The Winning of the West, Volume Two by Theodore Roosevelt

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When the settlers first came to the country they found no Indians living
in it, no signs of cultivation or cleared land, and nothing to show that
for ages past it had been inhabited. It was a vast plain, covered with
woods and canebrakes, through which the wild herds had beaten out broad
trails. The only open places were the licks, sometimes as large as
corn-fields, where the hoofs of the game had trodden the ground bare of
vegetation, and channelled its surface with winding seams and gullies.
It is even doubtful if the spot of bare ground which Mansker called an
"old field" or sometimes a "Chickasaw old field" was not merely one of
these licks. Buffalo, deer, and bear abounded; elk, wolves, and panthers
were plentiful.

Yet there were many signs that in long by-gone times a numerous
population had dwelt in the land. Round every spring were many graves,
built in a peculiar way, and covered eight or ten inches deep by mould.
In some places there were earth-covered foundations of ancient walls and
embankments that enclosed spaces of eight or ten acres. The Indians knew
as little as the whites about these long-vanished mound-builders, and
were utterly ignorant of the race to which they had belonged. [Footnote:
Haywood. At present it is believed that the mound-builders were Indians.
Haywood is the authority for the early Indian wars of the Cumberland
settlement, Putnam supplying some information.]

Indian Hostilities.

For some months the whites who first arrived dwelt in peace. But in the
spring, hunting and war parties from various tribes began to harass the
settlers. Unquestionably the savages felt jealous of the white hunters,
who were killing and driving away the game, precisely as they all felt
jealous of one another, and for the same reason. The Chickasaws in
particular, were much irritated by the fort Clark had built at Iron
Bank, on the Mississippi. But the most powerful motive for the attacks
was doubtless simply the desire for scalps and plunder. They gathered
from different quarters to assail the colonists, just as the wild beasts
gathered to prey on the tame herds.

The Indians began to commit murders, kill the stock, and drive off the
horses in April, and their ravages continued unceasingly throughout the
year. Among the slain was a son of Robertson, and also the unfortunate
Jonathan Jennings, the man who had suffered such loss when his boat was
passing the whirl of the Tennessee River. The settlers were shot as they
worked on their clearings, gathered the corn crops, or ventured outside
the walls of the stockades. Hunters were killed as they stooped to drink
at the springs, or lay in wait at the licks. They were lured up to the
Indians by imitations of the gobbling of a turkey or the cries of wild
beasts. They were regularly stalked as they still-hunted the game, or
were ambushed as they returned with their horses laden with meat. The
inhabitants of one station were all either killed or captured. Robertson
led pursuing parties after one or two of the bands, and recovered some
plunder; and once or twice small marauding parties were met and
scattered, with some loss, by the hunters. But, on the whole, very
little could be done at first to parry or revenge the strokes of the
Indians. [Footnote: Putnam, p. 107, talks as if the settlers were
utterly unused to Indian warfare, saying that until the first murder
occurred, in this spring, "few, if any" of them had ever gazed on the
victim of scalping-knife and tomahawk. This is a curiously absurd
statement. Many of the settlers were veteran Indian fighters. Almost all
of them had been born and brought up on the frontier, amid a succession
of Indian wars. It is, unfortunately, exceedingly difficult in Putnam's
book to distinguish the really valuable authentic information it
contains from the interwoven tissue of matter written solely to suit his
theory of dramatic effect. He puts in with equal gravity the "Articles
of Agreement" and purely fictitious conversations, jokes, and the like.
(See pp. 126, 144, and _passim_.)]

Horses and cattle had been brought into the new settlement in some
number during the year; but the savages killed or drove off most of
them, shooting the hogs and horned stock, and stealing the riding
animals. The loss of the milch cows in particular, was severely felt by
the women. Moreover, there were heavy freshets, flooding the low bottoms
on which the corn had been planted, and destroying most of the crop.

These accumulated disasters wrought the greatest discouragement among
the settlers. Many left the country, and most of the remainder, when
midsummer was past, began to urge that they should all go back in a body
to the old settlements. The panic became very great. One by one the
stockades were deserted, until finally all the settlers who remained
were gathered in Nashborough and Freelands. [Footnote: By some accounts
there were also a few settlers left in Eaton's Station; and Mansker's
was rarely entirely deserted for any length of time.] The Cumberland
country would have been abandoned to the Indians, had Robertson not
shown himself to be exactly the man for whom the crisis called.

