The Winning of the West Volume IV Part 9

Repeated Failures to Secure Peace.

Repeated efforts were made to secure peace with the Indians. Andrew Pickens, of South Carolina, was sent to the exposed frontier in 1792 to act as peace Commissioner. Pickens was a high-minded and honorable man, who never hesitated to condemn the frontiersmen when they wronged the Indians, and he was a champion of the latter wherever possible. He came out with every hope and belief that he could make a permanent treaty; but after having been some time on the border he was obliged to admit that there was no chance of bringing about even a truce, and that the nominal peace that obtained was worse for the settlers than actual war.

He wrote to Blount that though he earnestly hoped the people of the border would observe the treaty, yet that the Cherokees had done more damage, especially in the way of horse stealing, since the treaty was signed than ever before, and that it was not possible to say what the frontier inhabitants might be provoked to do. He continued: "While a part, and that the ostensible ruling part, of a nation affect to be at, and I believe really are for, peace, and the more active young men are frequently killing people and stealing horses, it is extremely difficult to know how to act. The people, even the most exposed, would prefer an open war to such a situation. The reason is obvious. A man would then know when he saw an Indian he saw an enemy, and would be prepared and act accordingly." [Footnote: American State Papers, Pickens to Blount, Hopewell, April 28, 1792.]

The Georgia Frontier.

The people of Tennessee were the wronged, and not the wrongdoers, and it was upon them that the heaviest strokes of the Indians fell. The Georgia frontiers were also harried continually, although much less severely; but the Georgians were themselves far from blameless. Georgia was the youngest, weakest, and most lawless of the original thirteen States, and on the whole her dealings with the Indians were far from creditable, More than once she inflicted shameful wrong on the Cherokees. The Creeks, however, generally wronged her more than she wronged them, and at this particular period even the Georgia frontiersmen were much less to blame than were their Indian foes. By fair treaty the Indians had agreed to cede to the whites lands upon which they now refused to allow them to settle. They continually plundered and murdered the outlying Georgia settlers; and the militia, in their retaliatory expeditions, having no knowledge of who the murderers actually were, quite as often killed the innocent as the guilty. One of the complaints of the Indians was that the Georgians came in parties to hunt on the neutral ground, and slew quant.i.ties of deer and turkeys by fire hunting at night and by still hunting with the rifle in the daytime, while they killed many bears by the aid of their "great gangs of dogs." [Footnote: American State Papers, Timothy Barnard to James Seagrove, March 26, 1793.] This could hardly be called a legitimate objection on the part of the Creeks, however, for their own hunting parties ranged freely through the lands they had ceded to the whites and killed game wherever they could find it.

Evil and fearful deeds were done by both sides. Peaceful Indians, even envoys, going to the treaty grounds were slain in cold blood; and all that the Georgians could allege by way of offset was that the savages themselves had killed many peaceful whites.

Brutal Nature of the Contest in Georgia.

The Georgia frontiersmen openly showed their sullen hatred of the United States authorities. The Georgia State government was too weak to enforce order. It could neither keep the peace among its own frontiersmen, nor wage effective war on the Indians; for when the militia did gather to invade the Creek country they were so mutinous and disorderly that the expeditions generally broke up without accomplis.h.i.+ng anything. At one period a militia general, Elijah Clark, actually led a large party of frontiersmen into the unceded Creek hunting grounds with the purpose of setting up an independent government; but the Georgia authorities for once summoned energy sufficient to break up this lawless community.

[Footnote: American State Papers, IV., pp. 260, 295, 365, 394, 397, 410, 412, 417, 427, 473, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, Sept. 26, 1794. For further allusion to Clark's settlement, see next chapter.]

Blount's Faithful Efforts to Preserve the Peace.

The Georgians were thus far from guiltless themselves, though at this time they were more sinned against than sinning; but in the Tennessee Territory the white settlers behaved very well throughout these years, and showed both patience and fairness in their treatment of the Indians.

