University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER V

IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION

WITH commendable energy and expedition
Dinwiddie and Dobbs, acting in
concert, initiated steps for keeping the engagements
conjointly made by the two colonies
with the Cherokees and the Catawbas in the
spring and summer of 1756. Enlisting sixty
men, "most of them Artificers, with Tools and
Provisions," Major Andrew Lewis proceeded
in the late spring to Echota in the Cherokee
country. Here during the hot summer
months they erected the Virginia Fort on the
path from Virginia, upon the northern bank

of the Little Tennessee, nearly opposite the
Indian town of Echota and about twenty-five
miles southwest of Knoxville.[1] While the
fort was in process of construction, the Cherokees
were incessantly tampered with by emissaries
from the Nuntewees and the Savannahs
in the French interest, and from the French
themselves at the Alibamu Fort. So effective
were these machinations, supported by extravagant
promises and doubtless rich bribes, that
the Cherokees soon were outspokenly expressing
their desire for a French fort at Great
Tellico.

Dinwiddie welcomed the departure from
America of Governor Glen of South Carolina,
who in his opinion had always acted contrary
to the king's interest. From the new
governor, William Henry Lyttelton, who arrived
in Charleston on June 1, 1756, he hoped
to secure effective coöperation in dealing with
the Cherokees and the Catawbas. This hope
was based upon Lyttelton's recognition, as
stated in Dinwiddie's words, of the "Necessity
of strict Union between the whole Colonies,

with't any of them considering their particular
Interest separate from the general Good of
the whole." After constructing the fort
"with't the least assistance from South Carolina,"
Major Lewis happened by accident
upon a grand council being held in Echota in
September. At that time he discovered to his
great alarm that the machinations of the
French had already produced the greatest
imaginable change in the sentiment of the
Cherokees. Captain Raymond Demere of the
Provincials, with two hundred English troops,
had arrived to garrison the fort; but the head
men of all the Upper Towns were secretly influenced
to agree to write a letter to Captain
Demere, ordering him to return immediately
to Charleston with all the troops under his
command. At the grand council, Atta-kulla-kulla,
the great Cherokee chieftain, passionately
declared to the head men, who listened
approvingly, that "as to the few soldiers of
Captain Demere that was there, he would take
their Guns, and give them to his young men
to hunt with and as to their clothes they would
soon be worn out and their skins would be
tanned, and be of the same colour as theirs,
and that they should live among them as
slaves." With impressive dignity Major
Lewis rose and earnestly pleaded for the observance
of the terms of the treaty solemnly
negotiated the preceding March. In response,
the crafty and treacherous chieftains
desired Lewis to tell the Governor of Virginia
that "they had taken up the Hatchet against
all Nations that were Enemies to the English";
but Lewis, an astute student of Indian psychology,
rightly surmised that all their glib
professions of friendship and assistance were
"only to put a gloss on their knavery."[2] So
it proved; for instead of the four hundred
warriors promised under the treaty for service
in Virginia, the Cherokees sent only seven warriors,
accompanied by three women. Although
the Cherokees petitioned Virginia for
a number of men to garrison the Virginia fort,
Dinwiddie postponed sending the fifty men
provided for by the Virginia Assembly until
he could reassure himself in regard to the
"Behaviour and Intention" of the treacherous
Indian allies. This proved to be a prudent
decision; for not long after its erection the
Virginia fort was destroyed by the Indians.

Whether on account of the dissatisfaction
expressed by the Cherokees over the erection
of the Virginia fort or because of a recognition
of the mistaken policy of garrisoning a work
erected by Virginia with troops sent from
Charleston, South Carolina immediately proceeded
to build another stronghold on the
southern bank of the Tennessee at the mouth
of Tellico River, some seven miles from the
site of the Virginia fort; and here were posted
twelve great guns, brought thither at immense
labor through the wilderness.[3] To this fort,
named Fort Loudoun in honor of Lord Loudoun,
then commander-in-chief of all the English
forces in America, the Indians allured artisans
by donations of land; and during the next
three or four years a little settlement sprang
up there.

