In most cases it was quite impossible to determine even the tribe of the offenders with any certainty; and all that the frontiersmen knew was that their bloody trails led back towards the very villages where the Indians loudly professed that they were at peace.

They soon grew to regard all the Indians with equal suspicion, and they were so goaded by the blows which they could not return that they were ready to take vengeance upon any one with a red skin, or at least to condone such vengeance when taken.

The peaceful Cherokees, though they regretted these actions and were alarmed and disquieted at the probable consequences, were unwilling or unable to punish the aggressors.
Blount Warns the Federal Government.
Blount was soon at his wits' ends to prevent the outbreak of a general war.

In November, 1792, he furnished the War Department with a list of scores of people--men, women, and children--who had been killed in Tennessee, chiefly in the Cumberland district, since the signing of the treaty of Holston.

Many others had been carried off, and were kept in slavery.