French can't boat past the Suck to aid Cherokees
Imagine living in a place called Suck? Before there was even a village nearby, the French tried in September 1760 to cross the treacherous waters of the Tennessee river near today's Chattanooga. They could not. They had travelled 600 some miles from New Orleans up the Mississippi hooking on to the Kentucky river at today's Paducah and then to the Tennessee only to find out about the Suck. They had to turn back. They could not take over South Carolina's surrendered Fort Loudoun currently held by the Cherokees.
It took a mighty good man with salty hands
And a mighty long raft to keep the fore before the aft
You take ten good men and guts and luck
And you might navigate the whirl and the suck....
When did they start? When did they reach the Suck? When did they get back to New Orleans? October 1760? These are all questions for later.
For now, the story:
The French at Fort Toulouse were informed by a messenger sent by Mortar of the surrender of the garrison at Fort Loudoun and the Cherokee’s capture of the fort.
Mortar suggested that Fort Loudoun be occupied by the French.
This message was transmitted to the French Governor, Kerlerec, at New Orleans, who agreed to the plan and promptly dispatched a boat and crew with necessary supplies.
This boat left New Orleans for Fort Loudoun by way of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers.
The expedition was able to get as far as the Whirl and Suck of the Tennessee River, near what is now Chattanooga.
There the expedition ran into difficulties and was unable to proceed any further.
The waters rolled down "with a prodigious rapidity, dashed against the opposite rocks, and from thence rushed off with impetuous violence, on a quarter-angled course. It appeared so shocking and unsurmountable to the Monsieurs, that after staying these a considerable time, in the vain expectation of seeing some of their friends, necessity forced them to return back to New Orleans, about a 600 computed miles, to their inconsolable disappointment. (Adair 1775 quoted in Brown 1938:106).
That difficulty of navigating the Tennessee River thus ended any serious effort by the French to occupy Fort Loudoun.
There was no attempt made by the Cherokee to take Fort Prince George after the surrender of Fort Loudoun. The Indians had suffered severely from the English attacks on the Lower and Middle settlements. Their plans to have Stuart accompany them to Fort Prince George to manage the Fort Loudoun cannon against that installation were foiled, not to mention the difficulty there would have been of transporting them back over the mountains.
Sources:
Those sources get their information from James Adair.
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Context
While the French were making their failed attempt to reach the surrendered South Carolina Fort Loudoun in today's Tennessee, here are the circumstances of that moment in time:
Cherokees not able to fight further
"It was also clear to the Cherokee that despite the French assurances of help, the Cherokee were in an untenable position to wage a prolonged war at that time, and were in general, disposed toward negotiating a peace with the English. "
"On the 26th of September at a gathering of some 2000 Cherokee at Nequassee, Oconostota and Judd’s Friend argued for peace, and for the English to be allowed passage through the settlements without harm. Early the following month, Samuel Terron was sent to Lieutenant Governor Bull by Oconostota with a message from the Cherokee requesting peace (Brown 1938:106-107)."
Chance for Peace gone:
"Although Bull may have also been disposed toward making a peace with the Cherokee, his letter to General Jeffrey Amherst informing him of the surrender of Fort Loudoun, and Amherst’s subsequent actions, altered those possibilities of arriving at a peace settlement at that time. Amherst’s reaction to the news was, “I must own I am ashamed, for I believe it is the first instance of His Majesty’s troops having yielded to the Indians” (Brown 1938:107). In October of 1760 Amherst had concluded the French and Indian War with the campaign that gave the English domination over Canada. He therefore had surplus troops at his disposal after that time and he quickly issued orders sending some 2000 troops under the command of Colonel James Grant (who had served under Montgomery in South Carolina earlier in 1760) to South Carolina to invade the Cherokee Country."
Source
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Compiled by Jim Moyer 9/23/2024, updated 9/24/2024
Table of Contents
James Adair is the source
The history of the American Indians by Adair, James, approximately 1709-1783 Publication date 1775
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Page n287
As the Muskohge [Muskogee Creeks] were well known to be very mischievous to our barrier-inhabitants, and to be an over-match for the numerous and fickle Choktah [Choctaw], the few warlike Chikkasah [Chickasaw], by being put in the scale with these, would in a few years, have made the Muskohge kick the beam.
Thus our southern colonists might have sat in pleasure, and security, under their fig trees, and in their charming arbours of fruitful grape-vines.
But now, they are uncertain whether they plant for themselves, or for the red savages, who frequently take away by force or Health, their horses and other effects.
