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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from Alexander Martin to Joseph Martin
Martin, Alexander, 1740-1807
February 11, 1784
Volume 17, Pages 15-16

GOVERNOR MARTIN TO COLONEL JOSEPH MARTIN.
[From Executive Letter Book.]


Danbury, February 11th, 1784.

Sir:

I have received your Letter from Henry County without a date, also your Letter from Sullivan of the 25th of January last. The information contained in the last is of such importance to the State, that it calls for my aswell as your immediate attention. The murders in Cumberland Gapmust be inquired into and the nation ascertained (if Indian) who have done the same, this you will engage in as soon as possible and transmit me an account of your discovery the earliest opportunity. Should these murders be fixed upon the Cherokees or Chickammoggys, you will in my name demand the persons guilty, to be surrendered up to the Justice of the State, informing them that on their refusal an expedition will immediately be levelled against them for satisfaction, which perhaps will expel them their Country.

In the mean while you will demand Bench from the Chickammoggys to stand his trial for the charges you suggest against him in the Superior Court of Morgan District. Should they refuse you will inform them that this State will consider them still Hostile,

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and that they have no intentions of making peace. To remove every suspicion of ill will they may still retain, Bench must be surrendered. If he is innocent, his acquittal will be his Justification and a satisfaction to the public.

I shall write to the Governors of South Carolina and Georgia also on this Subject, and give them the information of the Spaniards and Delawares making a settlement at the Mussle Shoals on Tennessee. As that part of the River is supposed to be out of this State, I think proper to give them the information you have sent me.

You will call on General McDowel, and Colonel Sevier and the commanding Officer of Sullivan to order and drive off those evil minded persons, who have intruded and still continue to intrude, on the Indian Lands beyond French Broad River. I have again repeated my orders to them. I wish the Indians to have no complaint from our people. The Indian Goods are not arrived from Philadelphia. As soon as they will arrive I shall give you notice, and ascertain the time of holding the Treaty.

ALEX. MARTIN.

P. S. You will also demand McDaniel and Campbell to be surrendered to take their Trials.