By W. Jeffrey Bishop
For decades the area
now known as Vann’s Valley, Georgia was a porous frontier and a nexus of
violent conflict. Within the memory of a single generation, the 11-mile valley
passed from the Creek Indians to the Cherokees, and then to the mostly white
people of the state of Georgia. At times title to border regions like Vann's
Valley was settled by oral agreement, a ball game, or a promise, but just as
often the land was cleansed by fire and gunshot. During the first half-century
of the early American Republic, from the 1780s right up until the Cherokee
Removal in 1838, this border territory was in a violent state of flux. Its
waves of Creek, Cherokee, and white residents lived at times in close
proximity, keenly feeling the pressures of war and migration amid intermittent
eruptions of ethnic, cultural, and economic conflict.
Early Conflict:
The King Site
This area of what is now southwest Floyd County, Georgia -- from the head of the Coosa River west to what is now the Alabama state line, and south of the Coosa in the large valley of one of its tributaries, Cedar Creek -- was marked by conflict from prehistoric times. A major archaeological site, the “King Site,” is located in Foster Bend on the Coosa, right in the heart of Vann’s Valley. The five-acre late Mississippian-era site was defended by a large palisade and trench. “The King site is enclosed by a ditch and palisade defensive perimeter on three of its four sides,” with the fourth side facing the Coosa River, said Dr. David J. Halley, who led excavations at the site in the 1970s and 1980s.(1) A chronicler of Hernando De Soto’s terroristic expedition through the area in 1540 described such defensive palisades as constructed “of thick logs, set solidly close together in the ground, and many long poles as thick as an arm placed crosswise. The height of the enclosure was that of a good lance, and it was plastered within and without and had loopholes.”(2) Spanish soldiers left behind plenty of evidence of their violent incursion into this territory, including a number of iron artifacts and even a complete sword – a “straight two-edged blade (with) a swept hilt,” found by grave looters at the King Site in 1982.(3) But it wasn’t the swords that had the most devastating impact on the native population – instead it was European disease, against which the natives had no immunity. The palisades were of no use against such invaders, and an estimated 95 percent of the native population was wiped out.(4)
This area of what is now southwest Floyd County, Georgia -- from the head of the Coosa River west to what is now the Alabama state line, and south of the Coosa in the large valley of one of its tributaries, Cedar Creek -- was marked by conflict from prehistoric times. A major archaeological site, the “King Site,” is located in Foster Bend on the Coosa, right in the heart of Vann’s Valley. The five-acre late Mississippian-era site was defended by a large palisade and trench. “The King site is enclosed by a ditch and palisade defensive perimeter on three of its four sides,” with the fourth side facing the Coosa River, said Dr. David J. Halley, who led excavations at the site in the 1970s and 1980s.(1) A chronicler of Hernando De Soto’s terroristic expedition through the area in 1540 described such defensive palisades as constructed “of thick logs, set solidly close together in the ground, and many long poles as thick as an arm placed crosswise. The height of the enclosure was that of a good lance, and it was plastered within and without and had loopholes.”(2) Spanish soldiers left behind plenty of evidence of their violent incursion into this territory, including a number of iron artifacts and even a complete sword – a “straight two-edged blade (with) a swept hilt,” found by grave looters at the King Site in 1982.(3) But it wasn’t the swords that had the most devastating impact on the native population – instead it was European disease, against which the natives had no immunity. The palisades were of no use against such invaders, and an estimated 95 percent of the native population was wiped out.(4)
John Sevier: The
First Raid
Over two centuries later, in the fall of 1782, following a long period of depopulation and abandonment in the ravaged area, Col. John Sevier of the Watauga militia made his way from what is now eastern Tennessee to the head of the Coosa River in a raid against British-allied Cherokees. “We … crossed a small range of mountains to the Coosa river, where we found and destroyed several towns, with all their stock, corn & provisions of every kind,” said James Sevier, a son of the colonel and a member of the expedition. “The Indians eluded our march and kept out of our way in the general, although a few men, women and children were surprised and taken.”(5)
Near a village on the Coosa, a white man, allegedly a British agent, was killed, after he was suspected of living with an Indian woman and inciting “warriors of her town to maintain their hostile attitude” toward the Americans.(6) Sevier and the militia “came upon the cabin of Patrick Clements, an Irishman, a British refugee who was living with Nancy Coody; both were captured, and Clements soon after broke and attempted to make his escape.” One of the militia men shot and killed him.(7)
From there Sevier and his men took their campaign along the Coosa River to the west, along the northern edge of Vann’s Valley, to Spring Frog Town. James Sevier again provides the details:
Over two centuries later, in the fall of 1782, following a long period of depopulation and abandonment in the ravaged area, Col. John Sevier of the Watauga militia made his way from what is now eastern Tennessee to the head of the Coosa River in a raid against British-allied Cherokees. “We … crossed a small range of mountains to the Coosa river, where we found and destroyed several towns, with all their stock, corn & provisions of every kind,” said James Sevier, a son of the colonel and a member of the expedition. “The Indians eluded our march and kept out of our way in the general, although a few men, women and children were surprised and taken.”(5)
Near a village on the Coosa, a white man, allegedly a British agent, was killed, after he was suspected of living with an Indian woman and inciting “warriors of her town to maintain their hostile attitude” toward the Americans.(6) Sevier and the militia “came upon the cabin of Patrick Clements, an Irishman, a British refugee who was living with Nancy Coody; both were captured, and Clements soon after broke and attempted to make his escape.” One of the militia men shot and killed him.(7)
From there Sevier and his men took their campaign along the Coosa River to the west, along the northern edge of Vann’s Valley, to Spring Frog Town. James Sevier again provides the details:
…(W)hen at a distance
from the town, a canoe of Indians was observed crossing the river; a party of
men made chase but the Indians got over, abandoned their canoe, and dashed into
a canebrake and were seen no more. An aged squaw had hid herself under the
river bank; (Robert Bean and others of his party) discovered her, but did not
disturb her. One Ralston, an Irishman, came upon and shot her and took her
scalp. The Beans and others tormented Ralston unmercifully, calling out at the
top of their voices, “Who scalped granny?” Several voices in different
directions would reply, “Ralston.” Ralston found no peace the rest of the
campaign, but kept at a distance of a hundred yards from the army.(8)
From Spring Frog
Town, Sevier doubled back to the head of the Coosa River, heading north to the
large population centers of Coosawattee and Ustanauli, “burning and destroying
other towns as he went.” Having reached the southern boundary of the Cherokees,
Sevier crossed the Etowah River at its mouth.(9) This is the precise spot where
the Cherokees would make their last, desperate stand against Sevier just over a
decade later, in what would prove to be their final organized act of military
resistance against the white Americans.