Blount did his best to prevent outrages, and Sevier and Robertson heartily seconded him. In spite of the grumbling of the frontiersmen, and in spite of repeated and almost intolerable provocation in the way of Indian forays, Blount steadily refused to allow counter-expeditions into the Indian territory, and stopped both the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians when they prepared to make such expeditions. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Jan. 8, 1793; to Benjamin Logan, Nov. 1, 1794, etc.] Judge Campbell, the same man who was himself attacked by the Indians when returning from his circuit, in his charge to the Grand Jury at the end of 1791, particularly warned them to stop any lawless attack upon the Indians. In November, 1792, when five Creeks, headed by a Scotch half-breed, retreated to the Cherokee town of Chiloa with stolen horses, a band of fifty whites gathered to march after them and destroy the Cherokee town; but Sevier dispersed them and made them go to their own homes. The following February a still larger band gathered to attack the Cherokee towns and were dispersed by Blount himself. Robertson, in the summer of 1793, prevented militia parties from crossing the Tennessee in retaliation. In October, 1794, the Grand Jury of 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. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Dec. 31, 1791; Nov. 17, 1792; Jan. 25, 1793; Feb.

9, Mar. 23, July 13, Sept. 14, 1793; Nov. 1 and 15, 1794; May 8, 1795.]

Seagrove's Difficulties.

The unfortunate Indian agent among the Creeks, Seagrove, speedily became an object of special detestation to the frontiersmen generally, and the inhabitants of the Tennessee country in particular, because he persistently reported that he thought the Creeks peaceable, and deemed their behavior less blameable than that of the whites. His att.i.tude 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 trying to revenge. Seagrove himself had some rude awakenings. After reporting to the Central Government at Philadelphia that the Creeks were warm in professing the most sincere friends.h.i.+p, he would suddenly find, to his horror, that they were sending off war parties and acting in concert with the Shawnees; and at one time they actually, without any provocation, attacked a trading store kept by his own brother, and killed the two men who were managing it. [Footnote: American State Papers, Seagrove to James Holmes, Feb. 24, 1793; to Mr. Payne, April 14, 1793.] Most of the Creeks, however, professed, and doubtless felt, regret at these outrages, and Seagrove continued to represent their conduct in a favorable light to the Central Government, though he was forced to admit that certain of the towns were undoubtedly hostile and could not be controlled by the party which was for peace.

Blount calls Seagrove to Account.

Blount was much put out at the fact that Seagrove was believed at Philadelphia when he reported the Creeks to be at peace. In a letter to Seagrove, at the beginning of 1794, Blount told him sharply that as far as the c.u.mberland district was concerned the Creeks had been the only ones to blame since the treaty of New York, for they had killed or enslaved over two hundred whites, attacking them in their houses, fields, or on the public roads, and had driven off over a thousand horses, while the Americans had done the Creeks no injuries whatever except in defence of their homes and lives, or in pursuing war parties.

It was possible of course that occasionally an innocent hunter suffered with the guilty marauders, but this was because he was off his own hunting grounds; and the treaty explicitly showed that the Creeks had no claim to the c.u.mberland region, while there was not a particle of truth in their a.s.sertion that since the treaty had been entered into there had been intrusion on their hunting grounds. Seagrove, in response, wrote that he believed the Creeks and Cherokees sincerely desired peace. This was followed forthwith by new outrages, and Blount wrote to Robertson: "It does really seem as if a.s.surances from Mr. Seagrove of the peaceful disposition of the Creeks was the prelude to their murdering and plundering the inhabitants of your district." [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793; Blount to James Seagrove, Jan. 9, 1794; Seagrove to Blount, Feb. 10, 1794; Blount to Robertson, March 8, 1794.] The _Knoxville Gazette_ called attention to the fact that Seagrove had written a letter to the effect that the Creeks were well disposed, just four days before the attack on Buchanan Station. On September 22d Seagrove wrote stating that the Creeks were peaceable, that all their chief men ardently wished for the cessation of hostilities, and that they had refused the request of the Cherokees to go to war with the United States; and his deputy agent, Barnard, reiterated the a.s.sertions and stated that the Upper Creeks had remained quiet, although six of their people had been killed at the mouth of the Tennessee. The _Gazette_ thereupon published a list of twenty-one men, women, and children who at that very time were held in slavery in the Creek towns, and enumerated scores of murders which had been committed by the Creeks during precisely the period when Seagrove and Barnard described them as so desirous of peace. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Dec. 29, 1792; Dec. 19, 1793.]

Increasing Indignation of the Settlers.

