“The Cherokees of Kentucky” Compiled by Chief Jeffery Roger Rolling Thunder Justice The Second Treaty of Sycamore Shoals was arranged for March 1775. Daniel Boone, acting as an agent for the Transylvania Company, arranged the meeting at Sycamore Shoals. The Indians were treated to games, festivities, and food by the Wataugan settlers, and the Transylvania Company. The Wataugan Settlers were already in violation of the 1770 Treaty with the Cherokees. The Transylvania Company proposed to purchase 20 Million Acres of land from the Cherokees in exchange for wagons and cabins full of gifts and goods. In addition, the Wataugan Settlers proposed to purchase the rights to their settlements. Representing the Cherokees, the Great Chiefs Oconostota, Attakullakulla, Willanaugh, and Old Abram of Chilhowee were attired in the typical eighteenth-century clothing adopted by many Cherokees. This attire consisted of European-style match coats with ruffled shirts and leggings. On their chests they wore gorgets and British medals. The assemblage also included twelve hundred braves with colorful tattoos, as well as Cherokee women and Children. After Attakullakulla gave a speech in support of the Treaty, his son, Dragging Canoe, rose and made an eloquent speech against it: Whole Indian nations have melted away like snowballs in the sun before the white mans advance. They leave scarcely a name of our people except those wrongly recorded by their destroyers. Where are the Delawares? They have been reduced to a mere shadow of their former greatness. We had hoped that the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone. They have passed the mountains, and have settled upon Cherokee land. They wish to have that action sanctioned by treaty. When that is gained, the same encroaching spirit will lead them upon other land of the Cherokees. New cessions will be asked. Finally the whole country, which the Cherokees and their fathers have so long occupied, will be demanded, and the remnant of Ani-Yunwiya, THE REAL PEOPLE, once so great and formidable, will be compelled to seek refuge in some distant wilderness. There they will be permitted to stay only a short while, until they again behold the advancing banners of the same greedy host. Not being able to point out any further retreat for the miserable Cherokees, the extinction of the whole race will be proclaimed. Should we not therefore run all risks, and incur all consequences, rather than submit to further loss of our country? Such treaties may be alright for men who are too old to hunt or fight. As for me, I have my young warriors about me. We will have our lands. A-WANINSKI, I have spoken.” In spite of Dragging Canoe’s prophetic words, the Elder Chiefs signed the purchase on March 17, forfeiting the entire Cumberland River watershed, plus the southern half of the Kentucky River watershed-An area of 20 Million acres. On March 19th, for an additional 2000 pounds, the Wataugan Settlers bought out-right the land they had been leasing. A week before the signing, Daniel Boone left Sycamore Shoals with a party of axe-men and began blazing a trail through the Cumberland Gap. Early in April, the first settlers followed and founded Boonesborough on the banks of the Kentucky River. The Royal Governors of Virginia and North Carolina said the purchase, the largest private or corporate land deal in the United States History, was Illegal, but again, the settlers ignored the commands of the Colonial Government. For hundreds of years, buffalo and elk migrated through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains. Indians, following the buffaloes on hunting parties into Kentucky (Kentake=Prairie), knew the route well. They established a great trail through the gap. Called the Warrior’s Path, it led from the Potomac River to the Ohio River. The Cherokees frequently attacked travelers on the Warrior’s Path. The Cherokees claimed the Entire Kentucky area as their hunting grounds. The Battles raged, and the settlers kept coming. The buffalo disappeared from the land. More land was taken, and the Cherokees were removed as Dragging Canoe had foretold through his Medicine Man/Shaman Holy Warrior Buffalo Horns Dick Justice.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 18:51:40 +0000
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