Cherokee war
bands had already begun to harry the frontier and infest the Kentucky
Wilderness Road. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 48, p. 277.] At the
same time the northwestern Indians likewise committed depredations, and
were only prevented from making a general league against the whites by
their own internal dissensions--the Chickasaws and Kickapoos being
engaged in a desperate war. [Footnote: _Do_., Muehlenberg's Letter.] The
Wabash Indians were always threatening hostilities. The Shawnees for
some time observed a precarious peace, and even, in accordance with
their agreement, brought in and surrendered a few white prisoners; and
among the Delawares and Wyandots there was also a strong friendly party;
but in all three tribes the turbulent element was never under real
control, and it gradually got the upper hand. Meanwhile the Georgians
and Creeks in the south were having experiences of precisely the same
kind--treaties fraudulently procured by the whites, or fraudulently
entered into and violated by the Indians; encroachments by white
settlers on Indian lands, and bloody Indian forays among the peaceful
settlements. [Footnote: _Do_., No. 73, pp. 7, 343.
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