286 The Winning of the West 



liminaries. The credit of the State being low, Isaac 

 Shelby furnished on his own responsibility the goods 

 and provisions needed by the Virginians and Hol- 

 ston people in coming to an agreement with the 

 Otari, or upper Cherokees 13 ; and some land was 

 formally ceded to the whites. 



But the chief Dragging Canoe would not make 

 peace. Gathering the boldest and most turbulent 

 of the young braves about him, he withdrew to the 

 great whirl in the Tennessee, 14 at the crossing-place 

 of the Creek war parties, when they followed the 

 trail that led to the bend of the Cumberland River. 

 Here he was joined by many Creeks, and also by 

 adventurous and unruly members from almost all 

 the Western tribes 15 Chickasaws, Choctaws, and 

 Indians from the Ohio. He soon had a great band 

 of red outlaws round him. These freebooters were 

 generally known as the Chickamaugas, and they 

 were the most dangerous and least controllable of 

 all the foes who menaced the Western settlements. 

 Many tones and white refugees from border justice 

 joined them, and shared in their misdeeds. Their 

 shifting villages stretched from Chickamauga Creek 

 to Running Water. Between these places the Ten- 

 nessee twists down through the sombre gorges by 

 which the chains of the Cumberland ranges are riven 

 in sunder. Some miles below Chickamauga Creek, 



13 Shelby's MS. autobiography, copy in Col. Durrett's 

 library, 



14 Va. State Papers, III, 271 ; the settlers always spoke of it 

 as the "suck" or "whirl." 



15 Shelby MS. 



