Robertson passed unharmed through the wilderness to Kentucky.  There he procured plenty of powder, and without delay set out on his return journey to the Cumberland.  As before, he travelled alone through the frozen woods, trusting solely to his own sharp senses for his safety.

    Attack on Freeland’s.

In the evening of January 15, 1781, he reached Freeland’s station, and was joyfully received by the inmates.  They supped late, and then sat up for some time, talking over many matters.  When they went to bed all were tired, and neglected to take the usual precautions against surprise; moreover, at that season they did not fear molestation.  They slept heavily, none keeping watch.  Robertson alone was wakeful and suspicious; and even during his light slumbers his keen and long-trained senses were on the alert.

At midnight all was still.  The moon shone brightly down on the square block-houses and stockaded yard of the lonely little frontier fort; its rays lit up the clearing, and by contrast darkened the black shadow of the surrounding forest.  None of the sleepers within the log-walls dreamed of danger.  Yet their peril was imminent.  An Indian war band was lurking near by, and was on the point of making an effort to carry Freeland’s station by an attack in the darkness.  In the dead of the night the attempt was made.  One by one the warriors left the protection of the tangled wood-growth, slipped silently across the open space, and crouched under the heavy timber pickets of the palisades, until all had gathered together.  Though the gate was fastened with a strong bar and chain, the dextrous savages finally contrived to open it.

In so doing they made a slight noise, which caught Robertson’s quick ear, as he lay on his buffalo-hide pallet.  Jumping up he saw the gate open, and dusky figures gliding into the yard with stealthy swiftness.  At his cry of “Indians,” and the report of his piece, the settlers sprang up, every man grasping the loaded arm by which he slept.  From each log cabin the rifles cracked and flashed; and though the Indians were actually in the yard they had no cover, and the sudden and unexpected resistance caused them to hurry out much faster than they had come in.  Robertson shot one of their number, and they in return killed a white man who sprang out-of-doors at the first alarm.  When they were driven out the gate was closed after them; but they fired through the loopholes; especially into one of the block-houses, where the chinks had not been filled with mud, as in the others.  They thus killed a negro, and wounded one or two other men; yet they were soon driven off.  Robertson’s return had been at a most opportune moment.  As so often before and afterwards, he had saved the settlement from destruction.

Other bands of Indians joined the war party, and they continued to hover about the stations, daily inflicting loss and damage on the settlers.  They burned down the cabins and fences, drove off the stock and killed the hunters, the women and children who ventured outside the walls, and the men who had gone back to their deserted stockades.

    Attack on Nashborough.

On the 2d day of April another effort was made by a formidable war party to get possession of one of the two remaining stations ­Freeland’s and Nashborough ­and thus, at a stroke, drive the whites from the Cumberland district.  This time Nashborough was the point aimed at.

A large body of Cherokees approached the fort in the night, lying hid in the bushes, divided into two parties.  In the morning three of them came near, fired at the fort, and ran off towards where the smaller party lay ambushed, in a thicket through which ran a little “branch.”  Instantly twenty men mounted their horses and galloped after the decoys.  As they overtook the fugitives they saw the Indians hid in the creek-bottom, and dismounted to fight, turning their horses loose.  A smart interchange of shots followed, the whites having, if any thing, rather the best of it, when the other and larger body of Indians rose from their hiding-place, in a clump of cedars, and running down, formed between the combatants and the fort, intending to run into the latter, mixed with the fleeing riflemen.  The only chance of the hemmed-in whites was to turn and try to force their way back through their far more numerous foes.  This was a desperate venture, for their pieces were all discharged, and there was no time to reload them; but they were helped by two unexpected circumstances.  Their horses had taken flight at the firing, and ran off towards the fort, passing to one side of the intervening line of Indians; and many of the latter, eager for such booty, ran off to catch them.  Meanwhile, the remaining men in the fort saw what had happened, and made ready for defense, while all the women likewise snatched up guns or axes, and stood by loopholes and gate.  The dogs in the fort were also taking a keen interest in what was going on.  They were stout, powerful animals, some being hounds and others watch dogs, but all accustomed to contests with wild beasts; and by instinct and training they mortally hated Indians.  Seeing the line of savages drawn up between the fort and their masters, they promptly sallied out and made a most furious onset upon their astonished foes.  Taking advantage of this most opportune diversion, the whites ran through the lines and got into the fort, the Indians being completely occupied in defending themselves from the dogs.  Five of the whites were killed, and they carried two wounded men into the fort.  Another man, when almost in safety, was shot, and fell with a broken thigh; but he had reloaded his gun as he ran, and he killed his assailant as the latter ran up to scalp him.  The people from the fort then, by firing their rifles, kept his foes at bay until he could be rescued; and he soon recovered from his hurt.  Yet another man was overtaken almost under the walls, the Indian punching him in the shoulder with the gun as he pulled the trigger; but the gun snapped, and a hunter ran out of the fort and shot the Indian.  The gates were closed, and the whites all ready; so the Indians abandoned their effort and drew off.  They had taken five scalps and a number of horses; but they had failed in their main object, and the whites had taken two scalps, besides killing and wounding others of the red men, who were carried off by their comrades.