Robertson was not a dashing, brilliant Indian fighter and popular
frontier leader, like Sevier. He had rather the qualities of Boon, with
the difference that he was less a wandering hunter and explorer, and
better fitted to be head of a settled community. He was far-seeing,
tranquil, resolute, unshaken by misfortune and disaster; a most
trustworthy man, with a certain severe fortitude of temper. All people
naturally turned to him in time of panic, when the ordinarily bold and
daring became cowed and confused. The straits to which the settlers were
reduced, and their wild clamor for immediate flight, the danger from the
Indians, the death of his own son all combined failed to make him waver
one instant in his purpose. He strongly urged on the settlers the danger
of flight through the wilderness. He did not attempt to make light of
the perils that confronted them if they remained, but he asked them to
ponder well if the beauty and fertility of the land did not warrant some
risk being run to hold it, now that it was won. They were at last in a
fair country fitted for the homes of their children. Now was the time to
keep it. If they abandoned it, they would lose all the advantages they
had gained, and would be forced to suffer the like losses and privations
if they ever wished to retake possession of it or of any similar tract
of land. He, at least, would not turn back, but would stay to the bitter
end.

His words and his steadfast bearing gave heart to the settlers, and they
no longer thought of flight. As their corn had failed them they got
their food from the woods. Some gathered quantities of walnuts,
hickory-nuts, and shelbarks, and the hunters wrought havoc among the
vast herds of game. During the early winter one party of twenty men that
went up Caney Fork on a short trip, killed one hundred and five bears,
seventy-five buffaloes, and eighty-seven deer, and brought the flesh and
hides back to the stockades in canoes; so that through the winter there
was no lack of jerked and smoke-dried meat.

The hunters were very accurate marksmen; game was plenty, and not shy,
and so they got up close and rarely wasted a shot. Moreover, their
smallbore rifles took very little powder--in fact the need of excessive
economy in the use of ammunition when on their long hunting-trips was
one of the chief reasons for the use of small bores. They therefore used
comparatively little ammunition. Nevertheless, by the beginning of
winter both powder and bullets began to fail. In this emergency
Robertson again came to the front to rescue the settlement he had
founded and preserved. He was accustomed to making long, solitary
journeys through the forest, unmindful of the Indians; he had been one
of the first to come from North Carolina to Watauga; he had repeatedly
been on perilous missions to the Cherokees; he had the previous year
gone north to the Illinois country to meet Clark. He now announced that
he would himself go to Kentucky and bring back the needed ammunition;
and at once set forth on his journey, across the long stretches of
snow-powdered barrens, and desolate, Indian-haunted woodland.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENTS TO THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION, 1781-1783.

Robertson passed unharmed through the wilderness to Kentucky. There he
procured plenty of powder, and without delay set out on his return
journey to the Cumberland. As before, he travelled alone through the
frozen woods, trusting solely to his own sharp senses for his safety.

Attack on Freeland's.

In the evening of January 15, 1781, he reached Freeland's station, and
was joyfully received by the inmates. They supped late, and then sat up
for some time, talking over many matters. When they went to bed all were
tired, and neglected to take the usual precautions against surprise;
moreover, at that season they did not fear molestation. They slept
heavily, none keeping watch. Robertson alone was wakeful and suspicious;
and even during his light slumbers his keen and long-trained senses were
on the alert.

At midnight all was still. The moon shone brightly down on the square
block-houses and stockaded yard of the lonely little frontier fort; its
rays lit up the clearing, and by contrast darkened the black shadow of
the surrounding forest. None of the sleepers within the log-walls
dreamed of danger. Yet their peril was imminent. An Indian war band was
lurking near by, and was on the point of making an effort to carry
Freeland's station by an attack in the darkness. In the dead of the
night the attempt was made. One by one the warriors left the protection
of the tangled wood-growth, slipped silently across the open space, and
crouched under the heavy timber pickets of the palisades, until all had
gathered together. Though the gate was fastened with a strong bar and
chain, the dextrous savages finally contrived to open it.

