Chickamauga Wars

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The Chickamauga Wars were a series of conflicts fought between 1776 and 1794 which were a continuation of the Cherokee struggle against the encroachment into their territory by settlers from the British colonies. By 1776, the isolated conflicts had broken out into open warfare between the Cherokee led by Dragging Canoe (called the Chickamauga or Chickamauga-Cherokee by colonials) and frontier settlers along the Watauga, Holston, and Nolichucky rivers and in Carter's Valley in East Tennessee, and also those along the Cumberland River in Middle Tennessee and in Kentucky. Fighting later extended into the colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The Chickamauga fought alongside and in conjunction with Indians from several other tribes, and with support, at various times, from the British, the French, and the Spanish.

The name Chickamauga arises from the region in which the faction lived, which was near the Chickamauga Creek near present day Chattanooga, Tennessee. The settlers of the region distinguished these Cherokee from other Cherokee, which they identified as the "Upper" or "Overhill" Cherokee; the "Lower" Cherokee; the "Hill" Cherokee; and the "Valley" Cherokee.

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[edit] Prelude

After Pontiac’s War (1763-1764), in which some Cherokee also took part, the Iroquois Confederacy ceded to the British government its claims to the hunting grounds between the Ohio and Cumberland rivers, known to them and other Indians as Kain-tuck-ee (Kentucky), to which several other tribes north and south also lay claim, in the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix. This initiated much of the conflict which followed in the years ahead. In fact, a few small warbands of Cherokee continued to operate against the British in Kentucky, the Ohio Valley, and Great Lakes region throughout the intervening years between the Anglo-Cherokee War and the American Revolution.

The first incursion into Cherokee territory west of the Appalachians took place in 1772, when a group of when a group of pioneers, believing they were in the territorial limits of the colony of Virginia, settled on the Watauga River. After a survey proved their mistake, Alexander Cameron, deputy for Indian Affairs, ordered them to leave. However, certain Cherokee leaders in the region interceded on their behalf, and they were allowed to remain, provided there was no further encroachment. The settlers then established the Watauga Association.

In 1775, a group of North Carolina speculators led by Richard Henderson negotiated the Treaty of Watauga at Sycamore Shoals with the older Overhill Cherokee leaders, chief of whom were Oconostota and Attakullakulla. In the treaty, the Cherokee surrendered their claim to the Kain-tuck-ee lands and supposedly gave the Transylvania Land Company ownership, in spite of claims to the region by other tribes such as the Shawnee and Chickasaw. Dragging Canoe, chief of Great Island and son of Attakullakulla, refused to go along with the deal and told the North Carolina men, “You have bought a fair land, but there is a cloud hanging over it; you will find its settlement dark and bloody”. The Watauga treaty was quickly repudiated by the governors of Virginia and North Carolina, however, and Henderson had to flee to avoid arrest.

[edit] American Revolution

In 1776, partly at the behest of Henry Hamilton, the British governor in Detroit, Shawnee chief Cornstalk led a delegation from the northern tribes (Shawnee, Delaware, Iroquois, Ottawa, and others) to the southern tribes (Cherokee, Muskogee, Chickasaw, Choctaw), and met with the Cherokee leaders at Chota (Eckhert says Muscle Shoals). He called for united action against those they called the Long Knives, the squatters who settled and remained in Kain-tuck-ee (Ganda-gi in Cherokee), or, as the settlers called it, Transylvania. At the close of his speech, he offered his war belt, and Dragging Canoe ("Tsiyugunisini" in Cherokee) accepted it, along with Abraham of Chilhowee. Dragging Canoe also accepted belts from the Ottawa and the Iroquois, while The Raven of Chota accepted the belt from the Delaware.

The plan was for Middle, Out, and Valley Towns of North Carolina to attack South Carolina; the Lower Towns of western South Carolina and North Georgia to attack Georgia (led by Alexander Cameron); and the Overhill Towns along the lower Little Tennessee and Hiwassee River|Hiwassee]] rivers to attack Virginia and North Carolina. In the Overhill campaign, Dragging Canoe led a force to the Holston settlements; Abraham to the Watauga and the Nolichucky; and The Raven to Carter’s Valley. The squatting settlers, however, had been forewarned of the attack by traders who had come to them from Chota bearing warning from the Beloved Woman (female equivalent of Beloved Man, the Cherokee title for a leader) Nancy Ward. Having thus been betrayed, the Cherokee offensive proved to be disastrous for the attackers, particularly those going up against the Holston settlements. Dragging Canoe had his leg shattered by a bullet, and his brother Little Owl survived being hit by eleven bullets.

