Blood in the Hills: A History of Violence in Appalachia

Chapter 3: "Our Mad Young Men"

Attakullakulla was one of the most influential Cherokee headmen in 1761. Customarily referred to as Little Carpenter by the English, Attakullakulla had long been a proponent of the Anglo-Cherokee alliance. His diplomatic and trading connections to Charleston and Williamsburg usually served him and his people well, but March 1761 was an especially tense period for Anglo-Cherokee relations. The Seven Years’ War had strained the alliance to the breaking point as an unfortunate series of events resulted in war between the Cherokees and their English neighbors. As the British readied an army to invade Cherokee country for the second time in less than a year, Attakullakulla and other village leaders intensified their peace efforts. Attempting to divert blame from themselves, their villages, and the nation as a whole, these leaders reverted to an age-old argument: the war had commenced and continued because of the rash actions of their young warriors. Lieutenant Governor William Bull of South Carolina remained unconvinced . “They say the mad Young Men who did not know the Consequence begun the War,” Bull wrote to Attakullakulla, but if village headmen could not restrain their warriors, “How shall I know that they can hinder them from continuing or beginning it again? If they cannot be hindered, it looks to me, as if these mad Young Men ruled their Nation, and made Peace and War, and not the old Head Men.”1 More than thirty years later, and following nearly two decades of endemic warfare with the Americans, a new generation of Cherokee leaders attempted to ease relations using similar arguments. In October 1794, the well-known leader Doublehead returned home after treating with U.S. officials in Philadelphia. Directing his talk to Governor William Blount of “Our Mad Young Men” Chapter 3 Authority and Violence in Cherokee Country 80 Tyler Boulware “Our Mad Young Men” 81 the Southwest Territory, Doublehead hoped the recently affirmed peace would last, noting “the old head-men strove a long time” to conclude it. Yet Doublehead also recognized that the activities of young Cherokee men threatened the fragile peace. Some of “our mad young men” might steal horses from American settlers, he forewarned Blount, but “you must not get in a passion for that with us, but wait till the horse or horses shall be returned to you again.” In a frontier milieu where horse theft generated as much hostility among the Americans as scalping raids, Doublehead rightly worried the young Cherokees’ forays would undermine both the leadership of village headmen and the recent treaty.2 What should we make of these generational tensions within Cherokee society, and what do they tell us about violence in Appalachia? Answering the first part of that question is not as straightforward as it may seem. On the one hand, revenge killings and horse stealing largely carried out by younger men generated great concern among village leaders, since such behavior destabilized relations with their Anglo-American neighbors. The repercussions of trade embargos and border warfare for village security prompted many leaders not only to publicly distance themselves from young warriors but also to intensify their efforts to rein in the martial activities of their “mad young men.” They did so first by utilizing social control mechanisms within the family, clan, and village and later by supporting new legal and political institutions, such as a mounted police force and laws designed to restrict clan revenge. Headmen also blamed delinquent acts on warriors from neighboring villages to safeguard their own towns and leadership. When such efforts failed, headmen lamented their inability to control even the young men of their own villages, thereby providing a convenient outlet for rising border tensions with Anglo-Americans. On the other hand, the generational discord that figures so prominently in the historical record should not always be taken at face value. While young warriors did in fact complicate the headmen’s ability to maintain order and stability, they also served as a powerful diplomatic weapon for village leaders who strategically employed arguments of unruly, mad, and roguish young men to counter challenges to Cherokee sovereignty and lands. Threats of unleashing the young warriors allowed Cherokee leaders the ability to flex their diplomatic muscle while at the same time disclaiming responsibility for these actions. It could prove beneficial, in other words, to have members of the community who were ostensibly beyond authority. The generational divide—both rhetorical and real—held important 82...