By BARBARA R. DUNCAN
(Note: The Cherokee syllabary in the column title translates as: Aniyvwiya Degohusdi Dunadvnele’i Didanohesgo’I, “We are telling some things Cherokees did.”)
Founding fathers plan genocide and removal for the Cherokees. Two nations fight against each other – both seeking freedom. Cherokees go to war. Family betrays family. It’s July 1776 in the Cherokee homeland.
On July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson read aloud to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia:
…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…
However, in listing Americans’ grievances against King George III, Jefferson continues:
[The King] has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages…
On July 5, 1776, General Griffith Rutherford wrote to the North Carolina Council of Safety. He suggested that Carolina and Virginia coordinate efforts against the Cherokees, saying that there would be “no Doubt of a Finel [final] Destruction of the Cherroce Nation.”
Several of the council agreed, saying, if they were not Christians, their aim should be “…to extinguish the very race of them and scarce to leave enough of their existence to be a vestige in proof that a Cherokee nation once was,” adding that “would be perhaps no more than the blood of our slaughtered countrymen might call for.”
On July 24, W.H. Drayton wrote to Continental [American] commanders, as they planned to send expeditions from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina to invade Cherokee territory.
And now a word to the wise…It is expected you make smooth work as you go—that is you cut up every Indian town—and that every Indin taken shall be the slave and property of the taker; that the nation be extirpated, and the lands become the property of the public. For my part I shall never give my voice for a peace with the Cherokee Nation upon any other terms than their removal beyond the mountains.
And in Virginia, Jefferson agreed:
I hope the Cherokees will now be driven beyond the Mississippi and that this in the future will be declared to the Indins as the invariable consequences of their beginning a war.
In the meantime, at Chota in the Overhills, the Cherokees also were planning for war. Dragging Canoe made clear that this was not a war against white people.
We consider you to be the same as ourselves… If any of you choose to join the war, I will be glad, but I will not insist on any of you going. Those who do not go, however, will be expected to furnish the warriors with ammnuition and supplies.
The Cherokees held their war council on the night of July 8. Secrecy was crucial to their success. Nanyehi (Nancy Ward) was serving the black drink as part of ceremony. She was one of the Beloved Women of Chota, niece of Attakullakulla and cousin of Dragging Canoe. Immediately after the council she instructed Isaac Thomas, a trader, to carry a message to the Wataugans describing the Cherokee strategy and timing. He arrived at Watauga the morning of July 11th.
At this time, the settlers had not built any fortifications, even though the Cherokees had made it clear that they were there illegally and needed to leave or be forcibly evicted. Cherokee leaders had sent letters through their Indian agent, and the governors of Virginia and North Carolina had also instructed settlers to leave.
On receiving the news from Nanyehi, however, they frantically began building log blockhouses and palisades as places that men could defend and women and children could take refuge. John Sevier wrote immediately, on July 11th, to Virginia to get reinforcements and ammunition. Without these preparations, the Wataugans would not have been able to withstand the Cherokee attacks.
Dragging Canoe and the war leaders had planned a three part attack for July 20, targeting three settlement areas. They didn’t know they had been betrayed.
The Raven of Chota led about two hundred warriors against settlers in Carter’s Valley, the farthest west of the illegal white settlements. Houses, fields, Carter’s store, and several forts had been built in this valley parallel to the Holston River and the Great Warpath. The Raven and his warriors raided far up the valley and into Virginia. They did not have a large military engagement, but destroyed farmsteads and outlying settlements before returning home.
Abram of Chilhowie led about two hundred warriors against the Watauga and Nolichucky settlements. The Cherokees failed to take Fort Lee/Watauga because of Nanyehi’s warning, but besieged it for twenty days. While returning along the Nolichucky, they captured two prisoners and brought them to Chota. There, Nanyehi used her power as Beloved Woman to save Lydia Bean from being burned at the stake, saying she wanted her to teach Cherokee women how to make butter. Bean was later returned to her home, and Nanyehi became known as the Pocahontas of Tennessee.
Dragging Canoe led warriors against Eaton’s Fort at the Long Island of the Holston. This short, bloody engagement became known as the Battle of Island Flats, the first battle of the Revolutionary War in the west. About 170 militia under Captain James Thompson, plus white settlers, decided to leave the fort and meet Dragging Canoe and about 200 or more Cherokees on the flats in front of the fort.
Cherokees were in a wedge formation with Dragging Canoe in the center and crescent lines of warriors along the flanks, a traditional Cherokee tactic.
When the Cherokees emerged from the woods, a number of militiamen, including one of their officers…broke ranks and ran for the safety of the fort. When Dragging Canoe saw the whites running, he was sure of victory. “The Unakas are running,” he cried, “Come and scalp them.”
Some of the whites, though, hid behind trees and fired on the Cherokees who had emerged into the open. Dragging Canoe was shot in the right leg. Little Owl, his brother was shot. Rifle and musket fire turned to hand to hand combat. Battle was over quickly, and the Cherokees withdrew, leaving fourteen dead behind. The white men scalped and mutilated the Cherokees’ bodies. Four whites were killed.
Dragging Canoe immediately split his forces into small parties and raided northwards, far into Virginia. They surprised, ambushed, and defeated enemies before retreating into familiar terrain, where they were impossible to pursue. They took eighteen scalps and much plunder, and returned to Chota victorious.
But the militias were on their way. In late July, Colonel Samuel Jack led about 200 Georgians and burned the Cherokee mother town of Tugaloo. Colonel Andrew Williamson was on his way with a much larger force…
SOURCES
J.P.Brown. Old Frontiers; the Story of the Cherokee Indians from Earliest Times to the State of Their Removal to the West, 1838. (Kingsport, Tennessee: Southern Publishers, 1938) https://archive.org/details/oldfrontiersstor0000brow/mode/2up.
Raymond Evans, “Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Dragging Canoe.” Journal of Cherokee Studies Vol. II No. 1 Winter 1977 pp. 176-189.
W.H. Drayton to Francis Salvador, July 24, 1776, Gibbes, Documentary History II, 29
Thomas Hatley, The Dividing Paths; Cherokees and South Carolinians Through the Era of Revolution. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.)
J.G.M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee. (Charleston: John Russell, 1853.)
Henry Stuart, “Letters August 25, 1776” In North Carolina Colonial Records Volume 10, Pages 763-785.