Under such circ.u.mstances the settlers naturally grew indignant with the United States because they were not protected, and were not even allowed to defend themselves by punis.h.i.+ng their foes. The Creeks and Cherokees were receiving their annuities regularly, and many presents in addition, while their outrages continued unceasingly. The Nashville people complained that the Creeks were "as busy in killing and scalping as if they had been paid three thousand dollars for so doing, in the room of fifteen hundred dollars to keep the peace." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, March 23, 1793.] A public address was issued in the _Knoxville Gazette_ by the Tennesseeans on the subjects of their wrongs. In respectful and loyal language, but firmly, the Tennesseeans called the attention of the Government authorities to their sufferings. They avowed the utmost devotion to the Union and a determination to stand by the laws, but insisted that it would be absolutely necessary for them to take measures to defend themselves by retaliating on the Indians.

Nature of the Indian Inroads.

A feature of the address was its vivid picture of the nature of the ordinary Indian inroad and of the lack of any definite system of defence on the frontier. It stated that the Indian raid or outbreak was usually first made known either by the murder of some defenceless farmer, the escape of some Indian trader, or the warning of some friendly Indian who wished to avoid mischief. The first man who received the news, not having made any agreement with the other members of the community as to his course in such an emergency, ran away to his kinsfolk as fast as he could. Every neighbor caught the alarm, thought himself the only person left to fight, and got off on the same route as speedily as possible, until, luckily for all, the meeting of the roads on the general retreat, the difficulty of the way, the straying of horses, and sometimes the halting to drink whiskey, put a stop to "the hurly-burly of the flight"

and reminded the fugitives that by this time they were in sufficient force to rally; and then they would return "to explore the plundered country and to bury the unfortunate scalped heads in the f.a.g-end of the retreat"; whereas if there had been an appointed rendezvous where all could rally it would have prevented such a flight from what might possibly have been a body of Indians far inferior in numbers to the armed men of the settlements attacked. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, April 6, 1793.]

The Frontiersmen Ask Permission to Retaliate.

The convention of Mero district early pet.i.tioned Congress for the right to retaliate on the Indians and to follow them to their towns, stating that they had refrained from doing so hitherto not from cowardice, but only from regard to Government, and that they regretted that their "rulers" (the Federal authorities at Philadelphia) did not enter into their feelings or seem to sympathize with them. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, August 13, 1792.] When the Territorial Legislature met in 1794 it pet.i.tioned Congress for war against the Creeks and Cherokees, reciting the numerous outrages committed by them upon the whites; stating that since 1792 the frontiersmen had been huddled together two or three hundred to the station, anxiously expecting peace, or a legally authorized war from which they would soon wring peace; and adding that they were afraid of war in no shape, but that they asked that their hands be unbound and they be allowed to defend themselves in the only possible manner, by offensive war. They went on to say that, as members of the Nation, they heartily approved of the hostilities which were then being carried on against the Algerines for the protection of the seafaring men of the coast-towns, and concluded: "The citizens who live in poverty on the extreme frontier are as much ent.i.tled to be protected in their lives, their families, and their little properties, as those who roll in luxury, ease, and affluence in the great and opulent Atlantic cities,"--for in frontier eyes the little seaboard trading-towns a.s.sumed a rather comical aspect of magnificence. The address was on the whole dignified in tone, and it undoubtedly set forth both the wrong and the remedy with entire accuracy. The Tennesseeans felt bitterly that the Federal Government did everything for Kentucky and nothing for themselves, and they were rather inclined to sneer at the difficulty experienced by the Kentuckians and the Federal army in subduing the Northwestern Indians, while they themselves were left single-handed to contend with the more numerous tribes of the South.

They were also inclined to laugh at the continual complaints the Georgians made over the comparatively trivial wrongs they suffered from the Indians, and at their inability either to control their own people or to make war effectively. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Feb. 26, 1794, March 27, 1794, etc., etc.]

The Situation Grows Intolerable.

