i8o The Winning of the West 



the foul white receivers, who took it to some town 

 on the seaboard, so as effectually to prevent a re- 

 covery. At Swannanoa in North Carolina, among 

 the lawless settlements at the foot of the Oconee 

 Mountain in South Carolina, and at Tugaloo in 

 Georgia, there were regular markets for these stolen 

 horses. 59 There were then, and continued to exist 

 as long as the frontier lasted, plenty of white men 

 who, though ready enough to wrong the Indians, 

 were equally ready to profit by the wrongs they in- 

 flicted on the white settlers, and to encourage their 

 misdeeds if profit was thereby to be made. Very 

 little evildoing of this kind took place in Tennessee, 

 for Blount, backed by Sevier and Robertson, was 

 vigilant to put it down ; but as yet the Federal Gov- 

 ernment was not firm in its seat, and its arm was not 

 long enough to reach into the remote frontier dis- 

 tricts, where lawlessness of every kind throve, and 

 the whites wronged one another as recklessly as they 

 wronged the Indians. 



The white scoundrels throve in the confusion of 

 a nominal peace which the savages broke at will ; but 

 the honest frontiersmen really suffered more than 

 if there had been open war, as the Federal Govern- 

 men refused to allow raids to be carried into the In- 

 dian territory, and in consequence the marauding 

 Indians could at any time reach a place of safety. 

 The block-houses were of little consequence in put- 



69 Blount to the Secretary of War, May 5, 1792, and Nov. 

 10, 1794. As before, I use the word "Tennessee" instead of 

 "Southwestern Territory" for convenience; it was not regu- 

 larly employed until 1796. 



