University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

At dark, Sanutee, Ishiagaska, Enoree-Mattee, the
prophet, and a few others of the Yemassee chiefs and
leaders, having the same decided hostilities to the
Carolinians, met at the lodge of Ishiagaska, in the
town of Pocota-ligo, and discussed their further preparations

at some length. The insurrection was at
hand. All the neighbouring tribes, without an exception,
had pledged themselves for the common object,
and the greater number of those extending over Georgia
and Florida, were also bound in the same dreadful
contract. The enemies of the settlement, in this conspiracy,
extended from Cape Fear to the mountains of
Apalachy, and the disposable force of the Yemassees,
under this league, amounted to at least six thousand
warriors. These forces were gathering at various points
according to arrangement, and large bodies from sundry
tribes had already made their appearance at Pocota-ligo,
from which it was settled the first blow should be
given. Nor were the Indians, thus assembling, bowmen
merely. The Spanish authorities of St. Augustine,
who were at the bottom of the conspiracy, had
furnished them with a considerable supply of arms,
and the conjecture of Harrison rightly saw in the
boxes transferred by Chorley the seaman to the Yemassees,
those weapons of massacre which the policy
of the Carolinians had withheld. These, however,
were limited to the forest nobility—the several chiefs
bound in the war;—to the commons, a knife or tomahawk
was the assigned, and, perhaps, the more truly
useful present. A musket, at that period, in the hands
of the unpractised savage, was not half so dangerous
as a bow. To these warriors we must add the pirate
Chorley—a desperado in every sense of the word,
a profligate boy, a vicious and outlawed man—daring,
criminal, and only engaging in the present adventure
in the hope of the spoil and plunder which he hoped
from it. In the feeble condition of the infant colony
there was no great risk in his present position. Without
vessels of war of any sort, and only depending
upon the mother country for such assistance, whenever
a French or Spanish invasion took place, while
British aid was in the neighbourhood, the province
was lamentably defenceless. The visit of Chorley, in
reference to this weakness, had been admirably well-timed.
He had waited until the departure of the
Swallow, the English armed packet, which periodically
traversed the ocean with advices from the sovereign
to the subject. He then made his appearance,
secure from that danger, and, indeed, if we may rely
upon the historians of the period, almost secure from
any other; for we are told that in their wild abodes,
the colonists were not always the scrupulous moralists
which another region had made them. They did not
scruple at this or that sort of trade, so long as it was
profitable; and Chorley, the pirate, would have had no
difficulty, as he well knew by experience, so long as
he avoided any overt performance, forcing upon the
public sense a duty, which many of the people were
but too well satisfied when they could avoid. It did
not matter to many among those with whom he pursued
his traffic, whether or not the article which they procured
at so cheap a rate had been bought with blood
and the strong hand. It was enough that the goods
were to be had when wanted, of as fair quality, and
fifty per cent cheaper than those offered in the legitimate
course of trade. To sum up all in little, our
European ancestors were, in many respects, monstrous
great rascals.

Chorley was present at this interview with the insurrectionary
chiefs of Yemassee, and much good counsel
he gave them. The meeting was preparatory, and
here they prepared the grand mouvement, and settled the
disposition of the subordinates. Here they arranged
all those small matters of etiquette beforehand, by which
to avoid little jealousies and disputes among their auxiliaries;
for national pride, or rather the great glory of
the clan, was as desperate a passion with the southern
Indians, as with the yet more breechless highlanders.
Nothing was neglected in this interview which, to the
deliberate mind, seemed necessary to success; and
they were prepared to break up in order to the general
assemblage of the people, to whom the formal and official
announcement was to be given, when Ishiagaska
recalled them to a matter which, to that fierce Indian,
seemed much more important than any. Chorley

looked on the animated glance—the savage grin,—and
though he knew not the signification of the words, he
yet needed no interpreter to convey to him the purport
of his speech.

“The dog must smell the blood, or he tears not the
throat. Ha! shall not the War-Manneyto have a
feast?”

