British Scheme Helped The Patriot Cause

By John Hood

RALEIGH — In war, alliances often prove decisive. But as Sun Tzu observed nearly 2,500 years ago, allies can often be more trouble than they are worth. “We cannot enter into alliance with neighboring princes,” the Chinese general wrote in his Art of War, “until we are acquainted with their designs.”

In other words, it is perilous to assume that the interests and goals of potential allies are entirely consonant with your own. The British empire learned this lesson during the American War of Independence. At first, they figured they’d subdue the unruly New Englanders before other American colonists could come to their aid. They figured wrong.

By early 1776, British officials had devised a different strategy. They would send a large force south, where multitudes of Loyalists would flock to their banner and take the Carolinas, Georgia, and eventually Virginia off the board. Then they would capture the bustling port cities of New York and Philadelphia, leaving the American rebels with few options other than indecisive insurgency or abject surrender.

It wasn’t a mad scheme. It made more sense than hunkering down in Boston. But it was, in the end, unsuccessful. The southern campaign flopped. And after taking New York in 1776 and Philadelphia in 1777, they discovered that most Americans either didn’t much care or — correctly, in the latter case — judged the British occupation to be temporary rather than permanent.

Why did the southern campaign flop? I’ve written extensively about the plucky Carolinians who defeated a Loyalist column at Moores Creek Bridge in early 1776 and a British amphibious assault on Charleston in June 1776. But here’s another reason the plot didn’t succeed: it relied on allies who did not, in fact, share Britain’s wartime goals.

I’m speaking of a pro-war Indian faction who came to be called the Chickamauga Cherokees. After the Lexington and Concord, when British agents traveled north from Florida with guns, ammunition, and big promises, some Cherokee leaders were wary. They’d gone to war with American militias in the past and paid dearly. On the other hand, some younger chiefs and warriors were open to attempting a violent settlement of their land disputes with Americans who’d journeyed over the high mountains to settle in what are now northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia.

Just to be clear: these were land disputes, not military conquests. Most of the Americans thought they’d paid for the homesteads they settled. Most of the Cherokees rejected the authority of chiefs who sold the land, or disputed that it had been sold for permanent settlement rather than leased for occasional hunting.

As late as the spring of 1776, the pro-war faction remained a clear minority of Cherokees. Then two delegations arrived, a British one from Pensacola and a party of pro-British chiefs from northern tribes, led by Shawnee hero Cornstalk. They proved persuasive. A young Cherokee chief named Dragging Canoe pledged to attack within weeks. Others followed his lead.

Unfortunately for the British, Dragging Canoe didn’t confine his attacks to the enemies they wanted him to attack: Patriot settlements on the eastern side of the mountains, in the Carolina backcountry. After all, those folks weren’t on Cherokee lands! Instead, Dragging Canoe and his raiders focused on the nearby white settlements on the Holston, Nolichucky, and Watauga rivers. Only some of these settlers were full-throated Patriots. Most wanted to stay out of the Revolutionary War. A few even had Loyalist sympathies.

The Cherokees had early successes. But 250 years ago this week, nearly 200 warriors under Dragging Canoe assaulted a settlement on the Long Island of the Holston River, in modern-day Kingsport, Tennessee. A comparable force of Carolinians (remember, Tennessee wasn’t yet a separate state) repulsed the attack, leaving 14 Cherokees dead and Dragging Canoe himself grievously wounded.

After this July 20, 1776 battle of Island Flats, many previously neutral Americans joined the Patriot cause. They devastated dozens of Cherokee towns. And the British gained nothing of consequence. Alliances are tricky things.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).