Response from the colonials in the aftermath was swift and overwhelming. North Carolina sent 2,400 militia to scour the Oconoluftee and Tuckasegee Rivers and the headwaters of the Little Tennessee and Hiwassee; South Carolina sent 1,800 men to the Savannah; and Georgia sent 200 to the Chattahoochee and Tugaloo. In all, they destroyed more than fifty towns, burned their houses and food, destroyed their orchards, slaughtered livestock, and killed hundreds, as well as selling survivors into slavery.

In the meantime, Virginia sent a large force, accompanied by North Carolina volunteers under William Christian, to the lower Little Tennessee valley. Dragging Canoe wanted to send the women, children, and old below the Hiwassie, burn the towns, and ambush the Virginians at the French Broad River, but Oconostota, Attakullakulla, and the rest of the older chiefs decided against that path.

[edit] Chickamauga settlement

Dragging Canoe and other leaders, including Ostenaco, gathered those Cherokee of like mind from the Overhill, Valley, and Hill towns, and migrated to what is now the Chattanooga, Tennessee, area. Christian's force, therefore, found Great Island, Citico, and Tellico deserted, with only the older leaders who had opposed the younger ones remaining. Christian limited the destruction in the Overhill Towns to the burning of the three deserted towns.

Following the suggestion of Alexander Cameron, they established what was later known as the town of Chickamauga under Big Fool at the place where the Great Indian Warpath crossed the Chickamauga River (South Chickamauga Creek).

The British commissary, John McDonald, and his half-Cherokee wife, had a trading post across the river from Chickamauga town, providing a link with Henry Stuart, brother of John, in the West Florida capital of Pensacola. Cameron accompanied him to Chickamauga but later transferred to the territory of the Upper Muskogee towns to represent British interests there.

In addition to Chickamauga, the so-called dissidents set up three other settlements on the Chickamauga River: Toqua, at the mouth; Opelika, a few miles upstream from Chickamauga town; and Buffalo Town at the headwaters of the river in northwest Georgia. Other towns were Cayuga on Hiwassie Island; Ooltewah, under Ostenaco on Ooltewah (Wolftever) Creek; Sawtee, under Dragging Canoe's brother Little Owl on Laurel (North Chickamauga) Creek; Citico, along the creek of the same name; Chatanuga (not the same as the current city) at the foot of Lookout Mountain in what is now St. Elmo; Tuskegee under Bloody Fellow on Williams' Island; and Stecoyee, in Lookout Valley.

The land used by the Chickamauga Cherokee was once the traditional location of many former towns of the Muskogee which, according to Cherokee legend, came into the possession of the Cherokee after the Battle of Talliwa in 1755. However, the Muskogee tribes had actually withdrawn much earlier to leave a buffer zone between themselves and the Cherokee. In fact, when the colony of Carolina first began trading with them in the late 1600s, the westermost settlements of the Cherokee were the twin towns of Great Tellico (Talikwa, same as Tahlequah) and Chatuga at the current site of Tellico Plains, Tennessee. The town the Cherokee called Coosawattie (the former site of the Coosa chiefdom at the time of the Spanish explorations in the 16th century) had been in Cherokee hands in the early 1700’s but had been abandoned. The site was subsequently reoccupied in 1758 by a Muskogee contingent under a leader named Big Mortar during the French and Indian War in support of the pro-French Cherokee centered in Great Tellico and as a step toward an alliance of Muskogee, Cherokee, Shawnee, Chickasaw, and Catawba; The Mortar rose to be the leading chief of the Muskogee the year after the war's official end.

In the meantime, in 1777, the rest of the Cherokee in the Hill, Valley, Lower, and Overhill towns signed the Treaty of Dewitt’s Corner with Georgia and South Carolina and the Treaty of Fort Henry with Virginia and North Carolina promising to stay off the warpath, which was supposed to protect them in turn from attack. Neither, however, did anything to halt attacks by frontiersmen from the illegal (under British law) colonies nor stop encroachment onto their lands. In fact, they required those ceasing their war to give up their land in South Carolina and the area of the former Out Towns.