The Battle of
Hightower
In the fall of 1793, John Sevier, by then a general, with about 800 volunteers, again penetrated deep into Cherokee territory – this time on a campaign of retribution against the tribe for the Chickamauga / Creek raid on Cavitt’s Station, near Knoxville, Tennessee. “I marched in pursuit of the large body of Indians,” Sevier reported.(10) These were the last remnants of the Cherokee resistance fighters who famously had been led to the region nearly two decades before by Dragging Canoe. When the old men of Chota agreed to a treaty with the whites in 1775, just prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Dragging Canoe protested that whole Indian nations “had melted away like balls of snow in the sun.” Dragging Canoe said that the Cherokees “had hoped that the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone. They have passed the mountains, and have settled upon Cherokee land.”(11) Dragging Canoe announced that he and his young followers would relocate to the Lookout Mountain area, settling on Creek borderlands, to facilitate raids on white settlements on the Cumberland River and elsewhere along the frontier. The white squatters wished to have their encroachments “sanctioned by treaty,” Dragging Canoe said:
In the fall of 1793, John Sevier, by then a general, with about 800 volunteers, again penetrated deep into Cherokee territory – this time on a campaign of retribution against the tribe for the Chickamauga / Creek raid on Cavitt’s Station, near Knoxville, Tennessee. “I marched in pursuit of the large body of Indians,” Sevier reported.(10) These were the last remnants of the Cherokee resistance fighters who famously had been led to the region nearly two decades before by Dragging Canoe. When the old men of Chota agreed to a treaty with the whites in 1775, just prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Dragging Canoe protested that whole Indian nations “had melted away like balls of snow in the sun.” Dragging Canoe said that the Cherokees “had hoped that the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone. They have passed the mountains, and have settled upon Cherokee land.”(11) Dragging Canoe announced that he and his young followers would relocate to the Lookout Mountain area, settling on Creek borderlands, to facilitate raids on white settlements on the Cumberland River and elsewhere along the frontier. The white squatters wished to have their encroachments “sanctioned by treaty,” Dragging Canoe said:
When that is gained,
the same encroaching spirit will lead them upon other land of the Cherokees.
New cessions will be asked. Finally the whole country, which the Cherokees and
their fathers have so long occupied, will be demanded, and the remnant of
Ani-Yunwiya, ‘The Real People,’ once so great and formidable, will be compelled
to seek refuge in some distant wilderness. There they will be permitted to stay
only a short while, until they again behold the advancing banners of the same
greedy host. Not being able to point out any further retreat for the miserable
Cherokees, the extinction of the whole race will be proclaimed. Should we not
therefore run all risks, and incur all consequences, rather than submit to
further loss of our country? Such treaties may be all right for men who are too
old to hunt or fight. As for me, I have my young warriors about me. We will
have our lands. A-waninski, I have spoken.(12)
In the fall of 1793, after years of guerilla war against the white settlers, Dragging Canoe was long dead, but his followers persisted under the leadership of John Watts, Doublehead and others, many years after the American Revolution had drawn to a close. Sevier and his militiamen were determined to cut out the heart of the resistance, so they marched for the capital town of Ustanauli (just northeast of today’s Calhoun, Georgia) on Oct. 14, and when the Cherokee and Creek warriors “made for a town at the mouth” of the Etowah River, near the modern-day town of Rome, Sevier pursued them, departing Ustanauli on the 16th. “We, after refreshing the troops, marched for that place, taking the path that leads to that town, along which the Creeks had marched, in five large trails,” Sevier said in his report to Gov. William Blount.(13)
On the afternoon of Oct. 17, 1793 Sevier and his militia arrived at what would become the site of the “Battle of Hightower,” the final, bloody military engagement of the Cherokees against the whites. An early Tennessee historian, J. G. M. Ramsey, who had a chance to interview several participants in the battle, said that the target of the expedition was “the Indian town, Etowah,” located “near the confluence” of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers, “immediately below” the head of the Coosa. The Etowah River “had to be crossed before the town could be attacked,” said Ramsey. “Firing was heard in the direction of the town, and apprehending a general attack, Sevier judiciously ordered a halt, and sent forward a detachment from the main body against the town.”(14) What happened next Ramsey characterizes as a fortunate “mistake,” but Sevier implies that it was an intentional battle strategy in his official report. Ramsey said that the Cherokees and Creeks, “having previously obtained information of Sevier’s approach, had made excavations in the bank of the river nearest the town, each of them large enough for one man to lie with his gun poised, and with a leisurely aim to shoot our mean as they came in sight.” Ramsey said that the Indians were thus “safely entrenched.”(15) Sevier reported that he ordered Col. Alexander Kelly to take his regiment and cross the Etowah River, but since the “Creeks, and a number of Cherokees, had intrenched themselves to obstruct the passage,” Col. Kelly and his men went “down the river half a mile below the ford and began to cross at a private place, where there was no ford.”(16) What might be construed as a strategic lure to get the Indians away from their entrenched positions Ramsey explains was a simple mistake, when the guides led Kelly’s men “to a ferry half a mile below the fording place, and immediately opposite the town” and soon found themselves forced to swim:(17)
A few of the foremost
plunged into the stream and were soon in swimming water, and pushing their way
to the opposite bank. The main body, however, discovering the mistake, wheeled
to the left and rode rapidly up the river to the ford…(18)
Sevier reported that the “Indians, discovering this movement, immediately left their intrenchments and ran down the river to oppose their passage, expecting, as I suppose, the whole intended crossing at the lower place.”(19)
“(P)erceiving the movement of horsemen down the river, and suspecting some other project was devised against their town, they quitted, precipitously, their places of ambush, crossed the river, and hurried down to the other side to defend it,” said Ramsey.(20) Meanwhile, Sevier said his mounted infantry “strained their horses back to the upper ford,”(21) now defenseless, where Ramsey said “they crossed with the design of riding down to the town, and attacking it without delay.”(22) Sevier’s troops now had the advantage:
A fortunate mistake
of the pilots, thus drew this formidable party out of its entrenchments,
exposed it in the open field, and left to the invaders a safe passage through
that bank of the river so recently lined with men. But for this mistake, the
horsemen could not have escaped a most deadly fire, and, in all probability, a
summary defeat. But the method of fighting was now entirely changed.(23)
The Cherokee warrior Walkingstick gave a somewhat different account of this episode in testimony given many years later, on Dec. 21, 1829. A group of Cherokees met the whites on the Etowah River about one mile above the mouth of the Oostanaula River, Walkingstick said. A “party of the Cherokees met the General and fought him, and he then turned backward again and recrossed” the Etowah. Walkingstick was among a group of 100 reinforcements who “were too late” arriving.(24)
Sevier’s men made quick work of the scattered Creek and Cherokee forces. “Very few had got to the south bank before the Indians, who had discovered their mistake, returned and received them furiously at the rising of the bank. An engagement instantly took place and became very warm, and notwithstanding the enemy were at least four to one in numbers, besides the advantage of situation, Capt. Evans with his heroic company put them in a short time utterly to flight.”(25)
Sevier’s men, finding their targets now “hemmed in between the assailants and the river,” Ramsey said, dismounted their horses at the Etowah ford and positioned themselves behind trees along the bank. The whites then “poured in a deadly fire upon the enemy”:(26)
They resisted
bravely, under the lead of the King Fisher, one of their most distinguished
Braves. He made a daring sally within a few yards of where one of the party,
Hugh L. White, was standing, and the action was becoming sharp and spirited,
when White and a few comrades near him, leveling their rifles, this formidable
champion fell, and his warriors immediately fled. Three brave men lost their
lives in this engagement. Pruett and Weir died on the spot – Wallace, the next
