CHAPTER VII 



SEVIER, ROBERTSON, AND THE WATAUGA COMMON- 

 WEALTH, 1769-1774 



SOON after the successful ending of the last co- 

 lonial struggle with France, and the conquest of 

 Canada, the British king issued a proclamation for- 

 bidding the English colonists from trespassing on 

 Indian grounds, or moving west of the mountains. 

 But in 1768, at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Six 

 Nations agreed to surrender to the English all the 

 lands lying between the Ohio and the Tennessee 1 ; 

 and this treaty was at once seized upon by the back- 

 woodsmen as offering an excuse for settling beyond 

 the mountains. However, the Iroquois had ceded 

 lands to which they had no more right than a score 

 or more other Indian tribes; and these latter, not 

 having been consulted, felt at perfect liberty to make 

 war on the intruders. In point of fact, no one tribe 

 or set of tribes could cede Kentucky or Tennessee, 

 because no one tribe or set of tribes owned either. 

 The great hunting-grounds between the Ohio and 

 the Tennessee formed a debatable land, claimed by 

 every tribe that could hold its own against its rivals. 2 



1 Then called the Cherokee. 



2 Volumes could be filled and indeed it is hardly too much 

 to say, have been filled with worthless "proofs" of the 



(192) 



