• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 301 0

land by clearing forests and planting crops and orchards. More log cabins popped up across the landscape, and, despite bringing in livestock that encroached upon much of the grasses and tall cane along the streams, the white families killed great numbers of deer, bear, and other game. It became clear to the Cherokees that, unlike the Longhunters, who came and went, this new wave of whites were going to remain. The Cherokees had never expected such a great number of newcomers, and many tribal elders who had never agreed to the transactions in the first place were deeply troubled by what they witnessed. Serious dissension developed within the tribe, and the more militant Cherokees grew emboldened and understandably formed an alliance with the British during the American Revolution.

After several skirmishes with the Cherokees, the settlers sought outside assistance to stem further hostilities. On July 5, 1776, the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, David Crockett and his eldest son, William, were two of the more than one hundred thirteen Wataugans who signed (or, as two men did, made their mark on) a petition asking North Carolina to annex their land and provide protection from the British and Cherokee warriors. Because North Carolina and Virginia had not agreed on boundary lines, similar petitions were sent to the Virginia government in 1776 and 1777 from Carter’s Valley—including the signatures of David the elder and those of David Jr., William, and John Crockett.11 The Watauga Association continued until 1778 and was finally annexed to North Carolina. By then it was too late for David the elder and some members of his family who had built a split-log cabin and established growing fields. In his Narrative of 1834, Crockett recounted his father’s early life in east Tennessee when he wrote: “He settled there under dangerous circumstances, both to himself and his family, as the country was full of Indians, who were at that time very troublesome.”12

Those “troublesome” times struck the family with a fury in the spring of 1777. John Crockett was away, on duty as a frontier ranger, one of the volunteers who were authorized bounties of land in return for combating hostile Indian raiding parties.13 During much of 1776 and 1777, John’s elder brother Robert also was gone, serving with the militia as a draftsman and helping build fortifications on the North Carolina frontier. While these Crockett men were off protecting other settlers, a party of Creek Indians and renegade Cherokees, known as Chickamaugas, emerged from the forest and descended on the homestead of David and Elizabeth Crockett. “By the Creeks, my grandfather and grandmother Crockett were both murdered, in their own house, and on the very spot where Rogersville, in Hawkins county, now stands. At the same time, the Indians wounded Joseph Crockett, a brother to my father, by a ball which broke his arm; and took James a prisoner, who was still a younger brother than Joseph, and who, from natural defects was less able to make his escape, as he was both deaf and dumb.”14

If a son named David Crockett Jr. in fact existed, then perhaps he also perished in the Indian raid along with his parents. Some sources also believe that an unnamed Crockett daughter was present and was brutally scalped but survived. No records have been found to substantiate such a story. A reference to the massacre is found in an April 27, 1777, letter from Colonel Charles Robertson to Richard Caswell, the governor of North Carolina, in which a dozen unnamed victims are mentioned.15

William and Robert Crockett were named executors of the estate of their slain father and legally represented the interests of Joseph and James, their minor orphaned brothers. Joseph, who had his arm broken by a rifle ball in the attack that killed his parents, lost the use of his hand and fashioned an imitation hand so that he could eat. Joseph later was appointed straymaster for Sullivan County, Tennessee, by Governor William Blout and helped gather stray livestock and return them to