Kiachatalee “Kittakiska”

This Kiachatalee / Kittakiska / Chiachattalla is not the same person as Skallelockee / Skalilosken, Kettaguskah of Tassetchee, Cherokee Emissary to England. Described as age 22 in 1788, he was killed at the battle at Buchanan’s Station on September 30, 1792.

Family

• step son of Polly Mallett, a woman of French descent, captured at Mobile, who stayed with the Cherokee
• step son of Thomas Tunbridge , Trader among the Cherokee at Nickajack, who married Polly Mallett when Chia-chatt-alla was six years old, 16 years before 1788.
• “blood brother” of Rev. Joseph Brown, held captive at Nickajack 1788 - 1789, and exchanged for a headman’s daughter held captive by Gen. Sevier
• father of “daughter of Kittakiska,” murdered in 1793 at Hanging Maw’s
• perhaps a “nephew” of the Breath (Unlita), headman of Nickajack
• “uncle” of Charles Butler (according to Joseph Brown’s narrative)

Comments

From https://www.geni.com/discussions/183707?msg=1258342

There were two men named Kitegista. One went to England with Cuming in 1730 and died by 1755. He was probably born 1690-1700. Nothing else is known of him. The second did not have a wife Anawailka.
The genealogy at http://www.redeaglejw.net/dat96.htm#5 has only his death date correctly; the rest is mixed up.

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Notes

From Heart of the Eagle, pg 173; link to book which apparently is being updated

"Kiachatalee: He was from Nickajack. Name also spelled Kittegiska and Kitegisky, which means "he shot two." A seceding headman in 1777 [SIC] He was Tom Tunbridge's step son, and of French Cherokee descent. Went to peace talk with Governor William Blount in 1792. Killed at Buchannan's Station on 30 September 1792.

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From The Cherokee Struggle to Maintain Identity in the 17th and 18th ...https://books.google.com › William R. Reynolds, Jr. · 2015 · History Page 255

(Kiachatalee was the son of a Cherokee warrior and Polly Mallett, a French ... was not right to kill women and children, that the boy was Kiachatalee's ...

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From link to The American Whig Review, Volume 9; Volume 15. “Historical Traditions of Tennessee.” Page 239

At the time of this outrage [1788], there was living at or near Nickajack, a French trader named Thomas Tunbridge, who was married to a white woman, who had been taken prisoner near Mobile, when an infant, and raised by the Indians. After she was grown, she was exchanged, but refused to leave the Indians, distrusting her abilities to adapt her habits to civilized life. She had been married to an Indian brave, by whom she had a son, now twenty-two years old, who was one of the boldest warriors of the Cherokee towns. He had already killed six white men in his forays to the Cumberland settlement. Having all the versatility of his mother's race, as well as the ferocity and courage of his father, he was fast rising into distinction as a warrior, and bade fair to reach the first honors of his nation. His praises for daring and chivalry were in the mouths of all.
His mother was now growing old, and having no young children, her son desired to present to her some bright-eyed boy as a slave; for, according to the savage code of the times, each captive became a slave to his captor. This woman's son, whose name was Kiachatalee, was one of the leaders of the marauding party who had seized upon Brown's boat, and from the first knew the fate of the party. Before tho boat landed, he tried to induce Joseph, a boy then fifteen years old, but quite small, to get into his canoe, with the intention of withdrawing him from the general massacre that was soon to take place, but the boy would not go with him. ...

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From Attack on Buchanan's Station Wikipedia, retrieved November 28, 2018

“The assault on Buchanan’s Station was not a simple raid, but an attempt to wipe out the Nashville settlements entirely, backed by Spanish arms and supplies secured in Pensacola.[7] Over three hundred Lower Cherokees, Creeks, and Shawnees under the command of a mixed blood Cherokee leader named John Watts, advanced on Nashville from their towns on the lower Tennessee River.[7] Supposing that the outlying station of Buchanan could be disposed of quickly, the Indians attempted a surprise attack at midnight. ....

