In June a boat under command of William Scott, laden with pots,
hardware, and other property, and containing six white men, three
women, four children, and twenty negroes, left Knoxville to descend
Tennessee river to Natchez. As it passed the Chickamauga towns it was
fired upon from Running Water and Long island without damage. The
whites returned the fire, wounding two Indians. A large party of
Cherokee, headed by White-man-killer (Une'ga-dihi'), then started in
pursuit of the boat, which they overtook at Muscle shoals, where they
killed all the white people in it, made prisoners of the negroes, and
plundered the goods. Three Indians were killed and one was wounded in
the action. [189] It is said that the Indian actors in this massacre
fled across the Mississippi into Spanish territory and became the
nucleus of the Cherokee Nation of the West, as will be noted elsewhere.
On June 26, 1794, another treaty, intended to be supplementary to that
of Holston in 1791, was negotiated at Philadelphia, being signed by
the Secretary of War and by thirteen principal men of the Cherokee. An
arrangement was made for the proper marking of the boundary then
established, and the annuity was increased to five thousand dollars,
with a proviso that fifty dollars were to be deducted for every horse
stolen by the Cherokee and not restored within three months. [190]
In July a man named John Ish was shot down while plowing in his field
eighteen miles below Knoxville. By order of Hanging-maw, the friendly
chief of Echota, a party of Cherokee took the trail and captured the
murderer, who proved to be a Creek, whom they brought in to the agent
at Tellico blockhouse, where he was formally tried and hanged. When
asked the usual question he said that his people were at war with
the whites, that he had left home to kill or be killed, that he had
killed the white man and would have escaped but for the Cherokee,
and that there were enough of his nation to avenge his death. A few
days later a party of one hundred Creek warriors crossed Tennessee
river against the settlements. The alarm was given by Hanging-maw, and
fifty-three Cherokee with a few federal troops started in pursuit. On
the 10th of August they came up with the Creeks, killing one and
wounding another, one Cherokee being slightly wounded. The Creeks
retreated and the victors returned to the Cherokee towns, where their
return was announced by the death song and the firing of guns. "The
night was spent in dancing the scalp dance, according to the custom
of warriors after a victory over their enemies, in which the white
and red people heartily joined. The Upper Cherokee had now stepped
too far to go back, and their professions of friendship were now no
longer to be questioned." In the same month there was an engagement
between a detachment of about forty soldiers and a large body of
Creeks near Crab Orchard, in which several of each were killed. [191]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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