Many Cherokee, resentful of the (largely Scots-Irish) white settlers who were moving into Cherokee lands and sympathetic to the Chickamauga cause, joined the ranks of Dragging Canoe's followers. In addition, the Cherokee towns of Great Hiwassee, Tennessee, Chestowee, Ocoee, and Amohee in the vicinity of Hiwassee River joined in several operations, as did the Lower Cherokee in the North Georgia towns of Coosawatie, Etowah, Ellijay, and Ustanali, who had been forced there from their previous homes in South Carolina by the Treaty of Dewitts' Corner. The Yuchi living on the upper Chickamauga, Pinelog, and Conasauga Creeks likely provided support as well.

The main targets of Chickamauga Cherokee attacks attacks were settlers (all of whom Dragging Canoe referred to as Virginians) on the Watauga, Holston, and Nolichucky Rivers, in Carter's Valley, on the Cumberland, and the isolated stations in between, along with ambushes of parties traveling on the Tennessee River. The Chickamauga also ambushed local sections of the many ancient trails that served as "highways" such as the Great Indian Warpath (Mobile, Alabama, to northeast Canada); the Cisca and St. Augustine Trail (St. Augustine, Florida, to the French Salt Lick at Nashville, Tennessee); the Cumberland Trail (from the Upper Creek Path to the Great Lakes); and the Nickajack Trail (Nickajack to Augusta, Georgia); later they even stalked the Natchez Trace. However, this did not preclude them from attacking targets in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. They also made forays into western Virginia, Kentucky, and the Ohio country.

[edit] Reaction

In 1778-79, Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, were captured by the British. They supplied Dragging Canoe's band with guns and ammunition, and together they were able to gain control of parts of interior South Carolina and Georgia.

In early 1779, James Robertson of Virginia received warning from Chota that the Chickamauga were going to attack the Holston area. In response, he ordered a counterattack under Evan Shelby and John Montgomery which destroyed the eleven towns in the Chickamauga area and most of their food supply. In the meantime, Dragging Canoe and John McDonald were leading the Chickamauga and fifty Loyalist Rangers in attacks on Georgia and South Carolina.

Upon hearing of the devastation of the towns, the Shawnee sent a delegation to Chickamauga to find out if the destruction had caused Dragging Canoe's people to lose the will to fight. In response, he held up the war belts he had accepted when the delegation visited Chota in 1776, and said, "We are not yet conquered". To cement the alliance, the Chickamauga sent nearly a hundred of their warriors north while the Shawnee responded in kind. The Chickamauga towns were soon rebuilt and occupied by their former inhabitants. Dragging Canoe responded to the Shelby expedition with punitive raids on the frontiers of both North Carolina and Virginia.

The Chickasaw were brought into the war when George Rogers Clark and a party of over two hundred built Fort Jefferson and a surrounding settlement near the mouth of the Ohio, inside the their hunting grounds. After learning of the trespass, the Chickasaw destroyed the settlement, laid siege to the fort, and began attacking the Kentucky frontier.

In late 1779, Robertson and John Donelson traveled overland across country and founded Fort Nashborough at the French Salt Lick on the Cumberland River. It was the first of many such settlements in the Cumberland area, which subsequently became the focus of attacks by all the tribes in the surrounding region. Early in 1780, Donelson journeyed down the Tennessee with a party that included his family, intending to go across to the mouth of the Cumberland, then upriver to Fort Nashborough. The group was ambushed near Tuskegee Island and again at the Muscle Shoals, several hundred miles downriver.

In the summer of 1780, the new Indian superintendent Thomas Brown planned to have a joint conference between the Chickamauga Cherokee and Muskogee to plan ways to coordinate their attacks, but those plans were forestalled when the Americans made a concerted effort to retake Augusta, where he had his headquarters. The arrival of a Chickamauga war party, joined by a sizable number or warriors from the Overhill Towns, prevented the capture of both. They and Brown's East Florida Rangers chased Elijah Clarke's army into the arms of John Sevier, wreaking havoc on rebellious settlements along the way. This set the stage for the Battle of King's Mountain, in which Loyalist militia under Patrick Ferguson moved south trying to encircle Clarke and were defeated by a force of 900 frontiersmen under Sevier and William Campbell, referred to as the Overmountain Men.

