II.

The number of warriors on the Wabash was estima- CHAPTER ted by the War Department at from fifteen hundred to two thousand; those in the whole region between the 1789. Ohio and the Lakes at five thousand; giving, according to the usual estimate of one warrior to four persons, a total Indian population in the territory northwest of the Ohio of twenty thousand. But the true number was considerably larger, perhaps nearly twice as many. This estimate did not include the Six Nations, with whom two particular treaties had recently been negotiated, one by Oliver Phelps as purchaser of the preemption right of Massachusetts, under the recent arrangement between that state and New York as to their mutual claims to lands west of the Delaware; the other by the State of New York itself, with the Onondagas and Oneidas. By these two treaties, in consideration of certain stipulated payments, large cessions had been made in the fertile district of Western New York, the Indians, however, still retaining extensive reservations. The tide of immigration, and its forerunner, the tide of speculation, were beginning to set strongly upon these lands, and the Indians were in danger of being stripped even of their reservations under color of leases which certain land speculators sought to obtain of them.

The Oneidas had given evidence of some advance in civilization by adopting a written form of government, founded in part on their ancient usages, but adopting many ideas from their white neighbors, among others, a partial distribution of the lands of the tribe among individuals, and the establishment of a school for instruction in English. The Stockbridge Indians, and some other fragments of the aboriginal tribes of New England, had been established on the Oneida reservation. The Cayugas and Oneidas had steadfastly adhered to the interests

CHAPTER of New York throughout the whole Revolutionary war, II. in consequence of which they had been at one period 1789. driven from their homes by the British party among the Six Nations, and exposed thereby to great sufferings. The Mohawks, under the influence of the Johnsons, had emigrated to Canada early in the war; and, as they had always adhered to the British, their lands, including the whole region north of the Mohawk River, were regarded by the State of New York as conquered territory, though a portion of this region continued to be claimed by the Cagnawagas, or French Mohawks, who dwelt now in the neighborhood of St. Regis.

The Indians south of the Ohio, still more numerous, were hardly less formidable than those north of that river. The warriors of the four great southern confederacies— the Cherokees, the Creeks, the Chickasaws, and the Choctaws were estimated to amount to fourteen thousand, giving a total population of about seventy thou sand. The Chickasaws, inhabiting that portion of the present state of Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, and the Choctaws, dwelling principally on the head waters of the Pearl and Pascagoula, and extending thence to the Mississippi, being too far removed from the frontiers to be exposed to collision with the back settlers, had always been on good terms with the Anglo-Americans, and the friendship established with those tribes by the treaties of Hopewell (1786, Jan. 3, June 12) still remained unbroken. The case was very different with the Cherokees and the Creeks, brought into immediate and irritating collision with the frontier settlers of the Carolinas and Georgia. The Cherokees claimed the Cumberland River as their northern boundary, their territory embracing the larger portion of the present state of Tennessee, with parts also of the Carolinas and Georgia.

II.

In framing the treaty of Hopewell, the American com- CHAPTER missioners had gone as far, in curtailing the Indian limits, as any sense of justice would permit, and the Cher- 1789. okees had found themselves obliged to relinquish a considerable tract south of Nashville as far as Duck River, besides other districts on their eastern border. The Cherokees were greatly dissatisfied at these curtailments, while the backwoodsmen complained loudly at what they considered the unreasonable concessions made to the Indians. The agents of North Carolina and Georgia in attendance at Hopewell had protested against the treaty; nor had any regard whatever been paid to its provisions by the authorities of the insurrectionary state of Franklin or Frankland, embracing the settlements in the immediate neighborhood of the Cherokee country. In consequence of the many outrages committed by these wild backwoodsmen, a war had ensued (1787), in which Sevier, the fugitive governor of the expiring state of Frankland, had taken an active part. Worsted in this contest, their fields ravaged, their villages burned, some of their warriors entrapped by false pretenses and slain in cold blood, not even their women and children spared, the

eastern clans of the Cherokees had been driven to seek shelter with the Creeks. The Continental Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Department had remonstrated against these outrages, as well with the governor of North Carolina as with the inhabitants on the frontier, and the Continental Congress had issued a proclamation (Sept. 1, 1788), one of the last, as it was among the most honorable official acts of that body, declaring their intention to protect the Cherokees in their rights; enjoining the intruders beyond the limits fixed by the treaty of Hopewell to retire; and directing the Secretary of War to hold in readiness a part of the Con

II.

CHAPTER tinental regiment distributed at the posts along the Ohio, to march, should there be need, to the assistance of the 1789. Cherokees. At the same time, a new negotiation was directed with the Southern Indians, the Creeks as well as the Cherokees, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to be joined for that purpose by commissioners from the states of North Carolina and Georgia. This vigorous interference of the expiring Continental Congress had the effect to put a stop to a project then on foot among the militia officers in the back counties of North Carolina, to raise fifteen hundred men for a new expedition against the Cherokees; the state authorities had exerted themselves to restore peace; and shortly after the June 16. meeting of the new Congress, a truce had been arranged, by which it was stipulated that a treaty should be held as soon as possible, all hostilities in the mean while to cease. Taking advantage of this truce, the Cherokees. had hastened to send a delegation to New York, under the guidance of a friendly trader, to appeal to "their elder brother General Washington and the great council of the United States," to secure them in their rights under the treaty of Hopewell. But, as North Carolina had not yet acceded to the new Constitution, the Senate declined to recommend any immediate movement beyond a message to the Cherokees, promising full justice as soon as the obstacle growing out of the present position of North Carolina should be removed.

An Indian war, originating in similar causes, had also sprung up in Georgia; but the Creeks had been more fortunate than their northern neighbors. The Creek warriors, estimated at between four and five thousand, were mostly well armed with good rifles, and amply furnished with ammunition. In this respect, through the aid of the Spaniards in Florida, they had greatly the

II.

advantage of the Cherokees, whose fire-arms were poor CHAPTER and few, and their supply of powder limited and precarious. The upper Creeks dwelt principally on the upper 1789. waters of the Alabama; the lower Creeks on the Appalachicola and its two branches, the Chattahoochee and the Flint. The Seminoles, a branch of the lower Creeks, extended into Florida. The towns, or sub-tribes of the Creeks, including both divisions of the nation, were about eighty in number, but very different in population and importance, a few, called "mother towns," having the principal direction of affairs. The Creeks had the great advantage of an able and accomplished head chief in Alexander M'Gillivray, the son of a Creek woman of the family of the principal chiefs, by a Scotchman who, as a means of increasing his influence, had intermarried with her, according to a common practice among the Indian traders. Having been put to school at Charleston, where he learned Latin and acquired a tolerable education, the young M'Gillivray, at the age of seventeen, had been placed by his father in a counting-house. But, though not without capacity for mercantile affairs, he still devoted most of his time to reading and study. His father, who had large possessions in Georgia, adhering in the Revolution to the British side, had been banished, and his property confiscated; circumstances not likely to bias the son in favor of the Georgians. Taking refuge among the Creeks, the young M'Gillivray, as well by reason of his superior talents and knowledge as by his claims of birth, transmitted, according to the Indian custom, in the line of the mother, had risen to be the head chief, or, in the phraseology of the Creeks, "the beloved man" of the nation.

Shortly after the peace with Great Britain, the Georgians had, as they alleged, concluded a treaty at Augusta