Bob Benge
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Robert "Bob" Benge (c. 1762–1794), also known as Captain Benge (or "The Bench" to frontiersmen), was a Cherokee leader in the Upper Towns, in present-day far Southwest Virginia during the Cherokee–American wars (1783–1794).
Early life
He was born as Bob Benge about 1762 in the
The available sources strongly imply, but do not prove, that young Benge and his sister Lucy were half-siblings of Sequoyah, also known as George Guess.[citation needed] They were related to maternal great-uncles Old Tassel and Doublehead.
When Dragging Canoe and his party moved southwest from eastern Tennessee in 1777, trader John Benge also moved his family to Running Water, one of the Chickamauga Lower Towns in the Piedmont.
Bob Benge, who later became known as "Captain Bench," his half-brother 'The Tail,' and cousin Tahlonteeskee were around 20 years old, they joined their maternal uncle John Watts as warriors to fight against European-American settlers who were encroaching on their territory. These armed confrontations began soon after the Americans had gained independence from Great Britain in their revolutionary war, and began migrating over the Appalachian Mountains to settle in Cherokee territory.
Exploits as a warrior
While living at Running Water (now Whiteside, Tennessee), Benge had met members of the Shawnee band of Chiksika and his brother Tecumseh. Benge often took part in their raids and forays against the Americans. In one of the early raids, in spring 1777, Benge is said to have captured two women while raiding near Fort Blackmore, Virginia.[1]
Afterward he often ran with warriors led by Doublehead out of Coldwater Town at the head of Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River (now in northern Alabama). He is credited with saving the population of the town of Ustally in 1788, which American John Sevier had slated for destruction.
Benge raided as far north as the Ohio River, deep into southwestern Virginia, all of the Washington District of North Carolina, and southeast into Georgia and South Carolina. These included a joint raid between his party and that of Doublehead into the Kentucky hunting grounds.[citation needed]
Brown family
Benge was at Running Water when word came that the Cherokee had reached agreement with
Joseph Brown and his sister Polly were brought immediately to Running Water, but when runners were sent to Crow Town to retrieve Jane, their youngest sister, her owner refused to surrender her. Benge mounted his horse and hefted his famous axe, saying, "I will bring the girl, or the owner's head". The next morning he returned with Jane. The three were later transferred to Sevier at Coosawattee.
Cavett's Station
Benge came to a parting of the ways with his former close ally, Doublehead, over an incident at Cavett's Station. In 1793
Death
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.[2]
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.
Sources
Notes
- American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol.1, 1789-1813, Congress of the United States, Washington,DC, 1831-1838.
- Evans, E. Raymond. "Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Bob Benge". Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 98–106. (Cherokee: Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 1976).
- Moore, John Trotwood and Austin P. Foster. Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Vol. 1, pp. 228–231. (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1923).