The Birth of a Nation 89were starving, more without shelter, on the move as refugees, with
only the Chickamauga fighters as a protective force fighting off the
seasoned ranger-settler Indian killers. In July 1791, the Cherokees
reluctantly signed the Treaty of Holston, agreeing to abandon any
claims to land on which the Franklin settlements sat in return for an
annual annuity of $100,000 from the federal government.17
The United States did nothing to halt the flow of squatters into
Cherokee territory as the boundary was drawn in the treaty. A year
after the treaty was signed, war broke out, and the Chickamau
gas, under the leadership of Dragging Canoe, attacked squatters,
even laying siege to Nashville.18 The war continued for two years,
with five hundred Chickamauga fighters joined by Muskogees and
a contingent of Shawnees from Ohio, led by Cheeseekau, one of Te
cumseh's brothers, who was later killed in the fighting. The settlers
organized an offensive against the Chickamaugas. The federal In
dian agent attempted to persuade the Chickamaugas to stop fighting,
warning that the frontier settlers were "always dreadful, not only to
the warriors, but to the innocent and helpless women and children,
and old men." The agent also warned the settlers against attacking
Indigenous towns, but he had to order the militia to disperse a mob
of three hundred settlers, who, as he wrote, out of "a mistaken zeal
to serve their country" had gathered to destroy "as many as they
could of the Cherokee towns."19 Sevier and his rangers invaded the
Chickamaugas' towns in September 1793, with a stated mission of
total destruction. Although forbidden by the federal agent to attack
the villages, Sevier gave orders for a scorched-earth offensive.
By choosing to attack at harvesttime, Sevier intended to starve
out the residents. The strategy worked. Soon after, the federal agent
reported to the secretary of war that the region was pacified, with
no Indigenous actions since "the visit General Sevier paid the [Cher
okee] nation." A year later, Sevier demanded absolute submission
from the Chickamauga villages lest they be wiped out completely.
Receiving no response, a month later 1,750 Franklin rangers at
tacked two villages, burning all the buildings and fields-again near
the harvest-and shooting those who tried to flee. Sevier then re
peated his demand for submission, requiring the Chickamaugas to
abandon their towns for the woods, taking only what they could