The frontiers of Virginia suffered most from
the incursions of hostile Indians during the

fourteen months following May 1, 1755. In
July, the Rev. Hugh McAden records that he
preached in Virginia on a day set apart for
fasting and prayer "on account of the wars
and many murders, committed by the savage
Indians on the back inhabitants." On July
30th a large party of Shawano Indians fell
upon the New River settlement and wiped it
out of existence. William Ingles was absent
at the time of the raid; and Mrs. Ingles, who
was captured, afterward effected her escape.[4]
The following summer (June 25, 1756), Fort
Vaux on the headwaters of the Roanoke, under
the command of Captain John Smith, was captured
by about one hundred French and Indians,
who burnt the fort, killed John Smith
junior, John Robinson, John Tracey and John
Ingles, wounded four men, and captured twenty-two
men, women, and children. Among
the captured was the famous Mrs. Mary
Ingles, whose husband, John Ingles, was
killed; but after being "carried away into
Captivity, amongst whom she was barbarously
treated," according to her own statement, she
finally escaped and returned to Virginia.[5]
The frontier continued to be infested by
marauding bands of French and Indians; and
Dinwiddie gloomily confessed to Dobbs (July
22d): "I apprehend that we shall always be
harrass'd with fly'g Parties of these Banditti
unless we form an Expedit'n ag'st them, to
attack 'em in y'r Towns."[6] Such an expedition,
known as the Sandy River Expedition,
had been sent out in February to avenge the
massacre of the New River settlers; but the
enterprise engaged in by about four hundred
Virginians and Cherokees under Major Andrew
Lewis and Captain Richard Pearis,
proved a disastrous failure. Not a single Indian
was seen; and the party suffered extraordinary
hardships and narrowly escaped starvation.[7]

In conformity with his treaty obligations
with the Catawbas, Governor Dobbs commissioned
Captain Hugh Waddell to erect the
fort promised the Catawbas at the spot chosen
by the commissioners near the mouth of the
South Fork of the Catawba River. This fort,

for which four thousand pounds had been appropriated,
was for the most part completed
by midsummer, 1757. But owing, it appears,
both to the machinations of the French and to
the intermeddling of the South Carolina
traders, who desired to retain the trade of the
Catawbas for that province, Oroloswa, the Catawba
King Heygler, sent a "talk" to Governor
Lyttelton, requesting that North Carolina
desist from the work of construction and
that no fort be built except by South Carolina.
Accordingly, Governor Dobbs ordered Captain
Waddell to discharge the workmen (August
11, 1757)[8]; and every effort was made for
many months thereafter to conciliate the Catawbas,
erstwhile friends of North Carolina.
The Catawba fort erected by North Carolina
was never fully completed; and several years
later South Carolina, having succeeded in
alienating the Catawbas from North Carolina,
which colony had given them the best possible
treatment, built for them a fort[9] at the mouth
of Line Creek on the east bank of the Catawba
River.

In the spring and summer of 1757 the long-expected
Indian allies arrived in Virginia, as
many as four hundred by May—Cherokees,
Catawbas, Tuscaroras, and Nottaways. But
Dinwiddie was wholly unable to use them effectively;
and in order to provide amusement
for them, he directed that they should go "a
scalping" with the whites—"a barbarous
method of war," frankly acknowledged the
governor, "introduced by the French, which we
are oblidged to follow in our own defense."
Most of the Indian allies discontentedly returned
home before the end of the year, but
the remainder waited until the next year, to
take part in the campaign against Fort Duquesne.
Three North Carolina companies,
composed of trained soldiers and hardy frontiersmen,
went through this campaign under
the command of Major Hugh Waddell, the
"Washington of North Carolina." Long of
limb and broad of chest, powerful, lithe, and
active, Waddell was an ideal leader for this
arduous service, being fertile in expedient and
skilful in the employment of Indian tactics.

