CHAPTER III 



IN THE CURRENT OF THE REVOLUTION THE SOUTH- 

 ERN BACKWOODSMEN OVERWHELM THE 

 CHEROKEES, 1776 



THE great Western drift of our people began 

 almost at the moment when they became 

 Americans, and ceased to be merely British colon- 

 ists. Th^y crossed the great divide which sundered 

 the springs of the seaboard rivers from the sources 

 of the Western waters about the time that American 

 citizens first publicly acted as American freemen, 

 knit together by common ties, and with interests 

 no longer akin to those of the mother country. The 

 movement which was to make the future nation 

 a continental power was begun immediately after 

 the hitherto separate colonies had taken the first 

 step toward solidification. While the communities 

 of the seacoast were yet in a fever heat from the 

 uprising against the stamp tax, the first explorers 

 were toiling painfully to Kentucky, and the first 

 settlers were building their palisaded hamlets on the 

 banks of the Watauga. The year that saw the first 

 Continental Congress saw also the short, grim 

 tragedy of Lord Dunmore's war. The early battles 

 of the Revolution were fought while Boone's com- 

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