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Show 56 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [ BTH. ANN. 19 the British commander in Savannah. In this year also a delegation of Cherokee tisited the Ohio towns to offer condolences on the death of the noted Delaware chief, White- eyes. 1 In the early spring of 1780 a large company of emigrants under Colonel John Donelson descended the Holston and the Tennessee to the Ohio, whence they ascended the Cumberland, effected a junction with another party under Captain James Robertson, which had just arrived by a toilsome overland route, and made the first settlement on the present site of Nashville. In passing the Chickamauga towns they had run the gauntlet of the hostile Cherokee, who pursued them for a considerable distance beyond the whirlpool known as the Suck, where the river breaks through the mountain. The family of a man named Stuart being infected with the smallpox, his boat dropped behind, and all on board, twenty- eight in number, were killed or taken by the Indians, their cries being distinctly heard by their friends ahead who were unable to help them. Another boat having run upon the rocks, the three women in it, one of whom had become a mother the night before, threw the cargo into the river, and then, jumping into the water, succeeded in pushing the boat into the current while the husband of one of them kept the Indians at bay with his rifle. The infant was killed in the confusion. Three cowards attempted to escape, without thought of their companions. One was drowned in the river; the other two were captured and carried to Chickamauga, where one was burned and the other was ransomed by a trader. The rest went on their way to found the capital of a new commonwealth. 8 As if in retributive justice, the smallpox broke out in the Chickamauga band in consequence of the capture of Stuart's family, causing the death of a great number. 8 The British having reconquered Georgia and South Carolina and destroyed all resistance in the south, earl} r in 1780 Cornwallis, with his subordinates, Ferguson and the merciless Tarleton, prepared to invade North Carolina and sweep the country northward to Virginia. The Creeks under McGillivray ( 23), and a number of the Cherokee under various local chiefs, together with. the Tories, at once joined his standard. While the Tennessee backwoodsmen were gathered at a barbecue to contest for a shooting prize, a paroled prisoner brought a demand from Ferguson for their submission; with the threat, if they refused, that he would cross the mountains, hang their leaders, kill ever} r man found in arms and burn every settlement. Up to this time the mountain men had confined their effort to holding in check the Indian enemy, but now, with the fate of the Revolution at stake, they felt i Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 327, reprint of 1876. 8Donelson* s Journal, etc., in Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 197- 203,1853; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 324- 340, 1889. » Ibid., II, p. 337. |