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The last time the two officers together sought the presence of the kings in the Ottare district, as the mountainous region was called, the towns designated as the Ayrate settlements signified the lower country, they were received here, and Stuart, from the moment of their entrance, knew that their mission was hopeless.
Despite the evil chance that had befallen the gold-seekers, now widely bruited abroad, stealthy efforts were ever and anon made by the hardy frontier prospectors of those days, already busy in the richer deposits of the Ayrate division of the Cherokee country, to pan also the sands of the banks of the Tennessee; but the yield here was never again worth the work, and the interest in the possibility of securing "pay gravel" in this region died out, until the later excitements of the discovery of the precious metal in a neighboring locality, Coca Creek, during the last century.
They fully realized the jealousy of the Indians concerning the mineral wealth of their territory, lest its discovery bring hordes of the craving white people to dispossess them. This prophetic terror was later fulfilled in the Ayrate division of the tribe, but to the northward, along the Tennessee River, they sedulously guarded this knowledge.
The participators in the affray were of the distant Ayrate settlements of the tribe, southeast of the mountains, and not individualized. The Indians of Tennessee Town, which was then one of the most remote of the Cherokee villages of the Ottare division, and this perhaps was the reason it was selected as his home, were not concerned in the foray, nor were any others of the Overhill towns.
The Upper towns and the Lower towns the Ottare and the Ayrate met in solemn conclave at Choté to consider the situation. Fort Loudon, hard by, maintained quiet and keen watch and strict discipline. The drums beat, the bugles sounded for the measured routine.
Sugaw Town next met this fate in fact, almost every one of the Ayrate towns of the Cherokee nation, before Colonel Montgomery wiped his bloody sword, and sheathed it at the gates of Fort Prince George, having personally made several narrow escapes.
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