In so doing they made a slight noise, which caught Robertson's quick
ear, as he lay on his buffalo-hide pallet. Jumping up he saw the gate
open, and dusky figures gliding into the yard with stealthy swiftness.
At his cry of "Indians," and the report of his piece, the settlers
sprang up, every man grasping the loaded arm by which he slept. From
each log cabin the rifles cracked and flashed; and though the Indians
were actually in the yard they had no cover, and the sudden and
unexpected resistance caused them to hurry out much faster than they had
come in. Robertson shot one of their number, and they in return killed a
white man who sprang out-of-doors at the first alarm. When they were
driven out the gate was closed after them; but they fired through the
loopholes; especially into one of the block-houses, where the chinks had
not been filled with mud, as in the others. They thus killed a negro,
and wounded one or two other men; yet they were soon driven off.
Robertson's return had been at a most opportune moment. As so often
before and afterwards, he had saved the settlement from destruction.

Other bands of Indians joined the war party, and they continued to hover
about the stations, daily inflicting loss and damage on the settlers.
They burned down the cabins and fences, drove off the stock and killed
the hunters, the women and children who ventured outside the walls, and
the men who had gone back to their deserted stockades. [Footnote:
Haywood says they burned "immense quantities of corn"; as Putnam points
out, the settlers could have had very little corn to burn. Haywood is
the best authority for the Indian fighting in the Cumberland district
during '80, '81, and '82. Putnam supplies some details learned from Mrs.
Robertson in her old age. The accounts are derived mainly from the
statements of old settlers; but the Robertsons seem always to have kept
papers, which served to check off the oral statements. For all the
important facts there is good authority. The annals are filled with name
after name of men who were killed by the Indians. The dates, and even
the names, may be misplaced in many of these instances; but this is
really a matter of no consequence, for their only interest is to show
the nature of the harassing Indian warfare, and the kind of adventure
then common.]

Attack on Nashborough.

On the 2d day of April another effort was made by a formidable war party
to get possession of one of the two remaining stations--Freeland's and
Nashborough--and thus, at a stroke, drive the whites from the Cumberland
district. This time Nashborough was the point aimed at.

A large body [Footnote: How large it is impossible to say. One or two
recent accounts make wild guesses, calling it 1,000; but this is sheer
nonsense; it is more likely to have been 100.] of Cherokees approached
the fort in the night, lying hid in the bushes, divided into two
parties. In the morning three of them came near, fired at the fort, and
ran off towards where the smaller party lay ambushed, in a thicket
through which ran a little "branch." Instantly twenty men mounted their
horses and galloped after the decoys. As they overtook the fugitives
they saw the Indians hid in the creek-bottom, and dismounted to fight,
turning their horses loose. A smart interchange of shots followed, the
whites having, if any thing, rather the best of it, when the other and
larger body of Indians rose from their hiding-place, in a clump of
cedars, and running down, formed between the combatants and the fort,
intending to run into the latter, mixed with the fleeing riflemen. The
only chance of the hemmed-in whites was to turn and try to force their
way back through their far more numerous foes. This was a desperate
venture, for their pieces were all discharged, and there was no time to
reload them; but they were helped by two unexpected circumstances. Their
horses had taken flight at the firing, and ran off towards the fort,
passing to one side of the intervening line of Indians; and many of the
latter, eager for such booty, ran off to catch them. Meanwhile, the
remaining men in the fort saw what had happened, and made ready for
defense, while all the women likewise snatched up guns or axes, and
stood by loopholes and gate. The dogs in the fort were also taking a
keen interest in what was going on. They were stout, powerful animals,
some being hounds and others watch dogs, but all accustomed to contests
with wild beasts; and by instinct and training they mortally hated
Indians. Seeing the line of savages drawn up between the fort and their
masters, they promptly sallied out and made a most furious onset upon
their astonished foes. Taking advantage of this most opportune
diversion, the whites ran through the lines and got into the fort, the
Indians being completely occupied in defending themselves from the dogs.
Five of the whites were killed, and they carried two wounded men into
the fort. Another man, when almost in safety, was shot, and fell with a
broken thigh; but he had reloaded his gun as he ran, and he killed his
assailant as the latter ran up to scalp him. The people from the fort
then, by firing their rifles, kept his foes at bay until he could be
rescued; and he soon recovered from his hurt. Yet another man was
overtaken almost under the walls, the Indian punching him in the
shoulder with the gun as he pulled the trigger; but the gun snapped, and
a hunter ran out of the fort and shot the Indian. The gates were closed,
and the whites all ready; so the Indians abandoned their effort and drew
off. They had taken five scalps and a number of horses; but they had
failed in their main object, and the whites had taken two scalps,
besides killing and wounding others of the red men, who were carried off
by their comrades.

