From George Washington to Robert Dinwiddie, 29 May 1757
To Robert Dinwiddie
Fort Loudoun, 29th May 1757.
To Governor Dinwiddie.
Honble Sir,
Mr Atkins delay is productive of numberless ill consequences. I am teased incessantly by the Indians to know when he will come; and have put them off so long, that their patience is quite exhausted; and several of them are going off without waiting his arrival.1 Among these are three who I must beg leave to recommend to your Honors particular notice—The first is Capt. Aires, about Hixayoura; a Cuttawba: He was the Indian that took the scalp which King Hiegler brought to your Honor; and shewed a great desire to encourage his Brethren to go to war again, and did go himself with Capt. Butten.2 The next is Captain Tom, the Chief of the Nottoways: He has received less, and deserves more than any of them; as he used great pains to bring the Tusks, and has met with no reward for it, although he was promised one. and the last is a young Cuttawba fellow, who made his escape with Sergeant Feint, after having killed and scalped two of the enemy just by their own Town: The scalps he has with him.3 I am &c.
G:W.
LB, DLC:GW.
1. In a letter to George Croghan, 8 June 1757, Edmond Atkin wrote from Winchester: “I got to this place the 3d Inst., where I found Wawhatchee with 46 of his people, (besides one woman) & Yatahnou [Youghtanno], with his 13, waiting on me, after their return from Maryland & Pennsylvania. . . . In my way to the Town, I was informed by an half Breed Cawtaba, that Wawhatchee’s Party had formed a Resolution of going into all the White Peoples Houses in their way homeward and of taking whatever they liked. . . . At my arrival, I was in the House Wawhatchee came with most of his people to see me, I seem’d to take but little notice of him, & in a few minutes he said he wanted to hear what I had to say. I told him when I was ready to speak to him, I would let him know it. When would that be? I said I had given an answer already” (, 1st ser., 3:175–82). After several days of such maneuvering, some of the Cherokee left under escort for home, and some of Wawhatchee’s warriors went into Maryland without Wawhatchee. The latter warriors returned on 14 June.
2. As GW would hardly have misspelled Catawba Jimmy Bullen’s name in this way and as it is doubtful that he would have used this unlikely spelling for King Hagler, these are probably mistakes of the clerk who later copied the letter books. Captain Jacob Ayres (Colonel Ayres) became the king of the Catawba tribe after King Hagler was killed by the Shawnee in 1763. Hixa-Uraw was one of the Catawba names affixed to the treaty of alliance that William Byrd III and Peter Randolph negotiated in February 1756 (see Robert Dinwiddie to GW, 23 April 1756, n.6). Perhaps “about” was the copyist’s misreading of “alias.” For accounts of King Hagler’s and Jimmy Bullen’s movements, see Clement Read to GW, 15 Mar. 1757, and notes.
3. For Joseph Fent’s exploits, see GW to Dinwiddie, 24 May 1757, n.1.