After the failure of this attempt the Indians did not, for some years, make any formidable attack on any of the larger stations.  Though the most dangerous of all foes on their own ground, their extreme caution and dislike of suffering punishment prevented them from ever making really determined efforts to carry a fort openly by storm; moreover, these stockades were really very defensible against men unprovided with artillery, and there is no reason for supposing that any troops could have carried them by fair charging, without suffering altogether disproportionate loss.  The red tribes acted in relation to the Cumberland settlements exactly as they had previously done towards those on the Kentucky and Watauga.  They harassed the settlers from the outset; but they did not wake up to the necessity for a formidable and combined campaign against them until it was too late for such a campaign to succeed.  If, at the first, any one of these communities had been forced to withstand the shock of such Indian armies as were afterwards brought against it, it would, of necessity, have been abandoned.

    Indian Hostilities.

Throughout ’81 and ’82 the Cumberland settlers were worried beyond description by a succession of small war parties.  In the first of these years they raised no corn; in the second they made a few crops on fields they had cleared in 1780.  No man’s life was safe for an hour, whether he hunted, looked up strayed stock, went to the spring for water, or tilled the fields.  If two men were together, one always watched while the other worked, ate, or drank; and they sat down back to back, or, if there were several, in a ring, facing outwards, like a covey of quail.  The Indians were especially fond of stealing the horses; the whites pursued them in bands, and occasionally pitched battles were fought, with loss on both sides, and apparently as often resulting in the favor of one party as of the other.  The most expert Indian fighters naturally became the leaders, being made colonels and captains of the local militia.  The position and influence of the officers depended largely on their individual prowess; they were the actual, not titular, leaders of their men.  Old Kasper Mansker, one of the most successful, may be taken as a type of the rest.  He was ultimately made a colonel, and shared in many expeditions; but he always acted as his own scout, and never would let any of his men ride ahead or abreast of him, preferring to trust to his own eyes and ears and knowledge of forest warfare.  The hunters, who were especially exposed to danger, were also the men who inflicted most loss on the Indians, and though many more of the settlers than of their foes were slain, yet the tables were often turned on the latter, even by those who seemed their helpless victims.  Thus, once, two lads were watching at a deer lick, when some Indians came to it; each of the boys chose his man, fired, and then fled homewards; coming back with some men they found they had killed two Indians, whose scalps they took.

The eagerness of the Indians to get scalps caused them frequently to scalp their victims before life was extinct; and, as a result, there were numerous instances in which the scalped unfortunate, whether man, woman, or child, was rescued and recovered, living many years.  One of these instances is worth giving in the quaint language of the old Tennessee historian, Haywood: 

“In the spring of the year 1782 a party of Indians fired upon three persons at French Lick, and broke the arms of John Tucker and Joseph Hendricks, and shot down David Hood, whom they scalped and stamped, as he said, and followed the others towards the fort; the people of the fort came out and repulsed them and saved the wounded men.  Supposing the Indians gone, Hood got up softly, wounded and scalped as he was, and began to walk towards the fort on the bluff, when, to his mortification, he saw, standing upon the bank of the creek, a number of Indians, the same who had wounded him before, making sport of his misfortune and mistake.  They then fell upon him again, and having given him, in several places, new wounds that were apparently mortal, then left him.  He fell into a brush heap in the mow, and next morning was tracked and found by his blood, and was placed as a dead man in one of the out-houses, and was left alone; after some time he recovered, and lived many years.”

Many of the settlers were killed, many others left for Kentucky, Illinois, or Natchez, or returned to their old homes among the Alleghanies; and in 1782 the inhabitants, who had steadily dwindled in numbers, became so discouraged that they again mooted the question of abandoning the Cumberland district in a body.  Only Robertson’s great influence prevented this being done; but by word and example he finally persuaded them to remain.  The following spring brought the news of peace with Great Britain.  A large inflow of new settlers began with the new year, and though the Indian hostilities still continued, the Cumberland country throve apace, and by the end 1783 the old stations had been rebuilt and many new ones founded.  Some of the settlers began to live out on their clearings.  Rude little corn-mills and “hominy pounders” were built beside some of the streams.  The piles of furs and hides that had accumulated in the stockades were sent back to the coast country on pack-horses.  After this year there was never any danger that the settlements would be abandoned.

