298 The Winning of the West 



two hundred miles of unpeopled and almost impass- 

 able forest from even the extreme outposts of the 

 seacoast commonwealths. Hitherto every new set- 

 tlement had been made by the simple process of a 

 portion of the backwoods pioneers being thrust out 

 in advance of the others, while, nevertheless, keep- 

 ing in touch with them, and having their rear cov- 

 ered, as it were, by the already colonized country. 

 Now, for the first time, a new community of pio- 

 neers sprang up, isolated in the heart of the wilder- 

 nes, and thrust far beyond the uttermost limits of 

 the old colonies, whose solid mass lay along the 

 Atlantic seaboard. The vast belt of mountainous 

 woodland that lay between was as complete a barrier 

 as if it had been a broad arm of the ocean. The 

 first American incomers to Kentucky were for sev- 

 eral years almost cut off from the bulk of their fel- 

 lows beyond the forest-clad mountains; much as, 

 thirteen centuries before, their forbears, the first 

 English settlers in Britain, had been cut off from the 

 rest of the low Dutch-folk who continued to dwell 

 on the eastern coast of the German Ocean. 



Henderson and those associated with him in his 

 scheme of land speculation began to open negotia- 

 tions with the Cherokees as soon as the victory of 

 the Great Kanawha for the moment lessened the 

 danger to be apprehended from the Northwestern 

 Indians. In October, 1774, he and Nathaniel Hart, 

 one of his partners in the scheme, journeyed to the 

 Otari towns, and made their proposals. The In- 

 dians proceeded very cautiously, deputing one of their 