In response, Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson sent an expedition of seven hundred Virginians and North Carolinians against the Chickamuga in December 1780, under the command of Sevier. It met a Cherokee war party at Boyd's Creek, and after the battle it joined by forces under Arthur Campbell and Joseph Martin, marched against the Overhill towns on the Little Tennessee and the Hiwassie, and burned seventeen of them, including Chota. Afterwards, the Overhill leaders withdrew from further active conflict, though the Hill and Valley Towns continued to harass the frontier.

[edit] Migration and expansion

By 1781, Dragging Canoe was working with the Lower Cherokee Towns on the headwaters of the Coosa River, and with the Muskogee, particularly the Upper Muskogee. The Chickasaw, the Shawnee, and the Delaware were repeatedly attacking the Cumberland settlements. Three months after the first Chickasaw attack on the Cumberland, the Chickamauga's first attack came in April 1781, which became known as the Battle of the Bluff.

In the fall of 1781, the British engineered a coup d'etat of sorts that put The Raven as chief leader of the Overhill Towns in place of the more pacifist Oconostota. For a couple of years, the Overhill Cherokee openly, as they had been doing covertly, supported the efforts of Dragging Canoe and his Chickamauga Cherokee. After that time, however, the other leaders replaced him with another pacifist, known as Old Tassel, and Overhill support within their towns once again became covert. Opposition from pacifist leaders, however, never stopped war parties from traversing the territories of any of the town groups, largely because the average Cherokee supported their cause, nor did it stop small war parties of the Overhill Towns from raiding settlements in East Tennessee, mostly those on the Holston.

In September 1782, an expedition under Sevier once again destroyed the Chickamauga towns and those of the Lower Cherokee down to Ustanali, including what he called Vann's Town. Instead of rebuilding as they did before, Dragging Canoe and his fellow leaders chose relocation westward, establishing what whites called the Five Lower Towns downriver from the various natural obstructions in the 26-mile (42 km) Tennessee River Gorge.

The Five Lower Towns included Running Water (present-day Whiteside in Marion County, Tennessee), where Dragging Canoe made his headquarters; Nickajack (from Ani-Kusati-yi, or Koasati place), five miles (8 km) down the Tennessee River in the same county; Long-Island-on-the-Tennessee, just above the Great Creek Crossing; Crow Town, on the Tennessee at the mouth of Crow Creek; and Lookout Mountain Town, at the current site of Trenton, Georgia. Tuskegee Island Town was reoccupied as a lookout post by a small band of warriors to provide advance warning of invasions, and eventually many other settlements in the area were resettled as well.

Because this was a move into the outskirts of Muskogee territory, Dragging Canoe, knowing such a move might be necessary, had previously sent a delegation under Little Owl to meet with their head chief, Alexander McGillivray, to gain their permission to do so. When the Chickamauga moved their base, so too did the British representatives Cameron and McDonald, making Running Water the center of their efforts throughout the Southeast. Thomas Brown, meanwhile, had switched sides and gone to live in West Tennessee as American agent to the Chickasaw, who were trying to play off the Americans and the Spanish against each other but had little interest in the British. Turtle-at-Home, another of Dragging Canoe's brothers, along with some seventy warriors, headed north to live and fight with the Shawnee.

Cherokee continued to migrate westward to join the Chickamauga, whose ranks were further increased by runaway slaves, white Tories, Muskogee, Koasati, Kaskinampo, Yuchi, Natchez, and Shawnee, as well as a band of Chickasaw living at what was later known as Chickasaw Old Fields across from Guntersville, Alabama, plus a few Spanish, French, Irish, and Germans. Later Chickamauga major settlements included Willstown ("Titsohili") near present-day Fort Payne, Alabama; Turkeytown, at the head of the Cumberland Trail where the Upper Creek Path crossed the Coosa River near Centre, Alabama; and Creek Path, near at the intersection of the Great Indian Warpath with the Upper Creek Path at Guntersville. This expansion came about largely because of the influx of Cherokee from North Georgia, who fled the depredations of expeditions such as those of Sevier. Cherokee from the Middle, or Hill, Towns also came, a group of whom established a town named Sawtee at the mouth of South Sauta Creek on the Tennessee. Another town, Coosada, was added when its Koasati and Kaskinampo inhabitants joined Dragging Canoe's confederation.

