lly 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 C