However this may be, it does not appear
that Boone and his Yadkin neighbors were acting with Henderson
when in September, 1773, they made their first attempt to enter
Kentucky as settlers.
Richard Henderson had known Daniel Boone on the Yadkin; and it
was Boone's detailed reports of the marvelous richness and beauty
of Kentucky which had inspired him to formulate his gigantic
scheme and had enabled him also to win to his support several men
of prominence in the Back Country. To sound the Cherokees
regarding the purchase and to arrange, if possible, for a
conference, Henderson dispatched Boone to the Indian towns in the
early days of 1775.
Since we have just learned that Dunmore's War compelled the
Shawanoes and their allies to relinquish their right to Kentucky,
that, both before and after that event, government surveyors were
in the territory surveying for the soldiers' claims, and that
private individuals had already laid out town sites and staked
holdings, it may be asked what right of ownership the Cherokees
possessed in Kentucky, that Henderson desired to purchase it of
them. The Indian title to Kentucky seems to have been hardly less
vague to the red men than it was to the whites. Several of the
nations had laid claim to the territory. As late as 1753, it will
be remembered, the Shawanoes had occupied a town at Blue Licks,
for John Findlay had been taken there by some of them.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136