During the preceding three or four years, some
scores of the settlers on the Cumberland had been slain by small
predatory parties of Indians, mostly Cherokees and Creeks. No large war
band attacked the settlements; but no hunter, surveyor, or traveller, no
wood-chopper or farmer, no woman alone in the cabin with her children,
could ever feel safe from attack. Now and then a savage was killed in
such an attack, or in a skirmish with some body of scouts; but nothing
effectual could be thus accomplished.
Ravages in Cumberland Country.
The most dangerous marauders were some Creek and Cherokee warriors who
had built a town on the Coldwater, a tributary of the Tennessee near the
Muscle Shoals, within easy striking distance of the Cumberland
settlements. This town was a favorite resort of French traders from the
Illinois and Wabash, who came up the Tennessee in bateaux. They provided
the Indians with guns and ammunition, and in return often received goods
plundered from the Americans; and they at least indirectly and in some
cases directly encouraged the savages in their warfare against the
settlers. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Robertson to some French man of
note in Illinois, June, 1787.
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