day.(27)
The Indians “left several dead on the ground,” Sevier said, but carried others away “both on foot and on horse”:(28)
Bark and trails of
blood from the wounded were to be seen in every quarter. The encampment fell
into our hands, with a number of their guns, many of which were of the Spanish
sort, with budgets, blankets and match coats, together with some horses. We
lost three men in this engagement, which is all that have fell during the time
of our route, although this last attack was the fourth the enemy had made upon
us, but in the others repulsed without loss.(29)
“After the last engagement we crossed the main Coosa,” Sevier said,(30) and they burned the town of Etowah and camped nearby, where they suffered a small nighttime attack, but suffered only one injury and no deaths, according to Ramsey.(31) Then Sevier’s militia traveled west, along the northern edge of what would one day be known as Vann’s Valley and Beaver Dam, “down the main river near the Turnip Mountain, destroying in our way several Creek and Cherokee towns, which they had settled together on each side of the river, and from which they have all fled with apparent precipitation, leaving almost everything behind them. Neither did they after the last engagement attempt to annoy or interrupt us on our march, in any manner whatever. I have got reason to believe their ardor and spirit was well checked.” Sevier said that the Cherokees under John Watts had been thoroughly “flogged” at the Battle of Hightower – but they still had not been humiliated quite enough. “We took and destroyed nearly 300 beeves, many of which were of the best and largest kind,” Sevier said. “Of course their losing so much provision must distress them very much.”(32)
While Sevier reported that “Many women and children might have been taken, but from motives of humanity I did not encourage it to be done, and several taken were suffered to make their escape,”(33) a separate account reported that a Cherokee captive and her child were brutally murdered for merely standing too close to a wounded militia officer. When the officer grumbled, “Take her out of my sight,” a member of the militia killed her, then grabbed the child by the legs and dashed out its brains.(34)
“Your murders and savage Barbarities have caused me to come into your Country Expecting you would fight like men, but you are like the Bairs and Wolves,” Sevier contemptuously wrote in his diary on Oct. 19, 1793, as his company camped “4 miles below the forks of Coosa & Hightower,” on the northern edge of Vann’s Valley:(35)
The face of a white
man makes you run fast into the woods and hide, u see what we have done and it
is nothing to what we shall do in a short time. I pity your women &
children for I am sure they must suffer and live like dogs but you are the
Cause of it. You will make War, & then is afraid to fight, — our people
whiped yours mightily two nights ago Crossing the river and made your people
run very fast….To the Cherokees and their warriors if they Have Any.(36)
Creeks and Cherokees
Sevier noted that Cherokees and Creeks were living in close proximity, on either side of the Coosa River, during his incursion in the fall of 1793, but the Creeks were pushed steadily southward at the turn of the 19th century as more and more Cherokees flooded into the area due to white settlement in their traditional homelands to the immediate northeast. Accounts differ as to what constituted the boundary between the two tribes. Prior to the American Revolution, the “Creeks owned all the land up to the head of Coosa River, and all the waters of the Coosa,” which would have placed the border at what is now Rome, Georgia, just above what is now Cave Spring, according to D.B. Mitchell in testimony provided in 1829.(37) “I have always understood among the Cherokees that they owned the country on both sides of the Coosa River as low as the Ten Islands,” testified Thomas Petit of Two Runs village.(38) Rain Crow gave his testimony to General John Coffee in 1829:
After the close of
the Revolutionary War his father, for fear of the whites, fled from Seniker
across the Hightower River. At that time he was a small boy and did not travel
much but only heard of Creeks south of the Hightower River. When he was grown
he found a Cherokee village at Hickory Log on the north side of the river but knew
of none on the south side until a meeting of the Creek and Cherokee warriors
for going to war against the whites in Tennessee that he attended. Before the
Cherokees left, the Creeks agreed that should the whites drive the Cherokees
from their towns, they might go and settle on the south side of the Hightower,
where they would be out of reach. The Creeks never gave them the land, only
allowed them to live there on these conditions.(39)
By 1799, U.S. Indian
Agent Benjamin Hawkins noted that Creeks living in “Au-che-nau-ul-gau; from
Au-che-nau, cedar; and ul-gau, all; a cedar grove,” were “the farthest north of
all the Creeks.” This was likely at or near what is now known as Cedartown,
Georgia, just south of Vann’s Valley, in Polk County.(40) In the decades leading
up to the turn of the 19th century, battles over the contested border lands
were fought between the tribes near what is now Ball Ground, Georgia (possibly
a corruption of “battleground,” the site of the battle of Taliwa) and also
supposedly at Blood Mountain and Slaughter Gap – bloody episodes which were
said to have lent these areas their names. There are also reports of informal
agreements between the two tribes that allowed the Cherokees to occupy what had
formerly been recognized as Creek territory, and some even told of a ball game
that supposedly settled the matter of ownership. “General William McIntosh,
some short time previous to the treaty of 1825, held at Indian Springs,
informed me that there was a strip of country about thirty miles in width then
in possession of the Cherokee Nation,” Hugh W. Ector testified in 1829. “He
stated it had been in dispute some years and was compromised by a ball play in
favor of said Cherokee Nation of Indians.”(41)
Tecumseh
The Creeks and Cherokees remained at relative peace with one another until Tecumseh visited the tribes at Tuckabatchee in October of 1811, seeking to unify the Native American people against the whites just as the nation was poised to go to war with Great Britain. His sentiments seemed to echo those voiced by Dragging Canoe decades before. “Accursed be the race that has seized on our country and made women of our warriors,” Tecumseh said:
The Creeks and Cherokees remained at relative peace with one another until Tecumseh visited the tribes at Tuckabatchee in October of 1811, seeking to unify the Native American people against the whites just as the nation was poised to go to war with Great Britain. His sentiments seemed to echo those voiced by Dragging Canoe decades before. “Accursed be the race that has seized on our country and made women of our warriors,” Tecumseh said:
Our fathers, from
their tombs, reproach us as slaves and cowards. I hear them now in the wailing
winds. Muscogee was once a mighty people. The Georgians trembled at your
war-whoop, and the maidens of my tribe, on the distant lakes, sung the prowess
of your warriors and sighed for their embraces. Now your very blood is white;
your tomahawks have no edge; your bows and arrows were buried with your fathers
…
They seize your land; they corrupt your women; they trample on the ashes of your dead! Back, whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven. Back! back, ay, into the great water whose accursed waves brought them to our shores! Burn their dwellings! Destroy their stock! Slay their wives and children! The Red Man owns the country, and the Pale-faces must never enjoy it. War now! War forever! War upon the living! War upon the dead! Dig their very corpses from the grave. Our country must give no rest to a white man's bones.(42)
They seize your land; they corrupt your women; they trample on the ashes of your dead! Back, whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven. Back! back, ay, into the great water whose accursed waves brought them to our shores! Burn their dwellings! Destroy their stock! Slay their wives and children! The Red Man owns the country, and the Pale-faces must never enjoy it. War now! War forever! War upon the living! War upon the dead! Dig their very corpses from the grave. Our country must give no rest to a white man's bones.(42)
Although a number of young Creeks were sympathetic to these pleas, the Cherokees had long since tired of fighting losing battles against the whites; their leaders had high hopes that their new strategy of acculturation would demonstrate that they were now a thoroughly “civilized” nation, worthy of maintaining the land still within its borders. The Cherokee leadership began to stress the importance of adopting a written constitution, of establishing an elected government and courts of law, of abolishing the old traditions of “blood law” and clan revenge and establishing a mounted police force, and of encouraging missionaries to settle in the nation to establish schools so that Cherokee children could learn to read and write English.