The Muskohge chieftain, called the “ Great Mortar,” abetted the Cheerake [Cherokee] against us, as hath been already noticed, and frequently, with his warriors and relations, carried them as good a supply of ammunition, as the French of the Alebahmah-garrison could well spare : for by order of their government, they were bound to reserve a certain quantity, for any unforeseen
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Page 288
occasion that might happen. If they had been possessed of more, they would have given with a liberal hand, to enable them to carry on a war against us, and they almost effected their earnest wishes, when the English little expected it; for as soon as the watchful officer of the garrison, was informed by his truly and well instructed red disciple, the Great Mortar, that the Cheerake were on the point of declaring against the English, he saw the consequence, and sent a pacquet by a Muskohge runner, to Tumbikbe-fort [French fort Toulouse Alabama] in the Choktah [Choctaw], country, which was forwarded by another, and soon delivered to the governor of New-Orleans:
the contents informed him of the favourable opportunity that offered for the French to settle themselves in the Cheerake country, where the late Fort-Loudon flood, near the conflux of Great Telliko and Tennase-rivers,
and so distress our southern colonies, as the body of the Cheerake,- Muskohge, Choktah, Aquahpa, and the upper Missisippi-Indians headed by the French, would be able to maintain a certain successful war against us, if well supplied with ammunition.
Their deliberations were short—they soon sent off a large pettiaugre, sufficiently laden with warlike stores, and decoying presents; and in obedience to the orders the crew had received of making all the dispatch they possibly could, in the third moon of their departure [a phase of the moon or 3 months later?] from New Orleans, they arrived within a hundred and twenty computed miles of those towns that are a little above the unhappy Fort Loudon :
there they were luckily stopped in their mischievous career, by a deep and dangerous cataract; the waters of which rolled down with a prodigious rapidity, dashed against the opposite rocks, and from thence rushed off with impetuous violence, on a quarter-angled course.
It appeared so shocking and unsurmountable to the Monsieurs, that after staying these a considerable time, in the vain expectation of seeing some of their friends, necessity forced them to return back to New Orleans, about a 600 computed miles,, to their inconsolable disappointment.
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Kick the Beam phrase
To be of light weight; to be of inferior consequence. When one pan of a pair of scales is lighter than the other, it flies upwards and is said to “kick the beam” [of the scales].
Brewer's: Kick the Beam - InfoPlease
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Mortar - Muskogee Creek Indian leader
In 1722, the chief at Coosawda (one of several early spellings) was named “Big Mortar.” Although not sounding Native American, sources say that Mortar Creek is named after the Indian Chief Big Mortar. Evidence of early Indian settlements, all along the creek, could be found today if one looks closely enough.
Great Mortar (Yayatustenuggee)
A Creek chief; an ally of the French in the Seven Years war.
When the English superintendent of Indian affairs called a council of the Creeks with the object of winning them over, he refused the pipe of peace to Great Mortar because the chief had favored the French, and the latter withdrew with his followers, confirmed in his hostility to the British.
He received a commission from the French, and after killing or driving out the English traders and settlers took up a position on the border, where he could raid the Georgia settlements, obtaining his arms and supplies from the French fort on Alabama River.
Many Creeks and Cherokee joined him there until the Chickasaw surprised the camp and put his warriors to flight.
He settled at another place whence he could resume his depredations and continued to ravage the scattered settlements, including Augusta, Georgia.
In 1761 Col. James Grant, at the head of 2,600 Americans and friendly Indians, brought all the hostiles to terms, and a peace was made which fixed the watershed of the Allegheny Mountains as the boundary between the British colonies and the lands of the natives.
‘The Suck’ obliterated 110 years ago this week
October 21, 2023 at 4:49 p.m.
by Bill Carey
One hundred and ten years ago this week, the most treacherous stretch of the Tennessee River was obliterated.
Before man-made dams existed, the Tennessee River was replete with navigational barriers. The most famous of these was the Muscle Shoals — a long, wide and shallow stretch of river in northwest Alabama.
However, I believe the most dangerous stretch of the river was a series of currents, eddies and boulders just downstream from present-day Chattanooga — the best known of which was called the Suck.
According to early 19th century engineer Jacob Dumeste, the Suck was where the current narrowed and descended 4.5 feet in 150 yards — a steep fall for a river so large. Boats heading upstream had almost no chance of passage. Crafts heading downstream were forced into the center of the current at high speed. Assuming they didn't capsize, fast-moving boats would then whip through several obstacles, whirlpools and eddies that went by names like the Frying Pan and the Boiling Pot. (However, the whole series of obstacles was often referred to simply as "the Suck.")
The Suck was a reason Chickamauga Native Americans had villages in the area between 1775 and 1795, when violence between Native Americans and settlers migrating west was commonplace. It was also a reason why the economic development of East Tennessee was stunted in the early 1800s. Since flatboats and keelboats couldn't get through the Suck heading upstream, the Tennessee River was pretty much a one-way highway as far as Knoxville was concerned. And even after steamboats were familiar sights on the Mississippi and Cumberland Rivers, it was still almost impossible to get a fully loaded steamboat upstream through the Suck. (A boat called the Atlas pulled it off in 1828, but it was not carrying cargo at the time, and it was the exception to the rule.)
