268 The Winning of the West 



all they could do was to gather the few Indian pris 

 oners who had been captured in the late wars and 

 return them to the Cherokees. The Franklin Gov 

 ernment had opened a land office and disposed of all 

 the lands between the French Broad and the Ten 

 nessee, 17 which territory North Carolina had guar 

 anteed the Cherokees; and when, on the authority 

 of the Governor of North Carolina, his representa 

 tive ordered the settlers off the invaded land, they 

 treated his command with utter defiance. Not only 

 the Creeks but even the distant Choctaws and 

 Chickasaws became uneasy and irritated over the 

 American encroachments, while the French traders 

 who came up the Tennessee preached war to the 

 Indians, and the Spanish Government ordered all 

 the American traders to be expelled from among the 

 Southern tribes unless they would agree to take 

 commissions from Spain and throw off their alle 

 giance to the United States. 



In the same year the Cherokees became em 

 broiled, not only with the Franklin people but with 

 the Kentuckians. The Chickamaugas, who were 

 mainly renegade Cherokees, were always ravaging 

 in Kentucky. Colonel John Logan had gathered 

 a force to attack one of their war bands, but he 

 happened instead to stumble on a Cherokee party, 

 which he scattered to the winds with loss. The 

 Kentuckians wrote to the Cherokee chiefs explain- 



17 State Dept. MSS., Vol. II, No. 71. Letter to Edmund 

 Randolph, Feb. 10, 1787; Letter of Joseph Martin, of March 

 25, 1787; Talk from Piominigo, the Chickasaw Chief, Feb. 

 15, 1787- 



