killing a number of warriors; but he
retired on learning that the Indians were gathering to give him battle. 4
In the springof this year Agent Martin, stationedat Echota, had made
a tour of inspection of the Cherokee towns and reported that they
were generally friendly and anxious for peace, with the exception of
the Chickamauga band, under Dragging-canoe, who, acting with the
hostile ('reeks and encouraged by the French and Spaniard-, were
making preparations to destroy the Cumberland settlements. Not-
withstanding the friendly professions of the others, a party sent out
to obtain satisfaction for the murder of four Cherokee by the Tennes-
seeans had come back with fifteen white scalps, and sent word to Sevier
that they wanted peace, but if the whites wanted war they would get
it. 5 "With lawdess men on both sides it ishad been given by North Carolina against which state, l>\ the
way, they were then in organized rebellion the whole country north
of the Tennessee river as far west as the Cumberland mountain, and
that they intended to take it "by the -word, which is the best right to
all countries." As the whole of this country was within the limits of
the territory solemnly guaranteed to the Cherokee by the Hopewell
treaty only the year before, the chiefs simply replied that Congress
had -aid nothing to them on the subject, and SO the matter rested. 1
The theory of state's rights was too complicated for the Indian under-
standing.
While this conflict between state and federal authority continued,
with the Cherokee lands as the prize, there could lie no peace. In
March, L787, a letter from Echota, apparently written