72 MYTHS OF THE CHEKOKEK [eth.ans.19 



the ground to show liy whom the (h>ed wsis done. So swift was savage 

 vengeance.' 



Early in 1792 a messenger who had heen sent on business for Gov- 

 ernor lilount to the Chickaniauga towns returned with the report that 

 a party had just come in with prisoners and some fresh scalps, over 

 which the chiefs and warriors of two towns were then dancing; that 

 the Shawano were urging the Cherokee to join them against the Ameri- 

 cans; that a strong body of Creeks was on its waj' against the Cum- 

 berland settlements, and that the Creek chief. Mcdillivray, was trying 

 to form a general confederacy of all the Indian tribes against the 

 whites. To understand this properlj' it must be remembered that at 

 this time all the tribes nortiiwest of the Ohio and as far as the heads 

 of the Mississippi were banded together in a grand alliance, headed 

 by the warlike Shawano, for the purpose of holding the Ohio river as 

 the Indian boundary against the advancing tide of white settlement. 

 They had just cut to pieces one of the finest armies ever sent into the 

 West, under the veteran General St Clair (28), and it seemed for the 

 moment as if the American advance would be driven back behind the 

 Alleghenies. 



In the emergency the Secretary of War directed (rovernor Blount 

 to hold a conference with the chiefs of the Chickasaw. Choctaw, and 

 Cherokee at Nashville in June to enlist their warriors, if possible, in 

 active service against the northern tribes. The conference was held 

 as proposed, in August, but nothing seems to have come of it, although 

 the chiefs seemed to be sincere in their assurances of friendship. 

 Very few of the Choctaw or Cherokee were in attendance. At the 

 annuity distribution of the Cherokee, shortly liefore, the chiefs had 

 also l)een profuse in declarations of their desire for peace. '^ Notwith- 

 standing all this the attacks along the Tennes.see frontier continued to 

 such an extent that the blockhouses were again put in order and gar- 

 risoned. Soon afterwards the governor reported to the Secretary of 

 AVar that the live lower Cherokee towns on the Tennessee (the Chicka- 

 niauga). headed l)v John Watts, had finally declared war against the 

 United States, and that from three to six hundred warriors, including 

 a hundred Creeks, had started against the settlements. The militia 

 was at once called out. both in eastern Temiessee and on the Cumber- 

 land. On the Cumberland side it was directed that no pursuit should 

 he continued beyond the Cherokee boundary, the ridge between the 

 waters of Cumberland and Duck rivers. The order issued by Colonel 

 ^Vhite, of Knox county, to each of his captains show's how great was 

 the alarm: 



1 Governor Telfair's letters of November 14 and December 5, with inclosure, 1792, American State 

 I'apers: Indian ASairs, i, pp. 332, 336, 337, 1832. 



2 Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 562-663, 598, 1853. 



