216 The Winning of the West 



der, where such a deed was held to be the one un- 

 pardonable crime. 



So much for the way in which the whites kept 

 order among themselves. The second part of their 

 task, the adjustment of their relations with their 

 red neighbors, was scarcely less important. Early 

 in 1772 Virginia made a treaty with the Cherokee 

 Nation, which established as the boundary between 

 them a line running west from White Top Moun- 

 tain in latitude 36 3o'. 30 Immediately afterward 

 the agent 31 of the British Government among the 

 Cherokees ordered the Watauga settlers to instantly 

 leave their lands. They defied him, and refused to 

 move ; but feeling the insecurity of their tenure they 

 deputed two commissioners, of whom Robertson 

 was one, to make a treaty with the Cherokees. This 

 was successfully accomplished, the Indians leasing 

 to the associated settlers all the lands on the Wa- 

 tauga waters for the space of eight years, in con- 

 sideration of about six thousand dollars' worth of 

 blankets, paint, muskets, and the like. 32 The amount 

 advanced was reimbursed to the men advancing it 

 by the sale of the lands in small parcels to new set- 

 ters, 33 for the time of the lease. 34 



30 Ramsey, 109. Putnam says 36 35'. 



31 Alexander Cameron. 32 Haywood, 43. 



33 Meanwhile Carter's Valley, then believed to lie in Vir- 

 ginia, had been settled by Virginians ; the Indians robbed a 

 trader's store, and indemnified the owners by giving them 

 land, at the treaty of Sycamore Shoals. This land was leased 

 in job lots to settlers, who, however, kept possession without 

 paying when they found it lay in North Carolina. 



34 A similar but separate lease was made by the settlers on 