Another allied settlement was Coldwater at Muscle Shoals, a mixed settlement of Cherokee and Muskogee at the mouth of Coldwater Creek on the Tennessee River, whose warriors often fought alongside the Chickamauga Cherokee. Coldwater was located there because of the Shoals, an obstruction second in difficuty to traverse only to the Tennessee River Gorge. Initially, they got their arms and other supplies from a group of French traders on the Wabash River in the north, some of whom lived among them and fought with them, particularly against the settlements on the Cumberland River. Though this town was destroyed in 1787, it was soon reoccupied with the infamous Doublehead as its leader.

[edit] After the Revolution

Eventually, Dragging Canoe realized that the Chickamauga Cherokee could not carry on the fight by themselves, and that the only solution for the various Indian nations to maintain their independence was to unite in an alliance against the Americans. In addition to increasing his ties to McGillivray and the Upper Muskogee, with whom he worked most often and in greatest numbers, he continued to send his warriors to fighting alongside the Shawnee, Choctaw, and Delaware.

In 1783, Dragging Canoe traveled to St. Augustine, the capital of East Florida, to a summit of both southern and northern tribes, calling for a federations of Indians to oppose the Americans and their frontier colonists. A general council of the Cherokee, Muskogee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw took place a few months later to follow up, but plans for the federation were cut short, however, by the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

Following the treaty, the Chickamauga Cherokee turned to the Spanish (who still claimed all the territory south of the Cumberland) for support, trading primarily through Pensacola and Mobile. The Spanish governor of Louisiana Territory in New Orleans had taken advantage of the British setback to seize those ports. Dragging Canoe maintained relations with the British governor at Detroit, Alexander McKee, through regular diplomatic missions there under his brothers Little Owl and The Badger. Meanwhile, the Chickasaw made a peace treaty with the new United States.

The Cherokee in the Upper, Hill, and Valley Towns also signed a treaty with the new government, the 1785 Treaty of Hopewell. But in their case it was a treaty made under duress, since the frontier colonials had spread further along the Holston and onto the French Broad. The signatories had hoped that since the treaty guaranteed to them their lands courtesy of the national government that their territory would then be secure from encroachment, but this proved not to be the case. The colonials shifted military forces to Middle Tennessee in response to increasing frequency of attacks by both Chickamauga Cherokee and Upper Muskogee.

In 1788, Overhill chiefs Old Tassel (who was replaced by Hanging Maw) and Abraham were murdered while under a flag of truce during an embassy to the State of Franklin. This angered the entire Cherokee nation and resulted in increasing numbers taking the warpath, an increase in hostility that lasted for several months. Doublehead, Old Tassel's brother, was particularly incensed. Dragging Canoe even came in to address the general council, meeting at Ustanali, highlighting the seriousness of the matter.

Punishment attacks by the settlers' militia continued. In 1788, troops under Sevier destroyed the Valley Towns in North Carolina. At Ustalli, on the Hiwassie, the population had been evacuated by Chickamauga warriors led by Bob Benge, who left a rearguard to ensure their escape. After burning the town, Sevier and his group pursued its fleeing inhabitants but were ambushed at the mouth of the Valley River by Benge's party. From there they went to the village of Coota-cloochee and proceeded to burn down its cornfields but were chased off by 400 warriors led by John Watts (Young Tassel).

That same year, Joseph Martin, with 500 men, marched to the Chickamauga area, intending to penetrate the edge of the Cumberland Mountains to get to the Five Lower Towns. He sent a detachment to secure the pass over the foot of Lookout Mountain, which was ambushed and routed by a party of Dragging Canoe's warriors. Sevier retreated back to White's Fort (now Knoxville).

In early 1789, a party of Shawnee came from the north, led by Chiksika, a leader contemporary with the famous Blue Jacket and brother of Tecumseh. Based out of Running Water, where Chiksika's Cherokee wife and daughter had already been living for some time, they participated in and conducted raids and other actions, in some of which Chickamauga warriors participated (most notably Benge). In one of these, Chiksika was killed, resulting in Tecumseh becoming leader of the small Shawnee band, and, therefore, one of the leaders among the Chickamauga as well. His band remained until late 1790, then returned north.

