MooNKY] BEGINNING OF THE REVOIJTtION 47 



Aiiicricaiis. 'I'Ikmm' \v:i.-. yood reason t'oi' this. Siiico tlio tall ol' 

 the Fi'oiicli ))()\v('r the British (iovoriiiiiciit luid stood to thciii as tho 

 .soI(i. voprcscntatixt^ of authority, and tlic iiuardian and j)i'ot(>ctor of 

 tlii'ir rig'htsaoainst constiMit cncroaciiHH'nts hv tiic Aiiit'ricaii Imrdcrors. 

 LiccnstMl Ui-itisii traders were resident in e\-erv tribe and many iiad 

 intermarried and raised families amony them, while the border man 

 looked ui)oii tile Indian only as a enmlterer of the (>artli. Tiie British 

 superintendents. Sir William .lohnson in tiie north and Claptain -lohn 

 Stuart in the south, they knew as gen(>rous friends, whil(> hardly a 

 warrior of them all was without some old cause of resentment against 

 their backwoods neighboi-s. They felt that the only barrier l)etweeii 

 themselves and national extinction was in th(> strength of the I^ritish 

 gxtvernment. and when the final sevcrence ('ame they threw theii- 

 whole power into the British scale. They were encouraged in this 

 resolution by presents of clothing and other goods, with pi'omises of 

 })lunder from the settlements and hopes of recovering a portion of their 

 lost territories. The British go\-erimient liaving determined, as early 

 as June, 1775, to call in the Indians against the Aiuericans, supplies 

 of hatchets, guns, and anununition were issued to the warriors of all 

 the tribes from the lakes to the gulf, and bounties were ofl'ered for 

 Auierican scalps brought in to the coiiuuamling officer at Detroit or 

 Oswego.' Even the Six Nations, who had agreed in solemn treaty to 

 I'tMuain neutral. wer(> won over by these persuasions. Tn August, 1775, 

 an Indian "• talk" was intercepted in whicli the Cherokee assured Cam- 

 eron, the resident agent, that their warriors, enlisted in the service of 

 the king, were ready at a signal to fall upon the back settlements of 

 Carolina and (T(n)i-gia.'' Circular letters were sent out to all those 

 persons in the back country supposed to be of royalist sympathies, 

 dii'ecting them to repair to Cameron's head(iuai't(M-s in the Cherokee 

 country to join the Indians in the invasion of the settlements.' 



In .lune, 177ti, a British fleet under command of Sir Peter I'arker. 

 with a large naval and military forc(% attacked ('harleston. South Caro- 

 lina, both by land and sea. and simultaneously a body of Cherokee, led 

 by Tories in Indian disguise, came down from the moun ta i n s a n d ravaged 

 the exposed frontier of South Carolina, killing and burning as they 

 went. After a gallant defense by the garrison atCharl(>ston the British 

 were repulsed, whereupon their Indian and Tory allies withdrew.' 



.Vbout the same time the wai'uing came from Nancy ^^'al■d (14), a 

 noted friendly Indian woman of great authority in the Cherokee Nation, 

 that seven hundred Cherokee warriors were advancing in two divisions 

 against the Watauga and Holston settlements, with the design of 



' Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 143-150, 1853; Monette, Valley of the Mississippi, i, p[i. 4U0, JOl, 131, 132, and 

 II, pp. 33. 34, 1846; Roosevelt, Winning or the West, i. pp. 'JTH-Ml, anil ii, pp, 1-0, 18S9, 

 2 Ramsey, op. eit., p. 143. 



■*Qm»te(l from Stedman. in Riimsey, op. trit., p. Iti'J. 

 * Ramsey.op. cit.,p. Itl'J. 



