In the late 1700s, as white settlers spilled across the Appalachian
Mountains, claiming Cherokee and Creek lands for their own, tensions
between Native Americans and pioneers reached a boiling point. Land
disputes stemming from the 1791 Treaty of Holston went unresolved, and
Knoxville settlers attacked a Cherokee negotiating party led by Chief
Hanging Maw resulting in the wounding of the chief and his wife and the
death of several Indians. In retaliation, on September 25, 1793, nearly
one thousand Cherokee and Creek warriors descended undetected on
Knoxville to destroy this frontier town. However, feeling they had been
discovered, the Indians focused their rage on Cavett's Station, a
fortified farmstead of Alexander Cavett and his family located in what
is now west Knox County. Violating a truce, the war party murdered
thirteen men, women, and children, ensuring the story's status in
Tennessee lore.
In Massacre at Cavett's Station, noted archaeologist and Tennessee
historian Charles Faulkner reveals the true story of the massacre and
its aftermath, separating historical fact from pervasive legend. In
doing so, Faulkner focuses on the interplay of such early Tennessee
stalwarts as John Sevier, James White, and William Blount, and the role
each played in the white settlement of east Tennessee while drawing the
ire of the Cherokee who continued to lose their homeland in questionable
treaties. That enmity produced some of history's notable Cherokee war
chiefs including Doublehead, Dragging Canoe, and the notorious Bob
Benge, born to a European trader and Cherokee mother, whose red hair and
command of English gave him a distinct double identity. But this
conflict between the Cherokee and the settlers also produced
peace-seeking chiefs such as Hanging Maw and Corn Tassel who helped
broker peace on the Tennessee frontier by the end of the 18th century.
After only three decades of peaceful co-existence with their white
neighbors, the now democratic Cherokee Nation was betrayed and lost the
remainder of their homeland in the Trail of Tears.
Faulkner combines careful historical research with meticulous
archaeological excavations conducted in developed areas of the west
Knoxville suburbs to illuminate what happened on that fateful day in
1793. As a result, he answers significant questions about the massacre
and seeks to discover the genealogy of the Cavetts and if any family
members survived the attack. This book is an important contribution to
the study of frontier history and a long-overdue analysis of one of East
Tennessee's well-known legends.