Such a state of things as that which existed in the Tennessee territory could not endure. The failure of the United States authorities to undertake active offensive warfare and to protect the frontiersmen rendered it inevitable that the frontiersmen should protect themselves; and under the circ.u.mstances, when retaliation began it was certain sometimes to fall upon the blameless. The rude militia officers began to lead their retaliatory parties into the Indian lands, and soon the innocent Indians suffered with the guilty, for the frontiersmen had no means of distinguis.h.i.+ng between them. The Indians who visited the settlements with peaceful intent were of course at any time liable to be mistaken for their brethren who were hostile, or else to be attacked by scoundrels who were bent upon killing all red men alike. Thus, on one day, as Blount reported, a friendly Indian pa.s.sing the home of one of the settlers was fired upon and wounded; while in the same region five hostile Indians killed the wife and three children of a settler in his sight; and another party stole a number of horses from a station; and yet another party, composed of peaceful Indian hunters, was attacked at night by some white militia, one man being killed and another wounded.

[Footnote: State Department MSS., Was.h.i.+ngton Papers, War Department, Ex.

C., page 19, extract of letter from Blount to Williamson, April 14, 1792.]

Scolacutta, the Friendly Cherokee.

One of the firm friends of the whites was Scolacutta, the chief of the Upper Cherokees. He tried to keep his people at peace, and repeatedly warned the whites of impending attacks, Nevertheless, he was unwilling or unable to stop by force the war parties of Creeks and Lower Cherokees who came through his towns to raid against the settlements and who retreated to them again when the raids were ended. Many of his young men joined the bands of horse-thieves and scalp-hunters. The marauders wished to embroil him with the whites, and were glad that the latter should see the b.l.o.o.d.y trails leading back to his towns. For two years after the signing of the treaty of Holston the war parties thus pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed through his country, and received aid and comfort from his people, and yet the whites refrained from taking vengeance; but the vengeance was certain to come in the end.

His Village Attacked.

In March, 1793, Scolacutta's nearest neighbor, an Indian living next door to him in his own town, and other Indians of the nearest towns, joined one of the war parties which attacked the settlements and killed two unarmed lads. [Footnote: American State Papers, Blount's letter, March 20, 1793. Scolacutta was usually known to the whites as Hanging Maw.] The Indians did nothing to the murderers, and the whites forbore to attack them; but their patience was nearly exhausted. In June following a captain, John Beard, with fifty mounted riflemen, fell in with a small party of Indians who had killed several settlers. He followed their trail to Scolacutta's town, where he slew eight or nine Indians, most of whom were friendly. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Smith to Robertson, June 19, 1793, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, June 15 and July 13, 1793, etc.] The Indians clamored for justice and the surrender of the militia who had attacked them. Blount warmly sympathized with them, but when he summoned a court-martial to try Beard it promptly acquitted him, and the general frontier feeling was strongly in his favor. Other militia commanders followed his example. Again and again they trailed the war parties, laden with scalps and plunder, and attacked the towns to which they went; killing the warriors and capturing squaws and children. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, July 13, July 27, 1793, etc., etc.]

Revengeful Forays.

The following January another party of red marauders was tracked by a band of riflemen to Scolacutta's camp. The militia promptly fell on the camp and killed several Indians, both the hostile and the friendly.

Other Cherokee towns were attacked and partially destroyed. In but one instance were the whites beaten off. When once the whites fairly began to make retaliatory inroads they troubled themselves but little as to whether the Indians they a.s.sailed were or were not those who had wronged them. In one case, four frontiersmen dressed and painted themselves like Indians prior to starting on a foray to avenge the murder of a neighbor.

They could not find the trail of the murderers, and so went at random to a Cherokee town, killed four warriors who were asleep on the ground, and returned to the settlements. Scolacutta at first was very angry with Blount, and taunted him with his inability to punish the whites, a.s.serting that the frontiersmen were "making fun" of their well-meaning governor; but the old chief soon made up his mind that as long as he allowed the war parties to go through his towns he would have to expect to suffer at the hands of the injured settlers. He wrote to Blount enumerating the different murders that had been committed by both sides, and stating that his people were willing to let the misdeeds stand as off-setting one another. He closed his letter by stating that the Upper Towns were for peace, and added: "I want my mate, General Sevier, to see my talk ...

We have often told lies, but now you may depend on hearing the truth,"

which was a refres.h.i.+ngly frank admission. [Footnote: American State Papers, iv., pp. 459, 460, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, Jan. 16, and June 5, 1794.]

Sevier Takes Command.

He makes a Brilliant Raid.

