"Finding ourselves on the frontiers, and being apprehensive that for want of proper legislature we might become a shelter for such as endeavored to defraud their creditors; considering also the necessity of recording deeds, wills, and doing other public business; we, by consent of the people, formed a court for the purposes above mentioned, taking, by desire of our constituents, the Virginia laws for our guide, so near as the situation of affairs would permit. This was intended for ourselves, and WAS DONE BY CONSENT OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL."
The petition goes on to state that, among their measures for upholding law, the Wataugans had enlisted "a company of fine riflemen" and put them under command of "Captain James Robertson."
"We...thought proper to station them on our frontiers in defense of the common cause, at the expense and risque of our own private fortunes, till farther public orders, which we flatter ourselves will give no offense.... We pray your mature and deliberate consideration in our behalf, that you may annex us to your Province (whether as county, district, or other division) in such manner as may enable us to share in the glorious cause of Liberty: enforce our laws under authority and in every respect become the best members of society; and for ourselves and our constituents we hope we may venture to assure you that we shall adhere strictly to your determinations, and that nothing will be lacking or anything neglected that may add weight (in the civil or military establishments) to the glorious cause in which we are now struggling, or contribute to the welfare of our own or ages yet to come."
One hundred and thirteen names are signed to the document. In the following year (1777) North Carolina erected her overhill territory into Washington County. The Governor appointed justices of the peace and militia officers who in the following year organized the new county and its courts. And so Watauga's independent government, begun in the spirit of true liberty, came as lawfully to its end.
But for nearly three years before their political status was thus determined, the Wataugans were sharing "in the glorious cause of Liberty" by defending their settlements against Indian attacks.
While the majority of the young Cherokee warriors were among their enemies, their chief battles were fought with those from the Chickamaugan towns on the Tennessee River, under the leadership of Dragging Canoe. The Chickamaugans embraced the more vicious and bloodthirsty Cherokees, with a mixture of Creeks and bad whites, who, driven from every law-abiding community, had cast in their lot with this tribe. The exact number of white thieves and murderers who had found harbor in the Indian towns during a score or more of years is not known; but the letters of the Indian agents, preserved in the records, would indicate that there were a good many of them. They were fit allies for Dragging Canoe; their hatred of those from whom their own degeneracy had separated them was not less than his.
In July, 1776, John Sevier wrote to the Virginia Committee as follows:
"Dear Gentlemen: Isaac Thomas, William Falling, Jaret Williams and one more have this moment come in by making their escape from the Indians and say six hundred Indians and whites were to start for this fort and intend to drive the country up to New River before they return."
Thus was heralded the beginning of a savage warfare which kept the borderers engaged for years.
It has been a tradition of the chroniclers that Isaac Thomas received a timely warning from Nancy Ward, a half-caste Cherokee prophetess who often showed her good will towards the whites; and that the Indians were roused to battle by Alexander Cameron and John Stuart, the British agents or superintendents among the overhill tribes. There was a letter bearing Cameron's name stating that fifteen hundred savages from the Cherokee and Creek nations were to join with British troops landed at Pensacola in an expedition against the southern frontier colonies. This letter was brought to Watauga at dead of night by a masked man who slipped it through a window and rode away.
Apparently John Sevier did not believe the military information contained in the mysterious missive, for he communicated nothing of it to the Virginia Committee. In recent years the facts have come to light. This mysterious letter and others of a similar tenor bearing forged signatures are cited in a report by the British Agent, John Stuart, to his Government. It appears that such inflammatory missives had been industriously scattered through the back settlements of both Carolinas. There are also letters from Stuart to Lord Dartmouth, dated a year earlier, urging that something be done immediately to counteract rumors set afloat that the British were endeavoring to instigate both the Indians and the negroes to attack the Americans.
Now it is, of course, an established fact that both the British and the American armies used Indians in the War of Independence, even as both together had used them against the French and the Spanish and their allied Indians. It was inevitable that the Indians should participate in any severe conflict between the whites. They were a numerous and a warlike people and, from their point of view, they had more at stake than the alien whites who were contesting for control of the red man's continent. Both British and Americans have been blamed for "half-hearted attempts to keep the Indians neutral." The truth is that each side strove to enlist the Indians--to be used, if needed later, as warriors.
Massacre was no part of this policy, though it may have been countenanced by individual officers in both camps. But it is obvious that, once the Indians took the warpath, they were to be restrained by no power and, no matter under whose nominal command, they would carry on warfare by their own methods.*