'The Houses Shook
and Everything In Them Moved'
But sympathizers of Tecumseh became more vocal and emboldened following a series of earthquakes that rocked Cherokee territory in December, 1811 and early 1812. The quakes bewildered and terrified many Indians, the Moravian missionaries at Spring Place (near modern-day Chatsworth, Georgia) reported, and were they were interpreted by some as dreadful portents. On Dec. 16, 1811, missionary Anna Gambold wrote in her journal, “Early in the third hour … two shocks from an earthquake were felt. The houses shook and everything in them moved. The chickens fell to the ground from their resting places and caused a frightful crying. At eight o’clock another smaller shock was felt.”(43) In a field on the main road from Georgia, near the Cherokee town of Taloney, “thirteen sinkholes were caused by the earthquake. The largest of these was twenty feet deep, one hundred twenty feet in circumference, and is supposed to be full of greenish water.”(44) A friend of the missionaries traveling through the countryside “could not describe in what consternation she found the poor people everywhere,” said Gambold. “Some of them attributed the event to conjurors and some of them to a great snake who must have crawled under their house, and some to them to the weakness of of the earth which, because of its age, would soon fall in.”(45) In February, 1812 a respected chief known as Chulio or “Shoe Boots” visited the Moravians and “expressed his concern in about the unusual earthquakes here in this country and said with a very meaningful expression, ‘Many Indians believe that white people are responsible for this because they already possess so much of the Indian land and want even more. God is angry about this and wants to scare them through earthquakes to put and end to this.”(46) Another Cherokee, Big Bear, told the missionaries:
But sympathizers of Tecumseh became more vocal and emboldened following a series of earthquakes that rocked Cherokee territory in December, 1811 and early 1812. The quakes bewildered and terrified many Indians, the Moravian missionaries at Spring Place (near modern-day Chatsworth, Georgia) reported, and were they were interpreted by some as dreadful portents. On Dec. 16, 1811, missionary Anna Gambold wrote in her journal, “Early in the third hour … two shocks from an earthquake were felt. The houses shook and everything in them moved. The chickens fell to the ground from their resting places and caused a frightful crying. At eight o’clock another smaller shock was felt.”(43) In a field on the main road from Georgia, near the Cherokee town of Taloney, “thirteen sinkholes were caused by the earthquake. The largest of these was twenty feet deep, one hundred twenty feet in circumference, and is supposed to be full of greenish water.”(44) A friend of the missionaries traveling through the countryside “could not describe in what consternation she found the poor people everywhere,” said Gambold. “Some of them attributed the event to conjurors and some of them to a great snake who must have crawled under their house, and some to them to the weakness of of the earth which, because of its age, would soon fall in.”(45) In February, 1812 a respected chief known as Chulio or “Shoe Boots” visited the Moravians and “expressed his concern in about the unusual earthquakes here in this country and said with a very meaningful expression, ‘Many Indians believe that white people are responsible for this because they already possess so much of the Indian land and want even more. God is angry about this and wants to scare them through earthquakes to put and end to this.”(46) Another Cherokee, Big Bear, told the missionaries:
I cannot tell you now
if God will soon destroy the earth or not. God is, however, not satisfied that
the Indians have sold so much land to the white people. Tugalo, which the white
people now have, is the first place that God created. He put the first fire in
a hill there, because all fire comes from God. Now the white people have built
a house on that hill. They should leave this place. Grass should grow on this
place and then there will be peace.(47)
After another
earthquake in March, a Cherokee claimed to have suffered a revelation at the
hands of God, “that a great darkness would arise and was supposed to last three
days. During this all the white people and also those Indians who had clothing
or household items in the style of the white people would be carried away along
with their livestock.” Cherokees were urged to “put aside everything that was
similar to the white people and what they had learned from them,” or suffer
death.(48)
A Cherokee named Koychezetel told the missionaries that everyone in the nation was abuzz regarding a talk that had occurred at the Cherokee capital of Ustanauli:
A Cherokee named Koychezetel told the missionaries that everyone in the nation was abuzz regarding a talk that had occurred at the Cherokee capital of Ustanauli:
A man and two women
came there; they relayed that when they were traveling, they came upon an
unoccupied house near a mountain called Rocky Mountain. They went inside to
spend the night there. When it had gotten dark, they heard a noise in the air
and thought a storm was coming up.
Then as they went out of the house to see about this, they saw a whole host of Indians arrive on the mountain from the sky. They rode on small black horses and their leader beat a drum and came very close to them. They were very afraid and wanted to go back into the house, but the leader called to them, ‘Do not be afraid; we are your brothers and are sent from God to speak with you. God is dissatisfied that you so indiscriminately lead the white people onto my land. You yourselves see that your game has gone. You plant the white people’s corn. Go and buy it back from them and plant Indian corn and pound it according to your ancestors’ ways. Make the people go away. The mother of the nation has left you, because all her bones are being broken through the milling. She will return, however, if you get the white people out of the country and return to your former way of life. You yourselves can see that the white people are completely different from us. We are made from red earth, but they are made from white sand. You may always be good neighbors with them but see to it that you get your old ‘beloved Towns’ back from them.(49)
Then as they went out of the house to see about this, they saw a whole host of Indians arrive on the mountain from the sky. They rode on small black horses and their leader beat a drum and came very close to them. They were very afraid and wanted to go back into the house, but the leader called to them, ‘Do not be afraid; we are your brothers and are sent from God to speak with you. God is dissatisfied that you so indiscriminately lead the white people onto my land. You yourselves see that your game has gone. You plant the white people’s corn. Go and buy it back from them and plant Indian corn and pound it according to your ancestors’ ways. Make the people go away. The mother of the nation has left you, because all her bones are being broken through the milling. She will return, however, if you get the white people out of the country and return to your former way of life. You yourselves can see that the white people are completely different from us. We are made from red earth, but they are made from white sand. You may always be good neighbors with them but see to it that you get your old ‘beloved Towns’ back from them.(49)
The Red Stick War
In spite of all this apocalyptic fervor, the Cherokee leadership ultimately sided with the United States and served under General Andrew Jackson in 1814 against their rebellious “Red Stick” Creek neighbors. Lying unprotected on the Creek / Cherokee border, on the south side of the Coosa River, Vann’s Valley was an inviting and vulnerable target for the Red Sticks. By that time a Cherokee named Avery Vann -- brother of the infamous James Vann of Spring Place, GA – had settled in the area, which had become generally known as “Beaver Dam” or “Beaver Pond.” A Jan. 24, 1822 entry in the Brainerd missionary journal located “Beaver Dam” on “the south side of the Coosa river, opposite to Turnip town,”(50) a Cherokee town on the northern bank of the Coosa, at the southern base of Turnip Mountain, near today’s Plant Hammond. Rev. Daniel Butrick noted in February, 1823 that “Beaver-dam,” was located 10 or 12 miles from Turnip Mountain, south of the Coosa river.” He also said that “Cedar Creek town,” a town that lay “near a settlement of Creek Indians,” likely at or near today’s Cedartown, was “12 miles south of Beaver dam.”(51) This would place Beaver Dam in the heart of Vann’s Valley, probably very near today’s town of Cave Spring, or between there and the former county seat of Livingston. (As more Cherokees – and especially prosperous Cherokees such as Avery Vann -- began to adopt more of a plantation lifestyle, the nature of what constituted a Cherokee “town” changed. During the eighteenth century Cherokee towns tended to be traditional and compact, centered on a town council house, but by the early nineteenth century the “towns” tended to be spread out for miles along the river bottoms and associated tributaries.) Vann, at the time of the Creek War / Red Stick Rebellion, was living at the northern end of the Beaver Dam area, operating a ferry on the Coosa River. In 1826 Richard A. Blount, who was surveying the Georgia / Alabama state line, said that Vann, who he described as an “old man,” lived on the Coosa “in the late war, and took an active part against the hostile Creeks, and while he was down about the Horse Shoe, some of them came up and burnt his houses.”(52) Records from the Cherokee Agency report that on March, 1814, the Old Broom sent a “very urgent express” through Santooly of Brooms Town to the Cherokees living near Avery Vann’s place, which was located by the agency as “sixteen miles above Fort Armstrong.” The Agency was informed that Vann’s place had been “burnt By the hostile Creeks” and that his family had only barely escaped the raid “a day or two before this happened.” Old Broom said that Cherokee warriors needed to be “stationed at Avery Vann’s” and wanted to know if they would be considered “as a part of Genl Jacksons army.”(53)
