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Embarking on April 10th at the mouth of Big Creek near the present Rogersville, Tennessee, three hundred and fifty men led by Colonel Evan Shelby descended the Tennessee to the fastnesses of the Chickamaugas.
Apparently Robertson stayed as commissioner in Chota until February or March, 1779, when he gave warning of the intended raid of the Chickamaugas, and immediately afterwards came back to the settlements and started out for the Cumberland, before Shelby left on his Chickamauga expedition. He followed Boon's trace, Wilderness Road, through Cumberland Gap, and across the Cumberland River.
At the same time three hundred Chickamaugas, likewise led by the resident British commissaries, started out against the Carolina frontier. "A rebel commissioner in Chote being informed of their movements here sent express into Holston river." This would not only at once recall them from the frontier, but would give them a salutary lesson.
Thus in July the Chickamaugas sent in a talk for peace; but at that very time a band of their young braves made a foray into Powell's valley, killing two settlers and driving off some stock. They were pursued, one of their number killed, and most of the stock retaken.
The Chickamaugas, aided by some banditti of another tribe in their vicinity, have recently perpetrated wanton and unprovoked hostilities upon the citizens of the United States in that quarter. The information which has been received on this subject will be laid before you. Hitherto defensive precautions only have been strictly enjoined and observed.
In 1779 the Chickamaugas, with whom The Dragging Canoe and his irreconcilable followers among the Cherokees had joined hands after the campaign of 1776, grew so bold in their bloody forays upon small exposed settlements that North Carolina and Virginia in conjunction despatched a strong expedition against them.
The natural effect was that the Chickamaugas, who were mainly Lower Town Cherokees, seeing the impunity with which the ravages were committed, and appreciating the fact that under the orders of the Government they could not be molested in their own homes by the whites, began to join in the raids; and their nearness to the settlements soon made them the worst offenders.
These towns contained a population, in men, women, and children, estimated at from seven to eight thousand, of whom perhaps twelve hundred were warriors. These, from their residence near the stream of that name, were known as the Chickamaugas.
No immediate collision followed on this account; but when Old Tassel's talk was forwarded to the governor, small parties of Chickamaugas, assisted by young braves from among the Creeks and Erati, had already begun to commit ravages on the outlying settlements. Two weeks before Old Tassel spoke, on the 11th of September, a family of whites was butchered on Moccasin Creek.
Even on the frontier, and at that time, the better class of backwoodsmen expressed much horror at the murder of the friendly chiefs. Sevier had planned to march against the Chickamaugas with the levies that were thronging to his banner; but the news of the murder provoked such discussion and hesitation that his forces melted away. It is Condemned Elsewhere.
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