6. The Harpes’ Unshakeable Predilection for Violence
When the British lost America’s War of Independence, Micajah and Wiley Harpe fled North Carolina. They eventually joined Cherokee Indians in attacking settler villages west of the Appalachians in Tennessee. Before doing so, they took revenge upon a Patriot Captain James Wood, who had wounded Little Harpe during the war. They kidnapped his daughter, Susan, and another girl named Maria Davidson. The women were forced to marry the brothers. One of their first Frontier killings occurred when a man named Moses Doss expressed concern over their brutalized women and was murdered for his troubles.
In 1782, the siblings accompanied a Cherokee war party that raided Kentucky and defeated a frontiersmen army led by Daniel Boone at the Battle of Blue Licks. They ended up living in the Indian village of Nicojack near Chattanooga, Tennessee, for about twelve years. Then in 1794, they got word of an impending American attack, and left just before the village was wiped out. By 1797, the Harpes had settled near Knoxville, Tennessee, when they were suspected of stealing hogs and horses. They were also accused of murdering a man and tossing his body into a river.