During the two years of petty but disastrous Indian warfare that followed the attack on Freelands, the harassed and diminishing settlers had been so absorbed in the contest with the outside foe that they had done little towards keeping up their own internal government.  When 1783 opened new settlers began to flock in, the Indian hostilities abated, and commissioners arrived from North Carolina under a strong guard, with the purpose of settling the claim of the various settlers and laying off the bounty lands, promised to the Continental troops. It therefore became necessary that the Committee or Court of Triers should again be convened, to see that justice was done as between man and man.

    Internal Government.

The ten men elected from the different stations met at Nashborough on January 7th, Robertson being again made chairman, as well as colonel of the militia, while a proper clerk and sheriff were chosen.  Each member took a solemn oath to do equal justice according to the best of his skill and ability.  A number of suits between the settlers themselves were disposed of.  These related to a variety of subjects.  A kettle had been “detained” from Humphrey Hogan; he brought suit, and it was awarded him, the defendant “and his mother-in-law” being made to pay the cost of the suit.  A hog case, a horse used in hunting, a piece of cleared ground, a bed which had not been made according to contract, the ownership of a canoe, and of a heifer, a “clevis lent and delayed to be returned” ­such were some of the cases on which the judges had to decide.  There were occasional slander suits; for in a small backwoods community there is always much jealousy and bitter gossip.  When suit was brought for “cattle won at cards,” the committee promptly dismissed the claim as illegal; they evidently had clear ideas as to what was good public policy.  A man making oath that another had threatened his life, the latter was taken and put under bonds.  Another man produced a note of hand for the payment of two good cows, “against John Sadler”; he “proved his accompt,” and procured an attachment against the estate of “Sd.  Sadler.”  When possible, the Committee compromised the cases, or advised the parties to adjust matters between themselves.  The sheriff executed the various decrees, in due form; he arrested the men who refused to pay heed to the judgments of the court, and when necessary took out of their “goods and chattles, lands and tenements,” the damages awarded, and also the costs and fees.  The government was in the hands of men who were not only law-abiding themselves but also resolute to see that the law was respected by others.

The committee took cognizance of all affairs concerning the general welfare of the community.  They ordered roads to be built between the different stations, appointing overseers who had power to “call out hands to work on the same.”  Besides the embodiment of all the full-grown men as militia, ­those of each station under their own captain, lieutenant, and ensign, ­a diminutive force of paid regulars was organized; that is, six spies were “kept out to discover the motions of the enemy so long as we shall be able to pay them; each to receive seventy-five bushels of Indian corn per month.”  They were under the direction of Colonel Robertson, who was head of all the branches of the government.  One of the committee’s regulations followed an economic principle of doubtful value.  Some enterprising individuals, taking advantage of the armed escort accompanying the Carolina commissioners, brought out casks of liquors.  The settlers had drunk nothing but water for many months, and they eagerly purchased the liquor, the merchants naturally charging all that the traffic would bear.  This struck the committee as a grievance, and they forthwith passed a decree that any person bringing in liquor “from foreign ports,” before selling the same, must give bond that they would charge no more than one silver dollar, or its value in merchandise, per quart.

Some of the settlers would not enter the association, preferring a condition of absolute freedom from law.  The committee, however, after waiting a proper time, forced these men in by simply serving notice, that thereafter they would be treated as beyond the pale of the law, not entitled to its protection, but amenable to its penalties.  A petition was sent to the North Carolina Legislature, asking that the protection of government should be extended to the Cumberland people, and showing that the latter were loyal and orderly, prompt to suppress sedition and lawlessness, faithful to the United States, and hostile to its enemies. To show their good feeling the committee made every member of the community, who had not already done so, take the oath of abjuration and fidelity.

    Affairs with Outside Powers.

Until full governmental protection could be secured the commonwealth was forced to act as a little sovereign state, bent on keeping the peace, and yet on protecting itself against aggression from the surrounding powers, both red and white.  It was forced to restrain its own citizens, and to enter into quasi-diplomatic relations with its neighbors.  Thus early this year fifteen men, under one Colbert, left the settlements and went down the river in boats, ostensibly to trade with the Indians, but really to plunder the Spaniards on the Mississippi.  They were joined by some Chickasaws, and at first met with some success in their piratical attacks, not only on the Spanish trading-boats, but on those of the French Créoles, and even the Americans, as well.  Finally they were repulsed in an attempt against the Spaniards at Ozark; some were killed, and the rest scattered. Immediately upon learning of these deeds, the Committee of Triers passed stringent resolutions forbidding all persons trading with the Indians until granted a license by the committee, and until they had furnished ample security for their good behavior.  The committee also wrote a letter to the Spanish governor at New Orleans, disclaiming all responsibility for the piratical misdeeds of Colbert and his gang, and announcing the measures they had taken to prevent any repetition of the same in the future.  They laid aside the sum of twenty pounds to pay the expenses of the messengers who carried this letter to the Virginian “agent” at the Illinois, whence it was forwarded to the Spanish Governor.

