effect was that the Chickamaugas, who were mainly Lower Town Cherokees, seeing the impunity with which the ravages were committed, and appreciating the fact that under the orders of the Government they could not be molested in their own homes by the whites, began to join in the raids; and their nearness to the settlements soon made them the worst offenders.  One of their leading chiefs was John Watts, who was of mixed blood.  Among all these Southern Indians, half-breeds were far more numerous than among the Northerners, and when the half-breeds lived with their mothers’ people they usually became the deadliest enemies of their fathers’ race.  Yet, they generally preserved the father’s name.  In consequence, among the extraordinary Indian titles borne by the chiefs of the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws—­the Bloody Fellow, the Middle Striker, the Mad Dog, the Glass, the Breath—­there were also many names like John Watts, Alexander Cornell, and James Colbert, which were common among the frontiersmen themselves.

    Fruitless Peace Negotiations.

These Chickamaugas, and Lower Cherokees, had solemnly entered into treaties of peace, and Blount had been taken in by their professions of friendship, and for some time was loath to believe that their warriors were among war parties who ravaged the settlements.  By the spring of 1792, however, the fact of their hostility could no longer be concealed.  Nevertheless, in May of that year the chiefs of the Lower Cherokee Towns, joined with those of the Upper Towns in pressing Governor Blount to come to a council at Coyatee, where he was met by two thousand Cherokees, including all their principal chiefs and warriors. [Footnote:  Robertson’s MSS., Blount to Robertson, May 20, 1792.] The head men, not only from the Upper Towns, but from Nickajack and Running Water, including John Watts, solemnly assured Blount of their peaceful intentions, and expressed their regret at the outrages which they admitted had been committed by their young men.  Blount told them plainly that he had the utmost difficulty in restraining the whites from taking vengeance for the numerous murders committed on the settlers, and warned them that if they wished to avert a war which would fall upon both the innocent and the guilty they must themselves keep the peace.  The chiefs answered, with seeming earnestness, that they were most desirous of being at peace, and would certainly restrain their men; and they begged for the treaty goods which Blount had in his possession.  So sincere did they seem that he gave them the goods. [Footnote:  Knoxville Gazette, March 24,1792; American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of War, June 2, 1792, with minutes of conference at Coyatee.]

This meeting began on the 17th of May, yet on the 16th, within twelve miles of Knoxville, two boys were killed and scalped while picking strawberries, and on the 13th a girl had been scalped within four miles of Nashville; and on the 17th itself, while Judge Campbell of the Territorial Court was returning from the Cumberland Circuit his party was attacked, and one killed. [Footnote:  Knoxville Gazette, June 2, 1792.]