In spite of all this apocalyptic fervor, the Cherokee leadership ultimately sided with the United States and served under General Andrew Jackson in 1814 against their rebellious “Red Stick” Creek neighbors. Lying unprotected on the Creek / Cherokee border, on the south side of the Coosa River, Vann’s Valley was an inviting and vulnerable target for the Red Sticks. By that time a Cherokee named Avery Vann -- brother of the infamous James Vann of Spring Place, GA – had settled in the area, which had become generally known as “Beaver Dam” or “Beaver Pond.” A Jan. 24, 1822 entry in the Brainerd missionary journal located “Beaver Dam” on “the south side of the Coosa river, opposite to Turnip town,”(50) a Cherokee town on the northern bank of the Coosa, at the southern base of Turnip Mountain, near today’s Plant Hammond. Rev. Daniel Butrick noted in February, 1823 that “Beaver-dam,” was located 10 or 12 miles from Turnip Mountain, south of the Coosa river.” He also said that “Cedar Creek town,” a town that lay “near a settlement of Creek Indians,” likely at or near today’s Cedartown, was “12 miles south of Beaver dam.”(51) This would place Beaver Dam in the heart of Vann’s Valley, probably very near today’s town of Cave Spring, or between there and the former county seat of Livingston. (As more Cherokees – and especially prosperous Cherokees such as Avery Vann -- began to adopt more of a plantation lifestyle, the nature of what constituted a Cherokee “town” changed. During the eighteenth century Cherokee towns tended to be traditional and compact, centered on a town council house, but by the early nineteenth century the “towns” tended to be spread out for miles along the river bottoms and associated tributaries.) Vann, at the time of the Creek War / Red Stick Rebellion, was living at the northern end of the Beaver Dam area, operating a ferry on the Coosa River. In 1826 Richard A. Blount, who was surveying the Georgia / Alabama state line, said that Vann, who he described as an “old man,” lived on the Coosa “in the late war, and took an active part against the hostile Creeks, and while he was down about the Horse Shoe, some of them came up and burnt his houses.”(52) Records from the Cherokee Agency report that on March, 1814, the Old Broom sent a “very urgent express” through Santooly of Brooms Town to the Cherokees living near Avery Vann’s place, which was located by the agency as “sixteen miles above Fort Armstrong.” The Agency was informed that Vann’s place had been “burnt By the hostile Creeks” and that his family had only barely escaped the raid “a day or two before this happened.” Old Broom said that Cherokee warriors needed to be “stationed at Avery Vann’s” and wanted to know if they would be considered “as a part of Genl Jacksons army.”(53)
Vann’s wife, Margaret
McSwain Vann, gives a considerably more detailed account in an 1842 claim to
the federal government for the loss of the property:
The claimant … states
(on oath) that at the time of the Creek War she resided with her family on the
South side of the Coosa river in the Cherokee Nation East; where she was
exposed to the inroads of the lawless Creeks owning to the contiguity of her
abode to that tribe. That her husband was at the time of the loss of the above
property in the service of the U.S. in the company commanded by Capt. David
McNair, all under command of Genl. Andrew Jackson. That will in this
defenceless condition a friend by the name of Broom sent her word that she was
in great danger of an attack by the Creeks, and advised her to remove her
little family across to the north side of the Coosa river, which advice she
took to save the lives of her family; -- and about the next day after leaving
her residents, the Creeks set fire to & consumed all that is charged in
this account except the Negro Boy. The next day … after the burning of her
property by the Creeks, the Boy was at play with her own children, where she
had constructed a camp to shelter in, and at night on inquiry the Boy could not
be found, and there was no way to account for his absence, but by charging some
outlaw with forcing him off. Suspicion rested … upon some bad white men… in the
neighborhood to Genl. White’s detachment of East Tennessee Militia from the
fact that fresh horse tracks were to be found about the place where the boy was
at play, which were pursued a short distance in the direction of Tennessee …
And now as it must be obvious to every candid mind that this loss was brought
about by the absence of her husband & protector in the ranks of the
citizens of the U.S. in defence of their rights, against the enemy of the U.S.,
she thinks it nothing but justice that she should be remunerated for her
loss.(54)
The Indian Removal
Act
Although Vann, like most able-bodied Cherokee men, chose to serve with the white soldiers under General Jackson, that would not save his home and property. In fact, it would be Jackson -- riding his victories all the way to the U.S. presidency -- who ultimately would push for removal of the Southeastern Indians, including his former Cherokee allies, west of the Mississippi River. Vann’s loyalty to the United States, even to the point of losing his home to conflagration, wouldn’t spare him or his family from removal. “The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves,” Jackson announced to the U.S. Congress. He characterized the Cherokee Nation and their fellow Indian nations, in spite of all aspirations to become thoroughly acculturated, as being “now occupied by a few savage hunters.”(55) In fact, the Cherokees had long since ceded the vast majority of their once vast hunting grounds to the United States, and had been living a plantation and subsistence farming lifestyle virtually indistinguishable from that practiced by their white neighbors. But no matter. Removal of the Indians from the Southern states would “enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power,” Jackson said. “What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute…?” Jackson concluded:
Although Vann, like most able-bodied Cherokee men, chose to serve with the white soldiers under General Jackson, that would not save his home and property. In fact, it would be Jackson -- riding his victories all the way to the U.S. presidency -- who ultimately would push for removal of the Southeastern Indians, including his former Cherokee allies, west of the Mississippi River. Vann’s loyalty to the United States, even to the point of losing his home to conflagration, wouldn’t spare him or his family from removal. “The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves,” Jackson announced to the U.S. Congress. He characterized the Cherokee Nation and their fellow Indian nations, in spite of all aspirations to become thoroughly acculturated, as being “now occupied by a few savage hunters.”(55) In fact, the Cherokees had long since ceded the vast majority of their once vast hunting grounds to the United States, and had been living a plantation and subsistence farming lifestyle virtually indistinguishable from that practiced by their white neighbors. But no matter. Removal of the Indians from the Southern states would “enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power,” Jackson said. “What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute…?” Jackson concluded:
And is it supposed
that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home than the
settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves
of his fathers than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the
policy of the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but
generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with
their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter
annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home… (56)
Seeing the writing
clearly on the wall, Vann enrolled for emigration to the West in 1829,
abandoning all his improvements in Beaver Pond. Just 11 days after Jackson’s
announcement, the state of Georgia extended its legal jurisdiction over the
Cherokee Nation, abolishing Cherokee government, courts, and police powers in
its own territory. Since Cherokees could not testify against whites in Georgia
courts, this action practically invited whites to invade Cherokee territory and
take what they wanted. This is exactly what happened, and the people living in
Vann’s Valley again found themselves on the front lines of conflict.