With true provincial pride Governor Dobbs
records that Waddell "had great honor done
him, being employed in all reconnoitring parties,
and dressed and acted as an Indian; and
his sergeant, Rogers, took the only Indian prisoner,
who gave Mr. Forbes certain intelligence
of the forces in Fort Duquesne, upon which
they resolved to proceed." This apparently
trivial incident is remarkable, in that it proved
to be the decisive factor in a campaign that
was about to be abandoned. The information
in regard to the state of the garrison at Fort
Duquesne, secured from the Indian, for the
capture of whom two leading officers had offered
a reward of two hundred and fifty
pounds, emboldened Forbes to advance rather
than to retire. Upon reaching the fort (November
25th), he found it abandoned by the
enemy. Sergeant Rogers never received the
reward promised by General Forbes and the
other English officer; but some time afterward
he was compensated by a modest sum from
the colony of North Carolina.[10]

A series of unfortunate occurrences, chiefly

the fault of the whites, soon resulted in the
precipitation of a terrible Indian outbreak. A
party of Cherokees, returning home in May,
1758, seized some stray horses on the frontier
of Virginia—never dreaming of any wrong,
says an old historian, as they saw it frequently
done by the whites. The owners of the horses,
hastily forming a party, went in pursuit of
the Indians and killed twelve or fourteen of
the number. The relatives of the slain Indians,
greatly incensed, vowed vengeance upon
the whites.[11] Nor was the tactless conduct of
Forbes calculated to quiet this resentment; for
when Atta-kulla-kulla and nine other chieftains
deserted in disgust at the treatment accorded
them, they were pursued by Forbes's orders,
apprehended and disarmed.[12] This rude treatment,
coupled with the brutal and wanton murder
of some Cherokee hunters a little earlier,
by an irresponsible band of Virginians under
Captain Robert Wade, still further aggravated
the Indians.[13]

Incited by the French, who had fled to the
southward after the fall of Fort Duquesne,

parties of bloodthirsty young Indians rushed
down upon the settlements and left in their
path death and desolation along the frontiers
of the Carolinas.[14] On the upper branch of
the Yadkin and below the South Yadkin near
Fort Dobbs twenty-two whites fell in swift
succession before the secret onslaughts of the
savages from the lower Cherokee towns.[15]
Many of the settlers along the Yadkin fled to
the Carolina Fort at Bethabara and the stockade
at the mill; and the sheriff of Rowan
County suffered siege by the Cherokees, in his
home, until rescued by a detachment under
Brother Loesch from Bethabara. While
many families took refuge in Fort Dobbs,
frontiersmen under Captain Morgan Bryan
ranged through the mountains to the west of
Salisbury and guarded the settlements from
the hostile incursions of the savages. So
gravely alarmed were the Rowan settlers, compelled
by the Indians to desert their planting
and crops, that Colonel Harris was despatched
post-haste for aid to Cape Fear, arriving
there on July 1st. With strenuous energy
Captain Waddell, then stationed in the east,
rushed two companies of thirty men each to
the rescue, sending by water-carriage six
swivel guns and ammunition on before him;
and these reinforcements brought relief at last
to the harassed Rowan frontiers.[16] During
the remainder of the year, the borders were
kept clear by bold and tireless rangers—under
the leadership of expert Indian fighters of the
stamp of Griffith Rutherford and Morgan
Bryan.

When the Cherokee warriors who had
wrought havoc along the North Carolina border
in April arrived at their town of Settiquo,
they proudly displayed the twenty-two scalps
of the slain Rowan settlers. Upon the demand
for these scalps by Captain Demere at
Fort Loudon and under direction of Atta-kulla-kulla,
the Settiquo warriors surrendered
eleven of the scalps to Captain Demere who,
according to custom in time of peace, buried
them. New murders on Pacolet and along
the Virginia Path, which occurred shortly
afterward, caused gloomy forebodings; and it

was plain, says a contemporary gazette, that
"the lower Cherokees were not satisfied with
the murder of the Rowan settlers, but intended
further mischief."[17] On October 1st and
again on October 31st, Governor Dobbs received
urgent requests from Governor Lyttelton,
asking that the North Carolina provincials
and militia coöperate to bring him assistance.
Although there was no law requiring
the troops to march out of the province and
the exposed frontiers of North Carolina sorely
needed protection, Waddell, now commissioned
colonel, assembled a force of five small
companies and marched to the aid of Governor
Lyttelton. But early in January, 1760, while
on the march, Waddell received a letter from
Lyttelton, informing him that the assistance
was not needed and that a treaty of peace had
been negotiated with the Cherokees.[18]