Massacre at Cavett's Station: Frontier Tennessee during the Cherokee Wars

Chapter 2. The Advancing Banner of a Greedy Host

Chapter 2 The Advancing Banner of a Greedy Host It was inevitable that the Euro-American settlement of the transAppalachian area after the French and Indian War would result in a prolonged duel to the death between the settlers and the native people of this region . There were circumstances, however, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century that made the conflict especially bloody. After their victory over the French, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which was intended to placate the Indians with what the British Crown considered the “vast Indian reservation” west of the Appalachians (figure 1). This proclamation strictly prohibited all white settlement in this region, formalizing the concept of Indian land titles and prohibiting the settlement on any Indian land unless it was secured by treaty or purchase. This was one of the many grievances of the 13 colonies with the Crown, and most of the land-hungry colonists east of the mountains ignored the provisions of the ordinance. On December 24, 1774, Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of the Virginia colony, wrote to Lord Dartmouth at Williamsburg about these colonists: they do not conceive that the Government has any right to forbid their taking possession of a Vast tract of Country, either uninhabited, or which Serves only as a Shelter to a few Scattered Tribes of Indians. Nor can they be easily brought to entertain any belief of the permanent obligation of Treaties made with those People, whom they consider, as but little removed from the brute Creation (Thwaites and Kellogg 1905:371–372). Since their arrival in North America, the British had a different relationship with the natives than the French or Spanish. The governments of the 6 The Advancing Banner of a Greedy Host latter two nations kept a tight rein on their colonists and enforced strict policies on who could settle and where. In addition, French and Spanish colonization was largely for control of territories for exploitation of raw materials; thus, their policies firmly centered on trading and peaceful relations with the Indians. Colonists from the British Isles, on the other hand, were primarily interested in land for individual ownership, and for the most part, did not have the close relationship with the Indians as the French or Spanish. And although the British government attempted to control the interaction between their colonists and the natives, their regulations were either misunderstood or simply ignored. In 1763, the Cherokee claimed what is now East and Middle Tennessee, and parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia. Adding to this explosive mix, the Creek, Chickasaw, and Shawnee also claimed Figure 1. America’s thirteen colonies and the Proclamation Line of 1763. National Atlas of the United States, United States Department of the Interior, 2002. The Advancing Banner of a Greedy Host 7 parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Alabama. In 1768, John Stuart,2 the British Indian Superintendent of the Southern Department, attempted to alleviate the clash between the flood of settlers and the Cherokee who were mostly concentrated in what is now East Tennessee, northern Georgia, and the mountains of North Carolina by negotiating the Treaty of Hard Labor. According to the treaty, the Cherokee gave up their claims to what is now western Virginia and West Virginia. The same year, English settlers began staking claims on the Watauga River in present-day upper East Tennessee. Although they believed that they were in Virginia, which was theoretically open land for settlement, they were actually in the western territory of the colony of North Carolina since the line between Virginia and North Carolina had not yet been surveyed that far west. This constituted one of the first major violations of the Proclamation of 1763. Also, when the treaty line was finally extended further west in 1771, it was done so to accommodate these settlers on what was actually Cherokee land (Finger 2001:42–43). Although some of these squatters moved off Indian land, many settlers negotiated leases with the Cherokee called the Articles of Friendship. These were ten-year leases on land that the Americans were settling in the Watauga Valley in 1772 (Nance 2004). These fluid treaty lines and leases with the Cherokee naturally caused consternation for the Indians since the flood of settlers often overstepped the boundaries outlined in these agreements. In March 1775 at the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, Cherokee chiefs Little Carpenter (Attakullakulla) and The Raven (Savanucha or...