First Blood Shed in Vann's Valley
Just two months after Georgia abolished Cherokee laws and courts, the Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate announced in a headline: “FIRST BLOOD SHED BY THE GEORGIANS!!”(57) Editor Elias Boudinot said that Principal Chief John Ross – living now at the head of the Coosa River just a few miles from where the Cherokees had fought their “last stand” military battle at Hightower a generation earlier -- had sent an express message to U.S. Indian Agent Hugh Montgomery that “a Cherokee has, at last, been killed by the intruders, and three more taken bound into Georgia!” Boudinot went on to describe the few details he’d managed to procure regarding the events leading up to the death of their fellow citizen, a man named “Chuwoyee,” at the hands of the whites:
First Blood Shed in Vann's Valley
Just two months after Georgia abolished Cherokee laws and courts, the Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate announced in a headline: “FIRST BLOOD SHED BY THE GEORGIANS!!”(57) Editor Elias Boudinot said that Principal Chief John Ross – living now at the head of the Coosa River just a few miles from where the Cherokees had fought their “last stand” military battle at Hightower a generation earlier -- had sent an express message to U.S. Indian Agent Hugh Montgomery that “a Cherokee has, at last, been killed by the intruders, and three more taken bound into Georgia!” Boudinot went on to describe the few details he’d managed to procure regarding the events leading up to the death of their fellow citizen, a man named “Chuwoyee,” at the hands of the whites:
A company of
Cherokees, among whom were some of our most respectable citizens, constrained
by the repeated aggressions and insults of a number of intruders, who had
settled themselves far in (Cherokee) country, & likewise by the frequent
losses sustained by many of our citizens in cattle and horses from their own
countrymen, who are leagued in wickedness with our civilized brothers, started
the other day, under the authority of the Principal Chief to correct, at least
part of the evil. They were out two days, in which time they arrested four
Cherokee horse-thieves. These received exemplary punishment. They found also 17
families of intruders, living, we believe, in Cherokee houses. These they
ordered out and after safely taking out their beddings, chairs, &c. the
houses were set on fire. In no instance was the least violence used on the part
of the Cherokees.(58)
Chief Ross wrote from his home at Head of Coosa three days after the story ran in the Phoenix, explaining the reasons why he and the General Council dispatched a Cherokee Light Horse bridgade to the Beaver Dam area:
It is generally known
that there are divers intruders on Cherokee land, on the frontiers of the
adjoining States, some of them being men of the most infamous character, and
that the General Council at its last session made it my duty to remove such of
them as may be found amidst our citizens in possession of the improvements
recently abandoned by the Cherokees, who have emigrated to the Arkansas; and
having been strongly urged by our good citizens to enforce said law, with the
view of securing tranquility & the safety of their property, I complied
with the request, without intending to disregard or interfere in the least
degree with the instructions of the Secretary of War to the Agent. Therefore on
the 4th instant, Major Ridge and other citizens were authorized &
instructed to extend towards them all possible lenity and humanity. The men
were prohibited from using ardent spirits whilst on duty. The intruders living
on the public road leading to Alabama and at Saunders' old place were turned
out of doors with all their effects. The company were fully persuaded that if
the houses were not destroyed the intruders would not go away; they therefore
determined on the expediency of setting fire to them. There were eighteen
families of intruders thus removed, and having executed this duty with the
utmost lenity towards them, and not having injured any of their property, the
Cherokees felt no uneasiness, or alarm from any quarter, and returned home in
small detached parties.(59)
A “Certificate of
Abraham Birdwell, Alabama, Jackson County, February 9, 1830,” gives a number of
particulars about the event from the perspective of the whites who were
expelled.(60) His sympathies obviously lay with those who were driven out, whom
he describes as helpless and pitiful in the face of an overwhelming force of
savage Indians:
I Abrahan (sic)
Birdwell, of said State and county do hereby certify, having been into the
State of Georgia, and on my return home through the Cherokee nation, and on and
within the territory claimed by Georgia as Creek land; and on Thursday, the 4th
present instant, had my attention attracted by the burning of houses, and by a
company of Cherokees, under the command of Major Ridge, a Cherokee Chief; an
inquiry of Ridge, thro' Mr. David Vann, another leading character of the
nation, I was informed that Major Ridge was authorized by John Ross, principal
Chief of the Cherokee nation, to the burning and otherwise destroying the
houses, &c. occupied by the intruders, saying that they were a parcel of
scoundrels and rogues, and that the Government would not injure them for thus
treating them. These acts were committed on Cedar Creek and Beaver Dam
settlement. The property thus wantonly destroyed, was, as I was informed,
valued by the assessors, and paid for by the Government of the United States.
After leaving Vann's on the 5th, I saw about four miles on the route home, a
woman on a cart, who I was informed had had a child only four days before.
Coming on three miles further, I saw another, who had a midwife with her, and
in a critical condition. The Cherokees were all armed with guns, pistols, and
Ridge himself was clothed in all the garb of Indian warfare, viz; His headdress
was a buffalo's forehead & horns, &c., there were sixty Indians; the
Indians exalted highly, particularly David Vann; the Indians around the fire,
with expressions of Indian joy, yelling, shouting; &c. &c. I met some
men on express to the settlements for aid.(61)
Some of the whites who were ousted by Ridge and his Light Horse brigade later defended their intrusion, arguing that they were told that President Jackson himself had sent out a letter “stating that any white person or persons was at liberty to settle any where in the Cherokee Nation on any place emigrated,” and that they would “not be interrupted” from establishing residence, since the Cherokee improvements were now “the property of the United States.” In fact, some “Commissioners employed by General Government” had urged the white settlers not to content themselves with simply taking over vacant Cherokee properties, but to “build at the Springs of Indians that had not emigrated that it would cause them to enrol themselves for the Arkansas.”(62)
After the improvements had been burned and the white families were successfully expelled, a handful of Ridge’s party “tarried on the way,” at the home of Samuel Rowe, Boudinot reported. These Cherokees, “we are sorry to say, had become intoxicated,” he said, in spite of the council’s specific prohibition against drinking.(63) “Unfortunately, four of them became intoxicated and remained at Samuel Rowe's house where there was whiskey,” said Chief Ross.(64) “In this situation, they were found by a company of (white) intruders, twenty five in number,” Boudinot said.(65) One white witness and participant who published an account in The Athenian said that "The object of the party was to take the Indians and bring them to justice." The Cherokees they found at the Rowe house “we made prisoners, without much resistance on their part. The Chief of the party (Chewaya) was beaten to death…”(66)
Chief Ross said that on the night of Feb. 5 “a party of intruders, upwards of twenty men, armed with guns, came” and arrested The Waggon, Daniel Mills, Rattling Gourd, and Chuwoyee.(67) James G. Williams, a sub-agent to the Cherokees, in a separate article in the Cherokee Phoenix, listed the same men.(68) The Waggon, according to Ross, “was found in strings by the intruders, the Indians having tied him to prevent him from doing injury.” The white party “seized upon and tied” the rest, Williams said. Mills “was beaten with a gun” and trampled by the whites, Ross said. Chuwoyee, “was unable to walk (being very drunk),” Ross said.” (N)ot understanding the cause of this confinement, and almost unable to stand from the effects of whiskey,” Williams said, Chuwoyee “refused to go, altho he was tied…” Ross said that Chowoyee, still bound, was “put upon a horse, but not being able to sit on, and falling off once or twice, he was most barbarously beaten with guns &c. in the head, face, breast and arms…” Williams said that “one of the whites struck him with his gun on the back part of the head, & three or four others commenced on him with Clubs &c. &c.” Williams went on:
After this barbarous
treatment and finding that he was unable to walk, they threw him across a horse
before one of their company and Marched off about a mile where they encamped
for the night. After reaching the camp ground the man who had charge of him
threw him from the horse upon the ground; and he was suffered to lie there
exposed to the inclemency of a cold wet sleeting night without the least
vestige of anything to protect him from the severity of the weather, but the
few clothes he had on when taken prisoner. Early on the next morning he
expired.(69)
Chowoyee’s “corpse was left on the ground without any person to take care of it,” Ross said.(70) “The corpse was shockingly mangled,” he said. The three remaining Cherokee prisoners “were sent into Carroll County, Georgia, under a guard.” Mills and The Waggon, Williams said, “effected their escape, though The Waggon in getting off received a severe wound in the breast with a butcher knife from the hands of Old Richard Philpot.” The Rattling Gourd was unable to escape and the party of whites “succeeded in putting (him) in Jail,” Williams reported.(71)
Chief Ross said that the “lawless white intruders” had made threats to kill both himself and Major Ridge and burn their dwellings. “I despatched an express to the Agent with all possible speed, demanding the arrest and punishment of the murderers, and the restoration of the prisoners, and also requesting the immediate interposition of his authority in preserving peace and harmony on the frontier.,” Ross said.
On Feb. 7 Ross sent a wagon to pick of the body of Chuwoyee, “and on the 8th he was decently buried at his own house by the side of the graves of his father and mother.” In 1830, visiting New Englander Herman Gold would note the “the tomb of the Cherokee, who was so barberously murdered by the Georgians.”
