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Near the place where the action had been fought the preceding year by Montgomery, the Indians again assembled in force, and gave battle in defence of their country. The action commenced about eight in the morning, and was maintained with spirit until eleven, when the Cherokees began to give way.
In the wrestling ring, the strongest man of the Cherokees was but a child in his hands; his voice, in the song of his own exploits, and the recital of the glories of his nation, was sweeter than the sighing of the gentlest spring wind, and clearer than the prattling music of the waterfall.
Indeed, Florida was the Indian's paradise, was of little value to us, and it was a great pity to remove the Seminoles at all, for we could have collected there all the Choctaws, Creeks, Cherokees, and Chickasaws, in addition to the Seminoles.
On the second day of the talk he spoke strongly against granting the Americans what they asked, pointing out, in words of glowing eloquence, how the Cherokees, who had once owned the land down to the sea, had been steadily driven back by the whites until they had reached the mountains, and warning his comrades that they must now put a stop at all hazards to further encroachments, under penalty of seeing the loss of their last hunting-grounds, by which alone their children could live.
It was known as Buchanan's Station, and in it there were several families, including fifteen "gun-men." Two spies went out from it to scour the country and give warning of any Indian advance; but with the Cherokees were two very white half-breeds, whose Indian blood was scarcely noticeable, and these two men met the spies and decoyed them to their death.
His name was Colbert, which at once attracted my attention; for I was familiar with the history of the Cherokees and Chickasaws during the eighteenth century, when they lived east of the Mississippi. Early in that century various traders, chiefly Scotchmen, settled among them, and the half-breed descendants of one named Colbert became the most noted chiefs of the Chickasaws.
He remarked that he supposed the Governor would be astonished to learn that there were many settlers on the land which North Carolina had by treaty guaranteed to the Cherokees; and brushed aside all remonstrances by simply saying that it was vain to talk of keeping the frontiersmen from encroaching on Indian territory.
"We must go according to the wishes of the Great Spirit, or we shall get into trouble. To know how to read and write is very good for white men, but very bad for red men. It makes white men better, but red men worse. Some of the Creeks and Cherokees learned to read and write, and they are the greatest rascals among all the Indians.
Savannah, the capital, stands commodiously for trade, about ten miles from the sea, on a river of the same name, navigable with large boats two hundred miles farther up to the second town called Augusta, a place that flourishes by the Indian trade of skins, which the inhabitants carry on with their neighbours the Creeks, the Chickesaws, and the Cherokees, who are the most numerous and powerful tribes in America.
So far, that the horses of a few of the warriors had given out, and finding some horses running wild as they came on their homeward way through the western region of Virginia, these braves appropriated the animals for the toilsome march of so many hundred miles, meaning no harm; whereupon a band of Virginians fell upon these Cherokees, their allies, and killed them!
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