1 86 The Winning of the West 



Hamilton County entreated and adjured the people, 

 in spite of the Indian outrages to stand firmly by the 

 law, and not to try to be their own avengers; and 

 when some whites settled in Powell's Valley, on 

 Cherokee lands, Governor Blount promptly turned 

 them off. 66 



The unfortunate Indian agent among the Creeks, 

 Seagrove, speedily became an object of special de- 

 testation to the frontiersmen generally, and the in- 

 habitants of the Tennessee country in particular, be- 

 cause he persistently reported that he thought the 

 Creeks peaceable, and deemed their behavior less 

 blamable than that of the whites. His attitude was 

 natural, for probably most of the Creek chiefs with 

 whom he came in contact were friendly, and many 

 of those who were not professed to be so when in 

 his company, if only for the sake of getting the 

 goods he had to distribute; and of course they 

 brought him word whenever the Georgians killed a 

 Creek, either innocent or guilty, without telling him 

 of the offence which the Georgians were blindly try- 

 ing to revenge. Seagrove himself had some rude 

 awakenings. After reporting to the Central Gov- 

 ernment at Philadelphia that the Creeks were warm 

 in professing the most sincere friendship, he would 

 suddenly find, to his horror, that they were sending 

 off war parties and acting in concert with the Shaw- 

 nees; and at one time they actually, without any 



66 "Knoxville Gazette," Dec. 31, 1791; Nov. 17, 1792; Jan. 

 25, 1793; Feb. 9, Mar. 23, July 13, Sept. 14, 1793; Nov. i and 

 15, 1794; May 8, 1795. 



