The Situation Grows Intolerable.

Such a state of things as that which existed in the Tennessee territory could not endure.  The failure of the United States authorities to undertake active offensive warfare and to protect the frontiersmen rendered it inevitable that the frontiersmen should protect themselves; and under the circumstances, when retaliation began it was certain sometimes to fall upon the blameless.  The rude militia officers began to lead their retaliatory parties into the Indian lands, and soon the innocent Indians suffered with the guilty, for the frontiersmen had no means of distinguishing between them.  The Indians who visited the settlements with peaceful intent were of course at any time liable to be mistaken for their brethren who were hostile, or else to be attacked by scoundrels who were bent upon killing all red men alike.  Thus, on one day, as Blount reported, a friendly Indian passing the home of one of the settlers was fired upon and wounded; while in the same region five hostile Indians killed the wife and three children of a settler in his sight; and another party stole a number of horses from a station; and yet another party, composed of peaceful Indian hunters, was attacked at night by some white militia, one man being killed and another wounded. [Footnote:  State Department MSS., Washington Papers, War Department, Ex.  C., page 19, extract of letter from Blount to Williamson, April 14, 1792.]

    Scolacutta, the Friendly Cherokee.

One of the firm friends of the whites was Scolacutta, the chief of the Upper Cherokees.  He tried to keep his people at peace, and repeatedly warned the whites of impending attacks, Nevertheless, he was unwilling or unable to stop by force the war parties of Creeks and Lower Cherokees who came through his towns to raid against the settlements and who retreated to them again when the raids were ended.  Many of his young men joined the bands of horse-thieves and scalp-hunters.  The marauders wished to embroil him with the whites, and were glad that the latter should see the bloody trails leading back to his towns.  For two years after the signing of the treaty of Holston the war parties thus passed and repassed through his country, and received aid and comfort from his people, and yet the whites refrained from taking vengeance; but the vengeance was certain to come in the end.

    His Village Attacked.

In March, 1793, Scolacutta’s nearest neighbor, an Indian living next door to him in his own town, and other Indians of the nearest towns, joined one of the war parties which attacked the settlements and killed two unarmed lads. [Footnote:  American State Papers, Blount’s letter, March 20, 1793.  Scolacutta was usually known to the whites as Hanging Maw.] The Indians did nothing to the murderers, and the whites forbore to attack them; but their patience was nearly exhausted.  In June following a captain, John Beard, with fifty mounted riflemen, fell in with