ii The Winning of the West 



had served in the Revolutionary War with the troop 

 of Light-Horse Harry Lee, and had received in 

 payment a land certificate. Under this certificate he 

 entered several tracts of Western land, including 

 some on the Cumberland; and in the spring of 1788 

 he started by boat down the Tennessee, to take pos- 

 session of his claims. He took with him his wife 

 and 4iis seven children ; and three or four young men 

 also went along. When they reached the Chicka- 

 mauga towns the Indians swarmed out toward them 

 in canoes. On Brown's boat was a swivel, and 

 with this and the rifles of the men they might have 

 made good their defence ; but as soon as the In- 

 dians saw them preparing for resistance they halted 

 and hailed the crew, shouting out that they were 

 peaceful and that in consequence of the recent Hol- 

 ston treaties war had ceased between the white men 

 and the red. Brown was not used to Indians; he 

 was deceived, and before he made up his mind what 

 . to do, the Indians were alongside, and many of them 

 came aboard. 14 They then seized the boat and mas- 

 sacred the men, while the mother and children were 

 taken ashore and hurried off in various directions 

 by the Indians who claimed to have captured them. 

 One of the boys, Joseph, long afterward wrote an 

 account of his captivity. He was not treated with 

 deliberate cruelty, though he suffered now and then 

 from the casual barbarity of some of his captors, 



14 Narrative of Col. Joseph Brown, "Southwestern 

 Monthly," Nashville, 1851, I, p. 14. The story was told 

 when Brown was a very old man, and doubtless some of the 

 details are inaccurate. 



