46 MYTHS OK THK CHKHOKKE [eth.ann.19 



As one consequence of the late Cherokee war. a royal prochinuition 

 had been issued in ITO:^). with a view of checlving future encroaclinients 

 by tiie whites, whicli proliibited any private land purchases from the 

 Indians, or any granting of warrants for hinds west of the sources 

 of the streams flowing into the Atlantic' In ITti.S, on the appeal of 

 the Indians themselves, the British superintendent for th(> southern 

 tribes, Captain John Stuart, had negotiated a treaty at Hard Labor 

 in South Cai'olina by which Kanawha and New rivers, along their 

 whole course downward from the North Carolina line, were fixed as 

 the boundary between the Cherokee and the whites in that direction. 

 In two years, however, so many borderers had crossed into the Indian 

 country, where the}' were evidently determined to remain, that it was 

 found necessary to substitute another treaty, by which the line was 

 madi^ to run due south from the mouth of the Kanawha to the Holston. 

 thus cutting oil' from the Cherokee almost the whole of their hunting 

 grounds in Virginia and West Virginia. Two years latei'. in 177:2, 

 the Virginians demanded a further cession, by which everything east 

 of Kentucky river was surrendered; and finally, on March 17, 1775, 

 the great Henderson purchase was consunnnated. including the whole 

 tract between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers. By this last 

 cession the Cherokee were at last cut oft' from Ohio river and all their 

 rich Kentucky hunting grounds.^ 



While these transactions were called treaties, they weie really 

 foi'ced upon the native proprietors, who resisted each in turn and 

 finally signed only under protest and on most solemn assurances that 

 no further demands would be made. Even before the purchases were 

 made, intruders in large numbers had settled upon each of the tracts 

 in question, and they refused to withdraw across the boundaries now 

 established, but remained on one pretext or another to await a new 

 adjustment. This was particularly the case on Watauga and upper 

 Holston rivers in northeastern Tennessee, where the settlers, finding 

 themselves still within the Indian lioundary and being resolved to 

 remain, effected a temporary lease from the Cherokee in 1772. As 

 was expected and intended, the leas(> became a permanent occupancy, 

 the nucleus settlement of the future State of Teiuiessee.^ 



Just before the outbreak of the Revolution, the botanist, AVilliam 

 Bartram. made an extended tour of the Cherokee country, and has left 

 us a pleasant account of the hospitable character and friendly dispo- 

 sition of the Indians at that time. He gives a list of forty-three towns 

 then iidiabited by the tribe.* 



The opening of the great Revolutionary struggle in 177») found the 

 Indian tribes almost to a man ranged on the British side against the 



■Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. eit.,p. 149; Ramsey. Tennessee, p. 71, 1853. 



^Ramsey, op.cit.,pp. 93-122: Royee, op. cit. jip. lJfi-149. 



2 Ramsey, op.eit.,pp. 109-122; Royce, op. i-it. p. Ull et passilrl. 



< Bartram, Travels, pp. 3(«J-372, 1792. 



