into the inner settlements."



CHAPTER V. In Defense of Civilization

We give thanks and praise for the safety and peace vouchsafed us
by our Heavenly Father in these times of war. Many of our
neighbors, driven hither and yon like deer before wild beasts,
came to us for shelter, yet the accustomed order of our
congregation life was not disturbed, no, not even by the more
than 150 Indians who at sundry times passed by, stopping for a
day at a time and being fed by us.--Wachovia Community Diary,
1757


With commendable energy and expedition Dinwiddie and Dobbs,
acting in concert, initiated steps for keeping the engagements
conjointly made by the two colonies with the Cherokees and the
Catawbas in tile spring and summer of 1756. Enlisting sixty men,
"most of them Artificers, with Tools and Provisions," Major
Andrew Lewis proceeded in the late spring to Echota in the
Cherokee country. Here during the hot summer months they erected
the Virginia Fort on the path from Virginia, upon the northern
bank of the Little Tennessee, nearly opposite the Indian town of
Echota and about twenty-five miles southwest of Knoxville." While
the fort was in process of construction, the Cherokees were
incessantly tampered with by emissaries from the Nuntewees and
the Savannahs in the French interest, and from the French
themselves at the Alibamu Fort. So effective were these