The Creeks Pay No Heed to the Treaty.

This treaty was solemnly entered into by the recognized chiefs and
leaders of the Creeks; and the Americans fondly hoped that it would end
hostilities. It did nothing of the kind. Though the terms were very
favorable to the Indians, so much so as to make the frontiersmen
grumble, the Creeks scornfully repudiated the promises made on their
behalf by their authorized representatives. Their motive in going to
war, and keeping up the war, was not so much anger at the encroachments
of the whites, as the eager thirst for glory, scalps, and plunder, to be
won at the expense of the settlers. The war parties raided the frontier
as freely as ever. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Williamson to Robertson,
Aug. 2, 1789, and Aug. 7, 1790. American State Papers, Indian Affairs,
i., 81. Milfort 131, 142.] The simple truth was that the Creeks could be
kept quiet only when cowed by physical fear. If the white men did not
break the treaties, then the red men did. It is idle to dispute about
the rights or wrongs of the contests. Two peoples, in two stages of
culture which were separated by untold ages, stood face to face; one or
the other had to perish; and the whites went forward from sheer
necessity.

Growth of Immigration.

Throughout these years of Indian warfare the influx of settlers into the
Holston and Cumberland regions steadily continued. Men in search of
homes, or seeking to acquire fortunes by the purchase of wild lands,
came more and more freely to the Cumberland country as the settlers
therein increased in number and became better able to cope with and
repel their savage foes. The settlements on the Holston grew with great