When in the fall of 1788 a big band of Creeks and Cherokees
took Gillespie's station, on Little River, a branch of the upper
Tennessee, they carried off over a score of women and children. The four
highest chiefs, headed by one with the appropriate name of Bloody
Fellow, left behind a note addressed to Sevier and Martin, in which they
taunted the whites with their barbarities, and especially with the
murder of the friendly Cherokee chief Tassel, and warned them to move
off the Indian land. [Footnote: Ramsey, 519.] In response Sevier made
one of his swift raids, destroyed an Indian town on the Coosa River, and
took prisoner a large number of Indian women and children. These were
well treated, but were carefully guarded, and were exchanged for the
white women and children who were in captivity among the Indians. The
Browns were among the fortunate people who were thus rescued from the
horrors of Indian slavery. It is small wonder that the rough frontier
people, whose wives and little ones, friends and neighbors, were in such
manner rescued by Nolichucky Jack, should have looked with leniency on
their darling leader's shortcomings, even when these shortcomings took
the form of failure to prevent or punish the massacre of friendly
Indians.
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