After the failure of this attempt the Indians did not, for some years,
make any formidable attack on any of the larger stations. Though the
most dangerous of all foes on their own ground, their extreme caution
and dislike of suffering punishment prevented them from ever making
really determined efforts to carry a fort openly by storm; moreover,
these stockades were really very defensible against men unprovided with
artillery, and there is no reason for supposing that any troops could
have carried them by fair charging, without suffering altogether
disproportionate loss. The red tribes acted in relation to the
Cumberland settlements exactly as they had previously done towards those
on the Kentucky and Watauga. They harassed the settlers from the outset;
but they did not wake up to the necessity for a formidable and combined
campaign against them until it was too late for such a campaign to
succeed. If, at the first, any one of these communities had been forced
to withstand the shock of such Indian armies as were afterwards brought
against it, it would, of necessity, have been abandoned.

Indian Hostilities.

Throughout '81 and '82 the Cumberland settlers were worried beyond
description by a succession of small war parties. In the first of these
years they raised no corn; in the second they made a few crops on fields
they had cleared in 1780. No man's life was safe for an hour, whether he
hunted, looked up strayed stock, went to the spring for water, or tilled
the fields. If two men were together, one always watched while the other
worked, ate, or drank; and they sat down back to back, or, if there were
several, in a ring, facing outwards, like a covey of quail. The Indians
were especially fond of stealing the horses; the whites pursued them in
bands, and occasionally pitched battles were fought, with loss on both
sides, and apparently as often resulting in the favor of one party as of
the other. The most expert Indian fighters naturally became the leaders,
being made colonels and captains of the local militia. The position and
influence of the officers depended largely on their individual prowess;
they were the actual, not titular, leaders of their men. Old Kasper
Mansker, one of the most successful, may be taken as a type of the rest.
He was ultimately made a colonel, and shared in many expeditions; but he
always acted as his own scout, and never would let any of his men ride
ahead or abreast of him, preferring to trust to his own eyes and ears
and knowledge of forest warfare. The hunters, who were especially
exposed to danger, were also the men who inflicted most loss on the
Indians, and though many more of the settlers than of their foes were
slain, yet the tables were often turned on the latter, even by those who
seemed their helpless victims. Thus, once, two lads were watching at a
deer lick, when some Indians came to it; each of the boys chose his man,
fired, and then fled homewards; coming back with some men they found
they had killed two Indians, whose scalps they took.

The eagerness of the Indians to get scalps caused them frequently to
scalp their victims before life was extinct; and, as a result, there
were numerous instances in which the scalped unfortunate, whether man,
woman, or child, was rescued and recovered, living many years. One of
these instances is worth giving in the quaint language of the old
Tennessee historian, Haywood:

"In the spring of the year 1782 a party of Indians fired upon three
persons at French Lick, and broke the arms of John Tucker and Joseph
Hendricks, and shot down David Hood, whom they scalped and stamped, as
he said, and followed the others towards the fort; the people of the
fort came out and repulsed them and saved the wounded men. Supposing the
Indians gone, Hood got up softly, wounded and scalped as he was, and
began to walk towards the fort on the bluff, when, to his mortification,
he saw, standing upon the bank of the creek, a number of Indians, the
same who had wounded him before, making sport of his misfortune and
mistake. They then fell upon him again, and having given him, in several
places, new wounds that were apparently mortal, then left him. He fell
into a brush heap in the mow, and next morning was tracked and found by
his blood, and was placed as a dead man in one of the out-houses, and
was left alone; after some time he recovered, and lived many years."

