MooNKY] HOSTILITY OK HIWASSKK AND CHICKAMAUGA TOWNS (iS 



the strong'ly Ivirri'd yate when llohertson, being awake inside, heard 

 the noise and spnini;' up just in time to rouse the g-arrison and ))eat oli' 

 the assailants, who continued to tire throiiji'h tiie loopholes after they 

 had been driven out of the fort. Only two .Vniei-icans wcrr killc<i., 

 althoua'h the escape was a narrow oni>.' 



About three months later. <>n April :.'. a lary-e bddy of Cherokee 

 approached the fort at Nashville (then called Nashliorough. or simpl}' 

 '"the Blurt"), and by sending a decoy ahead succeeded in drawing a 

 large part of the garrison into an ambush. It seemed that they would 

 be cut off, as the Indians were between them and the fort, when those 

 inside loosed the dogs, which rushed so furiously upon the Indians 

 that the latter found W(jrk enough to defend themselves, and were 

 finally forced to retire, carrying witii thcui, liowever, five American 

 scalps. - 



The attacks continued tiiroughout this and the next year to such an 

 extent that it seeuaed at one time as if the Cumberland settlements 

 must be abandoned, but in June, 1783, commissioners from Virginia 

 and North Carolina arranged a treaty near Nashville (Nashborough) 

 with chiefs of the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creeks. Tais treaty, 

 although it did not completely stop the Indian inroads, at least greatly 

 diminished them. Thereafter the Chickasaw remained friendly, and 

 only the Cherokee and Creeks continued to make trouble.'' 



The valley towns on Hiwassee, as well as those of Chickamauga, 

 seem to have continued hostile. In 1786 a large body of their warriors, 

 led In' the mixed-blood chief, John Watts, raided the new settlements 

 in the vicinity of the present Knoxville, Tennessee. In retaliation 

 Sevier again marched his volunteers across the mountain to the \aliey 

 towns and destroyed three of them, killinganumlierof warrioivs: but he 

 retired on learning that the Indians were gathering to give him battle.* 

 In the spring of this year Agent Martin, stationed at Echota, had made 

 a tour of inspection of the Cherokee towns and reported that they 

 were generally friendly and anxious for peace, with the exce])tion of 

 the Chickamauga band, under Dragging-ciinoe, who. acting with the 

 hostile Creeks and encouraged by the French and Si)aniar(ls, were 

 making ]ire)iarations to destroy the Cund)erland settlements. Not- 

 witlistaniliiig the friendly professions of tiie othei's, a jjarty sent out 

 to obtain .satisfaction for the nunxler of four Chci-okee by the Tennes- 

 seeans had com(> ))ack with fifteen white scalj)s, and sent word to Sevier 

 that they wanted peace, but if the wiutes wanted war they would get 

 it.'' Witii Lawless men on both sides it is evident that ))eace was in 

 jeopardy. In August, in conse(|uetice of further killing and rejirisals, 

 commissioners of the new "state of Franklin," as Tennessee? was now 



■Roosevelt, Winning of tlie West, ii, p. 353, 1889. 

 2 Ibid., p. 355, 188<J; Rnnisoy, Tennessee, pp. 152-454, 18.53. 

 'Ibid., pp. 35H-3«;, 1889. < Ibid., p. 341. 1853. 



'Miirtin U'ltur of May 11, ITsU, ibid., p. 312. 



