Especially dangerous to Cherokee women and children.
We humans can be so cruel! We want what we want and justify whatever means to get what we want. Our ancestors "settled" this area? Think so?
I found a RED NATION SOCIETY website that presents a different perspective than the very naive view of our people settling vast, empty areas of the new world. I hope it doesn't upset anyone because what this post is talking about is how John Sevier, which Sevier County and Sevierville are named for, advocated killing Cherokee children and pregnant Cherokee women to be rid of "nits that would make lice." I want to include this because it offers a bit of understanding of just how native people and their way of life suffered.
Here is a quote from that website that broke my heart as I read it:
A huge gathering area underneath Ywahoo Falls itself was to be the central meeting place for these women and children to gather and wait. Then all the children of all ages would go as one group southward to the school to safety from the many Indian fighters gathering in the neighboring counties of Wayne and Pulaski in Kentucky. These Indian fighters were led by an old Franklinite militiaman from Tennessee named Hiram "Big Tooth" Gregory who came from Sullivan County Tennessee at the settlement of Franklin and had fought many Franklinite campaigns under John Sevier to eliminate all the traditional Thunderbolt Cherokees totally and without mercy. Big Tooth Gregory, sanctioned by the United States government, War Department, and Governor of the territory, carried on the ill famous Indian hating battle cry of John Sevier that "nits make lice". Orders were understood by these Cherokee haters that nits (baby lice) would grow up to be adults and especially targeted in all the campaigns of John Sevier Franklinites were the Cherokees women, pregnant women, and children of all ages. John Sevier, Big Tooth Gregory, and all the rest of the Franklinites philosophy was that if they could destroy the children of the Cherokee, there would be no Cherokees and no Cherokee Nation to contend with in their expansion of white settlements, the white churches, and the claiming of territory for the United States.
Orders were issued to the Franklinites to split open the belly of any pregnant Cherokee woman, remove the baby inside her, and slice it as well. To the Franklinites, the Cherokee baby inside the mother was the nit that would eventually make lice.
I pulled that quote to show you just how dangerous the new world was to everybody.
When I was young, my grandfather, George Ray, told me about the Indian village and the fort that were in the Cove. No one I've asked about knows anything about it today. I know where it was... but, I wasn't sure if it really was there, or was just a story that he had been told when HE was young. Recently, I found some proof there was some sort of reinforced building called a "block house" in Jones Cove to protect whites from raiding parties of Indians.
I'll edit this to include the information about the block houses. Later.
