An arrangement had been made with the Chickasaw, in 1783, by which
they surrendered to the Cumberland settlement their own claim to the
lands from the Cumberland river south to the dividing ridge of Duck
river. [159] It was not, however, until the treaty of Hopewell, two
years later, that the Cherokee surrendered their claim to the same
region, and even then the Chickamauga warriors, with their allies,
the hostile Creeks and Shawano, refused to acknowledge the cession
and continued their attacks, with the avowed purpose of destroying
the new settlements. Until the final running of the boundary line, in
1797, Spain claimed all the territory west of the mountains and south
of Cumberland river, and her agents were accused of stirring up the
Indians against the Americans, even to the extent of offering rewards
for American scalps. [160] One of these raiding parties, which had
killed the brother of Captain Robertson, was tracked to Coldwater, a
small mixed town of Cherokee and Creeks, on the south side of Tennessee
river, about the present Tuscumbia, Alabama. Robertson determined
to destroy it, and taking a force of volunteers, with a couple of
Chickasaw guides, crossed the Tennessee without being discovered and
surprised and burnt the town. The Indians, who numbered less than
fifty men, attempted to escape to the river, but were surrounded
and over twenty of them killed, with a loss of but one man to the
Tennesseeans. In the town were found also several French traders. Three
of these, who refused to surrender, were killed, together with a white
woman who was accidentally shot in one of the boats. The others were
afterward released, their large stock of trading goods having been
taken and sold for the benefit of the troops. The affair took place
about the end of June, 1787. Through this action, and an effort made
by Robertson about the same time to come to an understanding with the
Chickamauga band, there was a temporary cessation of hostile inroads
upon the Cumberland, but long before the end of the year the attacks
were renewed to such an extent that it was found necessary to keep
out a force of rangers with orders to scour the country and kill
every Indian found east of the Chickasaw boundary. [161]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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