Starting in 1791, Benge, and his brother The Tail, based at Willstown, began leading attacks against settlers in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and Kentucky, often in conjunction with Doublehead and his warriors from Coldwater. Eventually, he became one of the most feared warriors on the frontier. Doublehead counted Cherokee among his followers along with several other tribes.

The Treaty of Holston, signed in July 1791, required from the Upper Towns more land in return for continued peace because the government proved unable to stop or roll back illegal settlements. However, it also seemed to guarantee Cherokee sovereignty and led the Upper Cherokee chiefs to believe they had the same status as states. In this case, the Chickamauga Cherokee leaders had sent a representative to the talks in Philadelphia, Bloody Fellow, though they never acceded to its provisions because of the numerous points against which Bloody Fellow protested.

Later in the summer, a small delegation of Chickamauga Cherokee under Dragging Canoe's brother Little Owl traveled north to meet with the Indian leaders of the Northwest Indian War, chief among them Blue Jacket of the Shawnee and Little Turtle of the Miami. While they were there, word arrived at Running Water that Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, was planning an invasion against the allied tribes in the north. Dragging Canoe sent a 30-strong war party north under his brother The Badger, where they participated in the decisive encounter known as the Battle of the Wabash, along with the warriors of Little Owl and Turtle-at-Home.

After the battle, Little Owl, The Badger, and Turtle-at-Home, returned south with most of the warriors who had accompanied the first two. The warriors who had come north years earlier, both with Turtle-at-Home and a few years before, remained in the Ohio region, but the returning warriors brought back a party of thirty Shawnee under the leadership of one known as Shawnee Warrior that frequently operated alongside warriors under Little Owl.

[edit] Death of Dragging Canoe

Inspired by news of the northern victory, Dragging Canoe embarked on a mission to unite the native people of his area, visiting the other major tribes in the region. His embassies to the Lower Muskogee and the Choctaw were successful, but the Chickasaw in West Tennessee refused his overtures. Upon his return, which coincided with that of The Glass and Turtle-at-Home from a successful raid on settlements along the Cumberland and in Kentucky, a huge all-night celebration was held at Lookout Mountain Town at which the Eagle Dance was performed in his honor.

By morning on March 1, 1792, Dragging Canoe was dead. A procession of honor carried his body to Running Water, where he was buried. By the time of his death, the resistance of the Chickamauga Cherokee had led to grudging respect from the settlers, as well as the rest of the Cherokee nation. He was even memorialized by Black Fox at the general council of the Upper Towns held in Ustanali the following year.

He was succeeded as leader by John Watts, along with Bloody Fellow and Doublehead, who continued Dragging Canoe's policy of Indian unity, including an agreement with McGillvray to build joint blockhouses from which warriors of both tribes could operate at the junction of the Tennessee and Clinch Rivers, at Running Water, and at Muscle Shoals. Watts moved his base of operations to Willstown in order to be closer to his Muskogee allies and the Spanish governor of West Florida in Pensacola, Arturo O'Neill, while John McDonald, the Indian affairs superintendent, moved to Turkeytown with his assistant Daniel Ross and their families in order to be closer to their Spanish supply lines. Some of the older chiefs, such as The Glass of Running Water, The Breath of Nickajack, and Dick Justice of Lookout Mountain Town, abstained from active warfare but did nothing to stop the warriors in their towns from taking part in raids and campaigns.

In September 1792, Watts orchestrated a large campaign into the Cumberland region of combined Cherokee and Muskogee forces which included a contingent of cavalry. It was to be a three-pronged attack in which Tahlonteeskee led a force to ambush the Kentucky road. Middle Striker led another force on the Walton road while Watts led the main army, made up of 280 Chickamauga, Shawnee, and Muskogee warriors plus cavalry, against a settlement on the Cumberland known as Buchanan's Station. Shawnee warrior Talotiskee of the Muskogee and Dragging Canoe's brother Little Owl died in the encounter. In revenge, Benge, Doublehead, and Pumpkin Boy (Doublehead's brother) led a raid into southwestern Kentucky during which their warriors, in an act initiated by Doublehead, ate the enemies they had just killed. Meanwhile, the Muskogee increased their attacks on the Cumberland in both size and frequency.

