Odd Manifestations of Particularistic Feeling.

If the Easterners were insensible to the Western need for a vigorous Indian war, many of the Westerners showed as little appreciation of the necessity for any Indian war which did not immediately concern themselves.  Individual Kentuckians, individual colonels and captains of the Kentucky militia, were always ready to march to the help of the Tennesseeans against the Southern Indians; but the highest officials of Kentucky were almost as anxious as the Federal authorities to prevent any war save that with the tribes northwest of the Ohio.  One of the Kentucky senators, Brown, in writing to the Governor, Isaac Shelby, laid particular stress upon the fact that nothing but the most urgent necessity could justify a war with the Southern Indians. [Footnote:  Shelby MSS., J. Brown to Isaac Shelby, Philadelphia, June 2, 1793.] Shelby himself sympathized with this feeling.  He knew what an Indian war was, for he had owed his election largely to his record as an Indian fighter and to the confidence the Kentuckians felt in his power to protect them from their red foes. [Footnote:  Do., M. D. Hardin to Isaac Shelby, April 10, 1792, etc., etc.] His correspondence is filled with letters in relation to Indian affairs, requests to authorize the use of spies, requests to establish guards along the wilderness road and to garrison blockhouses on the frontier; and sometimes there are more pathetic letters, from a husband who had lost a wife, or from an “old, frail woman,” who wished to know if the Governor could not by some means get news of her little granddaughter who had been captured in the wilderness two years before by a party of Indians. [Footnote:  Do., Letter of Mary Mitchell to Isaac Shelby, May 1, 1793.] He realized fully what hostilities meant, and had no desire to see his State plunged into any Indian war which could be avoided.

Yet, in spite of this cautious attitude, Shelby had much influence with the people of the Tennessee territory.  They confided to him their indignation with Blount for stopping Logan’s march to the aid of Robertson; while on the other hand the Virginians, when anxious to prevent the Cumberland settlers from breaking the peace, besought him to use his influence with them in order to make them do what was right. [Footnote:  Shelby MSS., Arthur Campbell to Shelby, January 6, 1890; letter from Cumberland to Shelby, May 11, 1793; John Logan to Shelby, June 19, 1794; petition of inhabitants of Nelson County, May 9, 1793.] When such a man as Shelby was reluctant to see the United States enter into open hostilities with the Southern Indians, there is small cause for wonder in the fact that the authorities at the National capital did their best to deceive themselves into the belief that there was no real cause for war.

    Intolerable Hardships of the Settlers.