truce within the historic
period; and evidence goes to show that the Sara or Cheraw were fully
as hostile. On the south there was hereditary war with the Creeks,
who claimed nearly the whole, of upper Georgia as theirs by original
possession, but who were being gradually pressed down toward the
Gulf until, through the mediation of the United States, a treaty was
finally made fixing the boundary between the two tribes along a line
running about due west from the mouth of Broad river on the Savan-
nah. Toward the west, the Chickasaw on the lower Tennessee and the
Shawano on the Cumberland repeatedly turned back the tide of Chero-
kee invasion from the rich central valleys, while the powerful Iroquois
in the far north set up an almost unchallenged claim of paramount
lordship from the Ottawa river ofCanada southward at Least to the
Kentucky river.
14
NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL II
uooney] TRIBAL NAMES 15
On the other hand, by their defeat of the ("reeks and expulsion <>f
the Shawano, the Cherokee made good the claim which they asserted
to all the lands from upper Georgia to the Ohio river, including the
rich hunting grounds of Kentucky. Holding as they did the great
mountain harrier between the English settlements on the coast and the
French or Spanish garrisons along the Mississippi and the Ohio, their
geographic position, no less than their superior number, would have
given them the balance of power in the South but for a looseness of
tribal organization in striking contrast to the compactness of the Iro-
quois league, by which for more than a century the French power
was held in check in the north. The