the mouth of the Kanawha. The great triangle of land thus ceded to Virginia, extending northward over two parallels, and westward over almost two meridians, reached southward into Tennessee, or North Carolina, as it then was, crossing the line with the south fork of the Holston, running down that stream to within six miles of Long Island, and thence recrossing the boundary in a line bearing a little east of north. The town of Blountville, in Sullivan county, stands almost in the center of a triangle cut off by the North Carolina or Tennessee line, at the southwest corner of this cession. It may be that this treaty was regarded, erroneously, as vesting in Virginia title east of the Holston as far south as the Nollichucky River, for a letter from Jacob Brown has been preserved showing that in 1771 he bought land on that stream supposing it to be in Virginia.2

The treaty of Lochaber marks, approximately, the date of the first settlements south of the Holston, although there were white men in the Watauga Valley as early as the winter of 1768-9. The natural line of extension of the settlements was from Virginia down the Holston Valley, and not from North Carolina across the mountains, but the conditions described, and other causes, produced a considerable immigration from North Carolina, although the majority of the Holston and Watauga settlers undoubtedly came from Virginia.

2Colonial Records of North Carolina, volume X, page 835.

Probably all the settlers south of the Holston believed that they were in Virginia, by virtue of the treaty of Lochaber, but in 1771 an experimental survey was made by Anthony Bledsoe, which indicated the true location of the North Carolina line, and by a treaty entered into in 1772, the boundary was fixed at a line running west from White Top Mountain, in latitude 36 degrees and 30 minutes. Nevertheless, as there was no complete survey of this line, it was believed still that the north-Holston settlers were in Virginia, and they were actually under her dominion until the line was officially surveyed westward in 1779. Consequently they did not join the Watauga Association.3

At the date of the treaty of 1772, the Watauga settlement was growing rapidly and Browns, on the Nollichucky, had been established.

As it was now clear that the Watauga people were in the Cherokee Country, the Indian agent, Cameron, demanded their removal, but the Cherokees were willing for them to remain, provided they encroached no farther, and very soon thereafter, they leased their lands from the Indians, for a term of ten years, thinking, probably, that this course did not violate the proclamation of 1763. It was not long, however, until further trouble arose, for on the twenty-second of February, 1774, William Ogilvy,

3 American Historical Magazine, volume III, page 117; article by A. V. Goodpasture.

writing for Stuart, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to Governor Martin, of North Carolina, said: "That Nation is still extremely uneasy at the encroachments of the white people on their hunting grounds at Watauga River, where a very large settlement is formed, upwards of fifty miles beyond the established boundary, and I am apprehensive that it consists of emigrants from your Province."

On the twenty-fifth of April, following, Governor Martin issued a proclamation informing the Watauga settlers that they had violated the most solemn treaties, and had given "just umbrage" to the Indians, and requiring that they retire immediately from the Cherokee country, otherwise to expect no protection from His Majesty's government.5

The settlers did not for a moment consider a proceeding so much opposed to their pride, to their interests, and to their convictions of right, and conditions remained unchanged until the spring of 1775.

On the seventeenth of March, 1775, Henderson & Company made their celebrated Transylvania purchase from the Cherokees at Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga River, and two days later the Watauga settlers converted their lease into a purchase, and took a deed from the same body of Indians. The Watauga deed begins at a point on the Holston, six

4Colonial Records of North Carolina, volume IX, pages 825-6.

5Colonial Records of North Carolina, volume IX, page

miles east of Long Island, and the second and third calls carry the line southward to the Blue Ridge, along which it runs northward to the Virginia line, and thence down the south branch of the Holston River to the beginning. On the twenty-fifth of March, 1775, six days after the Watauga purchase, Jacob Brown. the founder of the Nollichucky settlement, who had leased from the Cherokees in 1772, likewise converted his lease into a purchase.

6

Thus the settlers on the Watauga believed that they had at last secured a valid title to their lands.

In regard to the Watauga polity, there has been much confusion and error, and it is impossible to speak now, with absolute assurance, of certain features of it, as the articles of association have not been preserved. We know that the Association was established in 1772, that in August, 1776, the Watauga and Nollichucky settlers applied for annexation to the State of North Carolina: that the petition was granted, and that in the following year, all the North Carolina settlements west of the Alleghanies were included in a partly organized district of the State.

The opinion heretofore prevalent as to the organization of the Association, is, in one important respect, almost certainly erroneous. It is said by Roosevelt, Putnam, Phelan, and Ramsey, who, in this respect, were followed in the first edition of this book, that the

"Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, volume V (1883-4), pages 146-7.

settlers, in the first instance, elected a committee of thirteen, and that these selected from their own number, a court or committee of five, to which was intrusted the actual conduct of affairs."

Haywood, who does not seem to have been impressed so much as later historians, by the unique quality, and the historic importance of the Association, speaks of it, unfortunately, in the most general terms. It remained for a younger and exceptionally competent historian to suggest a solution of the doubts and confusion that have arisen, which has every seeming of correctness.8

It had been noted by earlier writers that the Cumberland and the French Broad settlers, when they organized themselves, under conditions the most simi. lar to those of the Watauga pioneers, had only one governing body, although it is certain that the men who formed these later compacts, were familiar with the Watauga scheme. Why then should Watauga have had the Committee of Thirteen, and the Court of Five, and the other Associations only a single governing body?

A careful study of the facts, with the aid of newly discovered material, seems to compel the conclusion that in 1772 the Watauga settlers met, organized, and

7Putnam's History of Middle Tennessee, page 30; Phelan's History of Tennessee, page 33; Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, page 107; Roosevelt's Winning of the West, volume I, page 184.

8 American Historical Magazine, volume III, page 116; article by A. V. Goodpasture.