90 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. several of their warriors were killed. The proper steps to pacify them were not taken ; and a war ensued equally calamitous to both parties. It became necessary to bring British troops from the north ; two expeditions were made into their country, and peace was restored in 1761. They took arms on the British side during the war of Independence, and, although some prior treaties intervened, partial hostilities con- tinued several years after 17S3 ; and peace was not secured till the treaty of Holston in 1791. By this treaty a territory on which white settlers had encroached, was restored to them. Prom that time they have ever been at peace with the United States ; and, during the last war with Great Britain, they as- sisted America, as auxiliaries, against the Creeks. The territory of the Cherokees, Chelakees, or more proper- ly Tsalakies, extended north and south of the southwesterly continuation of the Appalachian mountains, embracing on the north the country on Tennessee or Cherokee River and its tributary streams, from their sources down to the vicinity of the Muscle Shoals, where they were bounded on the west by the Chicasas. The Cumberland mountain may be considered as having been their boundary on the north ; but since the country has been known to us, no other Indian nation but some small bands of Shawnoes, had any settlement between that mountain and the Ohio. On the west side of the Savannah they were bounded on the south by the Creeks, the division line being Broad River and generally along the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude. On the east of the Savannah, their original seats embraced the upper waters of that river, of the Santee and probably of the Yadkin, but could not have extended as far south as the thirty-fourth degree of north latitude. They were bounded on the south, in that quarter, probably by Musk- hogee tribes in the vicinity of the Savannah, and farther east by the Catawbas. The Cherokees, like other Indian nations, were almost always at war with some of the adjacent tribes. They had probably contributed to the expulsion of the Shawnoes from the country south of the Ohio, and appear to have been perpetually at war with some branch or other of that erratic nation.* They
- The last settlement of the Shawnoes south of the Ohio was at
Bull's Town on the Little Kenhawa. They were obliged to abandon it about the year 1770, on account of the repeated attacks of small Cherokee parties.
