Brother:
I am going to speak to you—I hope you will listen to me.—a string.
I intended to come this Fall and see you, but there was such confusion in our Country I thought it was best for me to stay at home and send my talks by our friend, Colonel Martin, who promises to deliver them safe to you.
We are a poor distressed People, that is in great Trouble, and we
hope you, our Elder Brother, will take pity on us and do us Justice. Your People from Nolichuckey are daily pushing of us out of our lands. We have no place to hunt on. Your People have built houses within one Day’s walk of our Towns. We don’t want to quarrel with our Elder Brother. We, therefore, hope our Elder Brother will take pity on us and not take our Lands from us that the great Man above gave us. He made you and he made us—we are all His children and we hope our Elder Brother will take pity on us and not take our Lands from us that our Father gave us because he is stronger than we are. We are the first people that ever lived on this Land—it is ours, and why will our Elder Brother take it from us?It is true, some time past, the people over the great water persuaded some of our young men to do some mischief to our Elder Brother which our Principal Men were sorry for. But you, our Elder Brothers, come to our Towns and took satisfaction, and then sent for us to come and treat with you, which we did. Then our Elder Brother promised to have the line run between us agreeably to the first Treaty, & all that should be found over the line should be moved off. But it is not done yet.
We have done nothing to offend our Elder Brother since the last Treaty and why should our Elder Brother want to quarrel with us? We have sent to the Governor of Virginia on the same subject. We hope between you both you will take pity on your Younger Brother and send to Colonel Sevier, who is a good man, to have all your People moved off our Lands.
I should say a great deal more, but our friend, Colonel Martin, knows all our grievances & he can inform you. A string.