One of the most difficult questions with which the committee had to deal was that of holding a treaty with the Indians.  Commissioners came out from Virginia and North Carolina especially to hold such a treaty; but the settlers declined to allow it until they had themselves decided on its advisability.  They feared to bring so many savages together, lest they might commit some outrage, or be themselves subjected to such at the hands of one of the many wronged and reckless whites; and they knew that the Indians would expect many presents, while there was very little indeed to give them.  Finally, the committee decided to put the question of treaty or no treaty to the vote of the freemen in the several stations; and by a rather narrow majority it was decided in the affirmative.  The committee then made arrangements for holding the treaty in June, some four miles from Nashborough; and strictly prohibited the selling of liquor to the savages.  At the appointed time many chiefs and warriors of the Chickasaws, Cherokees, and even Creeks appeared.  There were various sports, such as ball-games and footraces; and the treaty was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. It did not put a complete stop to the Indian outrages, but it greatly diminished them.  The Chickasaws thereafter remained friendly; but, as usual, the Cherokee and Creek chiefs who chose to attend were unable to bind those of their fellows who did not.  The whole treaty was, in fact, on both sides, of a merely preliminary nature.  The boundaries it arranged were not considered final until confirmed by the treaty of Hopewell a couple of years later.

Robertson meanwhile was delegated by the unanimous vote of the settlers to go to the Assembly of North Carolina, and there petition for the establishment of a regular land office at Nashborough, and in other ways advance the interests of the settlers.  He was completely successful in his mission.  The Cumberland settlements were included in a new county, called Davidson; and an Inferior Court of Pleas and Common Sessions, vested by the act with extraordinary powers, was established at Nashborough.  The four justices of the new court had all been Triers of the old committee, and the scheme of government was practically not very greatly changed, although now resting on an indisputably legal basis.  The Cumberland settlers had for years acted as an independent, law-abiding, and orderly commonwealth, and the Court of Triers had shown great firmness and wisdom.  It spoke well for the people that they had been able to establish such a government, in which the majority ruled, while the rights of each individual were secured.  Robertson deserves the chief credit as both civil and military leader.  The committee of which he was a member, had seen that justice was done between man and man, had provided for defense against the outside foe, and had striven to prevent any wrongs being done to neutral or allied powers.  When they became magistrates of a county of North Carolina they continued to act on the lines they had already marked out.  The increase of population had brought an increase of wealth.  The settlers were still frontiersmen, clad in buckskin or homespun, with rawhide moccasins, living in log-cabins, and sleeping under bearskins on beds made of buffalo hides; but as soon as they ventured to live on their clearings the ground was better tilled, corn became abundant, and cattle and hogs increased as the game diminished.  Nashborough began to look more like an ordinary little border town.

    Correspondence with the Spaniards.

During this year Robertson carried on some correspondence with the Spanish governor at New Orleans, Don Estevan Miro.  This was the beginning of intercourse between the western settlers and the Spanish officers, an intercourse which was absolutely necessary, though it afterwards led to many intrigues and complications.  Robertson was obliged to write to Miro not only to disclaim responsibility for the piratical deeds of men like Colbert, but also to protest against the conduct of certain of the Spanish agents among the Creeks and Chickamaugas.  No sooner had hostilities ceased with the British than the Spaniards began to incite the savages to take up once more the hatchet they had just dropped, for Spain already recognized in the restless borderers possible and formidable foes.

Miro in answering Robertson assured him that the Spaniards were very friendly to the western settlers, and denied that the Spanish agents were stirring up trouble.  He also told him that the harassed Cherokees, weary of ceaseless warfare, had asked permission to settle west of the Mississippi ­although they did not carry out their intention.  He ended by pressing Robertson and his friends to come down and settle in Spanish territory, guaranteeing them good treatment.

In spite of Miro’s fair words the Spanish agents continued to intrigue against the Americans, and especially against the Cumberland people.  Yet there was no open break.  The Spanish governor was felt to be powerful for both good and evil, and at least a possible friend of the settlers.  To many of their leaders he showed much favor, and the people as a whole were well impressed by him; and as a compliment to him they ultimately, when the Cumberland counties were separated from those lying to the eastward, united the former under the name of Mero District.