page_title: Cherokee–American wars
section_title: Nickajack Expedition and peace treaty
hierarchical_section_title: Cherokee–American wars / Post-Revolution: the Watts years (1792–1795) / Nickajack Expedition and peace treaty
caption_attribution_description: The Tellico Blockhouse site, located at the junction of Nine Mile Creek and the Little Tennessee River (now Tellico Lake). The blockhouse was the headquarters of the Tellico Agent, the official liaison between the U.S. and the Cherokee Nation, between 1794 and 1807. The treaty ending the Chickamauga Wars was signed here by Gov. William Blount, Chief Hanging Maw, and Chief John Watt. An excavation in the late 1960s discovered the foundations of the blockhouse, which were marked with authentic fill. Posts were planted to mark the corners.
context_page_description: The Cherokee–American wars, also known as the Chickamauga Wars, were a series of raids, campaigns, ambushes, minor skirmishes, and several full-scale frontier battles in the Old Southwest from 1776 to 1795 between the Cherokee and American settlers on the frontier. Most of the events took place in the Upper South. While the fighting stretched across the entire period, there were extended periods with of little or no action.
  The Cherokee leader Dragging Canoe, whom some historians call "the Savage Napoleon", and his warriors, and other Cherokee fought alongside and together with warriors from several other tribes, most often the Muscogee in the Old Southwest and the Shawnee in the Old Northwest. During the Revolutionary War, they also fought alongside British troops, Loyalist militia, and the King's Carolina Rangers against the rebel colonists, hoping to expel them from their territory.
  Open warfare broke out in the summer of 1776 along the frontier of the Watauga, Holston, Nolichucky, and Doe rivers in East Tennessee, as well as the colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
context_section_description: Desiring to end the wars once and for all, Robertson sent a detachment of U.S. regular troops, Mero District militia, and Kentucky volunteers to the Five Lower Towns under U.S. Army Major James Ore. Guided by knowledgeable locals, including former captive Joseph Brown, Ore's army traveled down the Cisca and St. Augustine Trail toward the Five Lower Towns.
  
  On September 13, the army attacked Nickajack without warning, slaughtering many of the inhabitants, including its pacifist chief The Breath. After torching the houses, the soldiers went upriver and burned Running Water, whose residents had long fled. Joseph Brown fought alongside the soldiers but tried to spare women and children. The Cherokee casualties were relatively light, as the majority of the population of both towns were in Willstown attending a major stickball game.
  Watts finally decided to call for peace: he was discouraged by the destruction of the two towns, the death of Bob Benge in April, and the recent defeat of the Western Confederacy by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne's army at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. More than 100 Cherokee had fought there. The loss of support from the Spanish, who had their own problems against France in the War of the First Coalition, convinced Watts to end the fighting.
  On November 7, 1794, he made the Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse. It was notable for not requiring any more land cessions by the Cherokee, other than finally ended the series of conflicts, which was notable for not requiring any further cession of land other than requiring the Lower Cherokee to recognize the cessions of the Holston Treaty. This led to a period of relative peace into the 19th century.
  The Muscogee kept on fighting after the destruction of Nickajack and Running Water and the following peace between the Lower Cherokee and the United States. In October 1794, they attacked Bledsoe's Station again. In November, they attacked Sevier's Station and massacred fourteen of the inhabitants, Valentine Sevier being one of the few survivors.
  In December 1794, a force of Cherokee warriors from the Upper Towns stopped a Muscogee campaign against the frontier settlements of the state of Georgia and warned them to cease attacking the Southwest Territory's Eastern Districts as well. In early January 1795, however, the Chickasaw, who had sent warriors to take part in the Army of the Northwest, began killing Muscogee warriors found in Middle Tennessee as allies of the United States and taking their scalps, so in March, the Muscogee began to turn their attentions away from the Cumberland to the Chickasaw, over the entreaties of the Cherokee and the Choctaw.
caption: The Tellico Blockhouse site, with posts and stone fill showing the original layout
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