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Show irooNET] TREATY OF LONG ISLAND 1781 59 determined to make a sudden stroke upon them, and early in March of the same year, 1781, with 150 picked horsemen, he started to cross the Great Smoky mountains over trails never before attempted by white men, and so rough in places that it was hardly possible to lead horses. Falling unexpectedly upon Tuckasegee, near the present Webster, North Carolina, he took the town completely by surprise, killing several warriors and capturing a number of women and children. Two other principal towns and three smaller settlements were taken in the same way, with a quantity of provision and about 200 horses, the Indians being entirely off their guard and unprepared to make any effective resistance. Having spread destruction through the middle towns, with the loss to himself of only one man killed and another wounded, he was off again as suddenly as he had come, moving so rapidty that he was well on his homeward way before the Cherokee could gather for pursuit. 1 At the same time a smaller Tennessee expedition went out to disperse the Indians who had been making headquarters in the mountains about Cumberland gap and harassing travelers along the road to Kentucky. 2 Numerous indications of Indians were found, but none were met, although the country was scoured for a considerable distance. 8 In summer the Cherokee made another incursion, this time upon the new settlements on the French Broad, near the present Newport, Tennessee. With a hundred horsemen Sevier fell suddenly upon their camp on Indian creek, killed a dozen warriors, and scattered the rest. 4 By these successive blows the Cherokee were so worn out and dispirited that they were forced to sue for peace, and in midsummer of 1781 a treaty of peace- doubtful though it might be- was negotiated at the Long island of the Holston. 6 The respite came just in time to allow the Tennesseeans to send a detachment against Corn-wallis. Although there was truce in Tennessee, there was none in the South. In November of this year the Cherokee made a sudden inroad upon the Georgia settlements, destroying everything in their wa} r. In retaliation a force under General Pickens marched into their country, destroying their towns as far as Valley river. Finding further progress blocked by heavy snows and learning through a prisoner that the Indians, who had retired before him, were collecting to oppose him in the mountains, he withdrew, as he says, " through absolute necessity," having accomplished very little of the result expected. Shortly afterward the Cherokee, together with some Creeks, again invaded Georgia, » Campbell, letter, March 28,1781, In Virginia State Papers, I, p. 602,1875; Martin, letter, March 31,1781, ibid., p. 613; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 268,1853; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, n, pp. 305- 307,1889. * Campbell, letter, March 28,1781, in Virginia State Papers, i, p. 602,1875. * Ramsey, op. cit, p. 269. « Ibid.; Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 307. * Ibid.; Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 267, 268. The latter authority seems to make it 1782, which is evidently a mistake. |