Many of the settlers were killed, many others left for Kentucky,
Illinois, or Natchez, or returned to their old homes among the
Alleghanies; and in 1782 the inhabitants, who had steadily dwindled in
numbers, became so discouraged that they again mooted the question of
abandoning the Cumberland district in a body. Only Robertson's great
influence prevented this being done; but by word and example he finally
persuaded them to remain. The following spring brought the news of peace
with Great Britain. A large inflow of new settlers began with the new
year, and though the Indian hostilities still continued, the Cumberland
country throve apace, and by the end 1783 the old stations had been
rebuilt and many new ones founded. Some of the settlers began to live
out on their clearings. Rude little corn-mills and "hominy pounders"
were built beside some of the streams. The piles of furs and hides that
had accumulated in the stockades were sent back to the coast country on
pack-horses. After this year there was never any danger that the
settlements would be abandoned.

During the two years of petty but disastrous Indian warfare that
followed the attack on Freelands, the harassed and diminishing settlers
had been so absorbed in the contest with the outside foe that they had
done little towards keeping up their own internal government. When 1783
opened new settlers began to flock in, the Indian hostilities abated,
and commissioners arrived from North Carolina under a strong guard, with
the purpose of settling the claim of the various settlers [Footnote:
Haywood. Six hundred and forty acres were allowed by preemption claim to
each family settled before June 1, 1780; after that date they had to
make proper entries in the courts. The salt-licks were to be held as
public property.] and laying off the bounty lands, promised to the
Continental troops. [Footnote: Isaac Shelby was one of these
commissioners.] It therefore became necessary that the Committee or
Court of Triers should again be convened, to see that justice was done
as between man and man.

Internal Government.

The ten men elected from the different stations met at Nashborough on
January 7th, Robertson being again made chairman, as well as colonel of
the militia, while a proper clerk and sheriff were chosen. Each member
took a solemn oath to do equal justice according to the best of his
skill and ability. A number of suits between the settlers themselves
were disposed of. These related to a variety of subjects. A kettle had
been "detained" from Humphrey Hogan; he brought suit, and it was awarded
him, the defendant "and his mother-in-law" being made to pay the cost of
the suit. A hog case, a horse used in hunting, a piece of cleared
ground, a bed which had not been made according to contract, the
ownership of a canoe, and of a heifer, a "clevis lent and delayed to be
returned"--such were some of the cases on which the judges had to
decide. There were occasional slander suits; for in a small backwoods
community there is always much jealousy and bitter gossip. When suit was
brought for "cattle won at cards," the committee promptly dismissed the
claim as illegal; they evidently had clear ideas as to what was good
public policy. A man making oath that another had threatened his life,
the latter was taken and put under bonds. Another man produced a note of
hand for the payment of two good cows, "against John Sadler"; he "proved
his accompt," and procured an attachment against the estate of "Sd.
Sadler." When possible, the Committee compromised the cases, or advised
the parties to adjust matters between themselves. The sheriff executed
the various decrees, in due form; he arrested the men who refused to pay
heed to the judgments of the court, and when necessary took out of their
"goods and chattles, lands and tenements," the damages awarded, and also
the costs and fees. The government was in the hands of men who were not
only law-abiding themselves but also resolute to see that the law was
respected by others.

The committee took cognizance of all affairs concerning the general
welfare of the community. They ordered roads to be built between the
different stations, appointing overseers who had power to "call out
hands to work on the same." Besides the embodiment of all the full-grown
men as militia,--those of each station under their own captain,
lieutenant, and ensign,--a diminutive force of paid regulars was
organized; that is, six spies were "kept out to discover the motions of
the enemy so long as we shall be able to pay them; each to receive
seventy-five bushels of Indian corn per month." They were under the
direction of Colonel Robertson, who was head of all the branches of the
government. One of the committee's regulations followed an economic
principle of doubtful value. Some enterprising individuals, taking
advantage of the armed escort accompanying the Carolina commissioners,
brought out casks of liquors. The settlers had drunk nothing but water
for many months, and they eagerly purchased the liquor, the merchants
naturally charging all that the traffic would bear. This struck the
committee as a grievance, and they forthwith passed a decree that any
person bringing in liquor "from foreign ports," before selling the same,
must give bond that they would charge no more than one silver dollar, or
its value in merchandise, per quart.

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