Sanutee looked disquieted but said nothing, while
the eye of Ishiagaska followed his glance and seemed
to search him narrowly. He spoke again, approaching
the “well-beloved:”

“The Yemassee hath gone on the track of the Swift
Foot, and the English has run beside him. They have
taken a name from the pale-face and called him brother.
Brother is a strong word for Yemassee, and he must
taste of his blood, or he will not hunt after the English.
The War-Manneyto would feast upon the heart of a
pale-face, to make strong the young braves of Yemassee.”

“It is good—let the War-Manneyto have the feast
upon the heart of the English!” exclaimed the prophet,
and such seeming the general expression, Sanutee
yielded, though reluctantly. They left the lodge, and
in an hour a small party of young warriors, to whom,
in his wild, prophetic manner, Enoree-Mattee had revealed
the requisitions of the God he served, went forth
to secure an English victim for the dreadful propitiatory
sacrifice they proposed to offer, in the hope of
success, to the Indian Moloch.

This done, the chiefs distributed themselves among
the several bands of the people and their allies, stimulating
by their arguments and eloquence, the fierce
spirit which they now laboured to evoke in storm and
tempest. We leave them to return to Harrison.

The adventure he was now engaged in was sufficiently
perilous. He knew the danger, and also felt
that there were particular responsibilities in his case
which increased it greatly. With this consciousness
came a proportionate degree of caution. He was
shrewd to a proverb among those who knew him—

practised considerably in Indian manœuvre—had been
with them in frequent conflict, and could anticipate
their arts—was resolute as well as daring, and with
much of their circumspection, at the same time, had
learned skilfully to imitate the thousand devices of
stratagem and concealment which make the glory of
the Indian brave. Having given as fair a warning as
was in his power to those of his countrymen most immediately
exposed to the danger, he was less reluctant
to undertake the adventure. But had he been conscious
of the near approach of the time fixed on by the
enemy for the explosion—could he have dreamed that
it was so extensive and so near at hand, his attitude
would have been very different indeed. But this was
the very knowledge for the attainment of which he had
taken his present journey. The information sought
was important in determining upon the degree of effort
necessary to the defence.

It was still early evening, when the canoe of Grayson,
making into a little cove about a mile and a half
below Pocota-ligo, enabled Harrison to land. With a
last warning to remove as quickly as possible, and to
urge as many more as he could to the shelter of the
Block House, he left his companion to return to the
settlement; then plunging into the woods, and carefully
making a sweep out of his direct course, in order to
come in upon the back of the Indian town, so as to
avoid as much as practicable the frequented paths, he
went fearlessly upon his way. For some time, proceeding
with slow and heedful step, he went on without
interruption, yet not without a close scrutiny into every
thing he saw. One thing struck him, however, and
induced unpleasant reflection. He saw that many of
the dwellings which he approached were without fires,
and seemed deserted. The inhabitants were gone—he
met with none; and he felt assured that a popular gathering
was at hand or in progress. For two miles of
his circuit he met with no sign of human beings; and
he had almost come to the conclusion that Pocota-ligo,
which was only a mile or so farther, would be equally

