Indian Ravages.

Early in the spring of 1788, the Indians renewed their ravages. [Footnote:  Va.  State Papers, IV., 396, 432.] The Chickamaugas were the leaders, but there were among them a few Creeks, and they were also joined by some of the Cherokees proper, goaded to anger by the encroachments of the whites on their lands.  Many of the settlers were killed, and the people on the frontier began to gather into their stockades and blockhouses.  The alarm was great.  One murder was of peculiar treachery and atrocity.  A man named John Kirk [Footnote:  State Dept.  MSS., No. 150, vol. ii., p. 435.  Proclamation of Thos.  Hutchings, June 3, 1788.] lived on a clearing on Little River, seven miles south of Knoxville.  One day when he was away from home, an Indian named Slim Tom, well-known to the family, and believed to be friendly, came to the cabin and asked for food.  The food was given him and he withdrew.  But he had come merely as a spy; and seeing that he had to deal only with helpless women and children, he returned with a party of Indians who had been hiding in the woods.  They fell on the wretched creatures, and butchered them all, eleven in number, leaving the mangled bodies in the court-yard.  The father and eldest boy were absent and thus escaped.  It would have been well had the lad been among the slain, for his coarse and brutal nature was roused to a thirst for indiscriminate revenge, and shortly afterwards he figured as chief actor in a deed of retaliation as revolting and inhuman as the original crime.

At the news of the massacres the frontiersmen gathered, as was their custom, mounted and armed, and ready either to follow the marauding parties or to make retaliatory inroads on their own account.  Sevier, their darling leader, was among them, and to him they gave the command.

    Joseph Martin Tries to Keep the Peace.

Another frontier leader and Indian fighter of note was at this time living among the Cherokees.  He was Joseph Martin, who had dwelt much among the Indians, and had great influence over them, as he always treated them justly; though he had shown in more than one campaign that he could handle them in war as well as in peace.  Early in 1788, he had been appointed by North Carolina Brigadier-General of the western counties lying beyond the mountains.  In the military organization, which was really the most important side of the Government to the frontiersmen, this was the chief position; and Martin’s duties were not only to protect the border against Indian raids, but also to stamp out any smouldering embers of insurrection, and see that the laws of the State were again put in operation.

In April he took command, and on the 24th of the mouth reached the lower settlements on the Holston River. [Footnote:  State Dept.  MSS., No. 150, vol. ii.  Joseph Martin to H. Knox, July 15, 1788.] Here he found that a couple of settlers had been killed by Indians a few days before, and he met a party of riflemen who had gathered to avenge the death of their friends by a foray on the Cherokee towns.  Martin did not believe that the Cherokees were responsible for the murder.  After some talk he persuaded the angry whites to choose four of their trusted men to accompany him as ambassadors to the Cherokee towns in order to find out the truth.