When, towards the close of 1792, the ravages became very serious, Sevier, the man whom the Indians feared more than any other, was called to take command of the militia. For a year he confined himself to acting on the defensive, and even thus he was able to give much protection to the settlements. In September, 1793, however, several hundred Indians, mostly Cherokees, crossed the Tennessee not thirty miles from Knoxville.

They attacked a small station, within which there were but thirteen souls, who, after some resistance, surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared; but they were butchered with obscene cruelty.

Sevier immediately marched toward the a.s.sailants, who fled back to the Cherokee towns. Thither Sevier followed them, and went entirely through the Cherokee country to the land of the Creeks, burning the towns and destroying the stores of provisions. He marched with his usual quickness, and the Indians were never able to get together in sufficient numbers to oppose him. When he crossed High Tower River there was a skirmish, but he soon routed the Indians, killing several of their warriors, and losing himself but three men killed and three wounded. He utterly destroyed a hostile Creek town, the chief of which was named Buffalo Horn. He returned late in October, and after his return the frontiers of Eastern Tennessee had a respite from the Indian ravages. Yet Congress refused to pay his militia for the time they were out, because they had invaded the Indian country instead of acting on the defensive. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Oct. 29, 1793; _Knoxville Gazette_, Oct. 12, and Nov. 23, 1793.]

Destruction of Nickajack and Running Water.

To chastise the Upper Cherokee Towns gave relief to the settlements on the Holston, but the chief sinners were the Chickamaugas of the Lower Cherokee towns, and the chief sufferers were the c.u.mberland settlers.

The c.u.mberland people were irritated beyond endurance, alike by the ravages of these Indians and by the conduct of the United States in forbidding them to retaliate. In September, 1794, they acted for themselves. Early in the month Robertson received certain information that a large body of Creeks and Lower Cherokees had gathered at the towns and were preparing to invade the c.u.mberland settlements. The best way to meet them was by a stroke in advance, and he determined to send an expedition against them in their strongholds. There was no question whatever as to the hostility of the Indians, for at this very time settlers were being killed by war parties throughout the c.u.mberland country. Some Kentuckians, under Colonel Whitley, had joined the Tennesseeans, who were nominally led by a Major Ore; but various frontier fighters, including Kaspar Mansker, were really as much in command as was Ore. Over five hundred mounted riflemen, bold of heart and strong of hand, marched toward the Chickamauga towns, which contained some three hundred warriors. When they came to the Tennessee they spent the entire night in ferrying the arms across and swimming the horses; they used bundles of dry cane for rafts, and made four "bull-boats" out of the hides of steers. They pa.s.sed over un.o.bserved and fell on the towns of Nickajack and Running Water, taking the Indians completely by surprise; they killed fifty-five warriors and captured nineteen squaws and children.

In the entire expedition but one white man was killed and three wounded.

[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Robertson to Blount, Oct. 8, 1794; Blount to Robertson, Oct. 1, 1794, Sept. 9, 1794 (in which Blount expresses the utmost disapproval of Robertson's conduct, and says he will not send on Robertson's original letter to Philadelphia, for fear it will get him into a sc.r.a.pe; and requests him to send a formal report which can be forwarded); _Knoxville Gazette_, Sept. 26, 1794; Brown's Narrative.]

This Brings the Cherokees to Terms.

Not only the Federal authorities, but Blount himself, very much disapproved of this expedition; nevertheless, it was right and proper, and produced excellent effects. In no other way could the hostile towns have been brought to reason. It was followed by a general conference with the Cherokees at Tellico Blockhouse. Scolacutta appeared for the Upper, and Watts for the Lower Cherokee Towns. Watts admitted that "for their folly" the Lower Cherokees had hitherto refused to make peace, and remarked frankly, "I do not say they did not deserve the chastis.e.m.e.nt they received." Scolacutta stated that he could not sympathize much with the Lower Towns, saying, "their own conduct brought destruction upon them. The trails of murderers and thieves was followed to those towns ... Their bad conduct drew the white people on me, who injured me nearly unto death.... All last winter I was compelled to lay in the woods by the bad conduct of my own people drawing war on me." At last the Cherokees seemed sincere in their desire for peace. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount's Minutes of Conference held with Cherokees, Nov. 7 and 8, 1794, at Tellico Blockhouse.]

