The Georgia frontiersmen openly showed their sullen hatred of the United States authorities.  The Georgia State government was too weak to enforce order.  It could neither keep the peace among its own frontiersmen, nor wage effective war on the Indians; for when the militia did gather to invade the Creek country they were so mutinous and disorderly that the expeditions generally broke up without accomplishing anything.  At one period a militia general, Elijah Clark, actually led a large party of frontiersmen into the unceded Creek hunting grounds with the purpose of setting up an independent government; but the Georgia authorities for once summoned energy sufficient to break up this lawless community. [Footnote:  American State Papers, IV., pp. 260, 295, 365, 394, 397, 410, 412, 417, 427, 473, etc.; Knoxville Gazette, Sept. 26, 1794.  For further allusion to Clark’s settlement, see next chapter.]

    Blount’s Faithful Efforts to Preserve the Peace.

The Georgians were thus far from guiltless themselves, though at this time they were more sinned against than sinning; but in the Tennessee Territory the white settlers behaved very well throughout these years, and showed both patience and fairness in their treatment of the Indians.  Blount did his best to prevent outrages, and Sevier and Robertson heartily seconded him.  In spite of the grumbling of the frontiersmen, and in spite of repeated and almost intolerable provocation in the way of Indian forays, Blount steadily refused to allow counter-expeditions into the Indian territory, and stopped both the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians when they prepared to make such expeditions. [Footnote:  Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Jan. 8, 1793; to Benjamin Logan, Nov. 1, 1794, etc.] Judge Campbell, the same man who was himself attacked by the Indians when returning from his circuit, in his charge to the Grand Jury at the end of 1791, particularly warned them to stop any lawless attack upon the Indians.  In November, 1792, when five Creeks, headed by a Scotch half-breed, retreated to the Cherokee town of Chiloa with stolen horses, a band of fifty whites gathered to march after them and destroy the Cherokee town; but Sevier dispersed them and made them go to their own homes.  The following February a still larger band gathered to attack the Cherokee towns and were dispersed by Blount himself.  Robertson, in the summer of 1793, prevented militia parties from crossing the Tennessee in retaliation.  In October, 1794, the Grand Jury of Hamilton County entreated and adjured the people, in spite of the Indian outrages to stand firmly by the law, and not to try to be their own avengers; and when some whites settled in Powell’s Valley, on Cherokee lands, Governor Blount promptly turned them off. [Footnote:  Knoxville Gazette, Dec. 31, 1791; Nov. 17, 1792; Jan. 25, 1793; Feb. 9, Mar. 23, July 13, Sept. 14, 1793; Nov. 1 and 15, 1794; May 8, 1795.]

    Seagrove’s Difficulties.