entirely had the population at this time been
scattered over a wider territory. The obstinate and bloody warfare waged
by the Indians against the frontiersmen was in one way of great service
to the nation, for it kept back the frontier, and forced the settlements
to remain more or less compact and in touch with the country behind
them. If the red men had been as weak as, for instance, the
black-fellows of Australia, the settlers would have roamed hither and
thither without regard to them, and would have settled, each man
wherever he liked, across to the Pacific. Moreover the Indians formed
the bulwarks which defended the British and Spanish possessions from the
adventurers of the border; save for the shield thus offered by the
fighting tribes it would have been impossible to bar the frontiersmen
from the territory either to the north or to the south of the boundaries
of the United States.

Congress had tried hard to bring about peace with the southern Indians,
both by sending commissioners to them and by trying to persuade the
three southern States to enter into mutually beneficial treaties with
them. A successful effort was also made to detach the Chickasaws from
the others, and keep them friendly with the United States. Congress as
usual sympathized with the Indians against the intruding whites,
although it was plain that only by warfare could the red men be
permanently subdued. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., No. 180, p. 66; No.
151, p. 275. Also letters of Richard Winn to Knox, June 25, 1788; James
White to Knox, Aug. 1, 1788; Joseph Martin to Knox, July 25, 1788.]

Sufferings of the Cumberland People.

The Cumberland people felt the full weight of the warfare, the Creeks
being their special enemies. Robertson himself lost a son and a brother
in the various Indian attacks. To him fell the task of trying to put a
stop to the ravages. He was the leader of his people in every way, their
commander in war and their spokesman when they sought peace; and early
in 1788 he wrote a long letter on their behalf to the Creek chief
McGillivray. After disclaiming all responsibility for or connection with
the Franklin men, he said that the settlers for whom he spoke had not
had the most distant idea that any Indians would object to their
settling on the Cumberland, in a country that had been purchased
outright at the Henderson treaty. He further stated that he had believed
the Creek chief would approve of the expedition to punis