Cherokees and Chikasaws Restrain Creeks.

These counter-attacks served a double purpose. They awed the hostile Cherokees; and they forced the friendly Cherokees, for the sake of their own safety, actively to interfere against the bands of hostile Creeks. A Cherokee chief, The Stallion, and a number of warriors, joined with the Federal soldiers and Tennessee militia in repulsing the Creek war parties. They acted under Blount's directions, and put a complete stop to the pa.s.sage of hostile Indians through their towns. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Ecooe to John McKee, Tellico, Feb. 1, 1795, etc.] The Chickasaws also had become embroiled with the Creeks. [Footnote: Blount MSS., James Colbert to Robertson, Feb. 10, 1792.] For over three years they carried on an intermittent warfare with them, and were heartily supported by the frontiersmen, who were prompt to recognize the value of their services. At the same time the hostile Indians were much cowed at the news of Wayne's victory in the North.

Treachery of the United States Government to the Chickasaws.

The Frontiersmen Stand by Chickasaws.

All these causes combined to make the Creeks sue for peace. To its shame and discredit the United States Government at first proposed to repeat towards the Chickasaws the treachery of which the British had just been guilty to the Northern Indians; for it refused to defend them from the Creeks, against whom they had been acting, partly, it is true, for their own ends, but partly in the interest of the settlers. The frontiersmen, however, took a much more just and generous view of the affair. Mansker and a number of the best fighters in the c.u.mberland district marched to the a.s.sistance of the Chickasaws; and the frontier militia generally showed grateful appreciation of the way both the Upper Cherokees and the Chickasaws helped them put a stop to the hostilities of the Chickamaugas and Creeks. Robertson got the Choctaws to interfere on behalf of the Chickasaws and to threaten war with the Creeks if the latter persisted in their hostilities. Moreover, the United States agents, when the treaty was actually made, behaved better than their superiors had promised, for they persuaded the Creeks to declare peace with the Chickasaws as well as with the whites. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Robertson to Blount, Jan. 13, 1795; Blount to Robertson, Jan. 20, 1795, and April 26, 1795; Robertson to Blount, April 20, 1795; _Knoxville Gazette_, Aug. 25, 1792, Oct. 12, 1793, June 19, 1794, July 17, Aug. 4 and Aug. 15, 1794; American State Papers, pp. 284, 285, etc., etc.] Many of the peaceful Creeks had become so alarmed at the outlook that they began to exert pressure on their warlike brethren; and at last the hostile element yielded, though not until bitter feeling had arisen between the factions. The fact was, that the Creeks were divided much as they were twenty years later, when the Red Sticks went to war under the inspiration of the Prophet; and it would have been well if Wayne had been sent South, to invade their country and antic.i.p.ate by twenty years Jackson's feats. But the nation was not yet ready for such strong measures. The Creeks were met half way in their desire for peace; and the entire tribe concluded a treaty the provisions of which were substantially those of the treaty of New York. They ceased all hostilities, together with the Cherokees.

Fatuity of Timothy Pickering.

The concluding stage of the negotiations was marked by an incident which plainly betrayed the faulty att.i.tude of the National Government towards Southwestern frontiersmen. With incredible folly, Timothy Pickering, at this time Secretary of War, blindly refused to see the necessity of what had been done by Blount and the Tennessee frontiersmen. In behalf of the administration he wrote a letter to Blount which was as offensive as it was fatuous. In it he actually blamed Blount for getting the Cherokees and Chickasaws to help protect the frontier against the hostile Indians.

He forbade him to give any a.s.sistance to the Chickasaws. He announced that he disapproved of The Stallion's deeds, and that the Cherokees must not destroy Creeks pa.s.sing through their country on the way to the frontier. He even intimated that the surrender of The Stallion to the Creeks would be a good thing. As for protecting the frontier from the ravages of the Creeks, he merely vouchsafed the statement that he would instruct Seagrove to make "some pointed declarations" to the Creeks on the subject! He explained that the United States Government was resolved not to have a direct or indirect war with the Creeks; and he closed by reiterating, with futile insistency, that the instruction to the Cherokees not to permit Creek war parties against the whites to come through their country, did not warrant their using force to stop them.