[Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 56, pp.
279 and 333; No. 60, p. 297, etc.] Now a drunken Indian at Fort Pitt
murdered an innocent white man, the local garrison of regular troops
saving him with difficulty from being lynched [Footnote: Denny's
Journal, p. 259.]; now a band of white ruffians gathered to attack some
peaceable Indians who had come in to treat [Footnote: State Dept. MSS.,
No. 56, p. 255.]; again a white man murdered an unoffending Indian, and
was seized by a Federal officer, and thrown into chains, to the great
indignation of his brutal companions [Footnote: _Do_., No. 150, vol.
ii., p. 296.]; and yet again another white man murdered an Indian, and
escaped to the woods before he could be arrested. [Footnote: Draper MSS.
Clark, Croghan, and Others to Delawares, August 28, 1785.]
Bloodshed Begun.
Under such conditions the peace negotiations were doomed from the
outset. The truce on the border was of the most imperfect description;
murders and robberies by the Indians, and acts of vindictive retaliation
or aggression by the whites, occurred continually and steadily increased
in number. In 1784 a Cherokee of note, when sent to warn the intruding
settlers on the French Broad that they must move out of the land, was
shot and slain in a fight with a local militia captain.
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