The Cherokees by David Narrett

Author:David Narrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard University Press

Violence and the Collapse of Authority

The Cherokees had no occasion for rest while the seaboard British colonies cried “slavery” over the Tea Act. In May 1773, two Cherokee youths were helping to mark the new Georgia-Cherokee boundary line when they took a little rest and came to a white family’s home to ask for some milk. Being alone, the hospitable woman of the house gave them some food and drink. Her son, Hezekiah Collins, was of a different mood. Coming home and seeing the Cherokees, he readied his rifle, shot one Indian guest to death, and clubbed the other with his gun before finishing his bloody work with an ax. Both victims were about twenty years old. Collins’s father then helped his son throw the bodies in a river. Young Collins was briefly detained by Georgia authorities but soon escaped. Governor Wright’s call for his arrest was as feckless as nearly all official attempts to bring white murderers of Indians to justice. Two Lower Cherokee headmen, meanwhile, sent word to Cameron that their people would not seek revenge for the murders. One even stated that “Poor [white] People” of the area “may be afraid of our People when they see them.” The desire for peace, which was overwhelming among vulnerable Cherokee communities, did not mean that those towns restrained their young warriors from doing what they thought necessary. Lower and Middle Town headmen admitted that three of their men had recently joined the Creeks in killing whites. There were virtually no British troops in the area that could help to restore order. The crown had withdrawn Fort Prince George’s soldiers in 1768 as a cost-saving measure.83

A still greater crisis ensued after Colonel William Russell and Daniel Boone, with several families and thirty men, set out from Virginia toward the Ohio River in October 1773 to reconnoiter lands then expected to become part of a new British interior province. The large party established several camps as it negotiated the Cumberland Gap. At daybreak one morning, Shawnee warriors surprised the lead group, killing Henry Russell and James Boone, sons of the two frontier leaders, along with three other whites and a Black man. The bodies of several victims were badly mangled and shot with arrows. The killers placed a war club near the bodies—an open display of warrior prowess. From reports, it became clear that two Cherokee fighters participated with Shawnees in the attack. When questioned by Cameron, Oconostota laid blame on the Delawares instead of the Shawnees who were then mending ties with the Cherokees.84

The slaying of young Russell and Boone bred retaliatory violence. Isaac Crabtree, the sole white survivor of the attack, burned with revenge and found his moment in 1774 when spotting three Cherokee men peacefully attending a colonial horse race near the Watauga River. After sizing up the potential victims, Crabtree and his companions shot dead and scalped a Cherokee man named Will who was described by Cameron as “an Active resolute good Man & very friendly to the White People.

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