y in the Cumberland district, since the signing of the
treaty of Holston. Many others had been carried off, and were kept in
slavery. Among the wounded were General Robertson and one of his sons,
who were shot, although not fatally, in May, 1792, while working on
their farm. Both Creeks and Cherokees took part in the outrages, and the
Chickamauga towns on the Tennessee, at Running Water, Nickajack, and in
the neighborhood, ultimately supplied the most persistent
wrongdoers. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of
War, Nov. 8, 1792; also page 330, etc. Many of these facts will be found
recited, not only in the correspondence of Blount, but in the Robertson
MSS., in the _Knoxville Gazette_, and in Haywood, Ramsey, and Putman.]

Effect of the Defeat of Harmar and St. Clair.
Growth of the War Spirit.

As Sevier remarked, the Southern, no less than the Northern Indians were
much excited and encouraged by the defeat of St. Clair, coming as it did
so close upon the defeat of Harmar. The double disaster to the American
arms made the young braves very bold, and it became impossible for the
elder men to restrain them. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., pp.
263, 439, etc.] The Creeks harassed the frontiers of Georgia somewhat,
but devoted their main attention to the Tennesseeans, and especially to
the isolated settlements on the Cumberland. The Chickamauga towns were
right at the crossing place both for the Northern Indians when they came
south and for the Creeks when they went north. Bands of Shawnees, who
were at this time the most inveterate of the enemies of the
frontiersmen, passed much time among them; and the Creek war parties,
when they journeyed north to steal horses and get scalps, invariably
stopped among them, and on their return stopped again to exhibit their
trophies and hold scalp dances. The natural 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 usua