In fact, the Suck was a major reason Knox County was ranked thirteenth in population among Tennessee counties in 1830. At that time, Knox had less inhabitants than Smith and Warren.
The federal government tried to alleviate the problem of the Suck by creating a crude system of cables, attached to boulders, to help pull boats upstream. However, the Suck was still the subject of numerous legends and stories. In the late 1850s, Harper's Magazine ran a story about a group of boatmen who tried to pilot a flatboat downstream through the Suck after dark. They thought they had made it through when they saw a group of people playing music and dancing near the bank of the river. A few minutes later they passed another group of people playing music and dancing. Then they passed a third.
Tennessee History For Kids / Many of the navigational barriers just downstream from present-day Chattanooga were on this beautiful stretch of the Tennessee River which can be seen from Prentice Cooper State Forest.
"Do the people along this river mostly spend their nights fiddlin' and dancin'?" one of the boatmen asked another. After they passed the ninth group of people singing and dancing, they were convinced that they were drunk. However, they later realized that the current was sending the boat in a big circle and that they were passing the same place over and over.
If you want any more proof of the importance of the Suck, you need look no further than the great Johnny Cash. Cash, who for some reason knew a lot about the history of southeast Tennessee, wrote a song called "The Whirl and the Suck," which you can see him perform on YouTube. Among its lyrics:
"It took a mighty good man with salty hands/ And a mighty long raft to keep the fore before the aft/ You take 10 good men with guts and luck/ And you might navigate the whirl and the suck."
I first learned about the Suck a long time ago, but over the years became curious about exactly when the stretch of water was permanently flooded. I've always assumed that TVA got rid of the Suck in the 1930s, but I was wrong about that.
You see, in 1905 a private company called the Chattanooga and Tennessee River Power Co. began building Hales Bar Dam on the Tennessee River a few miles downstream from the Suck. Its purposes were to generate electricity and get rid of the treacherous barriers to navigation just downstream from Chattanooga.
Hales Bar Dam took three general contractors and eight years to complete. There were actual race riots among construction workers at a notorious workers village called — I'm not making this up — Sucktown.
After eight long years, the dam was completed, and the waters above the dam began to rise. On or about Oct. 22, 1913, people who lived near the Suck went to bed one night with the familiar sound of rushing water in their ears. When they woke up, the sound was gone.
"No more is the famous 'Suck,' that terror of the river craftsman who has for all the years past sought to pilot his boat through the straits and among the rocks of the narrows without foundering thereon," the Chattanooga Daily Times reported the next day.
The Suck hasn't been heard from since.
Bill Carey is the executive director of Tennessee History for Kids, a non-profit organization that helps teachers teach Tennessee history and civics.
It took a mighty good man with salty handsAnd a mighty long raft to keep the fore before the aftYou take ten good men and guts and luckAnd you might navigate the whirl and the suck....
See Full Lyrics
Well, the Tennessee River changed its mind
At Chattanooga she oughta unwind
She could a run right on the Georgia Sea
But she cut right back through Tennessee
Well, the settlers come by raft
And boat bringin' everything that could stay a float
But like a loco horse that'll twist and buck
They hardly ever made it through thewhirl and the suck
It took a mighty good man with salty hands
And a mighty long raft to keep the fore before the aft
You take ten good men and guts and luck
And you might navigate the
whirl and the suck
When General Washington was in his knicker bocks
The Cherokee Indians through the
Chattanooga Rocks
And the Chickamauga tribe and the Nickajack
They kept the watch where the river cut back
And if a raft or a boat ever rode the bend
The Indians got 'em cause
they had 'em hemmed in
It took a mighty good man with salty hands
And a mighty long raft to keep
the fore before the aft
You take ten good men and guts and luck
And you might navigate the whirl and the suck
Kerlérec
This is the Frenchman who gave a commission to Cherokee leader Oconostota 27 Feb 1761 before the destruction of Cherokee villages by the James Grant expedition April to August 1761.
Incidentally that expedition was coming before Feb 1761. That expedition left NYC December 1760 and arrived in Charleston SC January 1761, but didn't march into Cherokee lands until April 1761. This famous picture is an enlarged detail of a portion of that famous commission.
Wikipedia bio
Military Commission Granted to Chief Okana-Stoté [Oconostota] of the Cherokee by Governor Louis Billouart, Chevalier de Kerlérec
Created Date 1761-02-27
Description
This military commission granted by the Governor of Louisiana Louis Billouart, Chevalier de Kerlérec, appoints Chief Okana-Stoté of the Cherokee as captain in the service of the French during the French and Indian War. Also included are two translations of the French text.
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NOTES FOR LATER RESEARCH
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