Bob "the Bench" Benge

Not the same as Robert H. Benge

Bob Benge (c. 1762–1794), also known as "Captain Benge" (or "The Bench" to frontiersmen), was one of the most feared Cherokee leaders on the frontier during the Cherokee–American wars (1783-1794) in the area of present-day Tennessee.

Robert Benge was born circa 1760 probably in the Cherokee village Toquo to John Benge and Wurteh, a Cherokee. Robert grew up to be the most notorious Cherokee in history. He was so feared in the central Appalachian areas of present-day Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, that the settlers admonished their children by saying, "if you don't watch out, Captain Benge will get you."

Toquo was a Cherokee village on the Little Tennessee River in present-day southeastern Tennessee. Robert grew up as a Cherokee, but with his red hair, European look, and his good command of English, he could also pass as a pure Euro-American. He used this double identity to good effect in his raids against the settlers. He was known as Captain Benge, Chief Benge, Chief Bench, or just The Bench. If he had a Cherokee name, it is not known.

Robert's father was John Benge, an Indian trader who lived among the Cherokee, and his mother was Wurteh who was part of an influential Cherokee family. [Robert's pedigree can be found in the genealogy database, "Our Ancestors."] John was previously married to Elizabeth Lewis, daughter of William Terrell Lewis and Sarah Martin, a prominent family originally from Virginia. Elizabeth's sister, Susannah Lewis married John's brother, Thomas Benge. John and Elizabeth had several children at their home in western North Carolina. These were William Lewis, Sarah, and Obadiah Martin. Apparently, John was also living with Wurteh at his home with the Cherokee (probably Toquo) and had several children born there. These were Robert, Utana "the Tail," Lucy, and Tashliske. After Elizabeth and the Lewis family found out about John's Cherokee family, their marriage was dissolved and Elizabeth latter remarried John Fielder and had other children. Wurteh also had a child from a man whose last name was Gist or Guess and their child became known to history as Sequoyah. Robert and Sequoyah were half brothers.

Benge raided as far as the westernmost counties of Virginia, attacking Gate City, Virginia in 1791, and Moccasin Gap and Kane's Gap on Powell Mountain in 1793.

He was killed April 6, 1794 in an ambush in what is in what is now Wise County, Virginia during an extended raid deep into enemy-held territory, while escorting prisoners captured from a settlement earlier in the day back to the Lower Towns. The militia took his scalp and sent it to the Governor of Virginia, Henry Lee III, who sent it on to President George Washington. Credit for killing Benge went to militia leader Vincent Hobbs Jr, son of one of the original white settlers of current Lee County, Virginia.

More Information

• Luther F. Addington, Chief Benge's Last Raid, Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia, Publication 2-1966

Sources

• Chronology of Robert Benge, aka Chief Bench <http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~varussel/indian/bobbenge.html>.
• “THE DEATH OF BENGE or CHIEF BENCH”
• Wikipedia. "Bob Benge" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Benge>.
• http://www.tartansauthority.com/global-scots/us-scots-history/the-n...
• http://cherokeeregistry.com/Bob_Benge.pdf

Notes

Per The Dunns' Cherokee Connections; Michael C. Dunn:

Many earlier works on Cherokee genealogy either say that Dorcas' maiden name was unknown or call her Dorcas Foster, but it was her sister, Ga-Ho-Ga Foster, who married into that name. Don L. Shadburn's Cherokee Planters in Georgia says she was Dorcas Lightfoot and a daughter of Captain John Lightfoot, apparently a white man. If so she was "half-blood" by white standards and her daughter Emily Duncan "quarter blood", but Emily's children seem to have considered Emily a fullblood, counting themeselves as "half blood". This sort of thing was more important, as far as I can tell, to the white lawyers than to the Cherokee, who basically considered anyone raised a Cherokee as an Indian regardless of ancestral line. In addition, most of these marriages were between white men and Cherokee women, and in Cherokee society a man belonged to his mother's clan, not his father's (one could not marry within one's own clan). Thus children of a Cherokee woman and a white man were always considered Cherokee, at least if they chose to live as such. John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Nation during the Trail of Tears and on through the Civil War era, was only one-eighth Cherokee in ancestry. Anyway, Emily Duncan seems to have usually been counted as if she was a fullblood by her descendants. Her mother, by the way, was still living at the time of the Cherokee Removal, living in Lumpkin County, Georgia.

• Clues to the identity of ??? Benge:

Per http://www.users.mis.net/~chesnut/pages/bobbenge.htm Circa 1788: Robert Benge was married to a Cherokee woman and settled at a site still called Benge's Field just south of present-day Trenton, GA. This was the Cherokee village called Lookout Town [from Evans, 1976]. Robert was reported in many publications to have married Jennie Lowrey and his brother, Martin was reported to have married Eliza Lowrey, her sister. However, the two Benges who married the Lowery sisters were the nephews of Robert who had the same name and were the sons of Robert's half brother, Obadiah Martin Benge. Some of the children reported as Robert Benge's were the children of his nephew. It is thought that Robert was married and did have children, but their identity is uncertain [Oleta Benge Kite, personal communication, 1995-1997]. Therefore ??? Benge is possibly Robert Benge?