Shortly after a delegation of Shawnee stopped in Ustanali in 1793, on their way to call on the Muskogee and Choctaw to punish the Chickasaw for joining St. Clair's army in the north, Watts sent envoys to Knoxville, capital of the Southwest Territory, to meet with Governor William Blount to discuss terms for peace. However, the party, which included Bob McLemore, Tahlonteeskee, Captain Charley of Running Water, and Doublehead, was attacked by colonial militia before reaching the capital during a stop at Chota, in which Hanging Maw was wounded and his wife and daughter, along with several others, were killed.

Watts responded by invading the Holston area with one of the largest Indian forces ever seen in the region, over one thousand Cherokee and Muskogee, intending to attack Knoxville. On the way, the Cherokee leaders were discussing among themselves whether to kill all the inhabitants of Knoxville, or just the men, James Vann advocating the latter while Doublehead argued for the former. They encountered a small settlement called Cavett's Station. After they had surrounded the place, Benge negotiated with the inhabitants, agreeing that if they surrendered, their lives would be spared. However, after the settlers had walked out, Doublehead's group attacked and killed all of them over the pleas of Benge. Watts intervened in time to save one young boy, handing him to Vann, who put the boy behind him on his horse. In the heat of the argument, Doublehead seized the boy and killed him, for which Vann called him "Babykiller." This began a lengthy feud which defined the politics of the early 19th century Cherokee Nation and only ended in 1807 with Doublehead's death at Vann's orders. By this time, tensions among the Cherokee broke out into such vehement arguments that the force broke up and retired back south. Sevier countered the invasion with an invasion and occupation of Ustanali, which had been deserted; there was no fighting other than an indecisive skirmish with a Cherokee-Muskogee scouting party.

[edit] Treaty

In the summer of 1794, a party of Chickamauga Cherokee under Whitemankiller (George Fields) and The Bowl overtook a river party under one William Scott at Muscle Shoals, killing its white passengers, looting its goods, and taking the slaves captive. The incident is notable because its aftermath led to emigration by The Bowl and his warriors westward across the Mississippi and up the St. Francis River, where they stayed and made their homes, becoming the first major group of Cherokee to do so.

In the fall of 1794, Thomas Brown sent word from Chickasaw territory to General Robertson of the Mero District, as the Cumberland region was then called, that a party of Muskogee and Cherokee were about to launch attacks all along the river. In response, Robertson sent a detachment of U.S. regular troops, Mero militia, and Kentucky volunteers to the Five Lower Towns under U.S. Army Major James Ore. The group attacked Nickajack without warning, slaughtering many of the inhabitants, including its pacifist chief The Breath, then after torching the houses they proceeded upriver to burn Running Water, whose residents had fled. The actual casualties were lighter than they might have been because the majority of both towns were in Willstown attending a major stickball (similar to lacrosse) game.

Recent events along with the defeat of the northern Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, plus the fact that the Spanish could not support the Chickamauga war because of problems they were having with Napoleon in Europe, convinced Watts to end the fighting. Two months later, the Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse finally ended the conflicts, which was notable for not requiring any further cession of land other than requiring the Chickamauga, or Lower Cherokee (as they were by then called), to recognize those of the Holston treaty. The treaty led to a period of relative peace into the 19th century, although Doublehead did made one last attack, this time upon Sevier's Station, killing fourteen, while the others were in Philadelphia signing the treaty.

[edit] Assessment

The Chickamauga Wars lasted nearly twenty years. It was one of the longest-running conflicts between Indians and the Americans and is often overlooked for its length, its importance at the time, and its influence on later Native American leaders (or considering that Cherokee had been involved at least in small numbers in all the conflicts beginning in 1758, that number could be nearly forty years). It was, in fact, because of the continuing hostilities that following the Revolution one of the only two permanent garrisons in the territory of the new country was placed at Fort Southwest Point on Long-Island-on-the-Holston, the other being Fort Pitt. No less underrated are Dragging Canoe's abilities as a war leader and diplomat, and even today he is scarcely mentioned in texts dealing with conflicts between "Americans" and "Indians".

