This people, at the period of which we write, were a people of very superior endowments and resources to any of the neighboring savage nations. If less warlike, in the simple sense of the word, than their rivals the Creeks, they were really more to be feared, as it was in consequence of their superior civilisation that they had lost some of their brute ferocity. If they were less reckless, they were better skilled; if less frantic in their fury, they coupled it with a wary vindictiveness which rendered the blow more fatal when it fell.
The advances which they had made in civilisation had naturally increased their numbers; while the novel tastes by which their wandering habits were diminished, had necessarily added to their love of country, in adding to the resources and improvements by which its comforts and delights were increased. Thus, neither degraded by the lowest condition in which we find the human animal, nor enervated by the superior luxuries to which he may attain, the Cherokee was perhaps at this time in possession of his greatest vigor; not very remote, in his moral and physical condition, from the Roman when he overcame his Etrurian and Sabine neighbors.
The Cherokees occupied a country equally broad and beautiful.
It lay in fertile valleys, green meadows, sunny slopes, and mighty forests, along the sides of lofty summits, that circled their extensive territory with natural fortresses of giant grandeur. Spreading from the Broad, or Cherokee river, beyond the Tennessee and the Savannah, it comprised every variety of soil and surface, and while adapted in a high degree to the hands of the agriculturist, seemed almost as easily made secure against the footsteps of invasion. Its apparent securities had made them insolent. Their mountain recesses had never known the presence of this foe. Their fruits and fields, their villages and towns, with the exception of a district that lay upon the Atlantic slopes, were generally fenced in, and admirably protected, by wild and rugged masses of rocky mountains, natural defences, impenetrable, unless through certain passes which a few determined hearts might easily make good against twenty times their number. But the numerical force of this great aboriginal people, seemed of itself sufficiently strong to promise security to their country. At the time of Montgomery's invasion they had no less than sixty-four towns and villages. In an emergency, they could send six thousand warriors into the field. Many of these were armed with the weapons of European warfare -- were accustomed to that warfare, and were thus doubly prepared to encounter the enemy in whose ranks they had received their best military lessons.
Such a force very far exceeded that of the Carolinians.
Mustering but two thousand men, Col. Montgomery found it advisable to urge his march upon the nation with equal celerity and caution.
Having reached a place called Twelve-mile River, within twenty miles of the Indian town of Estatoee, he advanced by night upon it, secretly, and with a view to its surprise. In his march, surrounding the town of Little Keowee, not a warrior of the Cherokees escaped the sword.
His success was less complete at Estatoee. The Indians, apprised of his approach, with few exceptions, succeeded in making their escape;but the town, consisting of more than two hundred houses, and well stored with corn, hogs, poultry and ammunition, perished in the flames.
Shugaw Town and every other settlement in the "Lower Nation", shared the same fate. The lightning-like rapidity of the march had taken the savages everywhere, in this part of the country, by surprise.
They fled rather than fought, and while they lost everything in the shape of property, but few of them were slain. They sought for shelter among their more numerous and better protected brethren of the mountains;a people neither so easily approached, nor so easily overcome.
Montgomery, having finished this part of his work so successfully, hurried on to the relief of Fort Prince George, which, from the time when their Chiefs were so cruelly butchered within its walls, had been closely invested by a formidable force of Cherokees.
The fort was relieved. The Indians fled at his approach;and, thinking that the severe chastisement which he had inflicted upon them, had inclined their hearts to peace, the General of the Carolinians paused in his progress, to give them an opportunity to sue for it, as the former friends and allies of the English. But he had mistaken the stubborn nature of his foe. They were not sufficiently humbled, and it was resolved to march upon the "middle settlements".
To this task, that which had been performed was comparatively easy.
They were now to enter upon a different country, where the Indians were better prepared for them -- nay, where they HAD prepared for them, --in all probability, to the neglect of the lower towns.
