296
VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
raised crops for four years, unmolested by
the surrounding Indians. They believed
themselves to be within the limits of Vir-
ginia, but when the lines were run in 1772,
ir was found that they were on land belong-
ing to the Cherokees. They made a lease
with the Indians, but in the merry-making
which followed, a warrior was killed by one
of the whites, and trouble was only avoided
by Robertson's efforts, and Indians and
whites remained at peace until 1776. In
July, of that year, the Indians attacked
the fort, and were beaten off by Robert-
son and Sevier, with forty men, after
twenty days' fighting. In the spring of
1779. Robertson explored the Cumberland
valley, to which he emigrated with a party,
leaving Sevier at Watauga. One of his par-
ties made a settlement at what became
Nashville, Tennessee, where Robertson's
other people joined them. They were soon
attacked by the Cherokees, and in a few
months had lost sixty-seven of their two
hundred and fifty-six men. Their crops were
swept away by a flood, and they faced star-
vation, and many of the settlers went back
east, reducing the settlement to one hundred
and thirty-four persons, while most of those
who remained, urged Robertson to leave
also. This he refused, saying, **Here I shall
stay, if every man of you deserts me." With
his eldest son. Isaac Bledsoe, and a negro,
be made his way to Boone, in Kentucky,
from whence he procured ammunition, and
returned to Nashville. He successfully re-
sisted an attack by one thousand Indians in
April. 1781. After the revolutionary war.
he made friends with the Choctaws and
Chickasaws, drawing them away from their
connection with the British, and also made
peace with the Cherokees. Later, the half-
breed Creek chief. Alexander McGillwray,
made a treaty with the Spanish governor of
Louisiana, under which he was to drive out
the .\mericans. and he warred upon them
at intervals for a period of twelve years.
Robertson frequently rejected overtures
from the Spanish governor, who offered him
peace and free navigation on the Mississippi,
if he would establish Watauga and Ken-
tucky as a government separate from the
Union. In 1790 Washington made him
brigadier-general, and his militar\' services
continued six years longer. He shared with
Sevier the honor and affection of the Ten-
ncsseeans. He was made Indian commis-
sioner, and held that office until his death.
Mis wife, Charlotte Reeves, born in Vir-
ginia, accompanied him to Watauga on its
first settlement, and participated in all his
dangers, at times using the rifle against the
indians, with unerring skill. He died m the
Chickasaw country. Tennessee. September
I, 1814.
Todd, John, born in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, in 1750. He took part in the tattle of Point Pleasant. Virginia, in 1774, as adjutant-general to Gen. Andrew Lewis. He settled as a lawyer in Fincastle, Vir- ginia, in 1775, with his brothers, he emigrated to Kentucky, and took part in the organiza- tion of the Transylvania colonial legislature, with Daniel Boone, and made an expedition southwest as far as Bowling Green, Ken- tucky. He settled near Lexington in 1776, and was elected a burgess to the Virginia legislature, being one of the first two repre- sentatives from Kentucky county, where he .«erved as county lieutenant and colonel of militia. He accompanied Gen. George Rogers Clark to \'incennes and Kaskaskia,
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