7. Sugden, John (1997). Tecumseh: A Life. Henry Holt and Company. pp. 73–76 (No preview available)

From The American Whig Review, Volume 9; Volume 15. “Historical Traditions of Tennessee.” Page 244-245 link

In 1792, a formidable body of Creeks, Cherokees, and Shawnees, invaded Cumberland Valley, attacked Buchanan's Station, and were repulsed with great loss ... Joseph Brown came the next morning, with a large party of friends, to the assistance of Buchanan, but the Indians had retreated. Upon approaching the scene of action, what was young Brown's astonishment at finding his Indian brother, Kiachatalee, lying cold in death upon the field, near the walls of the fort against which he had led the assault!
The next year, Joseph attended a treaty at Tellico, in East Tennessee, where he met a nephew of Kiachatalee, named Charles Butler, with whom he had been well acquainted while a prisoner at Nickajack. Butler gave him the Indian version of the attack on Buchanan’s Station, and also the story of Kiachatalee’s heroic death.
He said the assault was led by Kiachatalee. That he had attempted to set fire to the block-house, and was actually blowing it into a flame, when he was mortally wounded. He continued, after receiving his mortal wound, to blow the fire, and to cheer his followers to the assault, calling upon them to fight like brave men, and never give up till they had taken the fort. The incidents connected with the attack on Buchanan's station can be seen in Mrs. Ellet's Women of the Revolution, vol. III., Article Sarah Buchanan, in which the Shawnee chief is represented as performing the heroic part which Kiachatalee really performed, and not he.

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From Considering one of history's mysteries: whether a Cherokee operative betrayed his people at the Battle of Buchanan's Station — and saved Nashville. The Station Agent BETSY PHILLIPS SEP 27, 2012 link

Around midnight, they attack. Watts is seriously wounded. Chiachattalla, another Chickamauga leader, is killed. So is Dragging Canoe's brother, Little Owl, as well as John Watts' brother Unacata. Also among the dead is Cheeseekau, Tecumseh's brother. (Some scholars believe that Tecumseh may have been at the battle as well. See John Sugden's Tecumseh: A Life for an accessible account of the battle from the perspective of the attacking forces.) Watts' combined forces are forced to retreat.

Citations

• The Cherokee Struggle to Maintain Identity in the 17th and 18th Centuries By William R. Reynolds, Jr. page 298 - 299 link Grand council session at Estanaula, June 26 - 30, 1792. “Present ... the Breath, and his nephew, of Nickajack ... “ Page 306 link “Tom Tunbridge’s stepson, Kiachatalee of Nickajack, a daring young chief whose talents and courage were much admired, quickly scaled to the roof of a cabin ... “
• American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and ..., Volume 2; Volume 7. By United States. Congress link
• Miller, C. (1973). The Joseph Brown Story: Pioneer and Indian in Tennessee History. Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 32(1), 22-41. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42623356
• “Attack on the People at the Hanging Maw's” http://wardepartmentpapers.org/document.php?id=8651
• Civil and Political History of Tennessee By John Haywood. Page 299. link
• Massacre at Cavett's Station: Frontier Tennessee during the Cherokee Wars By Charles H. Faulkner. Page 47. link
• History of Middle Tennessee: Or, Life and Times of Gen. James Robertson By Albigence Waldo Putnam. Page 306 link
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee–American_wars “Prisoner Exchange. “Word of their defeat did not reach Running Water until April, when it arrived with an offer from Sevier for an exchange of prisoners which specifically mentioned the surviving members of the Brown family, including Joseph, who had been adopted first by Kitegisky and later by The Breath.” [143] Brown, Old Frontiers, p. 299
• Caesar's Silver By Mark Stonecipher link
• Tennessee Records: Tombstone Inscriptions and Manuscripts By Jeanette T. Acklen Page 458 link. “The Indians drew off before daylight, having lost their chief, Chiachatalla.”
• Chickamauga Cherokee Wars (1776-1794) - part 8 of 9 Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - by Chuck Hamilton“End of the Chickamauga Wars” link “ The Nickajack Expedition. Desiring to end the wars once and for all, Robertson sent a detachment of U.S. regular troops, Mero militia, and Kentucky volunteers to the Five Lower Towns under U.S. Army Major James Ore. Guided by those who knew the area, including former captive Joseph Brown, Ore's army travelled down the Cisca and St. Augustine Trail toward the Five Lower Towns. On 13 September [1794], the army attacked Nickajack without warning, slaughtering many of the inhabitants, including its pacifist chief The Breath, then after torching the houses proceeded upriver to burn Running Water, whose residents had long fled. Brown took an active part in the fighting but is known to have attempted to spare women and children.