Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 193 



The eastern part of what is now Tennessee con- 

 sists of a great hill-strewn, forest-clad valley, run- 

 ning from northeast to southwest, bounded on one 

 side by the Cumberland, and on the other by the 

 Great Smoky and Unaka Mountains ; the latter sep- 

 arating it from North Carolina. In this valley arise 

 and end the Clinch, the Holston, the Watauga, the 

 Nolichucky, the French Broad, and the other 

 streams, whose combined volume makes the Ten- 

 nessee River. The upper end of the valley lies in 

 southwestern Virginia, the headwaters of some of 

 the rivers being well within that State; and though 

 the province was really part of North Carolina, it 

 was separated therefrom by high mountain chains, 

 while from Virginia it was easy to follow the water- 

 courses down the valley. Thus, as elsewhere among 

 the mountains forming the western frontier, the 

 first movements of population went parallel with, 

 rather than across, the ranges. As in western Vir- 

 ginia the first settlers came, for the most part, from 

 Pennsylvania, so, in turn, in what was then western 

 North Carolina, and is now eastern Tennessee, the 

 first settlers came mainly from Virginia, and, in- 

 deed, in great part, from this same Pennsylvanian 



ownership of Iroquois, Shawnees, or Cherokees, as the case 

 might be. In truth, it would probably have been difficult 

 to get any two members of the same tribe to have pointed 

 out with precision the ^tribal limits. Each tribe's country 

 was elastic, for it included all lands from which it was 

 deemed possible to drive out the possessors. In 1773 the 

 various parties of Long Hunters had just the same right to 

 the whole of the territory in question that the Indians them- 

 selves had. 



I VOL. V. 



