy for fruit, scattered through an orchard, close to an Indian 40 Do., Hutchings to Maxwell, June 20th, and to Martin, July 11th. 41 Do., No. 150, Vol. II, Daniel Kennedy to Martin, June 6, 1788; Maxwell to Martin, July 9th, etc. No. 150, Vol. III, p. 357: Result of Council of Officers of Washington District, August 19, 1788. town which they supposed to be deserted; but the Indians were hiding near by and fell upon them, killing seventeen. The savages mutilated the dead bodies in fantastic ways, with ferocious derision, and left them for their friends to find and bury.42 Sevier led parties against the Indians without ceasing; and he and his men by their conduct showed that they waged the war very largely for profit. On a second incursion, which he made with canoes, into the Hiawassee country, his followers made numerous tomahawk claims, or "improvements," as they were termed, in the lands from which the Indians fled; hoping thus to establish a right of ownership to the country they had overrun.43 The whites speedily got the upper hand, ceasing to stand on the defensive; and the panic disappeared. When the North Carolina Legislature met, the members, and the people of the seaboard generally, were rather surprised to find that the over-hill men talked of the Indian war as troublesome rather than formidable.44 The militia officers holding commissions from North Carolina wished Martin to take command of the retaliatory expeditions against the Cherokees; but Martin, though a good fighter on occasions, preferred the arts of peace, and liked best treating with and managing the Indians. He had already acted as agent to different tribes on behalf of Vir 42 Do., Martin to Knox, August 23, 1788. ginia, North Carolina, and Georgia; and at this time he accepted an offer from the Continental Congress to serve in the same capacity for all the Southern Indians.45 Nevertheless he led a body of militia against the Chickamauga towns. He burnt a couple, but one of his detachments was driven back in a fight on Lookout Mountain; his men became discontented, and he was forced to withdraw, followed and harassed by the Indians. On his retreat the Indians attacked the settlements in force, and captured Gillespie's station. Sevier was the natural leader of the Holston riflemen in such a war; and the bands of frontiersmen insisted that he should take the command whenever it was possible. Sevier swam well in troubled waters, and he profited by the storm he had done so much to raise. Again and again during the summer of 1788 he led his bands of wild horsemen on forays against the Cherokee towns, and always with success. He followed his usual tactics, riding hard and long, pouncing on the Indians in their homes before they suspected his presence, or intercepting and scattering their war parties; and he moved with such rapidity that they could not gather in force sufficient to do him harm. Not only was the fame of his triumphs spread along the frontier, but vague rumors reached even the old settled States of the seaboard,46 rumors that told of the slight loss suf 45 State Dept. MSS., No. 50, Vol. II, p. 505, etc. 46 "Columbian Magazine” for 1789, p. 204. Also letter from French Broad, December 18, 1788. fered by his followers, of the headlong hurry of his marches, of the fury with which his horsemen charged in the skirmishes, of his successful ambusçades and surprises, and of the heavy toll he took in slain warriors and captive women and children, who were borne homeward to exchange for the wives and little ones of the settlers who had themselves been taken prisoners. Sevier's dashing and successful leadership wiped out in the minds of the backwoodsmen the memory of all his shortcomings and misdeeds, even the memory of that unpunished murder of friendly Indians which had so largely provoked the war. The representatives of the North Carolina Government and his own personal enemies were less forgetful. The Governor of the State had given orders to seize him because of his violation of the laws and treaties in committing wanton murder on friendly Indians; and a warrant to arrest him for high treason was issued by the courts. As long as "Nolichucky Jack" remained on the border, among the rough Indian fighters whom he had so often led to victory, he was in no danger. But in the fall, late in October, he ventured back to the longer settled districts. A council of officers, with Martin presiding and Tipton present as one of the leading members, had been held at Jonesboro, and had just broken up when Sevier and a dozen of his followers rode into the squalid little town.47 He drank freely and caroused with his friends; and 47 Haywood, 190. |