the west thai they were Mill livingnear
the base of the Rocky mountains.' In 1782 the Cherokee, who bad
fought faithfully on the British side throughout the long Revolution-
ary struggle, applied to the Spanish governor al New Orleans for
permission to settl > the wesl side of the Mississippi, within Spanish
territory. Permission was granted, and it i- probable that some of
them removed to the Arkansas country, although there seems to be no
definite record of the matter.' We learn incidentally, however, that
about this peried the hostile Cherokee, like the Shawano and other
northern tribes, were in the habit of making friendly visits to the
Spanish settlements in that quarter.
According to Reverend Cephas Washburn, the pioneer misssionary
of the western Cherokee, the first permanent Cherokee settlement
beyond the Mississippi was the direct result of the massacre, inL794,
of the Scott party at Muscle shoals, on Tennessee river, by the hostile
warriors of the Chickamauga towns, in the summer. As told by the
missionary, the story differs considerably from that given by IIa\ wood
and other Tennessee historians, narrated in another place. According
to Washburn, the whites were the aggressors, having first made the
Indians drunk and then swindled them out of the annuity money with
which they were just returning from the agency at Tellico. When
the Indians became sober enough to demand the return of their money
the whites attacked and killed two of them, whereupon the others
boarded the boat and killed every white man. They spared the wi n
and children, however, with their negro slaves and all their personal
belongings, and permitted them to continue on their way. the chief
and his party