the late Cherokee war, a royal proclamation
had been issued in L 763, with a view of checking future encroachments
l>\ the whites, which prohibited any private land purchases from the
Indians, or an} granting of warrants for lands wesl of the sources
of the streams flowing into the Atlantic. 1 In L 768, on the appeal of
the Indians themselves, the British superintendent for the southern
tribes, Captain John Stuart, had negotiated a treaty at Hani Labor
in South Carolina by which Kanawha and New rivers, along their
whole course downward from the North Carolina line, were Sxed 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 thej were evidently determined to remain, thai it was
found necessary to substitute another treaty,by which the line was
made to nm due south from t he mouth of the Kanawha to the Hols ton,
thus cutting off from the Cherokee almost the whole of their hunting
grounds in Virginia and West Virginia. Two years later, in I77l'.
the Virginians demanded a further cession, by which everything east
of Kentucky river was surrendered; and finally, on March 17. 177.">.
the great Henderson purchase was consummated, including the whole
tract between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers. By this last i/
cession the Cherokee were at last cut otl' from Ohio river and all their
rich Kentucky hunting grounds. 8
While these transactions were called treaties, they were really
forced 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.