The Cherokees living along the borders were concerned that this may have just been the first in a wave of violent acts they might have to suffer at the hands of indignant, grasping whites. No sooner had Chuwoyee been buried than those fears seemed to have been confirmed:
Without reflection,
after the burial, a platoon of small arms was fired, and heard a number of
miles off, which alarmed the people, and led them to suspect that the intruders
had attacked us; this caused messengers forthwith to run from Turnip Mountain
in various directions. In the course of that night and the following day, a
number of men came in to ascertain the fact… (72)
A “party of armed
mounted white men,” about 25 in number, some of whom had been involved in the
murder of Chowoyee – men characterized by Ross as being “of debased character,”
and led by the Carroll County sheriff, warrants in hand, riding “in full speed
coming up the lane, swearing and yelling in the most savage manner” -- had
attacked some Cherokee residents of Vann’s Valley, including Charles Vann (son
of Avery Vann), Jacob West, his son Ezekiel West, Charles Fields, and “one or
two other Cherokees who happened at the same time to be there,” Ross said. Vann
and the Wests decided they should leave, but as they turned “Mr. West was fired
upon.” West “dismounted his horse and returned the fire; fortunately, there was
no execution done,” said Ross.(73)
“If it is thus that the laws of Georgia are to be extended and executed over the Cherokees, it is very obvious that justice and humanity are not to be respected,” Ross concluded.
The Treaty of New Echota
Ross’ worst fears were realized when the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota was signed by agents of the U.S. government and a few renegade Cherokees, under the auspices of Major Ridge and his son, in 1835, depriving the Cherokee of their lands and forcing them to relocate in the West within two years. Nevertheless, Chief Ross attempted to seek justice through the proper tribunal by gathering signatures from nearly every Cherokee citizen on a petition he planned to personally present to the U.S. Senate, demonstrating that the vast majority of the citizens of the Cherokee Nation were vehemently against removal. However, when Ross traveled to Washington to present the petition, he was not received. The message was clear: the removal would go forward, and the “treaty,” such as it was, would be enforced by the U.S. government.
“If it is thus that the laws of Georgia are to be extended and executed over the Cherokees, it is very obvious that justice and humanity are not to be respected,” Ross concluded.
The Treaty of New Echota
Ross’ worst fears were realized when the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota was signed by agents of the U.S. government and a few renegade Cherokees, under the auspices of Major Ridge and his son, in 1835, depriving the Cherokee of their lands and forcing them to relocate in the West within two years. Nevertheless, Chief Ross attempted to seek justice through the proper tribunal by gathering signatures from nearly every Cherokee citizen on a petition he planned to personally present to the U.S. Senate, demonstrating that the vast majority of the citizens of the Cherokee Nation were vehemently against removal. However, when Ross traveled to Washington to present the petition, he was not received. The message was clear: the removal would go forward, and the “treaty,” such as it was, would be enforced by the U.S. government.
A Leader Ousted
From His Home
While Ross was away in Washington behalf of his people, the same year the treaty was signed, a white family from Georgia moved into his home and ignominiously wrenched it away it from Ross’ wife and children. John Howard Payne, a songwriter who paid an extensive visit to the Cherokee Nation prior to removal, ultimately leading to his arrest by the Georgia guard, learned of the details from Ross:(74)
While Ross was away in Washington behalf of his people, the same year the treaty was signed, a white family from Georgia moved into his home and ignominiously wrenched it away it from Ross’ wife and children. John Howard Payne, a songwriter who paid an extensive visit to the Cherokee Nation prior to removal, ultimately leading to his arrest by the Georgia guard, learned of the details from Ross:(74)
The story contains
the story at this moment of the whole nation. Last winter he was delegated with
others to Washington, in order to attempt a treaty upon available terms — such
terms as his people would accept. He could not obtain such. It was evening when
he had arrived, on his returning way, within twenty miles of the dwelling he
had left, then a beautiful abode at the head of Coosa upon a rising ground,
overlooking a luxuriant plain below, and rivers running through it, and in the
distance a noble mountain. A friend desired him to remain all night. No, he was
approaching home after a long absence; he was impatient to see his family. He
hurried on. In the dead of night he aroused the house; strange voices answered
him.
When Ross “rode up to the gate,” he “saw a servant he believed to be his own,” so he dismounted his horse and “ordered his horse taken,” according to his own account.(75) When he entered his house, “to his utter astonishment (he) found himself a stranger in his own home, his family having been some days before driven out to seek a new house.” “His family had just been turned from the spot where his children were cradled, and it was occupied by a Georgian,” said Payne:
The land was drawn in
the Georgia lottery, and though not claimable until the Indians should be
removed by treaty, was seized in his absence to petition Congress for his
country — seized under the delusion of that wayward and selfish policy which
has led Georgia to defy the General Government and all its solemn pledges to
protect the Indians and vindicate its honor, in not swerving from its
treaties.(76)
Ross spent his last night there as a “guest” in his own home, The next morning he “arose early” and surveyed his property one last time:
(Ross) saw some
straggling herds of his cattle and sheep browsing about the place – his crop of
corn undisposed of. In casting a look up into the widespread branches of a
majestic oak, standing within the enclosure of the garden, and which
overshadows the spot where lies the remains of his dear babe and most beloved
and affectionate father, he there saw, perched upon its boughs, that flock of
beautiful pea-fowls, once the matron’s care and delight, but now left to
destruction and never more to be seen.
He ordered his horse, paid his bill, and departed in search of his family. After traveling amid heavy rains he had the happiness of overtaking them on the road, bound for some place of refuge within the limits of Tennessee.(77)
He ordered his horse, paid his bill, and departed in search of his family. After traveling amid heavy rains he had the happiness of overtaking them on the road, bound for some place of refuge within the limits of Tennessee.(77)
“It was this hard conduct which had driven the principal chief to one of the humblest dwellings in his nation,” said Payne. “But he made no complaint, even after I had grown familiar with him. I learned this wrong from other lips.”(78)
Thus was Chief Ross removed from his home at the Head of Coosa – “his houses, farm, public ferries, and other properties … wrested from him” -- before the Cherokee Removal had even officially begun.(79)
Camp Scott and the Second Creek War
By 1835 “a considerable settlement had sprung up ... in Vann’s Valley,” an early white historian of the area, George McGruder Battey, reported:(80) “The country was wild, sparsely settled, full of bad Indians and adventurous whites, a few soldiers of isolated posts, and here and there a rough Indian trail that sufficed for a road.”(81) White settlers flooded into the area from the nearby Alabama border, and also from Carroll County to the south. The border region served as the first county seat of Floyd County. “Livingston, a hamlet located on the south side of the Coosa River at Foster’s Bend, about 14 miles below Rome, was chosen by legislative act of Dec. 21, 1833 as the county seat, and a log cabin courthouse was erected at which one or more sessions of court, presided over by Judge Jno. W. Hooper, were held, and in which quite a number of Indians appeared as prosecutors and defendants...,” said Battey.(82)
When tensions with the Creek Indians escalated again in the Second Creek War of 1836, the militia post of Camp Scott was established on the Coosa, ostensibly to protect the white settlers from possible Creek “depredations” – but also as a staging ground for whites to inflict some depredations of their own, most notably at nearby Terrapin Creek:
Orders were issued to
Brig. Gen. James Hemphill to raise a battalion of militia and place them at
Lesley’s Ferry, on the Coosa River, for the purpose not only of keeping the
Cherokees in check, but also of preventing the Creeks from swarming into
Georgia, which orders were executed, and the battalion organized under the
command of Gen. James Hemphill and Maj. Chas. H. Nelson.
