ROYCE. ] TREATY OF NOVEMBER 28, 1785. 149 
spring of the most southwardly branch of Cumberland River; thence 
down said river, including all its waters, to the Ohio River; thence 
up said river as it meanders to the beginning.”! This tract com- 
prises nearly the whole of Central and Western Kentucky as well as 
part of Northern Central Tennessee. Although aliteral reading of these 
boundaries would include all the territory watered by the Cumberland 
River and its branches, the general understanding seems to have been 
(and it is so specifically stated in the report of the treaty commissioners 
of 1785) that Henderson’s purchase did not extend south of Cumberland 
River proper.’ The entire purchase included in both these deeds is 
shown as one tract on the accompanying map of cessions and num- 
bered 7. 
In this connection it is proper to remark that all of these grants to 
private individuals were regarded as legally inoperative, though in 
some instances the beneficiaries were permitted to enjoy the benefits of 
their purchases in a modified degree. All such purchases had been 
inhibited by royal proclamation of King George III, under date of Oc- 
tober 7, 1763, wherein all provincial governors were forbidden to grant 
lands or issue land warrants loeatable upon any territory west of the 
mountains or of the sources of streams flowing into the Atlantic. All 
private persons were enjoined from purchasing lands from the Indians. 
All purchases made of such lands should be for the Crown by the goy- 
ernor or commander-in-chief of the colony at some general council or 
assembly of the Indians convened for that purpose. 
In the particular purchase made by Henderson and his coadjutors, 
the benefits thereof were afterwards claimed by the authorities of Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina for those States, as the successors of the 
royal prerogative within their respective limits. In consideration, 
however, of Henderson’s valuable services on the frontier, and in com- 
pensation for his large expenditures of money in negotiating the pur- 
chase, the legislature of North Carolina in 1783 granted to him and 
those interested with him a tract of 200,000 acres,‘ constituting a strip 
4 miles in width from old Indian town on Powell’s River to the mouth, 
and thence a strip down the Clinch River for quantity 12 miles in width. 
The legislature of Virginia also granted them a tract of like extent upon 
the Ohio River, opposite Evansville, Indiana? 
Treaties and purchases of 1777.—In consequence of continued hostili- 
ties between the Cherokees and the settlers, General Williamson in 1776 
* American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 38. 
*Martin’s North Carolina, Vol. II, p. 339. 
‘Haywood’s Tennessee, pp. 16, 17. 
*Ramsey’s Annals of Tennessee, p. 204, 