[edit] Aftermath

Following the peace treaty, there was further separation of the so called main Cherokee and the Chickamauga Cherokee. For a while the leaders of the former Chickamauga were dominant in national affairs. When the national government of all the Cherokee was organized, the first three persons to hold the office of Principal Chief, Little Turkey, Black Fox, and Pathkiller, had previously served as warriors under Dragging Canoe, as had the first two national speakers, Doublehead and Turtle-at-Home.

Many of the former Chickamauga warriors returned to several of the original settlements of the Chickamauga, some of which had already been reoccupied. They also established new towns in the area, plus several in North Georgia. They joined with the remnant of the Overhill towns on the Little Tennessee River which were referred to as the Upper Towns, with their center at Ustanali in Georgia. The majority of the former Chickamauga, however, remained in the towns they inhabited in 1794, with their seat at Willstown, and were known as the Lower Towns. These former warriors became the strongest proponents of acculturation and what Americans referred to as "civilization". The settlements of the Cherokee remaining in the towns of western North Carolina were known as the Hill Towns, with their seat at Qualla, and the Valley Towns, with their seat at Tuskquitee. They were more traditional towns, as was the Upper Town of Etowah, notable for being inhabited mostly by full-bloods.

In August 1795, Gen. Wayne sent a message to Long Hair, leader of the Cherokee who remained in the Ohio country, that they should come in and sue for peace like all the other northern tribes following the defeat of the northern confederacy at Fallen Timbers. In response, Long Hair replied that all of them would return south as soon as they finished the harvest. However, they did not all do so; at least one, named Shoe Boots, stayed in the area until 1803, so it is likely others did as well.

The Muskogee-Chickasaw War, begun at the behest of the Shawnee mentioned above, ended in a truce negotiated by the U.S. government that same year.

[edit] Origin of the word "Chickamauga"

According to Mooney, the word "Chickamauga", pronounced Tsi-ka-ma-gi in Cherokee, was the name of at least two places: a headwater creek of the Chattahoochee River, and the region near Chattanooga, but the word is not Cherokee. He states that Chickamauga may be derived from Shawnee, and indeed there was a small town on the coast of North Carolina near Cape Hatteras (noted for a small battle took place there early in the American Civil War) called Chicamacomico (meaning "dwelling place by the big water"), which is also the name of a river in Maryland. Both these areas were originally been inhabited by tribes speaking variations of the Algonquin family of languages, of which Shawnee is one example.

On the other hand, Brown states that Chickamauga comes from the Muskogean "Chukko-mah-ko" for "dwelling place of the warchief", and Evans seems to agree, stating "The name comes from the Cherokee attempt to say Muskogee "Chiaha Olamico" which means 'The Upper Chiefdom'", and that "Tsika-magi was the way the Cherokees attempted to pronounce the Muskogee words."

[edit] References

  • Alderman, Pat. Dragging Canoe: Cherokee-Chickamauga War Chief. (Johnson City: Overmountain Press, 1978)
  • Brown, John P. Old Frontiers. (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, 1938).
  • Eckert, Allan W. A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh. (New York: Bantam, 1992).
  • Evans, E. Raymond. "Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Ostenaco". Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 41-54. (Cherokee: Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 1976).
  • Evans, E. Raymond. "Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Bob Benge". Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 98-106. (Cherokee: Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 1976).
  • Evans, E. Raymond. "Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Dragging Canoe". Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 176-189. (Cherokee: Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 1977).
  • Evans, E. Raymond, and Vicky Karhu. "Williams Island: A Source of Significant Material in the Collections of the Museum of the Cherokee". Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 10-34. (Cherokee: Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 1984).
  • Haywood, W.H. The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from its Earliest Settlement up to the Year 1796. (Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Publishing House, 1891).
  • Klink, Karl, and James Talman, ed. The Journal of Major John Norton. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1970).
  • McLoughlin, William G. Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
  • Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee. (Nashville: Charles and Randy Elder-Booksellers, 1982).
  • Moore, John Trotwood and Austin P. Foster. Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Vol. 1. (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1923).
  • Ramsey, James Gettys McGregor. The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century. (Chattanooga: Judge David Campbell, 1926).

[edit] External links

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Cherokee

People and culture
Cherokee society · Cherokee mythology · Cherokee language · Principal Chief · Cherokee Freedmen

History
Trail of Tears · Anglo-Cherokee War · Chickamauga Wars

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