(83)
(83)
William Smith, one of
the first white residents of Cave Spring in Vann’s Valley, told Battey that
once while he was away from home “the Creeks appeared, and his wife was badly
frightened”:
The visitors looked
so dark and villainous, and they crept about like snakes. When night came, Mrs.
Smith gathered her baby Martha … in her arms, and taking a negro nurse, stole
out of the house into the underbrush, where, wrapped in shawls and an Indian
blanket, they spent the night. Mrs. Smith had feared the Creeks might break
into her house during the night; they could be seen moving stealthily and
keeping a close watch, but they attempted no outrage.(84)
The militia troops at Camp Scott were involved in a number of small skirmishes with the Creeks on the Alabama side of the line in what would prove to be the last instances of anything resembling border war in Vann’s Valley. By the time Montgomery Folsom wrote a newspaper article about “pioneer days” in the Rome Tribune in 1892, the decades of inter-ethnic violence in Vann’s Valley had receded into distant memory:
I drove with Mr.
Wesley O. Connor out to see Mr. Wright Ellis, one of the last of the old
settlers of the Cave Spring region, and Mr. Ellis told many interesting stories
of the early days. Mr. Ellis came to Cave Spring with his father as a little
boy. Near his house and the end of Vann’s Valley stood an old fort which
protected the settlement...(85)
A Frontier No More
For years Vann’s Valley had served as a natural buffer zone, lying as it did at the convergence of the major waterways of what would later become Northwest Georgia, at the entranceway to the Appalachian mountains, and at the crossroads of Creek and Cherokee cultures. With the emergence of the state of Alabama in 1819, Vann’s Valley straddled another new border. By the time of the forced Cherokee Removal in 1838, new towns like Cave Spring had sprouted up from the ashes of burned-out, abandoned Cherokee homes, but Vann’s Valley would never again be considered a frontier.
ENDNOTES
(1) David J. Hally, King (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2008), 163.
(2) Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James Knight, and Edward C. Moore, editors, The DeSoto Chronicles, Volume I(Tuscaloosa: 1993), 94.
(3) David J. Hally, King (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2008), 222.
(4) Russell Thornton, The Cherokees: A Population History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 12-14.
(5) Letter of James Sevier to Lyman Draper, August 19, 1839, James Sevier Letter, MS. 1565. University of Knoxville, Special Collections Library.
(6) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 272.
(7) Wisconsin Historical Society, Draper Papers, MS 32S.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(11) John P. Brown, Old Frontiers (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1938), 9-10.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(14) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(15) Ibid.
(16) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(17) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(18) Ibid.
(19) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(20) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(21) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(22) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(23) Ibid.
(24) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, June 12, 1830, 4.
(25) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(26) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(27) Ibid.
(28) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(29) Ibid.
(30) Ibid.
(31) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(32) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622-623.
(33) Ibid.
(34) Wisconsin Historical Society, Draper Papers, MS 30S.
(35) http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Tennessee/_Texts/THM/5/3/Sevier_Journal/1793*.html
(36) Ibid.
(37) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, May 15, 1830, 1.
(38) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, May 22, 1830, 1.
(39) Charles O. Walker, Cherokee Footprints, Volume 1 (Canton: Charles O. Walker, 1988), 71.
(40) H. Thomas Foster, The Collected Works of Benjamin Hawkins: 1796-1810 (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2003), 47S.
(41) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, May 15, 1830, 1.
(42) Glenn Tucker, Tecumseh: Vision of Glory (New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2005), 208-209.
(43) Rowena McClinton, editor, The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees, Volume I (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 460.
(44) Ibid, 470.
(45) Ibid, 461.
(46) Ibid, 474.
(47) Ibid.
(48) Ibid, 478-479.
(49) Ibid, 411.
(50) Joyce B. Phillips and Paul Gary Phillips, editors, The Brainerd Journal (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 291.
(51) American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Fourteenth Annual Meeting, Sept. 17-18, 1823 (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1823), 74-75.
(52) Alabama Department of Archives and History, Papers of Richard A Blount, Georgia-Alabama Boundary Commission – 1826, Boundary Survey Journal (Section for July 26 to August 7).
(53) Cherokee Agency in Tennessee: Correspondence and Miscellaneous Records. National Archives Microcopy M-208, Rolls 1-7, 13.
(54) Claim of Margaret Vann, Claim No. 208, 1842 Cherokee Claims, Saline District, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee.
(55) President Jackson's Message to Congress "On Indian Removal,” December 6, 1830, Records of the United States Senate, 1789‐1990, Record Group 46, 1789‐1990, National Archives and Records Administration.
(56) Ibid
(57) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Feb. 10, 1830, 2.
(58) Ibid.
(59) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(60) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, May 8, 1830, 2.
(61) Ibid.
(62) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Apr. 7, 1830, 2.
(63) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Feb. 10, 1830, 2.
(64) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(65) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Feb. 10, 1830, 2.
(66) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Mar. 31, 1830, 3.
(67) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(68) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Apr. 14, 1830, 3.
(69) Ibid.
(70) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(71) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Apr. 14, 1830, 3.
(72) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(73) Ibid.
(74) George McGruder Battey, Jr., A History of Rome and Floyd County (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1994), 81.
(75) Ibid, 222.
(76) Ibid, 81.
(77) Ibid, 222.
(78) Ibid, 81.
(79) Ibid, 222.
(80) Ibid, 36.
(81) Ibid, 212-213.
(82) Ibid, 35-36.
(83) George M. White, Historical Collections of Georgia (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004), 151.
(84) George McGruder Battey, Jr., A History of Rome and Floyd County (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1994), 212.
(85) Montgomery M. Folsom, Rome Tribune, Nov. 20, 1892.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Fourteenth Annual Meeting, Sept. 17-18, 1823 (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1823), 74-75.
George McGruder Battey, Jr., A History of Rome and Floyd County (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1994).
John P. Brown, Old Frontiers (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1938).
Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James Knight, and Edward C. Moore, editors, The DeSoto Chronicles, Volume I(Tuscaloosa: 1993).
David J. Hally, King (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2008).
Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
Rowena McClinton, editor, The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees, Volume I (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 460.
Joyce B. Phillips and Paul Gary Phillips, editors, The Brainerd Journal (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1998).
J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967).
Russell Thornton, The Cherokees: A Population History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990).
Glenn Tucker, Tecumseh: Vision of Glory (New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2005).
Charles O. Walker, Cherokee Footprints, Volume 1 (Canton: Charles O. Walker, 1988).
George M. White, Historical Collections of Georgia (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004).
Newspapers
The Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate
The Rome Tribune
Documents
Alabama Department of Archives and History
Papers of Richard A Blount, Georgia-Alabama Boundary Commission – 1826, Boundary Survey Journal (Section for July 26 to August 7).
National Archives and Records Administration
Cherokee Agency in Tennessee: Correspondence and Misc. Records. NARA M-208, Rolls 1-7, 13.
Records of the United States Senate, 1789‐1990, Record Group 46, 1789‐1990. President Jackson's Message to Congress "On Indian Removal,” December 6, 1830.
Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
1842 Cherokee Claims, Saline District, Claim of Margaret Vann, Claim No. 208.
University of Knoxville, Special Collections Library
Letter of James Sevier to Lyman Draper, August 19, 1839, James Sevier Letter, MS. 1565.
Wisconsin Historical Society
Draper Papers.
MS 32S.
MS 30S.
Online Sources
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Tennessee/_Texts/THM/5/3/Sevier_Journal/1793*.html
Posted 27th May by W. Jeff Bishop
Labels: Dragging Canoe Borders and Treaties Vann's Valley Coosa River American Revolution DeSoto Georgia Guard Conservative or Traditionalist Movements John Ross Earthquakes John Sevier Beaver Dam
