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Show 5 4 MYTH8 OF THE CHEROKEE [ ETH. ANW. 19 were negotiated by commissioners from the four states adjoining the Cherokee country, the territory thus acquired being parceled out to South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. 1 While the Cherokee Nation had thus been compelled to a treaty of peace, a very considerable portion of the tribe was irreconcilably hostile to the Americans and refused to be a party to the late cessions, especially on the Tennessee side. Although Ata- kullakulla sent word that he was ready with five hundred young warriors to fight for the Americans against the English or Indian enemy whenever called upon, Dragging- canoe ( Tsiyu- gfinsi'nl), who had led the opposition against the Watauga settlements, declared that he would hold fast to Cameron's talk and continue to make war upon those who had taken his hunting grounds. Under his leadership some hundreds of the most warlike and implacable warriors of the tribe, with their families, drew out from the Upper and Middle towns and moved far down upon Tennessee river, where they established new settlements on Chickamauga creek, in the neighborhood of the present Chattanooga. The locality appears to have been already a rendezvous for a sort of Indian banditti, who sometimes plundered boats disabled in the rapids at this point while descending the river. Under the name " Chickamaugas' 1 they soon became noted for their uncompromising and never- ceasing hostility. In 1782, in consequence of the destruction of their towns by Sevier and Campbell, they abandoned this location and moved farther down the river, where they built what were afterwards known as the " five lbwer towns," viz, Running Water, Nickajack, Long Island, Crow town, and Lookout Mountain town. These were all on the extreme western Cherokee frontier, near where Tennessee river crosses the state line, the first three being within the present limits of Tennessee, while Lookout Mountain town and Crow town were respectively in the adjacent corners of Georgia and Alabama. Their population was recruited from Creeks, Shawano, and white Tories, until they were estimated at a thousand warriors. Here they remained, a constant thorn in the side of Tennessee, until their towns were destroyed in 1794.' The expatriated Lower Cherokee also removed to the farthest west-tern border of their tribal territory, where they might hope to be secure from encroachment for a time at least, and built new towns for themselves on the upper waters of the Coosa. Twenty years after- 1 Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 160 and map, 1888; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 172- 174,1853; 8tevens, Georgia, n, p. 144,1859; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, p. 806,1889. * Ramsey, op, cit., pp. 171- 177, 185- 186, 610 et passim; Royce, op. cit, p. 150; Campbell letter, 1782, and other documents in Virginia State Papers, in, pp. 271, 571, 699, 1883, and iv. pp. 118, 286, 1884; Blount letter, January 14, 1793, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, i, p. 431,1832. Campbell says they abandoned their first location on account of the invasion from Tennessee. Governor Blount says they left on account of witches. |