barren, when suddenly a torch flamed across his path,
and with an Indian instinct he sunk back into the
shadow of a tree, and scanned curiously the scene before
him. The torch grew into a blaze in a hollow of
the wood, and around the fire he beheld, in various positions,
some fifteen or twenty warriors, making a small
war encampment. Some lay at length, some “squat,
like a toad,” and all gathered around the friendly blaze
which had just been kindled in time to prevent him
from running headlong into the midst of them. From
the shadow of the tree, which perfectly concealed him,
he could see, by the light around which they clustered,
not only the forms but the features of the warriors;
and he soon made them out to be the remnant of his
old acquaintance, the Coosaws—who, after the dreadful
defeat which they sustained at his hands in the forks
of Tulifinnee, found refuge with the Yemassees, settled
the village of Coosaw-hatchie, and being too small in
number to call for the further hostility of the Carolinians,
were suffered to remain in quiet. But they harboured
a bitter malice towards their conquerors, and the
call to the field against their ancient enemies was the
sweetest boon which could be proffered to their hearts.
With a curious memory which recalled vividly his past
adventure with the same people, he surveyed their
diminutive persons, their small, quick, sparkling eyes,
the dusky, but irritably red features, and the querulous
upward turn of the nose—a most distinguishing feature
with this clan, showing a feverish quarrelsomeness of
disposition, and a want of becoming elevation in purpose.
Harrison knew them well, and his intimacy had
cost them dearly. It was probable, indeed, that the
fifteen or twenty warriors then grouped before him
were all that they could send into the field—all that
had survived, women and children excepted, the severe
chastisement which had annihilated them as a nation.
But what they lacked in number they made up in
valour—a fierce, sanguinary people, whose habits of
restlessness and love of strife were a proverb even
among their savage neighbours, who spoke of a malignant
man—one more so than usual,—as having a
Coosaw's tooth. But a single warrior of this party was
in possession of a musket, a huge, cumbrous weapon,
of which he seemed not a little proud. He was probably
a chief. The rest were armed with bow and
arrow, knife, and, here and there, a hatchet. The huge
club stuck up conspicuously among them, besmeared
with coarse paint, and surmounted with a human scalp,
instructed Harrison sufficiently as to the purpose of
the party. The war-club carried from hand to hand,
and in this way transmitted from tribe to tribe, from
nation to nation, by their swiftest runners, was a mode
of organization not unlike that employed by the Scotch,
for a like object, and of which the muse of Scott has
so eloquently sung. The spy was satisfied with the
few glances which he had given to this little party;
and as he could gather nothing distinctly from their
language, which he heard imperfectly, and as imperfectly
understood, he cautiously left his place of concealment,
and once more darted forward on his journey.
Digressing from his path as circumstances or prudence
required, he pursued his course in a direct line towards
Pocota-ligo; but had not well lost sight of the fire of
the Coosaws, when another blaze appeared in the track
just before him. Pursuing a like caution with that
already given, he approached sufficiently nigh to distinguish
a band of Sewees, something more numerous
than the Coosaws, but still not strong, encamping in
like manner around the painted club, the common ensign
of approaching battle. He knew them by the
number of shells which covered their garments, were
twined in their hair, and formed a peculiar and favourite
ornament to their persons, while at the same time,
declaring their location. They occupied one of the
islands which still bear their name—the only relics
of a nation which had its god and its glories, and believing
in the Manneyto and a happy valley, can have
no complaint that their old dwellings shall know them no
more. The Sewees resembled the Coosaws in their
general expression of face, but in person they were
taller and more symmetrical, though slender. They
did not exceed thirty in number.

The precautions of Harrison were necessarily increased,
as he found himself in such a dangerous
neighbourhood, but still he felt nothing of apprehension.
He was one of those men, singularly constituted,
in whom hope becomes a strong exciting principle,
perpetually stimulating confidence and encouraging adventure
into a forgetfulness of risk and general disregard
to difficulty and opposition. On he went, until
at the very entrance to the village he came upon an
encampment of the Santees, a troop of about fifty
warriors. These he knew by their greater size and
muscle, being generally six feet or more in height, of
broad shoulders, full, robust front, and forming not less
in their countenances, which were clear, open and intelligent,
than in their persons, a singular and marked contrast
to the Sewees and Coosaws. They carried, along
with the bow, another—and in their hands a more formidable
weapon—a huge mace, four or five feet in
length, of the heaviest wood, swelling into a huge
lump at the remote extremity, and hanging by a thong
of skin or sinews around their necks. A glance was
enough to show their probable number, and desiring no
more, Harrison sunk away from further survey, and
carefully avoiding the town, on the skirts of which he
stood, he followed in the direction to which he was
led by a loud uproar and confused clamour coming from
it. This was the place of general encampment, a little
above the village, immediately upon the edge of the
swamp from which the river wells, being the sacred
ground of Yemassee, consecrated to their several
Manneytos of war, peace, punishment, and general
power—which contained the great tumulus of Pocota-ligo,
consecrated by a thousand awful sacrifices, for a
thousand years preceding, and already known to us as
the spot where Occonestoga, saved from perdition, met
his death from the hands of his mother.